272. Moist, Succulent, Craveable

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

MerlinThe shortcuts. Okay, hang on. Ready? Are you here?

AlexI'm here.

MerlinHere we go. Here we go. First one. First one. Here we go.

AlexFirst one. Oh, here we go.

Merlinuh wait oh there it is oh no i want to type the note type it this is the show okay okay

Alexis that number one i fucked up no i this is this this is the show i mean i i sorry sorry i'm late welcome to dubai friday again good morning merlin man it's actually morning your time Hi, Alex. Hi. Oh, no.

MerlinOh, no. It's not accepting my keyboard input. Oh, no. Hoist by my own petard. Oh, no.

AlexHold on. Maybe I – why is it running via an outfit?

MerlinIt's going blue. It's going blue. Jason.

AlexJason.

MerlinI got the scripting. Well, I'm on the second one.

AlexYeah. I'm on – I'm not ready to do the third one. What I believe is 2.2.

MerlinWe're talking about a thing that – friend of the show from Six Colors. Jason Snell, friends of the show. Friends of the shows. Dan Morin and Jason Snell put together. Long story short, it makes it easy for us to write down when we fuck up while we're recording.

You hit a button. We were fucking around. Where do I capture this? Shit. Oh, shit. I need a marker for my marker. My keyboard's just going bloop, bloop. I don't know why.

AlexOh, I mean, the good news is we can finally have chapters in this show because we obviously have an outline. we've got you know follow up hashtag ask do by friday i can't imagine doing a podcast where i

Merlindidn't have an outline alex i can't imagine i i don't know i yeah yeah i've done a lot of show

Alexprep it's uh actually did do a lot of show prep really i'm in alex i'm in the shortcuts app and what did i do wrong i could check it i don't know mine is mine is still it worked it worked

Merlina bit ago that's why i was all screwed up because because i had the session open i had a uh hijack session called Just Me. And that's when I, shh, just me. That's when I do tests and recordings. Why did it make an error?

AlexJust me.

MerlinJust me. Okay, here we go. Last time. Just me. Oh, okay. All right. I already broke it.

AlexHey, it's Dubai Friday. Dubai Friday.

MerlinAnd I'm in the correct session with my good pal, Alex.

AlexThat's my name. I, so I just, okay, this is actually relevant, almost. um you know how most people as as friends that's gonna be on my tombstone see if if this worked uh we i could be like boop jazz break because i think that would have been a

good good jazz break i don't know good morning i'm so goddamn mad at myself i've had had this

Merlinset up since the post about so jason mentioned the third one in the slack but before that day i saw dan's come up and again i'm just gonna say it second year in a row i only read i read very few rss feeds these days really dan warren is oh i'll capture that i have no i have no way of

Alexwriting down all my buttons bloop oh god look i got some paper oh switching quiet keyboard i got paper over here but it just feels so i know i know primitive it's it's gross if you're not using you know a theme a theme journal you're doing it wrong oh or oh that's just interesting you

Merlinshould say that i had a journal a new journal a piece of paper journal arrived just last night oh oh i actually i bought the same thing that john dickerson's wife uses tell her i said hi And yeah, it's a, that's not funny. Yeah, it's called a five, I put it under my desk here. It's called a one line a day, a five-year memory book. And so think of a calendar, right, where there's one per page, except that is a day, not a date, a day of the year.

So like I'm right now, I just opened it up randomly to June 6th. And you fill in, is this 2022, three, four, five, or six? and then you just write down a very short thing about what happened that day and you can go back

Alexand see your previous June 6th that is adorable oh my gosh well I want to use it for a non-obvious

Merlinpurpose I just haven't decided what it is yet I thought a gratitude journal would well no if I write down I recorded with Alex well shit man that's already on my calendar I can find that I want this to be a again for me you know a place I decided to become selfish decided you know what What were we talking about, you diary?

AlexWell, I'm using the Dickerson. They keep changing the name. Reporter's notebook. It is a reporter-style notebook.

MerlinYou're talking about the Field Notes Flippy one?

AlexYeah, the Flippy. I love Flippy. Oh, yeah.

MerlinThat's a reporter's notebook.

AlexYeah, yeah.

MerlinI first used slash stole those. Not stole. I mean, I need them for my work. When I was a clerk, I had a paper in San Francisco one summer. And they had all these reporters' notebooks, and you're allowed to grab them and just use them.

AlexI did the same thing.

MerlinSo I called the movie theater and say, what time's Batman? And then I'd write it down, and they'd put it in the paper. That was my first published work. That's not true. I wrote a really nice piece about the Life's Rich Pageant, I believe, in 1986. Of course, I was the features editor of the Boussineer.

AlexOh, my God. Your career contains so many multitudes.

Merlinthat's yeah i'm basically like uh yeah i'm like a walt whitman matroska doll

Alexand my multitudes just keep getting tinier and tinier i i'm i'm not smart i think i got 25 percent of that reference leaves of grass oh sorry i take about 20 off there yeah no um no

Merlinwhat whitman is the one i believe if memory serves i could be wrong i believe he's the one who said i contain multitudes in song of myself but i could be wrong oh song of myself sounds like a euphemism you guys like i guess mom i'm being selfish mom i'm singing a song of myself

Alexoh just fuck me you're a big humidity guys we've talked about many times before and I normally want as little humidity

Merlinbig humidity guy I would have hit the button that says title there

Alexoh spoilers well no I am I wonder how much I've got a new mic situation I wonder ooh

Merlinyou've got a lot of new situations Alex we need to reset I was going to come into this not hot I don't say cold but I am I'm not going to say this publicly on the air but I'm going to try to stop interrupting you as much and this was the week I was going to start with that but if I had a button, I'd hit it right now. I feel like I've already really fucked up.

AlexI mean, I think you have carte blanche. I never know if I'm using that right. Probably not. No, you're fine. You're good. To interrupt.

MerlinI don't like when you disparage your intelligence. It really irks me, as my father used to say.

AlexHmm, hmm. Interesting. I did not. You've irked me. Hold on, hold on. I did not disparage my intelligence there. I said, I don't know if I am using it correctly

Merlinbecause grammar, I don't think is a sign of intelligence. Never correct me.

I'm useless. I even went to that terrible app Jason mentioned so I could make a – I put a scissors on a purple background and it says marker.

AlexWhat is – oh, is this the plug-in? Wait, what's happening? An app? Oh, God.

MerlinOh, sorry. I cut you off again, didn't I?

AlexYou want to reset? No. Welcome to Dubai Friday. Challenge each other. Challenge. Well, don't challenge Merlin or correct him ever.

MerlinI'll tell you what. Here's the thing. Open offer. If I'm ever wrong, you can correct me. You're not going to need to correct me.

AlexNo, no, no. You go in.

MerlinYou go in. Yes, you do. You go in. I have to check. Oh, I also want to write down. I have to check in on your TV homework. Because I think you didn't get that reference to Dan Flashes.

AlexDan Flashes? No, no. Last night. Oh, hey, look, it's Matchy.

MerlinHey, Matchy. Oh, Matchy's in the notes this week. I have I decided I have a new phrase that Matchy taught me that I love.

AlexOh, Matt, you're in the show this week. Congratulations. He's late for work. But I believe what did you say? Matchy, what did you say about me? Here, I'm going to turn this up. Just shout what you said about my or like my my state of being this morning.

Speaker AOh, I said you were manic and that you needed to calm down because otherwise both of your manias would feed off of one another.

MerlinIn the interest of comedy, I'm going to say that does not count as a correction or challenge, and I'll allow it.

Alexit's not a correction I think it's an observation and as someone who I think I think we talked about your correcting me we did talk about this

Merlinshould we reset? I feel like we should probably reset I gotta send you a photo of my marker I love what was happening this is the first useful thing for this dream deck but I also love the Jason Snell thing we'll put this in show notes for this episode which you can find on the internet

Alexnewbyfriday.com

Merlinoh yeah that's us that's our unique domain name you can dee dee dee dee dee dee dee dee dee. I like, oh, the launch bar thing. I love the launch bar thing.

AlexOh.

MerlinIf I'm waiting for you, what I'm gonna do this time is I'm gonna wait for you to figure out how to do the third one that Jason did. And then I'll just get those from you is what I think. Will that work for you?

AlexOh yeah, yeah. I'll get right on that.

MerlinYou gotta use pages on your stream deck and I'm not great at that. You changed profiles.

AlexNo, I still haven't. You know what? I'm gonna do a thing. I gotta do this quietly because Matt G is still here. Oh, closing the bracket. I normally don't like humidity. Oh, big humidity boy. It's very dry here. I've never used Gold Bond. Did not know that Gold Bond made hand cream. I don't like my hands being sticky. I don't insert lesbian joke here. But Gold Bond.

MerlinWell, that's good. I was going to say never be a 13-year-old boy.

AlexYeah, ew. No, Gold Bond Ultimate Healing Hand Cream. people this is the cheapest best like and and like seriously if you have like we put that in yeah yeah it's already oh yeah like if you weird sensory shit like holy god like it feels like i haven't put anything on it anyway uh what were we oh so so i think i talked about francis my terrible trash cat yeah uh bit through my other stream deck um or not my other like the cable for at the usp cable yes because i had the the one that's for the pores but i believe there's one

no he's the young one um is his brother did die but he's just wait not francis and nez are not related right no um biologically i mean except it's a chosen family as we say yes yes um yes but the yes my chalope oh boy but yeah unfortunately uh when you find a bunch of cats on the streets some of them die luckily the one that we got did now that should go in your

Merlinwisdom document when you find some cats on the street some of them are gonna die oh man i don't

Alextell people how to grieve um uh but all right hey matchy never mind my spouse my spouse is still here but merlin um is this the stream deck you have because now that i'm actually finding reasons that I can use it for work. I'm thinking kind of like with the Synology that I should just go on. Kind of like with this Apple Watch that I adore.

There's this guy and it has a replaceable USB-C cable and there's 32 other than, yeah, yeah. I used to have the one that was just six. It was very cute though. Like, oh, look at that little guy.

MerlinI've got the little guy. Personally, this is absolutely just differences in need and limitations, which is that I don't really have room on my desk for something that big. And I hadn't used it that much. And I still hadn't explored profiles, which apparently is the shit once you really start. No, profiles and pages, right?

AlexThat's the thing. I don't want profiles or pages. I just want this big clump.

