245. So Baby Much Cowboy Hat

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

Hello. Do By Friday! Oh, coming. Oh.

MerlinI'm sorry, it came in a little hot. Sorry about that. Yeah, we're already warmed up. Woo!

AlexOh, why are we warmed up, Merlin? We're warm.

MerlinOh, shoot. I forgot to ask you the most important question. Hey, everybody. It's due by Friday.

Alex42.

MerlinWe did a crossover. We did a crossover episode. Alexandra was on my ill-advised video show called Most Days, and we talked for like 25 minutes. It was fun for me. I talked over you a lot like I do.

AlexOh, no, no, no. I never want to ruin your content.

MerlinOh, goddammit. The question I wanted to ask, if this is the overdue crossover, the question becomes, which one of us is BoJack and which one of us is Mr. Peanutbutter?

AlexOh.

MerlinBecause all you really wanted all along, Mr. Peanutbutter always wanted that crossover episode. And you finally got it. Sorry, spoiler.

AlexSpoiler. I think that you're Mr. Peanutbutter. I don't know. I think it depends on the day.

MerlinI don't know. I think you might be – I can't – you're – we both have – I mean, this is the thing. There's a, you know, there's a bear in all of us. I feel like, you know, everybody's got a little bit – you know, it's like that Reese's peanut butter cup. You get chocolate and peanut butter. Only in this case, it's horse. And its first name is Mr. Peanut Butter.

AlexSometimes the peanut butter eats you. It's tough out there.

MerlinOh, I see. Sometimes peanut butter eats the bar.

AlexI get it.

Speaker AI get it. Okay.

AlexHey, how's it going?

MerlinIt's nice that we warmed up a little bit and we're not sad, are we? We're not sad?

AlexOh, no. Should I be?

MerlinAm I in trouble? No, I just worry that I don't really get to talk to people ever. So I talk about sad things when I have an opportunity to talk to people, which would make people think I'm sad all the time.

AlexOh, I see.

MerlinBut when I complain about the internet, it's mainly just because, you know, what else am I going to talk about? My kid? Ugh.

AlexUgh. I mean, you could. Oh, your precious angel. She's such a precious angel. It just really oozes from the eye, doesn't she? Wow.

MerlinWell, it's difficult. My wife has wipes. Yeah, you adopt a cat and then you buy wipes. I didn't get a vote. I was not offered a vote.

AlexWell, then do you get a vote in what would be one day a possible dog? Or what if you turned up?

MerlinI mean, it's what we in the pet community call the Missouri Compromise. Which is I might get like three-fifths of a vote, I feel like. But ultimately, the decision will have been made before it's ever to the point where a vote – because there's a kind of like Tammany Hall, back alley, smoke-filled room happening. And I'm not invited into the smoke-filled room. But I think there's a dog somehow on the horizon.

AlexOh, really?

MerlinWe've all really reached a breaking point. We need a dog.

Speaker ASo why not a dog?

MerlinWell, my feeling is we have the greatest pet of all time, which is a very sweet lizard. His name is Bando Mando. And Bando is very sweet, and he's the best pet I've ever had. And then we also have an atrocity, which is nominally a cat. And my only condition is I would prefer that the cat die before we get a dog. Because I think we're getting to a level in a house of 900 square foot flat. That's going to lead to complexities. the cat and the lizard improbably this is so bizarre Alex

the cat and the lizard just don't acknowledge each other they could be like in the same room one time the lizard walked over the cat's tail and neither of them cared

Alexoh interesting

Merlinideally I would like to see the lizard ride the cat or see them have fun and play and be friends but I guess it's kind of second best that they really don't seem to be she's much more scared of the Roomba or suspicious anyway than of Bando

AlexI mean, you said he is the best pet you've ever had. Best pet ever. Maybe she's like, this is a non-threatening presence. You know, it doesn't look like, he doesn't look like he's going to.

MerlinLooks like nothing to me. Yeah.

AlexYeah. No, I don't even think about you. No, no, no.

MerlinI got a crush on some of them robots.

AlexOh.

MerlinYou know that one that says not much of a rind on you? I forget her name. You know the one? No. You know the one? The one who works with Tandy Newton in the saloon. My daughter and I are both a little bit sweet on her.

AlexOh, the Westworld. Okay, I see. Yes.

MerlinYou know who I mean? The one with the eyes?

AlexThe one who is a woman of the night or is in charge of the women of the night?

MerlinWell, no. Yeah, no. Well, I don't know if she's African-American. She's a robot. She's a robot American. I think her name is Tandy Newton. Yes, yes. And she plays the madam lady. Yeah, yeah. And then there's the other lady whose name is escaping me. who is kind of like, I don't know, hot cosplay Chelsea Peretti, who's already hot. But you know what I mean?

AlexYes, yes.

MerlinAlex, how's it going? I heard it's humid where you are.

AlexOh, it's so humid. Chicago is always humid. We're by a lake. And I'm surprised that you aren't more humid. Your weather there's weird.

MerlinI run a dehumidifier in here. I just don't know what the relative humidity is. But no, it's really humid here. That's what fog is. Fog is, you know, fog is humidity. That's what it is.

AlexHave you ever tried to lick fog?

MerlinNot that I know of. Have you?

AlexYes.

MerlinYou try to lick fog. You'll put anything. Not anything. I mean, you're.

AlexNo. There's a couple specific things I won't put.

MerlinOkay. You should make that a blues song. I think that'd be very good. A couple things. There's always two things you won't put in your mouth.

AlexI know.

Merlinum uh see now i feel like i'm really spent i'm gonna drink some juice and lay down for a while what do you what uh let's go look at the document oh i added some new challenges i'm pretty excited

Alexabout that gosh i'm so unprepared i didn't prepare for this one are you running any what

Merlindo you run what are you running for sorry can we can we do the little bit of incidental computer

Alexshow let's get into it is that what it's called what's your name for it yeah the the incident Incidental computer show. ICS, as I've been calling it in my head.

MerlinIncidental.

AlexMm-hmm. We didn't mean to.

MerlinRemind the audience, and by extension me, what you're running betas on right now.

AlexMy iPhone and my iPad, not my Mac.

MerlinYour daily driver iPhone.

AlexYou know what? If my spouse is listening.

MerlinNo, no, no, no, no. It's not a criticism. I really want to do it.

AlexI really want to do it. Well, it is, but I don't want Matty to know that. Okay. But now he does.

MerlinNo, no, we'll cut this off.

AlexNo, no, no, no. I love it. Like, I'm getting a bunch of springboard crashes, but like in the thick of it, it's pretty, it's working pretty well for a Dev 1 beta. Yeah. Oh, what about, are you running it everywhere other than what you're recording on?

MerlinI'm running it on, the first thing I put it on was my, whatever, I guess 12-inch iPad. Like my, the one I don't use that much. I don't want to say I don't use it that much. I don't use it as much. So that is, Magnus Rushes In is my very large iPad. And then Orbis Horse is my smaller iPad. The smaller iPad is still on whatever, 10 point, or sorry, 14.6. Magnus Rushes In has the beta. Let's see. Munch Squad is still running Big Sur.

But what was the other one? Oh, Sweet Alien Boy is another Mac Mini that's running the beta Mac Mini. And then I'm using Glass Shark, which is – Glass Shark is running the beta as well, and that's an old iPhone 10 regular.

AlexGlass Shark is good. he loves to eat those fat kids

Merlinhe glass shards

Alexmanic you say

Merlinno I'm a healthy man oh

Alexare you doing you know you're very jovial and in a great mood

MerlinI'm doing great I raised my medication I feel good

Alexdid you also up your coffee consumption or is that just the one chemical or like how many axes are there to your...

MerlinThat feels like that thing we need a name for. Wow. Was that a passive-aggressive remark or just aggressive?

AlexNo, it was, I, no, it's...

MerlinWe don't say spaz anymore, but you think I seem kinetic?

AlexNo, kinetic, yes, but in a, you're not using that as a positive word. I also am, kinetic, no, that's not a bad...

MerlinKinetic velocity is a potential energy. Oh, gosh. You know, you're keeping your candle under a bushel basket, as my friend Dennis used to say.

AlexYou're a little gay for your friend Dennis. Were you ever? Did you experiment in college?

MerlinNo, honestly, it for. Hey, come on. I'm sorry. For kind of fashion reasons, I thought I should at least be able to say, you know, it's like being able to say you've been to a punk rock show or, you know, or, you know what I mean? In the 80s, that was a pretty edgy thing to be. But it didn't take for me. Back when I was libidinal, I had a type. But no, not Dennis. Dennis is great.

AlexGod, he's amazing. He had the good cat, right?

MerlinOh, no, no, no. Close. Very close. There was a different roommate at the house. Chuck the cat is the one that shat on my pillow. Chuck did not like me.

AlexHave you ever lived alone?

MerlinMm-hmm.

