279. All These Little Shits

AlexThis is Do By Friday, a weekly challenge podcast with Alex Cox and Merlin Mann. This week's challenge, find your comically sized object.

Good morning, Merlin Mann. Good morning, Alex. Oh boy. What?

Speaker AWhat is going on? What's happening? You're not yourself.

AlexOr maybe you are. I have not been this disappointed in myself in a very, very long time.

Speaker AI find that hard to believe.

AlexOkay, fair.

Speaker AYou have not been this disappointed since you first woke up this morning.

AlexNo, no, no, no. Today was the first day that I'm like, you know what? I have complete control over my own time and attention today. and I am going to be exactly on time for Dubai Friday. I don't need to worry about being exactly on time. I refuse to believe you thought this.

MerlinI refuse to believe it.

AlexDon't implicate me in your broken game. No, no, you're pathologizing this. Don't pathologize this. Oh, no, I'm not.

Speaker AI'm diagnosing this from a distance.

AlexAnd, you know, I've been keeping up with the Merlin Podcast universe and I know that you have a bang bang machine that's impacting your work.

Speaker ANo. What are you talking about? What are you talking about?

AlexI don't know. I don't know. I hear there's a big old truck.

Speaker AListen, no. Listen, no. The bang bang machine is not here today. It's just the asthma apparatus, which you might be able to hear,

Merlinwhich is not nearly as bad as the bang bang machine. The bang bang machine is next level, as you youths say. But you know, it's a lot.

AlexWhat do you say that? No, no.

MerlinIt's a lot like people in the city of Kiev. I'm going through a lot, but I think I'm being very brave about it. Very bold.

AlexYou are. You are. And I was like, much like war and Ukrainian refugee, I should give space to Merlin. And he can just say, well, let's start whenever because the bang bang machine is here. And it's distracting. Are you diminishing me? No, I think you've gone further than empathize.

MerlinI think you're diminishing me. You do that.

AlexOh, no, no, no. And then I was a half hour late to record.

Speaker AYou wouldn't.

AlexYeah. Okay.

Speaker AAll right.

AlexOkay. I don't even know. My Wednesdays are yours. My Wednesdays are supposed to be yours.

Speaker AI invented that.

AlexWhat? No. I invented that. Do you want to be known for one thing?

AlexHello. Hello.

Speaker AYeah, this has been very, very confusing. And the thing is, okay, so I don't know what we're even talking about at this point.

AlexI'm upset that I'm late. I have let myself down and you down.

Speaker ACan I out you? Ooh.

AlexOh, come on.

Speaker AOkay.

AlexWhich one?

Speaker AWell, okay, we can cut this out. It helps the community if people know that you're how you are. Which community? I don't know. I was here.

Merlingreat community if you if you want to talk about this we'll just talk about nothing but the show on the show all right all right which i mean you um i was here and ready and and here's the thing we for some reason that i don't understand you are the only podcast in which i participate where i've got to use fucking zoom and there are numerous problems with zoom one of the problems with zoom is if you open the app doesn't matter got to make sure you have your your very special

Speaker Ainvite open with the calligraphy script rsvp on it oh yes i will be there if i go away and i do it too and come back oh i've got to accept another invitation i never host i never host these because i avoid zoom like the plague except for you then i'm sitting here i don't even have my dick in my hand i'm just listening to the asthma machine and doing some very important investigative journalism and doing a tweet about ewan mcgregor and i'm just sitting here and it's it's half past the hour at our allotted time and I'm sitting here and I'm waiting. I got audio hijack open. I'm ready

to go. And then, and then let's just go back. Let's roll tape. I'm going to go back to my time, my time, 9.31 a.m. Oh, excuse me. Excuse me. 9.30 a.m. Exactly on time. Everything's open.

AlexI didn't want to bother you before then.

Speaker AHere's the message that I get from Alex. Oh, God. Like Elizabeth Holmes, I am not one minute late for anything. And it says here, do you have an est or want me to hang by? You said at 9.30 a.m. And I said, because I was somewhat taken aback. Oh, you're doing that thing. That's the kind of thing you do to somebody when they're 15 minutes late. But I was on time. And I said, just waiting on you, boss. And then may I share what you wrote in all caps?

Give me 10 sorry. and then I said, do you have an estimate? Do you, do you have an estimate?

AlexDid I even respond to that? I believe I was.