MerlinYou want a big surface, as we say.

AlexYes. Yes. Yes.

MerlinYes.

AlexOh, you know what? I'm just going to add this to the card.

MerlinNo, but I saw this, and this looks terrific. You do need this for your work.

AlexMm-hmm.

MerlinI'm going to turn off my phone. I don't really need to send you this button because it's nothing really interesting, but I like the fact that I have this.

AlexWell, show me a button.

MerlinI made an ugly button. I bought a $5 app, and I made a scissors button.

AlexOh, I mean, you know, that's.

MerlinIt's okay. Now, like Jason said, it's a young app, but it's not – there's actually a web – Merlin, remember to put this in notes. Send. I will find this for notes. There is a site, actually, I think by Elgato. Elgato.

AlexElgato.

MerlinWhoa, which it was until now I realized is just a concatenated version of Spanish for the cat.

AlexYes. I don't know why, but I love it. Elgato.

MerlinWhat a great name. You know, there's so many bad names. That's a good name, Elgato. What?

AlexHold on. What makes a good as someone who makes up a lot of bad names for many a project, including this show, what makes a good name for something? Or should this be a challenge?

MerlinOh, that's that could be a challenge. You should probably reset. It's I think it's I think it could be lots of things and it's mostly ineffable things. It's sort of like I think we were talking about here that I was ranting about here. The whole like writing advice that you're not really in a position to put in context. like you know vary the length of your sentences is great advice once you understand why you would do that but you know it's kind of hard like just sui generous to go out and just start doing a thing when you don't really get it what are you talking about i don't know what i've never done

Alexthat uh including this morning sure you do it all the time what uh what wait what were we talking about we're talking about to stream how to name what's a good name for something but um adding

Merlinthat to the challenge dog well okay here's i don't know i this this is a joke a many times told joke and but i can i don't remember the first place i heard it so forgive me it was probably paul mccartney or something but there's the kind of this is an anti-powder this is there's the kind of name that's kind of funny the first time you hear it and each subsequent time it makes you angrier and angrier there's all kinds of names like that a good name like something like elga Well, part of the problem is, I was thinking about this when I was urinating yesterday, about how we're kind of, it's funny how it used to be like, oh my gosh, the company, the dot-com I worked at, I don't want to sound glib or reductive, but the whole reason that company existed as an internet, wasn't really technically a startup, but an internet play was that we had the perfect domain name that somebody had thought to buy in the 90s.

AlexOh, go on.

MerlinWell, if you have a real estate website and one of your guys down in the IT crowd buys homes.com.

AlexNo.

MerlinBecause time was, everybody was using Explorer. You go in, you enter what you're looking for, you hit enter. And before Google and even AltaVista and all of those, it would just take you to that.com.

AlexOh, I see what you're, oh, right.

MerlinThat's domain names used to be about sex.com, you know, whitehouse.com, lemonparty.com, like all those sorts of things. But now we're kind of out of those and domains are not the thing that they used to be. I'm sure John Kimball could could address this. You're still going to get a lot of dough if you have a highly desirable name. But just notice how many podcast advertisers have names like tryalex.com because alex.com wasn't available.

AlexBut alexcox.me was, which is, what is that? A link, my link tree or something? Oh, yeah, it is. That's embarrassing.

MerlinMe.me is, what is that? Marititious?

AlexI don't even know what country that is. I don't know. Is that, I feel like.

MerlinUsed to mean a lot. Remember you had to have a .edu to get Facebook?

AlexYes.

MerlinThose used to be so meaningful.

AlexYeah, yeah. The now .org means nothing, for example.

MerlinI felt guilty the first time I bought a .org because the .com was still in the 2000s, but I couldn't even tell you specifically. Oh, you know, no, I got my casserole.com. That was pretty good.

AlexWait, castoroil.com?

MerlinWhat? My casserole.

AlexOh, my casserole.

MerlinI think it was suggested to me probably by Network Solutions. more like network problems

Alexam I right

Merlinand so a name in this economy to get a name for something that's good

Alexdo you think it matters though

Merlinwell I do I'm going to say something problematic and I just want to put that out there

Alexchicken taking no

Merlinno no no I think I'm actually doing a good job here so far I just wanted to say up front that this is a thing that's going to make some people unhappy. And as somebody with a weird name, several weird names, like I'm sympathetic to the problems of having a weird name. I actually wrote this on a piece of paper in the year of our Lord, 2007. You never want to give your kid a name that they have to spell. Yes. If you can, if you can avoid it, don't give your kid a name they have to spell. Yes. And bonus points if you give them a name they don't have to explain. Because if your kid has to spell their name or

explain their name, that's a pretty good sign that you've made it all about you.

AlexOh, yeah. Well...

MerlinRemember the joke in Mean Girls where Tim Meadows mentions his terrible nephew, Amphrony? And also he's furious that he's named Amphrony. I mean, and I'm not really, I'm not trying to punch down. I'm not trying to punch anywhere. But if you, if you, there have been girls named Jennifer. and you go into school and somebody goes, Gennifer or Gennifer? And you go, no, actually, it's Gennifer.

And the teacher, I'm sure, if the teacher was a sensible person, would say, no, it's not. That's a made-up name. I'm going to call you Jenny. Next. You know, no, I'm just saying, if you, and truly, again, that's something I learned in the 90s, early 2000s, your domain name should be something you can say while you're waiting for your plane to take off on a bad cell connection, and you don't have to explain it or spell it.

AlexThat's actually really, that's way better than the whole elevator pitch analogy.

MerlinWell, elevator pitches are valuable because it helps you refine your message and how you feel about it, how you conduct yourself. But, you know, I think a good name, it's great if it's clever and memorable, but unless you're going for a certain kind of cute, like I like the thing where you, I think it's cute and fun when you make a domain name and the prefix and the suffix, not prefix, the fix and the suffix, make something fun. Like, oh, okay, I got an email today from UnrollMe,

which is that thing for unsubscribing from junk mail.

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

MerlinYeah, and it's Unroll.me, which is, I think, a very good domain name. It does suffer from the problem that old people like me might be confused. Is it UnrollMe.com? No, it's Unroll.me, right? but to address your question i think i think clever is good oh and i'm informed by john syracuse this morning that apparently i'm not the only one bono apparently also did not know that the beatles was a pun i did i did i miss a lot of puns yeah yeah i didn't know that till i

Alexwas in my 30s i mean that's not something that is a measure of intelligence much much not like

Merlinnot knowing vocabulary because because because they were big fans of buddy holly and the crickets and so they thought it'd be funny to have an insect name but then spell it with beat instead of beat.

AlexIt's cute.

MerlinNot Dwight Schrute Beats, but Ringo Beats.

AlexIt's not a masturbation joke.

MerlinIt's cover with beet juice. All I wanted to do was buy that wizard.

AlexOkay.

MerlinOkay, I don't like to be sticky and I don't like opening things.

AlexOh.

MerlinWe should probably reset. Oh, but now what do you think? When you think of a good name, now something like Cards Against Humanity, I've always thought that's a terrific name And obviously the design aesthetic has been so heavily lifted.

The like, you know, almost like not new typography look, but just the plainness of it. It's so recognizable. And I love the name.

AlexI mean, that's a very big deal for us. No, honestly, yeah. Like having the Helvetica New Bold, it was a very big deal because welcome to Dubai Friday. Everybody, I work for Cards Against Humanity. um and it is it was sort of this thing of like okay this is a relatively simple card game so it needs to have a really good brand and we need to sweat the small stuff otherwise it'll be like

every other game that sometimes rips it off and i don't know i think my bosses do a really good job

Merlinum i totally agree thanks ben that was just off the dome but i mean other ones i think sometimes it's funny when you learn the names that were rejected because you're so familiar like i think on a couple occasions the mcelroys have talked about some of the other possible names for their program and my brother my brother and me is i mean that's very clever and it doesn't annoy me because anyone you get the joke any one of them could say it that's all i'm saying it's it's that's

very clever yes it's always sunny in philadelphia they talked about how much they that is the worst name for a tv show ever and they can't believe yeah to this day they they still can't believe it i don't know what do you think contributes what are your thoughts on good names what contributes

Alexto a good gosh no i was gonna it's hard it's very hard naming things is hard it is the hardest thing i've never i don't know if i've ever come up with a good name except oh except pirate bay and then

Merlinit was b a e that was that's pretty funny pirate bay is very very good it is two headed girls

Alexpretty good well yeah but it's a reference um i i know that's why i like it i i um see okay have you thought about going a two-headed day that's not funny well you know what you know

Merlinwhat make me pay 50 if i do that more than once a month would you capture that please my button

Alexdoesn't work oh oh for they like like a they they change jar because yes i i think pronoun

Merlinjokes are very funny they just no no it's i'm doing i'm doing anti-humor alex it's because the

Alexjoke is not funny that the joke is funny don't correct okay someone been listening to come town what does that even mean like that's like irony that's weird i went to the hardware store to get

Merlinmy knives sharpened to do do do do do and i dropped off my knives and had a nice chat with the people there it's a local hardware store that i adore and uh oh god i did the thing i i should have set it up on a ceramicist but i was like so he's like oh yeah this is really nice i was like oh yeah i love this one this is an off off grid that i love a lot well you ever watch lockpicking lawyer and lockpicking lawyer it's the knife that he uses when he cuts open those slash proof bags oh it's the nicest pocket knife in the world and please don't link to it or i'll feel bad

um and he was he was gonna fix and sharpen that he goes wow this is really nice what do you do i said oh it's yeah this is not for work it's like i make you know i make podcasts and i was like oh the second I said it. I was like, ugh. Because now that's needy. And now he's going to have to say, oh, what's your podcast? Yeah. And so like immediately I was like, oh no, please don't worry. Don't listen. Don't listen. He goes, well, what do you do podcasts about? I said, mostly dicks and tech. And he said, oh yeah, I was really into Comptown for a while. And I was like, oh my god, I used to really be into Chapo and you know that one lady from Red Scare is on

Succession. He's like, oh yeah, she was really good. Yeah. So we got to pond a little bit about podcasts.