AlexOh. interesting you've had so many have you yes it's it i i love it but no did i love it i don't know yeah yeah i don't know if they count though this was in a dorm i think it depends it depends depends

Merlindepends it depends on a lot of stuff like the size of the space like how i mean like i'm saying something extremely obvious here but like it depends on a million things i mean obviously one of them is like how well can whether or not you like each other like how well can you and your housemate, just get along. Do you see eye to eye intentionally or unintentionally, unconsciously even? Do you see, you find that you see yourself eye to eye on stuff that's important? Like, and the reason I say it that way is it's almost like, oh my God, I hate my neighbors. I

want to move. And then you move and you have worse neighbors and you never realized how good you had it. Like I've had roommates where I think we mostly really got along because we had a lot of overlap in like what we hated and what we could tolerate and what we loved. And I think that's important in life to look at. Do you know what I mean?

AlexYeah. I mean, the reason I'm thinking about it is because of, you know, spoilers are a challenge. But also, there are a lot of people who, you know, went home to their parents instead of staying with their roommates for whatever reason or another. But because I'm a millennial, I mostly know people who live together because they're married or what is it? Live in boyfriend? Live in is a strange term.

But I don't know. It just I've never like had an intentional roommate situation other than the married roommate situation. But like they always just kind of like like cats happen upon me or I happen upon them. and so those niceties that you talk about typically weren't a thing sometimes sometimes life just

Merlinthrows you something that i don't know i mean i don't like to think about this too much i don't think i'm very superstitious but there are times when i think about that sliding doors kind of thing where i'm like this thing's just sort of happened and it you know might have seemed good might seem bad might seem whatever but like wow if that hadn't happened what are like how different things would be. You know what I mean? And like, I don't know. But like, I think having a roommate can be great. But then that's just the beginning. Like, can you, because if you don't see eye to eye, you may not even realize you do see

eye to eye on something until you run into something where you don't see eye to eye. And that's where I think any people living in a house will drive each other completely crazy over the most inconsequential things. I finally had a confrontation with my wife. And I said, look, I said, look, you know I love you. I said, but in the kitchen where I keep the Mrs. Meyers pump soap in this one area, I said, it seems like we're having a battle here. And I just want to talk about that. Because, like, I like the Mrs. Meyers hand soap here because I like the hot water here.

It's got better water. And I like the water here. And it feels like, you know, after you've washed dishes, you put the dishwashing detergent like right next to the Mrs. Myers and kind of obscures it. Because, you know, I should be able to do everything in life with one hand, which my wife does not believe or agree with. She does a lot of things with at least two hands. And she's like, what are you talking about? And I was like, okay, I know that was really weird. And it's not actually a big deal. But I just want you to know, when I move that away, I'm not deliberately trying to send a message. But I want to explain why I do that and then make sure I'm not, you know, ganking your deal.

And she says, I don't even think about it. I have no idea where I put the dish detergent. I said, OK, I'm an idiot. So it's just soap. It's all just soap.

AlexInteresting.

MerlinBut, you know, those kinds of things would drive people crazy. It could even be it could be stuff like I know this sounds trivial, but I think this accumulates, especially where you don't have the ability to talk about it. I mean, there's the obvious stuff like you, your tolerance for dirty dishes, for having dirty dishes or not putting away dishes or that kind of thing. It could be parking. Like you park in the driveway too much. You know what I mean? There's just all this stuff where you're like, somebody else is just like, this is just how I live. It's not a big deal.

You know, I always think of, this has become a running joke in our house. There's a great, one of my favorite episodes of Curb Your Enthusiasm, the Palestinian chicken episode. Jeff's wife Susie every time she drinks coffee she goes like this she goes and it drives Jeff and his daughter insane and finally

Speaker Aoh god I want to see if I can do it

Merlinthey want Larry to confront her about it but now anytime somebody like in my house you take a drink of that and like you do this exaggerated like because you sound like Susie that drives people have you had these Alex am I the only person who's had these you're so zen you probably aren't bothered by things

Alexoh i'm bothered by everything but also i am great at occupying only one room for very long periods of time and as you've observed apart from the bathroom apart from the apart from the bathroom

Merlinalthough i can stay there are you talking about ibs or you mean like you like to be in your bedroom

Alexuh well no anywhere like when when there was a conflict amongst housemates in college i would just be like just i'd just slowly back up into my bedroom and then i right because you want to be you don't need to be right you just want to be happy yeah yeah um and you know there was there were like feuds and i kind of was like the sweden and then uh i i had the power of uh yep that's the country i met but i really like the idea of you being sweden yikes you got what

MerlinWhat do you got? You got really good death metal. You have church burnings. You have Ikea.

AlexWatches.

MerlinNo. Oh, do you have Ricola? Is that Switzerland or Sweden? Are they really different countries? I've never been to either.

AlexI don't know. They both start with us and have a lot of white people and health insurance. That's really all I know.

MerlinWhite people and health insurance.

AlexYeah. The two biggest problems America has, yet they make it work.

MerlinBut you were a withdrawer.

Alexyes but i also was never really picky because i was able the key was i was able to have my own bedroom my and i've never had to share a bedroom with anybody oh i guess now i do oh gosh but you

Merlinmean like like a like an actual roommate like a you know siblings you know sleeping on different

Alexbeds in the same room yeah i never had oh that's a lie actually i did one time for one year in college uh but we just our schedules never really overlapped and also she was a weirdo like me so we had like those okay what are like uh this was terrible this in retrospect was not the best way to put it but i'm glad i did i asked her hey so what is your horror story or what is your worst

nightmare in terms of roommate situations so i get nowhere near that and i don't even remember really what it was like oh i just you know bringing boys over all the time well that's

Merlinnot gonna be a problem with me uh and i think that's a huge one where somebody's you know romantic partner is allowed is given or is allowed to have the impression that while it's not their house it's almost their house like all the way up to like they get their own key and like you've never talked about it yes i think for everybody maybe maybe especially women that's pretty awkward

Alexwell yeah and you give the whole oh especially when you're in an all-girls dorm and like you really have to hide the boy and i love that game yeah yeah just spread and tuck it's in it's a good idea ah you don't even have those parts that i'm wincing oh i i touched a moving baby in a lady yesterday and that was that was weird human bodies are disgusting you touched like a pre-baby yeah yeah i touched a fetal foot that was kicking through

a tummy.

MerlinYeah, they kick real hard against the bladder and make the lady pee.

AlexYeah, that's what I hear.

MerlinIt's like baby Las Vegas. And you're pulling down the one-armed bandit. Oh, I think I really hit the jackpot. A new college, well, it's changed a lot since I was there a million years ago. But the main dorms, the primary dorms on the east side of campus where most people live,

as I mentioned, were designed by I.M. Pei. their horrible, brutalist buildings. But one thing that's interesting about those to me is like every, it's sort of like Ray Charles and Holiday Inn. Every dorm at New College was exactly 15 by 15 feet with a closet and a bathroom. Now, you could get one with a balcony, a double balcony, a garden balcony, no balcony, just a big window that can't really open called a fishbowl because you basically just look into the room like a fishbowl. But every room is exactly 15 by 15 feet and every room had the same door

that opened into the little, you know, but when the door, the thing that I thought about, it took me a while to realize what's so weird about this. It's weird that you're living with a stranger. Like maybe in my case, a kid from New York who was 16. Like that was weird. There's a lot that's weird about roommates, but I don't know if you had this, but it seems like if you got that thing, like a suite, like you come in and there's a common area and then you have a bedroom with a door usually. But the thing that was crazy at New College, which took me so long to realize why this is weird,

is when you open the door, the entire dorm room is right there. So if you go and answer the door, whatever is happening, whatever's in the dorm room, whatever's happening in the dorm room, you can just see it. There is no neutral zone between the door to the room and the room. If you open it and somebody's sleeping, you see them sleeping. If it's open and they're studying, you see them studying, whatever. And it's like, I realize that's madness. It's madness to not have an area between interest and egress versus living.

Yeah. You know what I'm saying? Like you think about any like normal American house of any size at all or apartment is it's pretty rare that you open a door and see somebody in bed.

AlexYeah. Well.

MerlinThat's really unwholesome.

AlexIt is a reality though. And I think it is much more common in larger cities. I don't know. Like, still.

MerlinBut even then, like, if you've got an apartment. I feel like I saw at least a handful. And I want to say more. There's one specific story during COVID I remember, which is like, okay, it's the summer of 2020. We're in Brooklyn. So a couple with a baby is in an apartment in Brooklyn with no air conditioning. It's extremely costly. Well, no, but, like, this is everybody had some flavor of parts of this. But I'm just saying, like, they have an apartment in Brooklyn. It's very uncomfortable. Guess what? They got a baby.

It's hot. And guess what? Both of them are now working at home. And they bought this apartment or, you know, rented this apartment with certain circumstances, the foreseeable circumstances in mind being like, okay, we take the kid, you know, whatever to somebody takes care of the kid during the day. Whether you pay somebody, you drop it with a relative, but nobody's home during the day because the two people are at work so they can afford the school apartment. Like, what would you do if it was July of 2020?

You're paying, what, four or five grand a month for this apartment where you just sit there and sweat? I think a lot of people bounce. That's why a lot of people who could leave left. You know what I'm saying? But in that case, even if you're in an apartment building, even if you're on the first floor, there's still a door before your door. But the idea of being on the ground floor of this dorm where a door just opens and you look in, I don't know. It's just, you're right, it is a reality, but I can understand how that could help to generate madness when two people live in the same room, sleep in the same room, pee and poop in the same bathroom, use the same closet.