Speaker ANope. No. Then it went further. I said 22, you said 10 minutes, I said 22, Roger, Roger. I said, you are my Wednesday. These are all different texts. And then I said, this is what I want my greeting card for you to say. And then I said, we can reschedule if you're time constrained, no problem. And then I said, cause then you were taking your own sweet fucking time noticing that i'm waiting for you and i said i'm this relates to my journalism i'm gonna putter around away from the screen holler when you have a two-minute warning and then you said do we have a doc spelled with a k that was my holler that was my holler

and i was hollering into my phone do we have a doc now now here's the thing i send you the the dock when i when i when i clone it every time and i say doc and then i send it to you but here's the thing i don't need to do that because i always you don't because i share it with you and if you could be fucked to go look on your goddamn computer you'd see that there is a doc that i made well one time one time i don't send it to well one of the six times i didn't send it to you

and then i just said i said out of curiosity can you see it i should have said do you have an est and then i said i just need two minutes to finish a very funny tweet it wasn't actually that funny and then i said okay i can go anytime and now the asthma machine's outside but it's not nearly as

Alexbad as the bang bang machine how are you the the asthma machine so you can't hear that i hear like

Speaker Aa low rumble it'd be nice if that's the only thing we had to take out of this oh it's kind of nice

Alexcan you can you hear the scoots that are going on in our no hang on let me let me mute now listen

Speaker AOkay, stand by.

MerlinHere we go. No, I hear nothing.

AlexOh, I think it's driving. Oh, it's driving away. Okay, let's go.

MerlinWhat is it?

AlexThey are beep beeps and vroom vrooms. They're not quite, like they're somewhere in between a Vespa and a motorbike.

Speaker AIt sounds like there's some kind of Shriner style parade of people on hoverboards. What are you talking about?

Alexour neighbors for some reason have uh don't be creepy have a garage full of vespa like from vespas to dirt bikes oh two-wheeled uh two-wheeled conveyances yes an array of just a bi p not a bi wheelers i i don't know and and i'm very jealous because it looks fun i was once

Merlinadmonished. I was once admonished for using the word bipedal because I was told it was ableist.

AlexOh, because people... Oh, right.

MerlinMust be nice. Well, the neurodiversity of the machines are taking over. I think we can all agree. Hello and welcome to Dubai Friday's Weekly Challenge podcast.

AlexEmpathy for the machines. Have empathy for the machines.

MerlinAre you officially now all caught up on

Alexno i no i don't think so because it is wednesday so i am not how your time was your own at this point are you gonna talk about that sure we could talk about that i wish you wouldn't i don't know

Speaker Awhy you bring it on yourself well why do you talk about things i don't understand why you talk about

Alexsaid the person who makes podcasts about themselves for a living which is uh whoa is that what i do

Speaker AOh, I'm going to need to change some forms because I didn't know that.

AlexIs it?

Speaker AHi, I'm Merlin. Hey, you guys are good at construction. I make podcasts about myself. No. All right.

AlexMerlinman.com is loaded. No, you don't.

MerlinCome on. Don't acknowledge me, please. Don't acknowledge me.

AlexNo, you're an independent writer, speaker, and broadcaster based in San Francisco. Is that what I should say in my Twitter bio? I'm an independent broadcaster now.

Merlinno no you should do you should do the douchebag four noun which is it was a very popular dance in the late 20s um uh you should do uh you should say oh here we go okay i got this creator chimera get about person i that sounds like someone who's just so right to be me too okay i'm gonna start writing these for you i'm gonna send you a bunch of these on our GitHub. Okay, here we go.

Let's see. A writer. A raconteur. A father. Chimera.

AlexI'm sorry.

Merlinthey should always end with person because that's where you really drive at home that

Alexyou're a person a human being is you know that has fallen slightly out of favor but that used

Merlinto be the that used to be the that used to be the douche way.

Speaker ADo you remember the four? Do you remember the four noun bio? You don't remember this?

AlexNo, I do. I do. But I haven't seen one in a very long time because they're confusing and I think people realize

Merlinthat there's no good bios.

AlexThere are no good Twitter bios except yours, of course. Yours are very

Merlinvery good. It's all on git. It's all up.