AlexShe did cheat on Adam, but I did cheat on Adam yeah Adam from Cumetown she cheated on him apparently the name upsets me

Merlinand I don't like the logo I tried once on Max's insistence and I didn't like having that on my phone

Alexit's not I don't like that word cum? cum? do you don't like cum? don't like cum? you don't like cunt? I just don't think I like these moist succulent

Merlincraveable cum

Alexwow

Merlinwow i probably just i just probably did a dark phoenix and blew up a planet somewhere what did i just say that was terrible i don't even know moist succulent craveable cum

AlexOh, God. Oh, see? No.

MerlinGod, do you ever want a sandwich that's craveable? Like that Arby's Smokehouse?

AlexI don't want to hate people who like the taste of cum. I get it. Like, you know what? Again, I never want to yuck anyone's yum, but that yum is just not for me. No, no. Yeah. Oh, gosh. Anyway, I don't know what a good name is.

MerlinI think whether or not one says it out loud to shame somebody, I think it's – a long time ago we used to call it getting squicked. Like, ooh, not for me.

AlexLike squicked out, yeah.

MerlinSure, squicked out. Yes. So naming things, I think you're not bad at that. Oh, you know, my best one ever is when we had us and Jen and Max. Remember the Come On In guys?

AlexYes.

MerlinThe Come On In guys is one of – I'm pretty proud of that one. That's so interesting because this actually relates to some of my new Runex files. I started one that's just – this is not the one I mentioned in the document, but one of my new ones. I'm trying to get back into lots of things.

AlexBots?

MerlinDoing lots of things.

AlexOh, so –

MerlinWell, you know how every 18 months I go all in on something weird?

AlexYes.

MerlinI think I'm going all in on a couple things, including Visual Studio Code, including getting back to some text file stuff. Oh, man, Visual Studio Code is so goddamn good.

AlexMerlin, what is Visual Studio Code? And this isn't even so much for exposition for people who have no idea what this is. But what do you use it for? Because I feel as if I don't. I mean, and now with our whole like or my own Git project and the lovely friend of the show, Jay Miller, is like helping me with some JavaScript stuff. But I feel like this is. Oh, neat. I don't know. I feel like I don't need this as a person who does not do code for a living.

MerlinI'm sorry. I'm doing some pre-APC here. We all need to be louder. Check, check, check. Hey, marker that real quick. Sorry. Talk a little bit, please. Yes. One reason I keep interrupting is you're very quiet.

AlexWhat?

MerlinYou are the quiet one.

AlexAgain? All right. Hold on. Hold on. Let me. Input volume. Why is it? No. Okay. Never mind. I'm not going to touch anything. Not touching anything. We should.

MerlinYou know, a big part of problem solving is knowing. You can leave all that. I don't care. um you a bit my button doesn't work it just goes um a big part of problem solving is i feel like

Alexuh knowing when you don't know what you're doing and knowing what you don't know there's a

Merlinresistance to even trying to fix something but like if you i was trying to explain this to my stupid kid where like like if something it's like you know we have our our uh cockamamie wiring and sometimes will blow a fuse and so this the um not the synology the ups battery backup it takes over to keep the internet up and starts going beep beep beep and she's she's such a great kid but she'll just go over there and start unplugging things until she thinks the beeping can stop and i don't know i mean that's a rat's nest back there i i've gotten it right like once and then

i got it right again and then every year or so i have to like fix it but like if you don't really understand the problem. This is kind of related to my whole, I guess the second part of this is you can't say you solved a problem if you didn't know what broke and how you fixed it. But the other part of that is if you're desperate, have you ever done this? You're desperate, like you're on a deadline and something's not working. I think trying to print is probably a pretty good idea. And so you've tried all the ways that usually like you, the first thing you would,

like what's the first thing? There's one thing that's like 50% of your solution almost all the time is to go and oh you know if your if your mac internet wasn't working in 1998 you would delete your uh tcp ip press um you know what i mean if you you could check for a corrupted font but there's all these kinds of things but if you can't print like what do you pretty soon use your concentric circles get weirder and weirder and you start trying shit and then oh shit you just changed the wi-fi setting and now you're gonna have to re-enter your password with that little up and

down thing like you yeah you know what I'm talking about but you go in and you start fucking borking everything because you're desperate and emotional at least that's how I get and you end up breaking five things and not fixing the one thing oh that's going on my new list that happened to us last

Alexnight as for some reason our tv started flickering when we were watching yellow jackets and because I don't know. And I just put it back to the default settings, which I'm sure friends of the show, John and John, Syracuse and Todd would be horrified. But watch the rest of Yellow Jackets like this, and it wasn't that bad. Did you figure out what it was? Nope.

MerlinI bet it's an HDMI cable. I get

AlexHDMI cable problems out of

Merlinfucking nowhere with my extremely good tv like i was i went to watch something on the hbo and or maybe it was disney no it was disney must have been disney and it had this thing it's imax enhanced and i'm like hmm i don't know man that sounds like a science spray what the fuck is imax enhanced and like i don't know if it's related but right after that like the apple tv just this has happened twice it just doesn't work i change cables i try different cables i do a full restart eventually if i turn everything off and then turn it back on, it, I guess, resets.

But HDMI is pretty undiscovered country. It's some weird shit.

AlexBecause now HDMI, isn't it? We're on HDMI 2.1.2 with CES? Yeah, well. We've got a new thing. I don't know.

MerlinEvery time John Sturikius says, what does he call it, QD OLED, because of his various Long Island speech impediments, I was thinking he's saying QD.

AlexIt sounds so QD.

MerlinOr like the basement, he's got a finish room. Okay. I'm on hot talk. And so that's the problem there. And so did it start working again? You got to watch it? Are you on the last one? Did you watch the last one?

AlexLast night, we finished it. I'm on like six. Oh, dude. See, okay. That's one of those shows I got to be in the mood for. It's like the-

MerlinOh, absolutely. It's like Letter Kenny where like if I am in the mood, there's nothing else I want to watch. But if I'm not in the mood, I don't really feel like watching it.

AlexIt is a show that, okay, all right, I'm going to, hey, oh man, Yellow Jackets.

MerlinThis is why we don't have chapter markers.

AlexYellow Jackets is a show that I feel as if I don't want to recommend it to anybody because it has put me through.

MerlinOur daughter who can handle a lot of stuff found it a little pseudo traumatizing.

AlexOh, boy. And I'm your leg is gone. Oh, boy. I just love Misty. I mean, I don't even want to talk about yellow jackets, but just like honest to God, I almost wish there was like sort of a content like, yes, okay, sex, drugs and booze. But like, how about the whole like, just be like, huge trauma, smoking, sex, smoking, sex, gore.

MerlinHi, I'm Senator Al Sexgore. But, like, when you see those and you're, like, language, smoking, it's like, whatever. And you put it on, you're like, oh, my God. And all the plane crash scenes I have ever seen in movies and TV, I mean, it's one thing to, like, be sucked out a window or you do, like, a Dark Knight and you do, like, a Bane. But, like, I've never seen bodies damaged by the equipment of the plane while they're still in their chairs.

Alexand that fucked me up uh looking out the window and that's what how long it took for them to crash it just kept going that is my like my most irrational fear about about flying if i ever which i do i used to do on like a bi-weekly basis i worry about being arrested for pushing an old

Merlinwoman um wait no the tv okay oh i know what you mean and this has gone gone on list number two a recommendation that's not exactly a recommendation and i'm gonna tell you about both of these um but I mean, I know exactly what you mean.

And again, to refer to Squidward, you know, it's like him and me with Classic, The Leftovers. He's like, I can't exactly recommend this. Or like Shoah. Like, I can't recommend Shoah.

AlexOh, yeah.

MerlinIt's hard to get. It's, I believe, eight hours long. It's in various different languages. Oh, and by the way, it's about concentration camps and the Holocaust. and the Polish people who do or don't feel particularly bad about it. And it's a bit of a rough watch. Or Come and See, for example. That's a movie that I want to recommend from a like, oh, if you like the kind of shit you find on Criterion, you really need to watch Come and See. But it will fuck you up.

Or even something like The Ring. The Ring was ups, the Japanese version in particular, was so upsetting to so many people. Even people who love horror movies are like, that girl is just too haunting.

AlexEspecially when you're in grade school.

MerlinThey should have a tag that just says, no seriously, no seriously. Don't watch them, seriously.

AlexOh my God, yeah. Well, we watched the whole first season of Yellow Jackets in, I believe, three days because I started having literal nightmares about it and not about even like the gory stuff but just the the sort of like the the trauma-y

Merlinbits and i don't there's a lot there's a lot to be upset about on that show the gore is really gory but also just the relationship stuff and i i really i am at this point getting a little bit into spoiler way into spoiler territory but this is all stuff from the first episode yeah mostly yeah but like for example the you know the goalie what happened on the plane like now they have to live together and it's like I love that actress, the goalie. She's so good. Everybody on the show is good. Alexandra won't say it but I will. I recommend Yellow Jackets. I'll give it the usual

Merlin recommendation which is it's worth your time to try the first episode because it's a really good first episode. The usual provisos. If you don't like that first episode, you ain't gonna like this show. But also the thing that drives my family crazy, put your fucking phone down and watch the show because if you're not really watching the show, there's a basic conceit of how the show is done where you're not going to if you're not paying attention. Do you know what I'm

Alextalking about? Oh, absolutely.

MerlinThe show takes place in two different time frames and they don't go out of their way. They don't have inner titles.

AlexSometimes the three. Oh, see, we can't. Okay. They don't go out of their way to

Merlinbasically explain oh, you're supposed to figure out based on I think based on amazing cuts almost match cuts, like at least emotional match cuts where you go Oh, that's, shit, what's her name? Jimmy Simpson's ex.

Fuck, what's her name?

AlexI don't know who.

MerlinWhat's her name?

AlexMain character. There's like...

MerlinSee, now you're the second person who said that to me. You know, the New Zealand girl that Jimmy Simpson used to be married to. What's her name?

AlexI don't know. I don't know who she is. Shipman.

MerlinShipman.

AlexShauna Shipman.

MerlinShauna?

AlexMaybe. Shauna. Is she the... She's the main character. She's, I mean, all of them. She's the rabbit woman. They're MILFs. I'm just like, oh, God. Like it's it's very again, these are all first episode things. I think. Yes, yes. But it's very weird because watching this, they're all actresses that I had total crushes on in the 90s as a child. And now they're they're old and still hot. And I'm like, oh, man, it's what's her name from Cape Fear.

MerlinI showed Emma a photo of her when she was in Cape Fear, where she was probably about maybe around Emma's age. What's her name? You know, from, you know, Natasha. Natasha Lyonne. She was the blonde punk girl.