But then there's also a door where if, for whatever reason, the world or one of those people needs to come in and out, like you're, I don't know, it just seems weird to me.

AlexIt is incredibly weird, but I think I had a lot of practice with having four siblings because while I did have my own room, it's not like that space was respected in any way, shape or form.

MerlinIn the sense of like, tell me how, like in terms of like people would just barge in or people would go in to get stuff when they felt like it. But if you had protested, it would not or might not have been honored.

AlexI did protest and request, especially at the very ripe old age of nine when I was lucky enough to get an iMac. And even my parents were like, all right, this is Alex's computer. Everybody, please don't touch it. And then this was like before passwords because my parents didn't want a password on my computer for, I mean, understandably.

for a nine-year-old. And this one didn't have a Wi-Fi card.

MerlinThey wanted to know if you were up to shenanigans. Like having the password on there, whether or not you were probably not doing anything terrible, but knowing that there could be a password on there might give you the feeling that it's okay to like do kind of edgy stuff you prefer they not see.

AlexAnd I did, but they didn't know about it and didn't know that you could have multiple user profiles.

MerlinThat was back in the day when you could still do stuff like hide folders.

Alexyes

Merlinthat was a big deal when you could get I mean it's not a smart enough person could do that on a Mac easily but there were apps that made it pretty easy to hide your indexes and directories just stay at that top level don't go down

Speaker Ajust don't lose my cash

AlexOh, I should open the dock. Have you blasted your cash too early? Are we, is, this is, this is the show?

MerlinI might be out of energy already. I said, Alex, please do most days with me. Well, I want to talk about betas and anything you're excited about. Stream Deck 5 is actually not that interesting. I'm going to take that out. I left in your note about the dock, whatever that means. And that's the thing where I think you're going to make me use VR, I think.

AlexWhere, wait, where is, all right, I'm in the dock, I'm in the dock.

MerlinI sent you the new one. Look for Chip McCoppe.

AlexYeah, I see him.

MerlinIt's Chip McCaap with four Ps.

AlexSo baby. He's just such a so baby much cowboy hat. Is that a baby? Wait, is he? Oh, yep. That's a five string bass, isn't it?

MerlinYeah, it's weird. Yeah. I mean, that's that's like a suburban metal guy bass.

AlexYeah. What a long scale.

MerlinI have a short scale. My mind's little. It's really cute.

AlexYeah. You are rocking a Squire bass. Yes.

MerlinSquire precision bass. Yeah. So it looks like a regular P-Base, but it's kind of little, which I'm little. I'm with tiny little hands. You're not little. I'm not Uncle Jack, but they're not big hands.

AlexWell, you can use a large iPhone with one hand, correct?

MerlinI can try. I still have never. So when I pick up what used to be my wife's phone, she was the last user of this iPhone X. And I even still have the pink case on it. battery pack love that um no but like everybody who picks up an older slightly older or much older like smaller phone you're like oh i see the appeal of this this is because really my phone

Alexis a two-handed phone mostly uh i i often wonder that uh like let's say it is uh your main someone's main computer and they use it for those hidden folder activities and i'm like do you have to like pause or like put the phone down when you're having when you're using it as you say with one hand time yeah yeah but what if you can't do that you're are you taking are you

Merlinriffing off the idea of the one-handed phone you don't prop it up and go to town i'm i'm wondering

Alexif people have well if if you're in oh god i can't even imagine having a dick and being in

Merlina room yeah let's say you take it to the bathroom because you need a minute yeah have you have you cached have you cached that or are you just looking at your websites live i don't yeah yeah

Alexwell and oh are there's there's no little uh like tampon shelf in the men's room so like what's what you gonna do do you put it on the floor i there's gotta be is there code right or you get

Merlinlike a glyph or something or like just put it up because the problem is if you put it up against the faucet and it tips over because you're over here going like that's you know that's gonna What's going on? What are you doing in there?

Speaker AOh, gosh. Those guys at Studio Neat. Alexandra, you've been in there for so long. Are you looking at pictures of Matt Smith?

MerlinHe smells good, Mom. Leave me alone.

AlexHe does. He smells so, so good.

MerlinIs he the best smelling person you've ever met?

AlexBest smelling person. I mean, second best. My spouse is by far the best person I've ever smelled.

MerlinWow, you are really whipped.

AlexI oh I am I ever the yes yep oh god he just texted me hey I'm so sorry I'm probably gonna be have to come home at 2 30 and I and I said no no you stay outside I'm doing my job and yeah

Merlinyou told you told your your spouse to kennel leave it yep yep leave leave it sit sit there

Alexand stay stay stay this is my kennel well i i never want him to have to deal with my demon dogs whether you know real or the metaphorical ones the ones you're imagining are there

Merlini call this one rufus he's very angry rufus kennel i'm not here i'm an imaginary dog and i can't talk But you're talking right now. Am I?

AlexYeah.

MerlinYou can gaslight yourself. I've learned that in life.

AlexOh, can you really?

MerlinAbsolutely. I've become very sensitive to gaslighting in many different situations.

AlexThat was actually sarcastic.

MerlinI'm practically a woman.

AlexYou are. You're an honorary lesbian.

MerlinMy God, that makes me feel so good. Thank you. We watched Marina on Saturday. That was fun.

AlexOh, you went to a concert.

MerlinYeah, we went to a concert. my lady friend but my I hope I I don't know if I'm supposed to pay extra but yeah it was okay I think it was like very very very pre-recorded in lots of ways but man she's something she's a ball of fire that lady

Alexher keyboard player

Merlinwas so jolly this really really happy lady in a green blazer la la la

AlexI miss concerts

Merlinshe's gonna she's gonna be your bubble gum b-word

Alexare we not are we still not cursing on this show you know it'll be fine

MerlinI'm gonna put that on the sheet practice practice selective cursing

Alexoh interesting yeah

Merlinthat's actually not good let me go look at the sheet sheet we're up to my latest one we're up to line 585

Alexwhy do we do why why is there

MerlinI don't know I don't why you know moments snap together like you know spreadsheets do you want to do you want to talk about the program I mean wait I don't want to jump ahead am I cucking you oh we can talk more about betas betas betas betas so much I love.

AlexGo sound off, King. How are you here?

MerlinWell, I'm still... Like I told you, I missed a lot of the keynote. I was just watching it out of the corner of my eye. So there's a ton of stuff I missed. I never saw... I know there'd been a big change to I guess what we're calling multitasking. I think that's not what they mean. That's not what that word means. But anyway, iPad multitasking has seen a big change. And then I noticed occasionally weird stuff would pop up that I didn't expect. Like, oh, what are those little thumbnails down there? So I want to spend some time with that.

But, like, I watched actually an extremely poor demo from, you know, one of those websites that puts out all the... One of those websites that puts out all the, here's what's new. And they obviously did it in one take and hadn't actually done... Because, like, if you're going to do a video... Listen, no shade, no lemonade. But if you're going to do a video showing multitasking on iPad, for once, I'm going to say you're going to need to either be really good at that or be good with editing that, or you're going to look like kind of a doofus. Has anybody ever dragged the thing out of the dock on the first try

and got it where they wanted? No, you keep going flip, flip, flip, flip, flip. But that looks cool.

AlexWell, that's what's cool about the iPad now is you can control all of it just by your keyboard. And I mean, yeah, you can do it on a Mac. But what this does, at least for me and for the people I've shown it to, Oh, that's against the TOS, I think. I'm not supposed to do that. Well, anyway.

MerlinWait, talking about this? We're not supposed to?

AlexRemember, they used to be real strict about talking about the beta.

MerlinI know. They were so strict. Well, I mean, just watching that terrible video, the one thing I saw immediately was, like, when is the – not that many people are going to Mike Hurley this stuff. There's not that many people or Federico. You're not going to keep, like, all these different sets of paired windows together, mostly. Like for most of us, I imagine it's going to be the occasional thing where you're – I think a classic would probably be Safari on one side and notes on the other would be a pretty typical one. Like you're in Safari and you're like, oh, I kind of wish I had notes up. You go grab it, you pull it up, Bob's your uncle.

Or the whole thing where you can slide it to the side and now I finally understand why it behaves that way. I guess it's not a bug. But, like, yeah, I think the idea of, like, being somewhere and then wanting to do something occasionally, that seems to make a lot of sense. Maybe it works a lot, but I just, that whole thing of, like, running all these duplex windows, just, I just use a Mac. For me, for me.

AlexI, I don't know. Like, the.

MerlinAre you all in? I mean, are you really, like, working this?

AlexYeah, I really like the way it's implemented because you can have different instances.

MerlinAnd it remembers that those stay together.

AlexYes. So I have built some shortcuts that link to the drafts. One side is drafts. So like you would say, notes. But you can also, with the shortcut, open a specific draft.

MerlinOh, that's so cool. Will you send me that?

AlexYeah, and a specific web page. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's, I don't know, it's nice to have almost, it's almost like creating another micro focus mode or something. Like you don't need to do the draggy and the droppy every time.

MerlinAnd you're minimizing friction.