AlexLet's see what I've added. I also

Speaker Aadded a new thing that needs a name today. I'm excited about that uh what else that list is growing this is a terrific alexandra if i can call you that this is a great example as i've said before this is a great example of the look i know you know that you can write things down i know you know you can keep a list but i'm telling you once you

Merlinhave created a list and have blessed it like that is so empowering don't you find like once you said

Speaker Ahere's a list of a thing knowing that it exists and it's easy to get to and to add to doesn't that it sounds so stupid to say it but it i i realize i sound mental when i talk about these running lists but like it's incredibly um well productive because other people are like why would you like

Alexthat though they say it like they say it like that who are these people who says things what why are you with this oh i'll tell you i'll tell you developer ex-oracle wizard person

Speaker AI like when people say where they used to work That's one of my favorites too X Etsy You got out alive, huh? That's awesome Good for you

AlexThat should be my Twitter bio

Speaker ALet's see, my latest Twitter bio, what are my new lines Let's see, Cold as Ice Cream but Still as Sweet That's a Blondie song Let's see what I got here Oh, a line from West Side Story Frantic Jazz Music Continues

AlexOoh, I don't remember that line

Speaker AOh, it's from the beginning It's from the beginning. It's when Riff is running around. Oh, a line from the song Different Drum by Michael Nesmith. I ain't saying you ain't pretty. I love, I've always loved that line. Some Stupid With a Flare Gun, that's a line from a Deep Purple song. Ukraine Girls Really Knock Me Out, Paul McCartney.

AlexI love that you love these. It makes me very, very happy.

Speaker AWhat do I love?

AlexI assume you love your Twitter bios. You love your lists. I don't know who is chastising you for having lists.

MerlinI've heard people talk about having an emoji that's like their emoji. This seems like a very Mike Curley, Casey List kind of thing. It's like this particular heart is my emoji. And I don't know if I invented this, but I'm going to send you this. I almost want – I'd like this to stay an underground sensation, but I am pretty low-key proud of this. This is my two emoji – I'm sending this to you right now. That is my two emoji combination. Did you receive it?

AlexNo, no. I'm receiving, receiving. That's my two emoji count.

MerlinYou know what that says? It's grimacing face and thumbs up, but it kind of looks like the thumb is coming out of the face. You know what that's called? Stay safe.

Because I hate when people say that. I swear to God, if you tell Clarissa Ward to stay safe one more time, I'm going to lose my goddamn mind. She's in fucking Kiev. I don't know who that is.

AlexYou don't know who Clarissa Ward is?

MerlinOh, God, she's so cute.

Speaker AAnd she's really talented.

AlexI haven't kept up with season two. Season two of the war. Season three of war. Yeah. Uh-huh.

MerlinUh-huh.

AlexI know that apparently Tim Apple wore a blue sweater and a yellow Apple Watch band to support Ukraine.

Speaker AOh, my God. Is that what helped?

AlexThat's.

Speaker AI thought I noticed something today. Mr. Apple, where you are, your stainless steel with the band helped very much my daughter who I hold in my arms.

AlexOh, boy.

Speaker AAnna Delvey Foundation.

AlexI figured out Anna Delvey's accent. It is almost identical to Tommy Wiseau's accent. And his is also a combination of a bunch of European countries. And they both wanted to sound mysterious. So they just kind of smushed all of those different accents together. So it's just a weird one.

Speaker AWell, in the 80s and 90s, in a less enlightened time, before we understood neurodiversity, we would simply call that a Euro trash accent. And it was a thing. I went to college with a guy.

MerlinWow.

Speaker AOh, yeah. I went to college with a guy who was a real piece of shit. And he came from money, but he was one of those, like, trustafarian types. And, you know, who, like, really wore, like, the, you know, he was kind of like an old money, beat up clothes guy, but with, like, combat boots.

And to hear him speak and to hear him talk, he would have you know that he is as much from london as he is from brooklyn so imagine the person i just described speaking in an accent where it sounded like he in the same way that anna delvey sounds like she is both from germany and russia imagine a real a real piece of shit 18 year old who sounds like he's from london and brooklyn the worst the worst of both you know i

Alexcan't picture it i need a demonstration i'm neurodiverse i can't i can't i can't i can't I can't hear it.

MerlinI can't hear it. I love the witches episode of Shadows with the wonderful Lucy Punch. With the wonderful Lucy Punch. It's engarged. Quick cut to an erection. So goddamn funny. I love Lucy Punch. She is the, oh wait, I can do this because this is one of my Twitter bios.

Advisor. She also played the city's sixth most important financial advisor in a series of unfortunate events.

AlexI haven't seen it.

MerlinRemember the hop-on lady who lives with Buster?

AlexIt scared me. I didn't finish watching it.

MerlinYou didn't watch that. Put it on your list. You need to watch that too.

AlexNo, it's scary. It's very upsetting.