AlexNo, no. Christina Ricci.

MerlinNo, goddammit. You know who I mean, Cape Fear.

AlexNo, I've never seen Cape Fear. Oh, shit.

MerlinWho's the punk rock girl with Travis?

AlexNatalie. Oh, the older. Natalie.

MerlinNatalie.

AlexNat. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, God.

Merlinactress i love all julia lewis juliet lewis maybe see i'm gonna hear this i'm gonna be so goddamn mad at myself my button doesn't work i want to say juliet lewis oh juliet oh my god yes juliet i love the way she she looks i mean she's see now i'm not nope chicken project no no no you know

Alexwe're we're gonna cut the bad hey you know we'll come back to this we'll come back to this oh god it's just so fucking i i don't even want to say good i just i you know what i will recommend the

Merlinfirst episode of yellow jacket it's it's intense and absorbing it's intense and absorbing and you

Alexkind of can't stop watching yeah like like i i i literally now have a strap on a strap on for my phone that it just straps to my forearm so that i can easily flip over and this sort of gets to the challenge uh so i can flip over and read my phone but it did not even occur to me to look at what's that have to do with juliette lewis uh no no no no it did not even occur to me to look at my phone during yellow jackets and that has not happened in a long time i'm so absorbed oh maybe it's the

new tv though huh huh oh it could be the new tv um yeah yeah yeah you know

Merlinthe Apple TV interface for doing things with the TV is I don't, listen, there's a reason I don't get the big bucks. I don't know how to fix this, but I think the interface is very confusing to going into settings or whatever. Like, okay, wait a minute. My home, I have the wrong home hub controlling the wrong house. Like, how do I fix that? Why is the HomePod Mini in our hallway says connecting right that that how is that the home hub for my office how did

that happen how do i delete it what is primary home where do i do that or like in this instance where you go in i was about to say something very i don't know slightly shitty which is oh duh just go to video settings and blah blah but that's not intuitive like yeah and if you go with all the defaults you're probably fine and but the flicker part that sounds like a cable to me yeah i i

AlexI'm sure that I'm going to, you know. Oh, well, the thing, it stopped after going to default settings. So, I don't know. It might have been a, I don't know. It'll be a fun investigation.

MerlinWell, but then there's, even with just HDMI, there's a lot to wonder about.

AlexYeah.

MerlinAnd Syracuse and I talked about this on, oh, shit, it isn't out yet. But it will be out soon. You know, John has his tech show and his show about emotions. And so, like, there are some topics, most topics he saves for his popular show. There are other topics he saves for reconcilable differences.

AlexYou do the same thing. I do that. We'll never talk about task paper here. Sorry, I interrupted you. Go on.

MerlinOh, interesting.

AlexWrite that down.

MerlinI have something on that. Did you know I'm doing a task paper journey on backdoor?

AlexDid you not get me shaming you? I don't get what's happening. I get you. I get you. I get you too much, probably.

MerlinThe way I name my context is really smart. each context is begins with a different letter well okay there are no repeating letters so i can

Alexautofill very easily okay hold up that you said for example i'm doing oh yeah neither do i craveable calm craveable moist and succulent oh boy i can't believe there's a chain called

Merlincome and go that's just absolutely bonkers come and go though that would be a good uh convenience

Alexstore next to a porn place that is literally what it is sometimes if you're going on the highway and you turn off uh anyway the um come and go turn off right rather than traditional spelling um no kqm go yeah yeah oh my god kq wait oh kqm huh amferny come and come come and come Come and go near me.

MerlinI'm not a darling. Come and go.

AlexOh, all right. All right. So you have a context, which essentially.

MerlinOh, no, don't worry about that. That's all boring. I don't talk about that here. I talk about that on my tech show.

AlexI know. I know. I know. You say you do. You save the good tech stuff for your popular show. And sometimes we get into incidental computer show type things here. But I mean, of course they start with a different letter because they're different words, right? What?

What?

MerlinWell, it has evolved to be that way. But I think in the same way that you should put something, store something wherever you first looked for it. If you want to have more than a handful of contexts. I mean, think about how many letters start with S or how many words start with S. Like, it's not like every section, 26 sections of the dictionary is the same size. there are some things that that really want to be the same letter so i've had to be a little tricky about that like do you like for example do you do anything like with contacts or tags

oh yeah you manage shit okay so like if you if you want to do something and it could be on your

Alexipad or your phone what's the context for that um wait for your i i have it as okay i see where you're going yeah i have that as ios and then if it's if i need okay fine all right see i should

Merlinnever correct you i should never correct you never challenge you so i've got like house because home home is uh an area of my life area what's called area of concentration let's give it i want to call it area responsibilities include work and home but the buildings as we all know and yes this is valuable the buildings are house and office so we've got h and o that gives us 24 more letters left. iOS. If it needs to be more specific, I put it in parentheses. Did you know that you can use parentheses

after a tag in TaskPaper? I think a lot of people don't know that.

AlexOh, no. Oh, because you can't do that in OmniFocus, can you?

MerlinSo you could do at Aaron's paren garage. And that'll still show up under Aaron's. In fact, it now creates a hierarchy.

AlexOh, my fuck.

MerlinYeah. And Dan doesn't want to talk about it because he's not interested in it. I think it's crazy you fucking interesting what are my other ones did you know that you can have a default like in the same way that you have your style sheets uh for your where your task paper looks that you can go in and say certain tags that should appear in every new document as being available in your

Alexsidebar oh shit see that's the thing i don't i don't really use task paper anymore only because uh i got on tick every year i use tick tick during the winter for christmas stuff and for some reason i know i forgot about that one was it called tick tick was that right uh there's okay it's easier to shout you like to dow well no no no that's the reason it's so similar to to to dowis that we tried oh god that was one of our first episodes one of my worst challenges

Merlinbut yeah well that asshole amol app really worked out great at least we didn't try hey what a bunch of fucking shit birds those guys

AlexJesus. Oh, man.

MerlinAnd you can do that. And what else did you know? So you wanted tech? Here's tech.

AlexWhat else do I do? Oh, yeah.

MerlinSo buy online.

AlexSo you can't.

MerlinNow, see, that could be. Should that be internet? Should that be web?

AlexNo, but buy online.

MerlinThat means what's W? W is waiting on always.

AlexYes.

MerlinFor me. W-O. It's just W-O. And, but also, what's the other one? So, office, what's the office, house, iOS, errands, buy online. Those are my main ones. But then guess what? When I'm writing here on my paper, I can put a little letter to the left side of whatever task I write down. And because all of my task paper things are unique letters of the alphabet, I get a little context-y thing with one letter.

Alexthat is very clever I just want somebody to love me that's very very good anyway I like APIs I'm an appy bitch now and that's why I've been using the test paper I'm not smart enough for the

Merlinoh shit you want to know about visual code I'm sorry I forgot

Alexthe other things I'm not smart enough to use

Merlini'm sorry i mean it's it's it's in uh from one angle it is like a lot of things i try use love etc um a text editor but it's a more mature text editor in the same way that you know drafts and at that one time you know elements they're these apps where you can like you've got a basic functionality and then you build on it with let's just call them plugins it's a text or similar to

AlexTextMate, I would say, isn't it more similar to TextMate or Sublime Text? Was that the one?

MerlinYeah, yeah. I just want to like in general just say like, for example, if you need to use Microsoft Word or Office 365 or whatever it's called, you open it up and you use it and yeah, you can get things like Mac, I guess their time was you could get things like macros. You can buy things like plugins, stuff like that. But it's designed to work straight out of the box, such as it does. Yes, you can buy filters for Photoshop, but the most basic functionality of a lot of text editors is to just make a text buffer, like a Unix-friendly text buffer. And eventually we started syncing

those up, all those kinds of things. So yes, to answer your question, though, like TextMate, or in my case, like HomeSite, it's also, what you might call an IDE. So it's the structure of this app, like, you know, the way that there's so many apps out there where you've got the way that it looks, the way that it works, the way that it interacts with the internet. Like you have all these different, so like there's a million different like markdown plugins for it or modules or extensions, they call it, I think, right? There's all these different themes for it. But the IDE part is what's really powerful, especially if you're like a real-ass developer.

If you're like Casey and doing stuff in, you know, Windows++ or whatever, an IDE makes it so easy for you to call up a function or a class. So you can basically have these – I know you know this, but I'm just sharing what makes this special – is that whatever it is you want to do with it, you have an extraordinary amount of control. The closest in some ways is sublime text because there are some things where you have to go into a .json. But there is at least an interface for all this stuff. The community around this is bananas.

There's so much good stuff. The settings can sync. And also, for example, like I say, I've finally settled for now mostly on the GitHub desktop app. And when you're in GitHub, you say, okay, pull the latest repository, blah, blah. and it pulls it. And then there's a button right there that says open this in visual code or open this in diffs or open this in merge or whatever. You can basically just click and it opens. Oh, that's cool. Everything in that repository opens in its own window.

So you and most people probably don't need it, but there's just, it's a lot, and it's not like drafts, but in a similar way to drafts, you could build a seven-sided lighthouse made of dreams, which is always very intriguing to me.

Alexso anyway i might go all in on that i i am oh we haven't even mentioned it here but i am so into the guy who does github for poets on on youtube i haven't watched it yet really it looks good it's supposed to be really good so good it is better put that in notes yeah it's it's better than any i well i've only taken two cs classes and that's because my my high school they did kind of offer them but like it was the boys went into that one the girls did newspaper um but then i became the

editor motherfuckers um but but the girls did news oh we did it was like you don't want to be um it was a clam bake versus the sausage fest as as yellow jackets would say um wow but the what's good um the i i don't know the i think the reason i'm so excited about this actually is because of you know for for uh example the visual code community that you mentioned is

very similar to like the um what is it oh good lord the obsidian no oh well those folks do but Usually I'm like, oh, God, I got it.

MerlinI just love good documentation. Like as with Synology, the documentation for Visual Studio Code, is that what it's called?

Speaker AYes.

MerlinThe documentation is terrific. Like down to like here's – I love a thing where it's like you could copy and paste this and drop this in your JSON and just change it. You know what I mean? It used to drive me crazy about Sublime Text. Like it all had to be done. I wanted like a real-ass Mac preference area. But I think the thing that might intrigue you about this that might, as it has with me, make it an attractive nuisance for you is that it's just in that sweet spot for me of like, oh, I can make this the way that I want. I can learn a little bit.