AlexIt feels like Hook on it, an easier version of Hook, our beloved Mac app.

MerlinGod, Hook is just so confusing to me.

AlexIt is incredibly confusing.

MerlinI mean, the way that it works and the benefit of Hook is you should notice that all this stuff is, as they say, hooked together. But that also means sometimes I hit the thing and I'm like, what am I supposed to do? It'll remember that this is associated with that thing. But that's on me. I need to spend more time with that. But what you're describing is actually a really powerful idea. And now I would like to play with it, please. I would like to try having some of those things.

AlexWe, yeah, Dick Duck Challenge, I think July would be a good time for that because then the public beta is available. Oh, I like that. And it usually works better. That's usually when I put the beta actually on my spouse's phone as well because, well, no, we haven't had an unstable public beta for a while.

Merlini think it's just it's oh oh i see i'm sorry i misunderstood that you're saying july is when

Alexyou will put it on your spouse's phone well because that's when the the public right now

Merlinit's a dev beta no no i understand i misunderstood i i misunderstood i thought you were saying you've done that now oh but then you already had said that that person doesn't know um there's a bunch to like though and sometimes i've had to dig around a little bit to find a thing i thought wasn't in there but like i i know i think tech i think the uh conversation mode for airpods for example is not in yet but i don't know if this i don't know how much of this is new because i get pretty lost in accessibility but i know they had the thing in the past where like on ios or ipad os you can go in and do various ways of like okay like i want to tune the way audio in

general sounds from an accessibility standpoint something i hadn't discovered before though is that there's this thing now where you can say basically how can i describe this i'll just describe it this way you know there's noise canceling there's off and there's transparency And now when you're in trans, it's not called conversation boost or whatever, but you can go in and you can make conversation or you can make transparency mode like louder and tune into like different frequencies. Has that always been there?

AlexI think so.

MerlinMy transparency mode is really loud now and I have it boosting like, you know, I think like high end. It's crazy because if you thought it was AR before, now it's nuts. I have like super hearing. Because I actually have my actual ears have terrible hearing mostly. But stuff like that. And the thing is, it persists. When I use the AirPods on a different device, it must be old. But I think stuff like that is so great. I mean, you know, calling that accessibility, obviously, it's great because it is accessibility. But like more and more, we need a better word, which is just like improve your life section.

AlexOh, I was just thinking that. I really like how they are putting more and more behind accessibility so that, quote, normal people have to, like, it used to be accessibility was just where you would turn on voiceover and, yeah, and make the type bigger.

MerlinYeah, or do like a motor affordance.

AlexI think that it's awesome that more is going behind that label because it's being, as we all say, accessibility is for everybody.

MerlinWe need to normalize that, you know? Yeah, exactly.

AlexBut you're right. Well, I'm torn between it needing a word.

MerlinIt's the ultimate kind of preference. When we say, like, settings versus preferences, like, how would you prefer that this device help you? You got this device because you wanted to do stuff and help you. Like, tell us some ways, some non-obvious ways that we could help you more.

AlexMm-hmm. Oh, oh, I see what you're saying. Interesting. Yeah, yeah. I think, but people don't think, or rather they in the past haven't thought that way about their phones. I mean, you know, the nerds have, but I mean, now normal people going into accessibility and playing because it's like, okay, where's the cool, where is the cool AirPods thing? Or where do I make the buttons look better? I mean, I don't think they look better, but.

MerlinI have a, I have a guess about this and this is going to sound, I don't know, something. I think about Matt Howey and I used to talk about this. I think it was Matt and I. We used to talk about how you get so many Firefox extensions going that if something breaks, you're not sure why it broke. Because in my case with ad blocking, spy minimization more like. Sometimes stuff happens and I'm not sure why and I just reload without blockers and it works. But that happens seldom enough at this point that it's not a big deal.

So I wonder if, obviously, you want to put it under accessibility because people who are looking for that stuff for accessibility reasons, it's in there. I wonder if part of it is, though, okay, almost everything in accessibility in one way or another. Like if somebody turned on almost anything in there on your phone without you knowing, you might think something's broken. Where you go, for example, why is everything mono? Why is the text so big?

Why I accidentally tapped my phone and took a screenshot or whatever, right? It's just everything under accessibility, like to somebody who didn't know that it was turned on and could be turned off, might think something was broken. So I wonder if part of it is, yes, they call it accessibility because that's what it is. I wonder, though, if it's also they don't put that into like, hey, you know, hack your iPhone section. Because it's more like, well, if you don't know what you're doing, you might turn on something you didn't know was on and now you're going to call us about it.

AlexYou're right, especially the invert color type stuff.

MerlinLike reduced motion, high contrast. Yeah, exactly.

AlexAnd I think I was about to make an ableist joke about my dad.

MerlinThat was mean. Yeah, no, you got to walk a line. Yeah. What else do I love? I love oh I do like the and we're probably in so much trouble for this I do like I also like the ganged up notifications thing

Alexoh oh yeah no we're not in trouble for that they talk about the keynote yeah I don't know how I feel I tried the smart one

Merlinit's gonna take a lot of tweaking

Alexa lot of tweaking yeah I turned that off very quickly because it just doesn't really work

MerlinI still don't really understand focus exactly and sometimes focus is on And not just my formerly DND time at night. Sometimes I get the little person icon and I'm like, wait, what's turned on? Why is it on personal right now? Like is it guessing that I wanted that or did I turn it on without knowing? Now I'm that person. But I think the idea of that is extremely powerful, especially as we move toward a future where let's say somebody like me doesn't need to have 400 apps they don't use on their phone. If you've got 20 apps on your phone, then that onesie-twosie radio button bullshit that drives me crazy now will be more tenable.

Where you can go in, it's more, you know. Right now it's crazy to say, I want to turn off probably 10% of the apps that are using information for Siri improvement. Or like, if you try to do that on your own, click, click, click, click, click, click, click. It's maddening. There should at least be a select all and turn off. You know what I mean? Yeah.

AlexMm-hmm, yeah.

MerlinTerrible piece of interface. But that'll be easier. I'm so ready to throw away so many apps.

AlexWhy don't you?

MerlinBecause it's a pain. It's a lot of clicky-draggy.

AlexOh, well, you just turned it up. Well, wait, so have you not just put everything in a...

MerlinNo, no, no, but let's say, for the sake of argument, there's 20 apps. So right now I've got two pages on my regular iPhone. I've got a homepage that I'm really picky about, as we've talked about, and then I've got a second page where there's stuff that I... Like, you know, like if I want to just go to Home Plus, like which could really use better documentation, I'm realizing. But if I want to go to Home Plus, I keep that on the second page because I use that often enough. Everything else, my formerly over 10 pages of apps, it's all an app library, which on the one hand is cool. But on the other hand, they still are on the phone, which means if I go to any one of those things in settings, that's a scroll, scroll, scroll, scroll, scroll page with every app and a radio button.

You know what I'm talking about?

AlexYeah, so you start – just start over. Start fresh.

MerlinBut I like having the settings for the stuff I care about. I just – anyways, here, here, there. What else? Oh, I'll do one, then you keep going. I love – so I've got tvOS running on my – still fairly new. So I've got the latest Apple TV 4K because, of course, which means that I have – the Apple TV that I was using up until, whatever, three or four weeks ago, I was just sitting there doing nothing.

Speaker BSo I put the beta on that.

MerlinAnd, you know, dude, the spatial audio is pretty good.

AlexOh, my.

MerlinAnd, you know, the range on AirPods is surprisingly good. I don't know if they're doing anything with Wi-Fi, but I imagine if it's just Bluetooth, it's very impressive because I can have that on in the lounge and then go do dishes and still hear everything.

AlexI don't know if they talked about the – no, I guess there isn't a U1 chip in the Apple TV because, yeah, that wouldn't make sense.

MerlinIs that the ultrawide thing? Yeah. What allows ultrawide? Yes. I doubt it. I really doubt it. I saw an article about it somewhere. Maybe, again, Dan Morin has written so much good stuff about the beta stuff. No, I think it does something where it does an initial, hey, where's your head thing. I guess it may, I don't know if it just assumes. Then you walk around and it's still kind of working. But when you get back in range and near the TV, it doesn't reset. But it seems to sort of like fix it again and say, okay, you're back nearby.

And so it feels like it's doing some kind of recalibration. You should get a couple more Apple TVs, Apple's TV.

AlexYeah. Yeah. First, I should probably get a TV.

MerlinI see what you're saying. That's a good point. That's a good point. Just get TV and put an apple on it.

AlexI mean, I'm no Syracusa, but...

MerlinYeah. He's going to be dead. He's probably going to, you know, the day he dies, the right one's going to come out. What else? What other beta stuff do you love?

AlexWell, I've played with shortcuts on a Mac, but I don't have a Mac running the beta because you convinced me to buy a Mac Mini, which I need for, I do actually need for my work.

MerlinLiterally, if you say one word.

AlexOkay, nope, no, all right. So here's the, but here's the thing.

MerlinPounce on to Alex.

AlexIt was no faster than my MacBook Air. Except for a couple of 4K rendering tests, it was the exact same. And I'm like, well, hmm.