MerlinYeah.

AlexDid you read the books? You didn't read the books when you were a child.

MerlinOh, when I was a child. Yeah. When I was a child, I read a series of Unfortunate Events.

AlexIt was written when I was almost 40. No, no. That's what I am saying. You do not have the... Listen, listen. my my people the millenniums as you say reading that book as a kid along with things like the scorpion king i think that fucked us up a lot more than that whole financial crash and mass unemployment no no no like harry potter after the fourth book it gets fucked up in a series of unfortunate events it's like ha ha ha that's jim carrey are you i'm talking about the netflix

You, Zach, you're doing it.

MerlinI like the movie, but the TV show is next level. It's very, very good. The Netflix TV show is outstanding.

AlexOh, it's got gay.

MerlinIt's got Patrick Warburton.

AlexIt's also got gay.

MerlinIt's also got gay company. It's got Hedvig. Hedvig. Other Hedvig. There's a Hedvig who's in Joe versus Carol. There's the Hedvig that's in the Broadway one. That guy. That guy. I know who you're talking about.

AlexNeil Patrick Harris. There we go. All right. Yeah. What do you think Doogie's short for? I don't know why. We're really talking about each other.

MerlinWhat does Doogie stand for? What's it short for? Doogieman? Doogieler?

AlexI don't know. Douglas. I have not seen an episode of... What is it even called?

MerlinIt's called Doogie Howser, MD. He's a physician.

AlexOh, really?

MerlinHe's not an EDD like Bill Cosby.

AlexOr the woman from Queer Eye. Oh, God. But I like the ending where he's typing into the computer. He was making a clicky clack noise.

MerlinThat's how I met your mother, right? Is that what it's called?

AlexYeah, yeah, yeah. Shoot up!

MerlinSomeone to bring me my wig. Someone to fetch me the box. Someone to complete my half

Speaker Aand tend to my fox. Being alive! The guy from Law and Ordered is the best version of that.

AlexYes, I agree.

Speaker Araul esponza raul esparza does that mean hope we're waiting hope we're waiting i think i i

Alexthink i don't i don't know i thought you took espanol worldly yeah for like eight years it's all gone i'm not a worldly person i just i i pronounced it kia kiev oh god i know me too

Speaker Alike a fucking bitch i've been calling it kiev yeah julia afi says julia afi who's extremely reliable for all things Russia related. Woof. She says that's how you... I heard a thing. I heard a thing somewhere. They're talking about how you can tell. You know what? I don't care. I should talk about any journalism. I don't want to talk about this. What else did I say? That's just weak songwriting. You wrote a bad song, Petey. Classic line. Oh my god, I got three in a row from Mr. Fox in my

Alexbios. Oh, wow.

Speaker AThat's just weak songwriting. You wrote a bad song, Petey. Next one. Redemption. Sure. But in the end, he's just another dead rat in a garbage pail behind a Chinese restaurant.

AlexI love this movie.

Speaker AAnd the third, one that I quote all the time because it's equal parts George Clooney and Steve Jobs. Steve Jobs. It's Amateur Night in Dixie. I love that one. You want to guess what the next one is? Phone rings, door chimes, in comes company.

Then I've got this magic keeps me alive, but it's making me crazy. the Ice King. Nice going, Angelica.

AlexDo you have any sort of tagging system? Or do you know exactly where? Oh, man. That's impressive.

MerlinNo, this one I can just do with a command F if I want to find a particular one. I like to rotate them around. Some are classics. A ton of white boy guilt. That's my problem. I'll have to go to Joy One. One reason to use some drugs.

I'm going to get you to the Minutemen someday. Oh, a line from Belle and Sebastian. making life-size models of the velvet underground in clay. Let's see. Oh, oh, great line from REM. They crowded up to Lenin with their noses worn off. I don't think people Google these probably, but they could.

AlexI don't think so either. I do.

MerlinHenry V, they shall never hear Harold anymore. Study hard, guys. Trust me. Steve Holt.

AlexSteve Holt.

MerlinStudy hard, guys. Remember his inscription in the yearbook? You see it for like an eighth of a second. Study hard, guys. Trust me.