And I can theoretically apply this with stuff that I do. And again, I'm not trying to drag any other editor. It's just that it's so neat to me. And the fact, for example, that they make it for Synology. Like when I edit my .yaml files in Synology, it's inside. There's a video code studio video. I'm going to write this down.

Speaker AThere's a, you know, it doesn't matter.

MerlinBut you can get it everywhere, like VI, like Emacs, like any of those. Like you can get it virtually anywhere. And a lot of the stuff can sync. And I cut you off.

AlexNo, no, you didn't. the the you are saying you are you are circling this i hate that term so much i've come to hate it even more but it's this kind of stuff that is so powerful but also so lightweight that gets me

Merlinvery excited because oh i totally agree and drafts drafts is that to the 10th power yes you know in so many ways and it's like it's see i never want to say anything negative it's like it's almost intimidating. There's so much there. But if you go to something like, you were looking at Thought Asylum, the Thought Asylum stuff on drafts?

AlexYes. Oh, man.

MerlinJesus fucking Christ. Right? It's this suite of suites. I mean, it's almost like, oh, you know, I didn't like...

AlexIt's an app in drafts. It's wild.

MerlinIt's a platform. It's practically a platform. Right. Oh, man. Because there's core parts that you never need to touch, and then I guess it's similar in some ways to maybe Node or React or whatever, where somebody's put all this stuff together, it's a tool for making tools in some ways.

Alexthat's a great way to phrase it there's a lot of I use a lot of tools to make tools interesting problems

Merlinand sharp tools that's what everybody wants in life

Alexand a knife I love knives

Merlinany other open ones? I've got to talk to you about my lists let's see

Alexnow that I've kicked Matt out what does it say? oh this is not even that funny

MerlinIt's just so – this is just – Madeline and I were – oh, fuck. We were watching The Warriors like we do whenever The Warriors are on. Usually at night we watch the game together. And it's just – I can make these jokes with her. I don't want to be unkind in public.

AlexIn private, you're just going to slap old ladies.

MerlinMost sports stuff is really dumb. And people like it out of a certain nostalgia. But sports stuff is dumb. Sports commentators are so fucking funny. And like I made my daughter choke last night with my impersonation of these guys. She choked on white rice. And she begged me to stop, which made me feel good. If you can kill your kid with jokes, you're winning. You're winning, dad.

But it's like, oh, yeah, you know, back when I was playing 30 years ago, you get out there and you got to play the five-man small ball. But, you know, if you're inside the paint, don't get your setup. You're going to have to get your setup. And you go back for the fadeaway. and I just love that guy's athleticism. It's like just the shit that they say is so goddamn stupid. What I appreciate as somebody like yourself that mumbles a lot in public for a living, I do appreciate the smoothness of those guys, right? These are the guys and they can't have a fucking second that they're not talking.

Speaker AAnd then they just say something like, I had a chorus like Anthony Encinato is number three

Merlinand three-pointers in the third quarter when the sun's going down. And you're like, yeah, yeah, but that's like some nervous wreck in a basement typed out on a screen and it popped up and you read it. You don't know that. But we were talking about jargon, how jargon's funny. And the jargon, I was asking her, Syracuse likes to make fun of me because I'm not up to date on business jargon. But I was just saying I'm trying to soften up my approach about that. So the mean part, just if it wasn't clear, is I think a lot of sports stuff is a little silly. And it really does kind of

come down to, this game is going to be all about who puts more points on the board. Yeah, that's accurate. Whoever gets more sports points will win the sports ball. And whatever, fine. People should like what they like.

AlexWell, it's very much like how I'm getting into... Well, one, I think that all sports should have separate leagues for a controlled, safe, steroid league, perhaps. Oh, man.

MerlinOh, I would take it even further. I think it should be, for example, it should be as, I don't know all the terms. I want to say MMA, but like there should be one where you, it should be a sport where you get to kill people and then you win money.

Well, there should, but you both agreed to it. What's boxing, dude? You're going to, you're going to get like a, you're going to get a traumatic brain injury the first time you step in that ring. How's that any different? You just die slower and stupider.

AlexYeah. It's just, it's like euthanasia by UFC. That's wonderful.

MerlinWell, it's more like youth in America, but the point is your brain is hitting a bone. Like a bone is being driven into parts of your brain that you need. Anyway, whatever. Just people should like what they like. But we're talking about jargon and some of the sillier ones. And forgive me, my friend feels bad every time I mention this because it was a visit with his company where I first heard needle moving. It's one thing to say we really need a project that will move the needle, which is bad. But when people started, so many people were saying needle moving. Is this project going to be needle moving?

AlexAnd I was like, oh, man. What the fuck does that?

MerlinNo, that's real. That's real. Yeah.

AlexWhat does that? I know.

MerlinBut I mean, like, start anywhere. Start in the 90s. Drill down. Open the kimono. Net net. Like, all those kinds of things. But the reason I'm trying to soften up is the very first thing in the document. Sometimes an email is just a way to say I love you. A lot of the way that we communicate with each other is closer to grooming than communication.

AlexWhat?

MerlinNo, like a monkey, like a monkey, like picking off your fleas or giving you hand stuff.

AlexI'm like, is this an Epstein situation or a monkey situation?

MerlinMy daughter used that word the other day and I found it very upsetting.

AlexEpstein?

MerlinNo, we're scrooming.

AlexOh, oh, yep.

MerlinI was like, how do you know that word? I said, do you mean it? She said, yeah, of course I mean it that way. I said, how do you...

AlexWell, I mean, it's a bit like how people...

MerlinWe never should have allowed that's what she said jokes in the house because everything's out of control now. Out of control.

AlexMixed messages, pronoun jars. That's what they said. Well, that's good. The whole thing – the reason I ask is because when people say gaslighting, usually they mean like lying or being cruel.

MerlinI think of gaslighting as meaning you're – it's a lot like my meaning of lying. Relying on saying something untrue that you know is untrue and expecting the other person to believe that it is true. I think the shade with gas – to me what makes gaslighting different than just being an asshole is you're trying to fuck with somebody's head and make them doubt a thing that is or feels very real to them by introducing doubt about their own maybe sanity or sensibility.

AlexYes. Yeah.

MerlinStop acting like this isn't real. You guys – you totally do this thing. You totally do this thing. What are you talking about?

Alexthat's gaslighting to me well and and i feel it also needs to be over a period of time like it's not a single like statement i i guess i don't know especially if it's a yeah that's i think it could

Merlinbe a one time but it also is the kind of thing where like you know it's that's it's hegemony like we don't have to have a meeting to talk about like who gets to park where everybody just knows shit about the office and the team that don't need to be discussed we don't even need to discuss the I hate this word, the rank hypocrisy of a lot of what is tolerated, accepted, rewarded here. We don't need to talk about that because everybody fucking knows it. And I think that does also then become a form of gaslighting. It's just understood that after we have cake in the conference room, pop quiz

hotshot, after we have cake in the conference room,

Alexwho cleans up? Yep, yep, yep, yep, yep,

Merlinyep. Is it the biz dev guy? Like, I doubt it. It's going to be Janice. Janice always cleans up after cake in the conference room. We just all know. We don't need to tell Janice to do that.

AlexDamn it, Janice. Damn it, Janice. Janet. I did a thing.

MerlinI've never seen it. I've never seen it.

AlexWhat?

MerlinNo, we got it. It's all queued up on Hulu. We watched the first few minutes. It looks really good, but I've never seen it.

AlexI love Rocky Horror Spoons. Yeah.

MerlinTo paraphrase Andy Dwyer, now I feel like it's too late to ask. I don't know who Al Gore is

Alexat this point i'm afraid to ask i mean al gore's rhythm is really fucking up my dinner night use but the only reason i get really

Merlinall sex score smoking that's his married name

AlexAll right. All right. I just want to clarify the only, and this is not me, you know, engaging with the chicken problem, but the reason I think there needs to be a clear distinction between gaslighting in other forms of either lying or manipulation

is because they are two separate things. It doesn't necessarily mean gaslighting is less serious than a straight out lie, but I don't know. It's almost as if it's like, okay.

MerlinBut gaslighting is more like, whether it's intentional or not, and I was going to ask you, does it have to be intentional to be gaslighting? But it's also that it's more pernicious because especially if it is going to be a longer – it's closer to a con in some ways than a standard lie.

AlexYes.

MerlinBecause it's something – a long con on Janice, which is a really good guy to buy Voices EP. Long con on Janice. What would you – oh, shit. Now, we should talk about the challenge, but this does also relate to the one list that I'm excited about. Oh, yeah. So, anyway, jargon. Oh, wow. Hey, I'm closing some parentheses. One time in a text, maybe in our group with all my people, four of us, but at some point, Matt was – of course, Matt sends me great dogs. And I don't want to talk out of school, but Matt's the best.

And at one point – maybe you – did you say this for Matt? But it was a Matt project where Matt had to go and take care of a dog because the dog needed an emergent walk.

AlexThat might have been in your super secret text channel. I do not remember that.

MerlinProbably. But I'm just saying, I love the phrase, an emergent walk. And I was saying to Emma why I loved it. I was like, Matt, Matt introduced this phrase to my life and I can't stop thinking about it. You know, I was watching, you know, I was watching that one guy, Eric, what's his name? The guy who does accent stuff and linguistics and, you know, the guy on Wired that does like celebrity accent critiques. I love that guy. And he was talking – he did a really good bit on people's pet peeves and bugbears like vocal fry. Well, actually, it's probably just that you hate women or the way the people – the elogisms that get accepted.

And he did a lot of good like fun debunking on that. But I am one of those people and I understand. He gave numerous examples of things. This drives me crazy. I don't like when people turn nouns into verbs. Yes, I know it's normal. I'm sure Shakespeare did it a lot. But I don't – please don't say impact if you mean effect. Effect with an A. It's different. It's like insure and insure. People don't even check.

The insure with an I is about insurance. Insure with an E is to make sure. Learn the difference. Figure it out. God damn it.

AlexIt's also a beverage that –

MerlinOh, that's true. And it's now got 16% more protein. But this is an example of this. What's an impact? So there was a time where you say, the financial downturn has had a severe impact on our revenue. I think you could say that. I don't like it when people say this downturn has impacted our revenue because the only thing that could be impacted is a tooth, and it's intransitive.