MerlinNo, I mean, there's some stuff where this inexplicably when I go look at geek bench sometimes I'm just like I just don't understand so much of this but mine are very very similar my mac my macbook pro and the mac mini are very close I'm gonna find my geek bench but you so you got it and you got it set up and yeah and then I

Alexreturned it and now I am uh well yeah well what do you mean what because it wasn't fast enough Yeah, and I'm just going to wait for the, whatchamishits, the MacBook, the, hopefully, the big boy MacBook Air that's going to, not MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, that is coming. But because now you can kind of, sort of, not really, but a little bit, do Swift on the iPad.

Right. Again, I know, asterisk, asterisk, asterisk. I was playing around with the big new iPad, and that thing is screaming fast.

MerlinOh, my God. I want it, but you can't get it until, like, July. I didn't think I wanted it, but I think I want the big one.

AlexOh, I didn't think. I was like, there's no reason. Like, I was like, I don't know. Maybe once, if slash I think when, I'm pretty sure that they're going to bring Logic and Final Cut to it. Because, wow, it is just... I thought, actually, that I think some of the radar, not radars, feedback or whatever they call it, for the iPadOS beta, And after I used the newest iPad, I'm like, oh, maybe it's just because my iPad is old that these shortcuts aren't running and focus mode is timing out.

Because now you can do so much more in the background with that 16 gigs of RAM. Holy crap.

MerlinI'm talking about on the big iPad. Is the screen really pretty?

AlexOh, my.

MerlinReally? Okay. All right. All right. All right.

AlexAnd I will say that, yes, in the state of Illinois, there were like zero, except I was able to, at the last minute, get one with a, that might be on the way to my house right now, that only has 128. Oh, God damn it, Alex. Wait, what do you mean, God damn it?

MerlinI want one now. Oh, pssh. I want it. I need it for my work.

AlexI, well, and I, honestly, the thing was it rendered things out of iMovie faster on the iPad than on the Mac Mini. And I'm like, there's got to be some.

MerlinWhat size storage did you get? How much?

AlexWell, here's the unfortunate kicker. It has only 128 gigs, but there is that 14-day return window policy that I utilize quite a bit.

MerlinYou're a good returner. Yeah, you're a great returner.

AlexI return many, many things. And then it becomes a refurbished product. So then eventually someone's going to buy it for cheaper. So that's nice. so i'm just uh you know they're they're getting stuff in stock like every day at apple stores like even uh i've so i've just been checking every morning um because this is oh god i love the windowing i love i love the maciness of it really like it's i it's wild this is i mean i

I think I've said this before where I'm like, wow, this feels like an iPad is a real computer now. And we keep saying it and keep saying it. But just seeing shortcuts run on a Mac and I mean, I don't know. Like there the fact now that what is it called? Universal control, which is a really dumb feature.

MerlinBut which is not just me. Right. That's not out yet. Right. It's not turned on.

AlexRight. right and it's a it's a stupid feat i i mean maybe i will end up using it maybe i won't but

Merlinyeah you know you think it's one of those things that's mostly a cool demo that that we jizz about

Alexrather than like something we use a lot yeah maybe but what but i think why it's still impressive and necessary to show off is like craig being like the hey these all work together this really is like the third device you are you know with um what's it called also quick note like things that just transfer over that always sort of have if you know about it like like how safari tabs uh they don't quite sync but you know they exist on different devices and this is such a tangible

obvious way for normal people to use both their ipad and their laptop i i mean i'm not clamoring for one single OS, but that's kind of what it is, essentially.

MerlinYeah. Well, I mean, there was stuff like being able to, I don't claim to understand this because there's so much stuff now where it's like, wait a minute, this does this on that and that on that. Like it used to be like, hey, you know what? You can use your watch to unlock your phone. And then you can use your watch to unlock your Mac. and you can use your phone to unlock your watch. Like, you know, and like in the past it was like, okay, you can use your Mac to AirPlay 1 to this. But like now the way that you can AirPlay to a Mac,

you know what I'm saying? It's like there's so many weird wires getting connected together. I guess it sounds like it's not, I read an article that said like, it's not exactly target mode, but like you can use a Mac to basically, you can use your one Mac as a screen for another Mac. Is that right?

AlexYeah. That was part of the demo.

MerlinBut not the same thing as like, you know, screens or whatever. Like, but you could actually watch, you could USB that. Is that correct?

AlexSo you're talking about like, I've got my laptop and somebody has, there's an iMac like at the front of the room. Yeah. You can throw your display to that. and I'm pretty sure. Yeah, I think so.

MerlinI'm just, I mean, it sounds like I'm saying something very silly, but I think it is different. I'm really struggling with screens right now. I don't know if it's a beta thing. I think it's, I think there might be something happening. I'm going to guess with Relay.

Something's happening where like the ones that are on a beta, and I'm not saying this is Apple's fault or anybody's fault, but the ones that are on a beta are not working with screens right now remotely. They'll work locally, but like I can't get to my office stuff from the house right now. And I'm not sure why. And when I go to the Adobe, you know, Screens Connect page, it says something like public IP not found. And it's only on those. So I wonder if it's a relay-ish thing. Because the relay security thing is not just in Safari, right? What is that called? iCloud Relay Safety Man?

AlexIt's, yeah, like I...

MerlinSafety Man.

AlexMy father's Mr. Relay.

MerlinOh, please. My Mr. Peanut Butter is my father. I'm his bitch.

Speaker AChallenge.

MerlinDidn't really have it out there, but who cares? Where's my belt?

AlexDid you break your belt?

MerlinNo, no, no. It's just I'm holding it, rattling it like a different kind of instrument. I'm no Neil Peart, but I can while I see a little.

AlexOh, that's brassy. This week's challenge was to simply watch the new Bo Burnham comedy special Inside.

MerlinComedy.

AlexDid you do that, really?

MerlinI found myself asking, should I even be doing comedy? Watching comedy right now.

Speaker AI did.

MerlinI did. I watched it. And I would like, if you are comfortable sharing, this is more than just another TV show for you. This is a little bit special for you. Is that right?

AlexOh, yeah. I adore this. And I've watched. I mean, I adore Bo Burnham and have since.

MerlinHe's a gifted little man. He really is gifted.

AlexHe is. Well, he's a gifted, very tall, tall, tall man. but he

Merlinthat's bad posture though he hunches over that piano back in the day

AlexI mean

Merlinalso he should really get outside more

Alexif you're comfortable

Merlintalking about it I'd love to hear you struggle your way through talking about as much as you're comfortable saying like why why do we need to explain what this is everybody knows what this is right

AlexI don't know if people know exactly

Merlinbecause it feels like in my circles it gets talked about a lot you have you go back with bo burnham can you do just like a well as much as you want to it's your show could you do a quick intro on what the deal is with bo burnham uh leading up to this netflix

Alexspecial yeah oh when bo burnham was he was one of the first comedy youtubers inadvertently because when he was 16 he wrote a funny uh song called my whole family thinks i'm gay and it now it has

MerlinSo that one you sent me, that was like his breakout?

AlexYep.

MerlinVery first video. And you're saying he was 16 in that?

AlexYeah. In the songwriters, like back where I started 14 years ago. Yeah. That's the first one that I believe then by like 17 or six, that was when he was 16. And by 17, he had signed a contract with Comedy Central. And he was the youngest person ever to do so. And he's been...

MerlinFor the TV show he mentions? Wait, he had a TV show? Is that it?

AlexOh, he did. But that was when he was older, like mid-20s. Like, Zach something saves the world.

MerlinIt was okay.

AlexIt was fine.

MerlinYeah, those people can ruin anything.

AlexYeah, right. No, but he signed for two one-hour specials with Comedy Central.

MerlinOh, okay. I got it. I got it.

AlexYeah. And then the following two are with Netflix. Words, words, words, and then what, and then make happy. So I'm saying names of comedy specials that people can find on Netflix.

MerlinI think it's useful. It's useful. And I know him as Chip McCapp on one episode of Parks and Rec where he was very funny. It's a wonderful episode, the one with the blueberry wine. I thought he was very funny. And I did not – he sent me a collection of his vines, which my kid showed me last night.

And I didn't know him. I was not a vine person, but I did not recognize his. Not in the same way that I would recognize, like, you know, thanks for checking in. I'm still a piece of garbage guy or whatever.

AlexMm-hmm. Yeah.

MerlinEmerging guy, but, like, and it can't go without saying, just if you don't know, like, he is i don't know what his background is but he's a very gifted musician like he plays piano like ring on a bell and his voice has always been good but like whoa he's got he's got crazy range not like i don't mean like pitch range but like when he sings that last song you know that song's intense i know it's got effects and stuff on it but like he really he can really he's all the When he plays acoustic, when he says, I can't really play guitar, like he really can wrap his voice around a song in a pretty stunning way.

But he's mostly known for comedy, music and comedy.