Or like the way Bill Clinton fucking introduced grow as a transitive noun.

AlexOh my God.

MerlinExcuse me, I'm sorry, as a transitive verb. And I still hate it. It still drives me crazy when people say grow the economy. It drives me be-nah-nuzz.

AlexI continue to be curious about how you react to these things in real time when it happens.

MerlinOh, I have a specific face. I have a very specific face.

AlexI feel like, have I seen this face?

MerlinI have a grimace. This happened when I tried, I got the grimace when I tried to rewatch Dead Poets Society. I got the grimace again last night when I tried to rewatch Shakespeare in Love.

AlexOh, God.

MerlinNo, it's just, it's way too walk hard. Like when he walks by the guy and hears him saying, rose is a rose, he goes, and then he does a little gesture with his finger to go like, oh, I could, look at me, I'm doing poetry with my index finger. And it's like, okay, no, out. I didn't even get to Gwynny.

AlexI had to just bounce. Hard.

MerlinI had to escape.

AlexI'm going to open a new bubbly water. Hard out.

MerlinNow, here's the thing. most people that i know including me who might know uh use the word emergency i would say mostly as a noun and obviously you know as a as an adjective so uh when the cat when when the cat shot on my toast it was a real food emergency wait how would you use it as a verb no no no this is what i'm saying so i'm sorry well so noun as in this is an emergency An adjective as in let's go to the emergency department.

AlexYeah. Well, you said mostly.

MerlinBut Matt introduced the word emergent.

AlexYes.

MerlinAnd I mean, that's not in the E.O. Wilson consilience sense, right? Emergent as in like a thing that's an emergency. Yes. But it also just sounds like the title of a pretty good book of poetry, An Emergent Walk.

AlexOh, oh, shit. Isn't that beautiful? Oh, shit. Yeah, it is.

MerlinNo, because you're used to it. You're used to it at this point. But that still has the lovely lightness. It's the thing that leads to shit like open the kimono. The first person who ever said open the kimono, that's brilliant. Like, or friend EA. This is all under friend EA. It's not officially an NDA. It's a friend EA. But the thing I'm trying to become a little bit softer and nicer about is that sometimes an email is just a way to say I love you. And there's a part of me that wonders, like, as a person on the outside looking in, I'm not talking about emergent walk here, but needle moving. might have some, I'm trying to be generous.

That might have like an emotional thrust inside a team in the way that it's used that I don't get because I'm outside that. So it all sounds like blah, blah, blah to me. In the same way that somebody could go like, oh, it's really important. Oh, by the way, in your HTML, you should really be using EM instead of I. And you should really be using,

what was that right? I always get it wrong. Or acronym versus- them around. Yeah, I have no idea. Acronym versus abbreviation. Like in life and in HTML, those are different. And somebody can really say to you, well, what's the difference? I tried both and they look the same. You're like, yeah, they look the same, but they don't mean the same. One is semantic and one is not. And do you really want to hear 15 minutes on how cascading style sheets enable you to control the way something looks without respect to the actual content and

how it's created and what a world that opens up no who fucking cares why are you making such a big deal dork you know because there's things where i i care about stuff like that or you watch adam neely explain the difference between like is this uh you know is this f sharp or g flat well there is a difference that only there's only no difference if you don't care about music but

AlexE-flat, the nostalgic note. It's, oh, man.

MerlinOr Dead Cat Bounce. You know, watch Being Right twice a day. There's lots of stuff, you know. I'm just saying.

AlexMe.

MerlinPeople should enjoy what they like.

AlexI, I. We should probably reset. I am.

MerlinAre you going to do the third one? Are you going to do the Jason Snow one, do you think?

AlexI'm.

MerlinThe third one where you have separate buttons for all the things?

AlexYes. Only so I can justify. If I push a button at least once, I think it's a business expense. But yes. You need it for your work. Yes.

Speaker AYes. Yes.

AlexThe, where were we? Okay. Challenge. Oh, should we do the challenge? Oh, I'm sorry. I'm settling. The emergent.

MerlinAn emergent walk.

AlexAn emergent walk.

MerlinThe Merlin Mann story. An emergent walk. oh shit we can do this in the after show i have two run x lists i started that i want to tell you about um but we'll talk about on the after show uh alex where people find the after show for do

Alexby friday please oh thank you so much for listening merlin you can find the after show at patreon.com slash do by friday and why would you want to do that um because you you have to give us five dollars a month to listen to the after show but sometimes i'd say uh it can get a little bit better than the show.

MerlinYou have a real musicality to your voice. You're one of those people where when you talk, it sounds like you're singing.

AlexI love that. No, it's more like when I'm singing, it sounds like I'm talking. Like, do you have the time to listen to me whine? I do indeed, but I'm just going to say it.

MerlinI have time to listen to the Buzzcocks instead. Challenge this week!

AlexOh, the challenge... I believe in last week's aftershow, we could not decide on... Well, I was...

MerlinNice try.

AlexMake a new watch face.

MerlinUse the time piece on your wrist for face. God. Make.

AlexMerlin, what was this week's challenge? What was this week's challenge?

MerlinMake an Apple watch face.

AlexThat was the same. Okay. All right.

MerlinThe same.

AlexI believe.

MerlinYou're really, really close to an emergent correction.

AlexDid you?

MerlinJonathan Franzen's follow-up, yeah. Jonathan Franzen!

AlexOh, that guy. Oh.

MerlinYou get a correction, and you get a correction, and you get a correction. Look under your seat. Is this your card? Ah! Because, you know, Apple Watch is a cool thing, and, you know, I sometimes wonder if this is one of those things that falls under the umbrella of, like, what I always think of. The classic for me is, like, iMessage stickers, where Mike Hurley and other people were so excited about it when they first heard about you, you first use it, and then like, when's the last time you sent an iMessage sticker? When's the last time you used anything besides photos inside of messages?

I accidentally record my voice 20 times more. Oh, that's terrible.

AlexWhy would you put that next to the send button?

MerlinBoop, boop.

AlexYeah.

MerlinAnd so the idea is you get this Apple Watch, and you can make different faces with different complications, and no matter what watch you have, if it still runs, if it still has any battery on it, This is, I think, one of the neat features of Apple Watch, which most of you probably know. But, you know, if you've got your, you know, Rolex diving bell or whatever, you're kind of limited in what you can do with it. And with this, I'm very interested. I've always been, since the beginning, very interested in the idea of, like, different watch faces for different contexts.

AlexYes.

MerlinAnd that really became very real and practical where Serenity Caldwell, RIP to a real one.

AlexOh, right.

MerlinWhen Serenity was living, working, and writing outside of the flying saucer. She was the first person I ever saw before theater mode was a thing. She was the first person I remember ever saying, oh, look at this thing you can do with your watch. You can basically turn off everything and make the letters read. And even if you move your wrist, it won't bother you. I was like, oh, that's so smart. You can have faces for travel. Well, this is a little bit of a spoiler. Faces for travel. Faces for sleep. Faces for weather. Faces of death.

Like whatever faces you want, you can have like for working out, right? It's so neat to me that you don't have to jam everything into one explorer view or one of those like where you're a fucking ship captain with all this weird stuff buzzing around. I still don't understand what half of these do. And then, of course, you get to add your complications. And through stuff like underscore David Smith's Watchsmith, you get a lot of flexibility to do that. Challenge this week was to make an Apple Watch face.

AlexYeah.

MerlinAnd I bet you did a good one.

AlexNo, not – well, okay. yes and no i used to have way more watch faces for exactly what you said different contexts and different just i mean i i had um a vacation face a um vacation face and um i would i i had a modular um face for live events a a modular face for um office

work and those would change i would just do modular like info infograph modular or just

Merlinum i don't never remember what they're called all i know is infograph modular is what i use

Alexfor almost everything yeah no it was modular because that's before i had the most recent one with the big ass screen which i love yeah um and then i'd have infographic for um excuse me good lord um that was cute it's like the way dipper sneezes but um the uh oh and then infograph for

Merlinoutside the the do you use the duo one on your giant ass new screen the duo one i've seen the new one where you get two full-width infograph? Oh, yes. You know, infograph modular where you get the big one. I think in the new one, which everything I read in the reviews made it sound like it's, I don't know. Anyway, you can get two of those now if you like that. Yeah. I've got a,

Alexwell, right now I just have a fantastical, fantastical on top of carrot weather and then drafts in the corner because that's really all I need during the day.

MerlinDo you do dictation for drafts?

AlexDo what for drafts?

MerlinWhen you hit drafts, what do you most often – what's the context where you find yourself hitting drafts? Just out of curiosity, how do you use it on the watch mostly?

AlexOh, I mean for everything and anything. Oh, yes, dictating, but anything and everything.

MerlinJust capture. Do you also look stuff up in drafts?

AlexNo. On your watch? No, no.

MerlinBut it's mainly capture, fast capture, right?

AlexAnd I am no longer a raise to talk to the Siri lady anymore or the British butler, as I have the voice set to. But I do push down on, what is it, the digital crown and talk to a whole lot as a kind of spy, which is annoying.

MerlinDoing it in public, I feel like a little bit of a chode. But it's the problem. The raise to speak thing can be really good. But it's one of those classic tech things where it either works way too well or not at all. Yes. It doesn't work really just enough. You know what I mean?

AlexYeah. You know what I'm talking about?

MerlinLike sometimes it picks up too much. Sometimes I wasn't actually talking to it. And then sometimes I'm like I'm screaming at my watch. Not as much as I scream at my Amazon devices.

AlexOh. Well.

MerlinI don't know how you live with your name. Oh, my God. Whenever we talk about you, this thing starts going on.

AlexWell, that was part of why we got rid of the Washington delivery devices because, you know, the shouting at it or when just when.

MerlinI wish they had more than three things you could call it. I mean, ideally, I would like personally, I know this is security through obscurity, but I wish I could have my own word for hailing. I think each person in the house should get their own word for hailing. and like I say security by obscurity but like you know keep the honest people honest. If you walk into somebody's house like our friend Max used to do this where he would say hey dingus order cards against humanity yes or whatever which sounds like something he'd done before

like that's a good bit but if mine was like it knows my voice and it knows I like to say jumbo like that would be my word. Right

Alexwait so if I say jumbo

Merlinjumbo

Alexturn the lights off but does the echo have a personalized voice recognition the same way

Merlinsiri does i think so i think your three choices are uh amazon no sorry alexa echo and computer

Alexyes yes and and uh having computer was fun for a while until uh started doing podcast well when you don't talk at home.

MerlinBut if you're not watching Mean Girls or Racist Gemstones, it's the only two things I can think of because I'm racist. That's the only two things I see on TV where I hear the word jumbo. Jumbo. You might think I'm saying Django.

AlexThat's a good...

MerlinWe were watching that the other night and of course we both at the same time did the bit. We both looked at each other, put up our index fingers. That's Django. He's still chained at this point. this will serve nicely as a bill of sale

AlexDjango untamed Django untamed Django untamed

Merlinan emergent Django

but it's neat because the watch what's the watch for I mean, we've had years with this and it was introduced as a thing that I don't know. I mean, much has been made of this in our communities, but there's been some interesting pivots from Apple themselves. They selves by like it used to be like it was sold as some weird combination of what? Like a fitness device.

AlexAnd the most personal, I believe Tim Cook said the most personal device we'd ever made as if it was like a vibrator.

MerlinMine is my right hand, but that's all I'm going to say about that.

Speaker ABut the – cut that, cut that, cut that, cut that.

MerlinBut like the fitness stuff was definitely up there, right, at first. But then also, what was the goddamn phone company? Was it who made – shit, the phone where they had the cool little phone with the keyboard. We had – you could have five friends.

AlexOh, the sidekick?

MerlinSingular?

AlexI think T-Mobile.

MerlinYou know what I'm talking about though where like it was all like a MySpace kind of thing? And this was originally the button, was it? Originally the button was mainly for like contacting people, right?

AlexI believe so.

MerlinDigital Crown has always been Digital Crown. But they did some major rethinks on this based on, I think, how people were actually using it.

AlexYes.

MerlinAnd it's probably, I mean, next to the AirPods Max, it's probably the least essential premium Apple thing in the world. Unless you do need it. In which case, if you do go, as we say, all in on it, it can be pretty great that you always remember you've got this Dick Tracy thing on your wrist. So, you know, but it's interesting to me in that it is useful for doing things, but it's crazy fast and useful for just knowing things or seeing things.

So there's elements of the watch where you want to know something at a given time in a certain context. And there's elements of wanting to be able to do something at a certain time in a certain context. And then how does that change? by time of day or where you are it's like i still still think it's a very interesting although it's

Alexnot for everybody i still think it's a really interesting device i well for it used to be anyway essential for me because as i said and we've talked about in in the past um when doing events um and you're running around with a bunch of cables and and all that it is you know uh it It was more a knowing things type situation or, oh, and when Apple or iMessage got the tap back thing, just being able to be like, yes, I have seen the thing.

MerlinI like tap back. I can't believe how much I like tap back.

AlexOh, I adore it. It's just a nice.

MerlinIt's so efficient.

AlexYeah.

MerlinLike when really all you need to say is like, hey, thumbs up.

AlexYeah. It's kind of my version of a, what is it? Oh, a read receipt because I don't like read receipts.

MerlinOr if you want to just, in a passive-aggressive way, say, I'm busy, you can always hit the heart.

AlexThe, um, oh, see, no, I—

MerlinIt's the most condescending of the tap-backs.

AlexI hope—no, I said—

MerlinMy daughter does it to me 60 times a day.

AlexI—

MerlinHeart means I'm old, I think. Look at this cat. The cat's licking another cat. The heart.

AlexThe, uh, oh, God, sorry. I—

MerlinNo, we were passing around in the family texts. we were passing around to this giant, giant, giant, this portly cat, this huge, fat cat with so much hair, basically laying, sitting back, laying on its back, holding in a little hug, holding its kitten and licking it.

AlexOh.

MerlinSo it kind of looked like it was going to eat it, like the shark guy from Justice League.

AlexOh. What is this noise my lips keep making?

MerlinI tried to start watching the John Cena show last night, which looks amazing, but it was clear that it would help if I watched Justice League. And you know what? You know what? the Justice League with the article included. It's pretty fucking good.

AlexWait.

MerlinIt's the guy that did Guardians of the Galaxy. It's silly and it's fun and it's basically a DC version of Guardians of the Galaxy and I'm here for it.

AlexWait, isn't the Justice League the...

MerlinWait, did I say Justice League? Sorry, the Suicide Squad.

AlexFuck me.

MerlinFix that. Make me sound smart.

AlexSuicide Squad.

MerlinSorry, the self-harm boys.

AlexThe self-harm boys.

MerlinI didn't really do anything at all, hardly. I tricked out my all-carat weather one, and I revisited. I have a go-to-sleep one. I have one that has a go-to-sleep. I did my go-to-slep one. I have one that's all just for sleep.

What did you do?

AlexI actually did kind of the reverse. I had a go to sleep one, but now I just use the focus that automatically puts it into sleep mode. The one thing I hate.

MerlinBecause you set it to be on a schedule automatically?

AlexYeah. Yeah. So it goes, it should go off at 10, but I'm bad. And it goes off at 11. This is, I am upholding myself. That's fine. No, I should be better. But that has.

MerlinYou should be better.

AlexEveryone says so.

MerlinYou should be better. I should be better.

AlexFuck you.

MerlinBetter than this. You should have got them at the hamburger store. If you wanted chips, you should have got some at the hamburger store.

AlexWell, the other thing I did, I'm sure.

MerlinIs it just on Spotify now? What happened to the podcast? Why am I not getting new episodes? Is it on Spotify now?

AlexNo. It's always sunny podcast.

MerlinThe last one I got was the Gangma Gives Back.

AlexNo.

MerlinAre there any new ones after that? I thought it was Mondays and Fridays. I bet it's a Spotify jam up. I bet it's a fucking, but you got to go to one of these Tidal or something now.

AlexOh, well, Anchor, speaking of Marco, Anchor has been fucking, really fucking up.

MerlinOh, he had to fix something on Overcast, right?

AlexOh, but it wasn't just him. Like, every podcast app that I know.

MerlinAnchor is the one where you make your own podcast and it shits it out for you, owned by Spotify.

Alexyes

Merlinsorry I'm not trying to be glib I'm just trying to get a place for this like what anchor anchor is that thing where like for a week everybody like got sponsored to do an anchor thing and then Spotify bought them and it's for people to do like a casual easy record it in post podcast is that the idea

Alexand it was really fun for for a couple weeks and I don't almost a week yeah no and I don't even mean that despairing you know what I mean

Merlinit's gonna be like Wordle it's something people will be doing for years

Alexno but what's what it was it was a fun little trend it was a fun little trend didn't like gaslighting you you piece of shit

Merlini love i guess it's just a fart at someone you love okay all right all right

Alexparentheses um the always sunny podcast is the unofficial it's always sunny podcast is on overcast um but the uh thing that was what's wrong the uh yeah and even the most recent one you sent me a link to um the gang uh what the gang exploits a miracle uh no no the religion talk one um it was so good uh oh but the oh shit i think you're right gang is okay all right i guess

MerlinSo 17 would be Monday. See, but these are a week apart. So there wasn't a Friday. They didn't do an episode episode. They did the hamburger store fight.

AlexYes. Okay.

MerlinEverything will be fine.

AlexYes. It's okay. Everyone calm down. Calm down.

MerlinIt's just very important that you always park as close to the post as you can.

AlexI wouldn't do that to Glenn.

MerlinIt'll start beeping at under like 14 inches, but you really need to get as close as you can.

AlexWatches. I got a ticket for not doing that one time. Oh, no. Anyway, I actually ended up...

MerlinI heard you get it in San Francisco. You can get a text before you get a ticket now.

AlexWhat?

MerlinI just saw a headline about it. That's a neat idea.

AlexOh, fuck all of you guys with your...

MerlinYeah, fuck all of us. I agree.

AlexThe mayor of New York was dragging Chicago, and he was absolutely right to do so.

MerlinI'm so sorry I sent you that tweet about Lori Lightfoot.

AlexOh, my God. I thought it was so fucking funny. Feeling fine.

MerlinI'm trying so hard. But before I can get better at not discussing people's appearance or names, I'm trying to not discuss appearance or names because they're two easy jokes and they're mean. And people don't have control over that. But first, before I get better at not making fun of people for how they look, I need to stop being very amused by how people look. And that's the hard part, if I'm being honest.

Speaker AIt's Laurie Light. It's a screen.

MerlinIt's a shot. Somebody takes a photo. It should be the show art. somebody and i really feel like i'm punching down in 60 ways she's getting smaller and smaller every

Alexweek alex there's no way to punch down to laurie lightfoot except literally she's three and a half inches tall at this point but she's still wearing big boy suits oh god i yeah there's no way to you can literally punch down on laurie lightfoot it's a shot it's a shot of a screen with laurie lightfoot

Merlintalking to this. WGN, it's going to be Chiron says, Mayor Lori Lightfoot, feeling fine. And she's she looks like she's about to she's like just arrived on the planet and is about to explain the Earthlings' terms of surrender.

Resistance is futile. Lightfoot has spoken.

AlexLightfoot out. Hate is a very strong word. I don't know if I hate Lori Lightfoot, but I hate everything she's ever done.

MerlinNow that I'm friends with Sydney, I've soured a lot on Lori Lightfoot. I heard some stories. I heard some shit.

AlexWait, Lori Lightfoot has done horrifying things for Chicago. Do you not know that? Yeah, she's horrible.

MerlinBut she's also fucking really, depending on your point of view, I guess, either being very misleading or straight up dishonest about the thing with teachers yes oh absolutely it's really fucked up yes it's trying to make the teachers look really bad and like the goats and like yeah yeah yeah well and

Alexthe thing people love to say is like oh any um being mayor of chicago is uh thankless job and it's like well yeah that's why you so like why do you need to have like oh yay good for you like do you want a mayor participation trophy what in the world is hey here's an idea if you think the

Merlinjob's hard and you don't want it don't don't spend months trying to get it oh she was wanted it's so

Alexfucking hard like this is what made me um finally want to register as a chicago native versus a dupage county native because um now our boy sean caston is in office and not voting for chicago may really hurt this time around but man yeah no she's um has done monstrous things okay i want to i want to i want to stop doing this i'm sorry i'm sorry for your watch no no no it's my fault i keep interrupting you you can't get anything done this goddamn show let's just reset the watch um i i

apologize marco i really like i like looking at the contour watch face it's i understand that it

MerlinI need to look that up.