AlexYes. And well, he was best known for that. And then he directed the movie Eighth Grade, which is amazing. And he stopped doing stand up comedy because he was getting panic attacks before shows. and then he went on to direct a few comedy specials and then like i said direct that movie uh but it was always kind of like in the background talking about mental illness and was publicly talked about kind of how the internet uh is rotting our brains for years and years

um because i mean he like like a lot of us could i interest you was it can i interest you in

Speaker Beverything all the time could i interest you in everything all of the time a little bit of everything all of the time apathy's a tragedy and boredom is a crime anything and everything

Alexall of the time a little bit of everything all of the time oh my god the so i've basically uh he is he's the same age as me he also turned 30 in quarantine and had a bit of a mental breakdown and that's kind of that that was real how much of that was real was it i don't know okay i yeah i mean that's it yeah i'll save it for the show have you watched his any of his other specials nope um i mean part of it like his whole bit is kind of a um like what what is real and what is

not and he'll often flub up on stage that'll be part of the bit um and i i don't know i love the sort of f is for fake style that he does like oh nice pull yeah and uh that it's i kept getting frustrated reading like reviews and hot takes about this because i mean it's very zeitgeisty This like once you start watching this comedy special and you're very quickly like, oh, yes, it's that guy like singing silly songs, but he's in quarantine and he's depressed.

But then it becomes something a lot different. And I would like to hear what you thought about it or what you would call.

MerlinOK, all right. I need to sound you out more because. OK. I know.

AlexI don't like what a lot of people have said. Like, it's very.

MerlinWell, no, no. And it's not it's not terrible. I don't have a hot take, but I have definitely at least a room temperature take. But yeah, because it made me think about you and your background with filmmaking and recording music and stuff like that.

And I guess it's probably by design, but especially in the first half before the intermission. But, you know, there's just so many bangers where you're instantly like, oh, man. And, you know, obviously this would be the, at a certain point, this would have been the most popular YouTube video of all time. Not really. But you know what I mean. It's no Gangnam Style. But like when he does the, I mean, let's just go through the hits. Like the white woman's Instagram.

Speaker AYeah.

MerlinJesus Christ. But also like then to go into the, oh shit, what's the one-two punch? One about men, one about women. There's the white woman's Instagram.

AlexThe sexting. White women.

MerlinNo, the shit. the you get to the internet later problematic no the one that's like the dude one um what's the song right after right before or after white woman instagram uh there's how the world works

Alexwith the sock puppet and then there's unpaid intern and then he does the uh yeah but there

Merlinwas one about like anyway those also um the um oh god the internet song obviously my wife had told me about that because i'm always i'm always giving my wife a little bit stick because she'll make a little noise across the room or in bed or whatever i'll go uh sad twitter and she goes yeah sad twitter because i she always is she's always finding the most depressing shit when she looks at the internet i'm like you've got whatever it is that leads you to this you've got to stop i don't care if it's people i don't care if the magazine i don't care if it's sf chronicle like

the washington post where she just finds the whole like you know uh crippled dog eaten by college or whatever like she always just finds this stuff like you know what i mean let's

Alexwell i mean it's not that hard to find when the first page of twitter is another you know

Merlinanother mass shooting and well it's you know it's i'm not gonna rant about it again you hope but But like this whole thing of like we've gone from clickbait bullshit to now like I just see this whole industry of keeping people off balance. And I'm going to include Molly Haberman in that.

AlexYep.

MerlinThere's just the whole industry of like not so fast. Like there's a – you think this is done? You think the pandemic is done? And it's like sure. There's a component of that that's definitely about like news and information. But there's this ethos, this invisible hand that runs through all of this, which is, it's not just if it bleeds, it leads. It's really more like we just need to have a whole bunch of different people feeling very off balance all the time for different reasons. If we create that, people will come to it.

If we build it, they will come, I feel like. And it's just, it's not so different from like, I think about my mom getting most of her news from local news, which is not a great place to get your news.

AlexI mean, it's better than Twitter. I mean, I don't know.

MerlinWell, it depends on where you live, too. But like just the being, being like, they start, you know, first one's free, right? They bring you in, like maybe it's a cute monkey, like a green bean monkey or whatever. but like you get drawn into that and then like i don't know i've just been thinking about this stuff a lot i've listened to a pot real quick i made listen to a podcast yesterday you know i love that show how to um on slate and they had this episode and i'm gonna tell you what what's about but that's not really what it's about okay so it's about you know how to like that wonderful one with tig notaro talking about how to deal with a neighbor some somebody comes in a civilian

or you know whatever comes in and goes like i'm having this problem they bring in an expert or somebody you know with domain you know knowledge to help that person the fignotara one is very funny but there's i love so many of these episodes so this dude is like you know um he lives alone and he's one of those folks who has like the entire time he stayed inside double mask goggles gloves go leave the house once a week for groceries and whatever right and he's talking

about like i'm having a very hard time getting away from this even though i know you know it's safer but he does mention also that he's one of the one in 200 000 americans who's had a viral encephalitis i think it was but he had like he's gotten rare diseases before and you know how that feeds into his thinking about this you know um i mean this is classic availability heuristic in some ways, which is like, I will understand a situation better and keep myself safe if I have

access to an example that's relevant. What do you mean by that? Well, I mean, I think I've gotten this phrase wrong in the past, but the availability heuristic is that a lot of the biases, you know, and, you know, a lot of the cognitive biases that we have stem from a place that seems rational, right so you can take something basic basic cognitive bias like um what's what's the what's the classic the classic is um affirmation uh it's called affirmation bias oh um confirmation

bias confirmation bias but like confirmation bias is where we maybe even unconsciously seek out but very willfully agree with things that confirm something from our past or really just confirm something that we already think or believe.

Speaker AYep.

MerlinAnd that to me is like almost the classic cognitive bias. There's other kinds of cognitive bias that are, you know, a lot of these fall below the level of being sort of clinical DSM stuff. A lot of it is just that our dumb lizard brain has evolved in such a way that we seek safety or certainty, right? When we're in a situation that's uncertain, we tend to find certainty in ways that can be very rational, but often can be extremely irrational. So people like Daniel Kahneman, Kahneman and Tversky talked about this in the 60s and 70s.

The beginning of behavioral economics is basically, isn't it strange that if you ask people a certain question in a very rational way, they'll answer, but their behavior tends to reflect much stranger decisions that in context aren't the most rational decision. And I don't know. I find this stuff endlessly fascinating.

Economist, he's the OG, man. That guy fucking rules.

AlexOh, yeah.

MerlinBut he invented, he invented this field. And a lot of those terms that I just used come straight out of those two dudes. But one of them is, and this is where it's germane to this fella, is that we tend, because of things like the availability heuristic, We tend to evaluate the risk of something based on things that are familiar to us, things that happen to us, stories that we've heard, like whatever that is. And I guess a classic example right now is, you know, everybody's worried about the J&J vaccine, you know, causing thus and such problem.

Well, the incidence of that blood clot is much higher in women who, you know, take birth control every day and don't have a problem. That doesn't mean we shouldn't fix it. It just means that, believe me, buddy, your chances of dying anytime you're in a car are so much higher than almost any of these other things. But we don't think about it that way because that's the way these cognitive biases work. We think in strange ways. So here's what's interesting. They brought in a couple people. And one of them was that guy I love, Tim Harford, the guy who does that podcast that I love.

He did that book, The Data. What is it called? The Data. I'm sorry, I didn't prepare for this. But anyway, they brought in two people, and one of them is like an according to Hoyle, like, you know, doctor type person. And Tim Harford, for example, talks about how he has an irrational fear of spiders that is so irrational, and he knows it's irrational, but that includes stuff like he can't see a rubber spider. He can't see a picture of a spider. And so, you know, then this clinical person talks to them. Anyway, why am I saying all this? Because they got to something. I wrote this down because I liked it so much.

I have it on a piece of paper. And that woman, the clinician says, we have a tendency to become very attached to things that keep us safe or that we feel have kept us safe in the past. Again, sounds obvious, but like I need to hear that because you know what? The thing that you feel like kept you safe in the past, it may very well be true. But just because you wore goggles for a year and didn't get COVID, it's not the same thing as saying wearing goggles less or differently or in certain situations.

That doesn't mean you're going to get COVID. You're smart, right? You, the listener, you hear that and you go, well, obviously that's true. But I'll bet there's at least a handful of things in your life where you are unconsciously seeking safety in things that are not rational. She says we tend to seek out safety behaviors and that the key to this is changing the story. So the story that you've kept telling yourself, oh, not one key to this. I'm sure there's more to it and medicine would probably help. But you could tell yourself the story that like, okay, I don't want to, I'm the one in 200,000 people that got this weird thing.

I'll probably get COVID now too. I have to do all this stuff. And instead she could say, well, like if you were to, for example, like just wear a mask or double mask and take a walk outside with a friend, if that happens and you don't get COVID, you have a new story to tell yourself.

Speaker BRemind me how this started. It had to do with Bo Burnham.

MerlinI don't know. That just really hit me, Alex. It really hit me because I was like, God damn it, if I catch myself, I realize how often the thing that makes me tear ass from place to place in life is the seeking of safety. And neither the safety is necessarily real, nor is the threat that makes me seek out that safety real. Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn't. But I don't think I can trust my first impressions to do a thing that will actually keep me safe versus just close a fuck ton of doors in my life.

AlexYeah, absolutely. And well, I think the reason that you're talking about this in terms of inside and like Bo Burnham's whole shtick is the idea of self-awareness and telling yourself a story, but then also knowing that that story is bullshit. But sometimes you have to, sometimes you change the story, but it's still irrational.