AlexIt's in the, I think it's like...

MerlinYou don't want that California one with the wrong numbers on it?

AlexOh, yeah. That one's real bad.

MerlinThese numbers are wrong. Ooh, how much did that cost? Quite a lot. How many of the numbers are wrong? Several. It's a mix. Why do you have that? I don't know. Shouldn't they all just be numbers?

AlexOh, boy.

MerlinThis one's nice. Contour, contour, contour. Some of these are really terrible.

AlexIt's people probably don't enjoy the. Well, it's a analog face, but it's not. It's a digital watch with hands. But then I just I still have my drafts complication on there and I dictate into it. But that's my work mode focus mode or whatever.

MerlinCan Watchsmith change? Watchsmith can't change your whole face by the time of day, can it?

AlexNo, unfortunately. but um i ended up kind of i also took uh again um i don't know why i'm apologizing but i took overcast i took so many apps off of this watch and it feels are you gonna kill him or something no are you obsessed with him thank you marco i love i love your work but um no i just took um

Merlinslowly choking him while you read bible verses in your basement you're gonna go full gacy on poor fucking marco

Alexoh boy um yeah no so i i don't know it is very much for me a like an inbox versus no no not an inbox just a notification device and i kind of like it this way yeah that's why i think it's

Merlinimportant to distinguish something that seems obvious but like like i was saying it's there's it's valuable to be able to do things on your watch but we you don't don't sleep on what you can learn from looking at your watch like the face that you make it is i mean you can already do it we can already do any anything almost with siri well asterisk but but like you have ways to do things but like the ability to like and i think the iphone is similar where there's more and more stuff where like yeah i'm using today view more i really like widgets like being able to know

stuff maybe that makes me like seem a little android but or like laurie lightfoot but i think that's i think that's really cool so you got work time and then like fun time alex time oh um work

Alexoutside sleep and that's it now um oh travel i want to say the obvious boy i'm real basic having

MerlinBack when we used to travel, having a travel face is crazy useful.

AlexAbsolutely.

MerlinIf you travel, well, I'm speaking as though this is still a thing. I never want to travel again. But whenever I have in the past, well, I've always had at least one premium flight tracking app.

Because if you pay for those, you can get some really good features that are crazy handy. You will get some updates faster, perhaps unsurprisingly, certainly faster than United would tell you. But you'll get some updates like before, definitely before they announce it. You know what I'm saying? Like if there's delays and stuff.

AlexOh, yeah. Yeah. I had the flighty content.

MerlinBut like the time zone stuff, like all those things like that, all the little bits and bobs about travel can be so handy to have right on your watch.

AlexYeah. I feel that focus, for me at least, focus mode has been working more, not just my mindset in using it, but the actual functionality. There seem to be some.

MerlinOh, I would love to talk about that. I could really use some help with that.

AlexI think there are fewer bugs. I don't know. Well, and I, however, I stopped using any timed ones except for the sleep. Oh, really? Yeah, because I think that was fucking it up.

MerlinYou're having to just get, I was just going the opposite way.

Speaker AOh, no, I just do have a shortcut and it goes to whatever.

AlexWait, and actually, oh, yeah, you can just pull down and then long press on focus. And then, yeah. On the watch? no on your phone um that that oh oh absolutely i do that all the time um and i i yeah i used to well i i used to trigger a bunch of shortcuts from my watch too and then i'm like you know what the shortcuts that i actually use i can just talk into it and i don't need a complication for that and i don't know i'm really paring a lot of things down and trying to be as

god reminders is so close to being all i need to have as like a task manager and this uh this wasn't like a this isn't interesting to talk about but it was another challenge that was very

Merlininteresting to do and it was fun yeah because if you because it's something it sounds silly but like it's such a cornerstone for me of like you know if you had to sum it all up or boil it all down uh remembering to remember like yeah you know something but do you like know know that Like, do you feel that in your bones? And like you, one has guesses. One may think things like, oh gosh, I feel a little bit disorganized. But it isn't until you put all your shit in one place and realize how much of it is shit that you're shocked at how much cruft has accumulated, cruft and kippel,

that really wants, wants, that will get in your way. The more shit you have around, the more like, if you want to think of it as like, you know, you want more needles and fewer haystacks. but like you know final final three on the desktop like delete it like all that stuff all these apps that that you're not using or i i agree with you i think any of that that stuff accumulates and becomes like almost like an unnecessary background hum of like you know i mean just like oh god where do i go to do this you should i mean it's nice to get your hands on your tools as fast as possible

that's why that's one reason i'm interested in just trying to go all in on some apps for a while just to see what it's like. Because you're right. You end up learning something. You learn something about how you like to work.

AlexYeah. Oh, God. My stomach made a terrible noise. Oh, Lord. Are you hungry? I guess I am. What did you... Did you do anything? You're very... Yeah, yeah, I did.

MerlinI did some things. I mean, this is a challenge I've done since the beginning. I went and looked at my old watch faces that I'd shared with you or put on iCloud. And I don't know. I think I'm pretty basic about this. the ones what have i got here that i really like like i say i've got one that's mostly the carrot weather one is funny just because it's i did an infograph modular with everything i could

Alexthink of in carrot weather um just because i love carrot weather it looks very cool and honestly when uh if if you go if for example if you were on vacation in florida it is genuinely super super helpful for man i agree i agree tides oh yeah i always end up getting tied things when we go to

MerlinRhode Island. I mean, my most basic, you know, the basic one I've got on God, I don't even know what this does. I need to clean this up. I kind of like the look of some of the fancy Explorer style ones or See, the problem is, what I want to say here is do you really need to call it a chronograph if you just need a watch? But then somebody will explain the difference between a chronograph and a watch and I'll have to join the self-harm boys. um but i i do think i think the travel one is really handy um and and i i just what's my sleep

one yeah i have a sleep one that i actually don't use all that much but this is probably the closest thing i've got to like i'll send you this one this one's kind of cool um it's basically got

Alexgoing to bedtime mode wait how are you gonna send something i was just about to say i wish that you could send a face to somebody and then you can just like you can send a shortcut wait what oh

Merlinoh the more you know huh uh i mean i would do this on a phone personally go to my watches i'm on griffin's on the stand justin's on my wrist i'm going to i had to eol travis it was a serious too travis has been eol uh i will send this to you it's not very pretty but here it is and don't send my voice there uh that's obviously not a particularly careful one

but that has got going to sleep mode it's got do mindfulness it's got blood oxygen ecg um do my pulse uh it has graphic or dial uh do my heart rate variability um and i can look up my

Alexseven day average um for sleepy things this oh okay this is this is cool but also i had a similar

Merlinone that I, again, I got, I wouldn't necessarily have this on one. I'm sleeping, but this is a sleep mode, sleep related, better put, it's a getting ready to sleep dial. Oh, I see. Yeah.

AlexThat stressed me out. Like I took off my heart rate one because I, as we've talked about many times, I don't know if my heart rate is fast because I'm anxious or if there's something wrong with my heart so i took yeah i i took um uh god i always forget the name sleep watch watch sleep whatever auto sleep and sleep watch are the two that i use yeah i yeah um i like the ui of sleep watch just a bit more and i was like you know what i don't need to think about

this before bed because my my uh watch will tell me if my heart rate is it's beneficial well and

MerlinAnd the thing that's, boy, I had the hardest, I think I'm getting bad at reading. It took a while for me to figure this out, that if you want, which one is it? It only works in sleep mode. Is it blood oxygen? Is that the one that only works? I think it's in auto sleep. There's a functionality, a function that you only get if you are using sleep mode. So it's beneficial to have it turn on automatically. Yeah, let me look it up. I think it's auto sleep.

Alexthat's the one i like a ut i i keep um i when i was experimenting with the nap lifestyle the sleep watch was the one that was just better for picking things up what okay top top right of your sleep watch face what is unlocked to view is that the that's the mindfulness

Merlinand i'll send you my everyday walk around one here oh yeah i think i think i need someone to explain watchsmith to me um this is one and you know me you know like let's go straight back to home screens right what do we know about me i just don't think about this stuff very much unless i start thinking about it but there's that's my that's my uh my everyday one that is infograph circle which is not showing up right now which happens to me all the time and i don't know why date my schedule battery weather alt from carrot and then weather regular because i'm a

little bit gay for a carrot right now oh it's maybe the most interesting apple watch family of things it's there's so much stuff that carrot weather can do it's amazing i mean obviously

Alexwatchsmith is the king but i love carrot weather it's it's the robot will talk dirty to you if you want it's beautiful you can even put the ocular sensor on your uh watch the what you know the eye

Merlindon't poke the eye it yells at you if you poke the eye oh yes yes and you can put that you can

Alexput that on your watch. I didn't know that. That's amazing. It's a complication.

MerlinI'm going to do it right now. Sorry, David Smith. I'm taking you down. I'm putting up the ocular sensor. Let's see if I can get to talk to me. I've never actually done it. I've only seen it, but I'm going to care it. If this is funny, I'm going to ding this out because I want to turn on the fan and also my new Apple Watch. I'll be here in a minute. Let's see. Compass.

Speaker AWhat? Okay. Hang on. Let me check here. Care it. Whether more

Merlinclicking or ocular sensor. Ah, there we go. Let's see if it works. Okay. You're ready. Stand by. Oh, all to me, a clicking noise.

Speaker AOh, God, this is such a pretty watch app.

MerlinIt's partly fracking cloudy. What mode do you run it in? Do you run it in the foul mouth one?

AlexI switch it. I wish this was a shortcut. I wish you could use a shortcut to change its, what's it called, attitudes. Oh, God, I don't know. Oh, personality. Because I like to switch between the politics and the modes in which you can, like, friendly, snarky, homicidal, and overkill. Because he writes all of those himself.

MerlinBut can't you also pick, like, your political leaning?

AlexYeah, yeah, yeah. It's got the homicidal person. Okay, so right now I have a homicidal personality, and my politics are anarchist, because then sometimes I do communists, and then sometimes I do... This is so dumb.

It's not dumb.

MerlinThis is the most personal device they've ever made, despite my hand.

Thank you.

272. Moist, Succulent, Craveable

Show notes

Transcript

272. Moist, Succulent, Craveable

Show notes

Transcript

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