MerlinSome people go to church because they like the music. It's not that they love the Lord that much. I think sometimes those stories, it is almost like a strange kind of unconscious superstition in some ways, which is this thing hasn't killed me yet. It makes a car feel safer than a visit with family this month. And this is where we get into condiments thinking fast and slow, right? So the first order kind of thinking, which is the relatively automatic thinking we do day to day. if I say to you, what is one plus one? I know you know this, but if I say to you, what is one plus

one? You cannot help but think too. But if I give you a crazy long division problem and ask you to do it, you have to change your mode of thinking into this second way of thinking, which is much more deliberate and much more like manual thinking. But that default mode, I think that's the phrase in some places. But that first mode of thinking is how we spend our entire day, unless we have the presence of mind to move to another way. So whether or not it's rational to me or Alex or you or whomever, everybody's got these things where that tape just runs on a loop all the time

unless you have the presence of mind to even realize there's a tape running.

AlexI mean, step zero is finding the tape, really.

MerlinYeah, I think I hear something. What is it?

AlexYeah.

MerlinBecause if it's there all the time, I mean, it's like super noticing your wallpaper or whatever. Or like, you know, like I'm sitting in a chair right now. I haven't thought about sitting in a chair this entire time, but I have been. Like, you know what I mean? Like, that's just have you ever driven somewhere? I know this is different, but have you ever driven for 20 minutes between two familiar places and not realized you're driving or thought about driving the whole time? But you did.

Alexyeah which is terrifying to me on many levels just that our brains can do that in our and we can do that without our brains what did i miss all of that time the it's it freaks freaks me the fuck out but the like whole you figure out the whole kind of like crux of the special is that Bo Burnham is, whether he did or not, again, very like F is for fake.

MerlinYou're not deliberating over much about did he actually have, okay, did he have a breakdown and was that the one-time breakdown where he goes and almost knocks over a light and everything? Which part of that was quote unquote real is not like a particularly relevant thing for you?

Alexit's no because it's I'm gonna use the A word it is a piece of art and you know he doesn't stand there and say what you're about to see is all real it's like thinking that stand up itself is real but

Merlinsure it's funny he knows a lot more jokes than I do

Alexyeah wow you live such a funny life I mean I think

Merlinboy you were something happens to you on airplanes it's crazy

Alexyou're really observing those peanuts all the time yeah boy the dmv man that's what this is like ah the pandemic huh except i think it's through a very much millennial slash zoomer lens and reckoning with the fact that i he was part i i i am

where i am because of twitter like every most significant people in my life probably in more than one way yeah yeah and it's it's not i don't know how i feel about that and he feels the same way about um youtube but i don't think he mentions the pandemic once and i think that's by design because it's not really about the pandemic it's about being inside your own head which sure is a

Merlinvery obvious shallow yeah i mean at least on some level it's about isolation yeah and i'll

Alexi i don't know do you think it matters if it's real or not no it doesn't okay so i'm gonna get

Merlinthe hot take out of the way. I enjoyed it a lot. I cannot say enough good things about the music, the singing, like just on just a purely like audio basis. Like Jesus Christ, it was so goddamn good. And it really goes places. But especially in the second half, maybe I was just in the wrong state of mind. Second half did not connect with me, a lot of it. And it was some combination of, okay, this is like reaching Lord of the Rings level of like, can you just pick an ending?

But the one that kept taking me out of it, if I'm being honest, is like, I didn't want this voice in me to be saying these things. But like, I was so bought into, yeah, this is him. I mean, like, for example, I think he recorded these songs. you know where you record multiple tracks of songs and do multiple takes and all those things it sounds cynical but like and maybe i sound like a dope but i but through the first half i never gave a second thought i thought okay he recorded these songs and he's kind of pantomiming them

here or maybe he's doing live vocals i don't know but i didn't i didn't think over much about the production of this uh apart from wow it's amazing he's doing this all on his own and he does ample opportunities to show like here's me controlling this you know uh camera here's me controlling these lights with the joystick and all that stuff is fun but like i thought okay like i'm pretty much on board for all of this you just said in the second half like there was so much stuff that i think was there's so much stuff where it's like he's having like this very emotional breakdown-ish

thing but the camera's also slowly like moving it's there's so much production to these these seemingly captured moments. And I'll just say it. It took me out of it because I kept going, I wonder how many takes of that he did.

Maybe it doesn't matter and it shouldn't matter. But if I'm being honest, the second half, I personally, it didn't connect with me. I love the songs and I love the performances. I love that last song. If I heard that last song but didn't see him carrying on, I think I would have liked it more.

AlexInteresting.

MerlinAnd that's just me. Because you know me. You know the corn I love. I love so much corny stuff. You saw my Doctor Who dolls in the Most Days part.

AlexI didn't know there was a painting.

MerlinYou know how, like, what a sucker I am. Yeah. And I'm not even, like, overly picky about, like, well, quote, unquote, is this real? It's just, I don't know why. It's just, and I hate this. I really hate the thing where I feel like I need to apologize for not liking everyone. I liked it. I liked it a lot. I really love the music. I adore him. But then he's just getting he's getting so unhinged on camera in this incredibly intimate way that felt awkward and a little overworked.

AlexAnd there. Yeah, there are some parts where it's like, OK, this is really I think people would say.

MerlinSome of the shots are awfully, awfully tight.

AlexYes. Yes. And you kind of do go in your eye or at least I did. It was very much like like porn for from a filmmaking. No. Well, and also from a filmmaking standpoint.

MerlinOh, you're saying you get you get a tight shot of that little beaver clam.

AlexYeah. Well, but OK, so that's there. Or, you know, where there's the gratuitous parts of setting up the cameras and stuff like that. It's a lot. And I kept looking at his face because there's a look that people get. And I know, too, because I get that look when you are testing something and when you are unhappy about it.

MerlinIt's perfect. On the last song, the song that might not be finished, he's got the haircut. He's trimmed his beard. He sits down at the piano. know and i i is this the kind of thing you're talking about he turns to his right he looks at the camera appears to be looking at the camera as in the audience the notional audience but he's squinting and my thought was i wonder if he's seeing looking at metering or making sure that the camera's on he had that expression of like this is not part of the show yep absolutely but

Alexi think that that was part of the show i think that this was basically filmed in reverse i gotta watch this again i gotta watch it again yeah well i mean i and i i think the intention is for us to consider what is real and what is you know fake and i it could also be that people will find this just overdone because people are really i think some people are really done with talking about covid and i i totally understand that but i see this is another reason it's the thing is it's not

Merlineven one of the top reasons. One of the third or fourth reasons why this season of Grey's is such garbage is like, yeah, you admire the fact that they made all this pandemic stuff during pandemic, but it's like, it has gone by. There's no way they could have gotten out really in time, but it's so overworked. And so the whole thread with Meredith is just excruciating. There is that part of us that's like, okay, this is so on the nose and also really not. I'm not saying Boburno. I'm talking about Grey's Anatomy here. A show that I love.

But did you get that at all from the season of Grey's where you're like, this is really...

AlexYep, I've seen, especially, oh God, that one PPE scene where they're like, we don't have enough equipment. It's like, oh, really? I stopped. I also stopped watching, though, because I didn't want to see people in like hazmat suits every week because it made me sad. And I know that it's about death and meh.

MerlinSeeing it all on screen just takes me back to, I'll just say it takes me back to the nineties in a way that's not good. Like I was telling Syracuse about this. I watched the okay. Good movie. Fantastic story. Okay. Good movie about Howard. Oh God. It's called Howard. And it's this Disney plus movie about the guy who was the lyricist on a bunch of the, you know, Disney Renaissance movies.

AlexYeah.

MerlinAnd now I'm spacing on his name. And I'm really embarrassed about it. Howard, Howard Ashman. So like, like in a row, like he wrote the lyrics for.

AlexBeauty and the Beast, Aladdin.

MerlinHe used to be Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin. And then, yeah. Oh, he did Little Mermaid. Was, but like, you know, and like, I don't know. Do you know his story? It's pretty sad.

AlexHe, didn't he die pretty early?

MerlinHe started a theater with his boyfriend, who's super intense. They started this WPA theater in, I think, the mid-'70s and put on these shows. He ended up writing with, what's his head, the other guy, co-writing Little Shop of Horrors and all this stuff. But his last days.

AlexOh, I didn't know that.

MerlinYeah. He went through, got ground up in the system in some ways. But like this triumphant thing where like fucking A, like go back and rewatch Beauty and the Beast. Or, you know, if you want, watch at least these parts of this documentary, which is very sad. But like his his lyrics and the contribution he made to the music, but especially his lyrics to stuff like Belle, the song Belle, which is just such a banger. Like or, you know, and how he fought to keep part of your world in Little Mermaid. Do you believe Katzenberg wanted to cut out part of your world?

AlexI can understand it. Absolutely. But I'm so glad it's there.

MerlinYou know, I like Quiet Uptown, but it's kind of sad.

AlexAll right.

MerlinOkay. All right. But anyway, yeah. And so he started this theater with his boyfriend and the guy was super intense. And, you know, little bit of a Halston type situation. Yes. I watched both the series and the documentary on Halston. Where Halston had that crazy boyfriend with the John Oates mustache. I haven't seen it. This guy got sick before it had a name. He got real sick and he passed real quick. And it wasn't until like, and Ashton was so goddamn busy writing three Disney musicals at one time.

He's like, his doctor's like, we really like, you're not doing great. We need to test you. He's like, no way, no way. I can't even know. He said, well, at least let me test your T-cells. His T-cells were like through the floor. I don't know why I'm saying this, but you know that one part of this also is even when you're watching something as poorly executed as this season of Grey's Anatomy. It's one thing to talk about it in terms of being stuck in your house, and it's another thing to really get in the weeds about what we all went through, what the world went through, especially six to 12 months ago.

It's like, I'm not ready to relive this, and I'm not willing to have Kaposi's sarcoma night at my house. I can't do that. I can't do that. But the way Bill Burnham did it was so cool. Like all in that one room and working every angle of that room. And sometimes you see the equipment. Sometimes it's shot in a mirror. You know what I mean? From all these different angles with that two omnipresent things it feels like are like that air conditioning or heating unit and the door.

That has 69 on it. That door, that's Chekhov's door title. Like what is going to happen with that door? And then you go, oh, I remember what this is called. This makes a lot of sense.

AlexWell, that door is the one that he walks out of at the beginning of his last special he did before this. Really? Make Happy. Oh, damn. He's at a piano and then walks off stage or on stage. And that was also part of the live show. I saw it when he was in Chicago a long time ago. and I mean

I almost feel like he is more of a musician and filmmaker than a comedian and I

MerlinI was so envious I was so god damn well it would be easy enough to say well Merlin you do a lot of this bullshit like he does but not as good I'll tell you what really made me envious though is like what he was pulling off with that god damn camera

Alexmmhmm

Merlinthat stuff is hard it's so hard it looks like an okay nice canon with great lenses but like that like i don't i think whether or not that was quote unquote real like i i've been through what he's doing with those lights and bully me the results were nowhere near as good it's so beautifully

Alexshot don't you think yeah i well and part of his whole i i do think he probably uh had a bit of a breakdown the same way many people did who knows how much of that was actually captured on screen

MerlinI'm not saying he didn't have a breakdown I just I was just the single thing that really lost me if I'm being honest is the whole like he captured this flawlessly in one take and in focus with lights and whether or not that was intentional or not it took me out of it that's all I wanted to say about that just so you don't think I'm a total like wet blanket here I liked

AlexI love you're not Max you're not going to hate something just because it's in fashion no well it's

Merlinsomething that's very precious to people and I don't want to sound like fucking statler and waldorf like heckling the sad people but that's what i

Alexlove about it is this is not for everybody by a long shot i don't think that everybody will like this and i am interested though to see more stories similar to this or more yeah if i

Merlincan just say good for netflix jesus this is not their typical like who killed the blonde fair like you know what i mean like i i would applaud them for getting this and and again who knows you kind of can't help it but go down the rabbit hole of like well were they seeing not dailies but like were they were they getting like did they get a script did they like or did it was just one of those shonda deals where it's like just give us what you got or adam sandler just give us your

Alexstuff i've i probably the second one especially since it it brings the the kids as they say to

Merlinthe platform it's exactly the kind of stuff netflix needs just in my dumb opinion which is like you know this i i just cannot believe how much how often i flip on netflix i'm just like god this is exhausting and it's the the narrowness of like i don't know the narrowness of like what gets on here it is a lot of murder and like black and white photos kind of stuff but but like then i guess there is diversity there's stuff in different languages maybe i'm a terrible watcher so that's what i see but like i think they could really use more flyers like this well that's what they're

Alextrying to do with they want to win awards because that is how older people get on this like oh oscar

MerlinBut to make something that somebody loves, you have to be willing to risk making something a lot of people hate.

AlexAnd that's what they did with the Irishman. I don't think Scorsese was sending reels over.

MerlinI think that kid's going places. I really think he's going to have a shot. Marty. I think I call him Marty. Martin Scorsese.

AlexOh, yeah. I think he's doing well for himself.

MerlinBut this means a lot to you. You've watched this a lot. When you watch it more than one time, it's not just because you like the tune. Like I've watched that bit that was like the first eight minutes of In the Heights. I mean, I'm glad they did that. That song, that whole sequence is just so, I love it so goddamn much. I'll just watch the beginning of that movie over and over because I love it. What leads you to turn this on again? And how does it make you feel?

AlexI notice something new every single time. Like how during the sexting song, there is 69. The air conditioner is set to 69.

Merlinthe whole time and that upsetting like camera thing at the end it's always like the last frame it's just like 29.95 and like i kept like oh god i don't want to know what's going to happen with

Alexthis well did at the end the battery uh is is empty and oh my god yeah and then he goes outside

MerlinAnd it's like a Truman Show thing.

AlexYeah. Yeah. And I was like, meh, meh on sort of that ending. But I believe the final shot where – spoilers.

MerlinTo him in bed or no? He's in bed. He gets up. He goes out. He's on a set, it looks like. But that's the house, right?

AlexThat's his house. And he leaves and, you know, does the – he tries to get back in. But then, you know, we cut to – He has never left his little guest house and he's watching what I mean, we're supposed to think like, yes, just just film this. And this is him editing and watching footage. But I that little.

MerlinOh, and then they show like all the B-roll, like all the B-roll stuff. Is that when they show like him behind the scenes again? No. After that.

AlexIt is the final, it's the final two shots where it is the, and this is actually my favorite, my favorite thing that happens. Like we see the actual footage of him outside doing this, doing his little bit where he's trying to get back into his guest house. And then it cuts to like that, that shot cuts to a frame that is suddenly grainy and way lower quality. And it zooms out and it is him inside watching it on that projector. And the final shot is like, he's slowly starting to smile, which is like the first, what I interpreted it as possibly the first actual smile of the whole thing.

and just like ah that that looked look funny uh but that switch between like sort of the diegetic reality um i there's there are a few other points where it switches from the camera mic to the you know pre-recorded uh the pre-recorded audio of the song and just those things that like sort of just shift the reality where you're like huh huh what that put you on edge or i don't know like off

Merlinoff balance almost so part so this leads to further to your theory of like maybe part of the point of this is that you really aren't supposed to know you're supposed to have this sense of like unreality because that's what all that felt like to him yeah well the and the second

Alexthe act is all about disassociation and then you realize that the constant um zooming in and zooming out that have you ever had sort of a within a panic attack a disassociative episode

Merlini don't think so tell me i'm afraid to google it just like what is um tell me what it is

Alexthey're usually like within a panic attack and you just it is like you are watching yourself

MerlinIs that like sort of like feeling like you're out of your body feeling?

AlexYep. And it's almost like a vertigo feeling and then a vertigo type shot where.

MerlinThat sounds like hell.

AlexIt is. But and this is the.

MerlinThe only thing that could make. The only thing that could be worse than this reality is adding another layer of me not being sure what reality is.

AlexYep. And that's essentially why I enjoyed it. It was, and, and, I mean, it doesn't hurt though. I share pretty much all the same opinions as the dude, both politically and, you know, socially overall about what Silicon Valley has done to our brains. And, and, oh yeah, he comes right out and calls, like, bug-eyed salamanders of Silicon Valley. That, that was definitely fake with him, like, lying on the floor sad.

but I I don't know I love asking that question but I don't think the answer matters and I really wonder if I almost want to get my mom to watch it because I wonder if she would even relate to the feeling of you know constant scrolling and you know when one my hand my dick in my hand and my phone in my other hand or whatever

I mean I think I was in that like nice sweet spot where I had internet access and like the what was called web 2.0 from the time I was in middle school onward so I was like slowly immersed into the hell that is Twitter now

Merlinsometime after 9-11

AlexYeah, I mean, oh, God, you need to look up the stills.

MerlinThat song is so freaking good.

AlexIt's so good. And I love the problematic song.

MerlinAnd his rhymes and it's all the arrangements. It's all so great. We're running a little bit long here and we still need to say something funny. Well, no, I don't have anything funny. I mean, we've got more work to do. Can we go ahead and do our reaction episode to this episode?

AlexOh, reaction episode to this episode.

MerlinWell, that'll just be the first one. We're going to be doing some more after that. I love that he keeps like each reaction video to his reaction video. Oh, yes. It keeps getting deeper and darker. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And like more like, oh, my God, no, I just said that because of this reason.

He really gets the genre. Like every time I see that pop up where it's like, Black Teen reacts to Steely Dan. And you're like, who made him react to Steely Dan? Who did this to?

Alexoh well i i didn't even realize this was that hot hat is really popping did you did you notice the one uh flash of that there was a single frame of him in the corner as a streamer before he actually does the whole streaming bit i noticed at least one of those

Merlinyeah i definitely in the lower right yeah i totally saw that and when it happened of course Remind me of the face from The Exorcist and I screamed.

AlexOh, a white man! I do the same thing sometimes.

245. So Baby Much Cowboy Hat

Show notes

Transcript

245. So Baby Much Cowboy Hat

Show notes

Transcript

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