Speaker Awhen he's in a senior for the third time oh alex here we are in spain do i need to google that i'm a trust fund baby you can trust me

Alexoh i'm worried that you haven't that you've watched tick tick boom but you haven't shared your opinion because you know that this is complicated disappoint me uh-huh no no no no no no no no

Merlinno, no. This is actually, well, I mean, I'll tell you, it's actually super interesting. This is one of those ones. I will never say this in front of the young person, but it was my idea to watch this. I had to advocate for watching this. It happens that my kid and their friends are pretty obsessed with certain celebrities in that weird Lin-Manuel Miranda. We love him, but we make fun of him way. They're obsessed with Andrew Garfield. And I mean, my kid is legit obsessed with Ryan Reynolds. Because Free Guy is like their favorite movie.

But.

AlexI mean.

MerlinYeah. That's a good movie.

AlexAs it should be.

MerlinDude. I love the catchphrase. What the shit? That's a really good movie. So Troll the Respawn, Jeremy. That's Kimmy Schmidt. The. It's beeping probably.

AlexOh, hello. Hello.

MerlinI said, hey, you should check this out. Like my kid's not super into rent. Like the kid is not obligated to be into rent given my child's age. but I watched Tick Tick Boom from the top not really knowing exactly what it was but having a good feeling about it oh my god that song that first song shit now I've got being alive in my head 3090 is that what it's called 3090 time

then I guess it could be over summer it might have been Christmas but my kid was like I got a text from my wife it's like there's a lot of crying going on right now I was like what happened and my kid's like I was this movie crushed me crushed me so I don't even know what happens I imagine something happens maybe he dies or something wait wait

Alexit crushed your kid or your wife wait or everyone

Merlinand so

AlexMerlin you gotta watch this oh my god

MerlinI did start watching Ozark again because people yelled at me Ozark has Annadelvy in it and she's really really good Ozark's good I see why people like it

Speaker Ano I will I will I will but now see but now it's tricky because you know it's emotional it's like me watching Day of the Doctor

Merlinor once Day of the Doctor or once I think are my two most famous I will sob every time movies

Speaker Bor TV shows.

MerlinBut yeah, so no, I want to watch it. Andrew Garfield, very talented. Tick, tick, boom. I like musicals. I like West Side Story. I won't hear a word against it.

AlexI just haven't seen it yet.

MerlinI think people are mean. I think people are mean. People are mean.

AlexPeople are mean, but you know what? Who gets mad at a fucking musical?

MerlinWho gets mad about fucking West Side Story

Speaker Aand says, who is this for? It's like, it's West Side Story, dude. Macbeth, not a fan. Don't like royalty.

AlexYeah. You know what? You haven't seen Tick, Tick, Boom. So I won't hear of any endorsement of any musical. If you have not seen one of the best movie musicals of our time. Oh, it's a musical? It is perfect. I don't know if it's perfect because I have lost all objectivity.

MerlinLike Grace Jones says, I'm not perfect, but I'm perfect for you. Haunted corn maze actor tips, please. That's a good one.

AlexI don't know.

MerlinYou know when Griffin says that? Griffin does a Yahoo, and he goes, he says, hey, want a Yahoo? He goes, haunted corn maze actor tips, please. It's such a funny one.

AlexThat is actually something I would want an answer. I think the boys would provide a good answer to that. I'm curious.

Speaker AHey, everybody. Welcome to the club. Hope you enjoy the experience of Simply Cybersex blast off into Cybersex Joe Biden. Do you ever go back and rewatch them? A Bim Bam TV show? It's very funny.

AlexIt is very good. How about fuck that? It's very good.

Speaker AHere we are. Hello. It's crazy day. Crazy times. What else? Oh, I should tell you about my investigative. My Wednesdays are yours. Oh, yeah. You are my Wednesday and my person.

AlexYou've done some investigative reporting? What now?

Speaker AIt's not that interesting, but this fucking blue. Oh, no. I misspelled comically.

AlexYou're an independent broadcaster. Please.

Speaker Aplease share oh my goodness should i have you oh oh challenge right up by right oh shit okay i don't know what this is yet but capture this please um okay challenge challenge right right a are you clicking a pen what was that okay i'm ready okay i'm writing this now is that a tool you got a tool no no i am one but no

challenge challenge okay okay uh you're so smart i'm so smart uh write a bio for the other person appropriate for either a either twitter i think it'd be fun if it was for twitter because then there's a constraint right yes you are a consumer of nano leaf lights is that correct that is

correct okay i'm gonna i'm gonna do this is not technically a voir dire because it's really more of a deposition um you're not you're you're not a juror you're uh you're a deponent oh all right all right is it true in fact um mx coxman that you uh do you have nanoleaf hexagon lights

Alexi they are currently not on the wall because we had our own bang bang machine situation but typically yes i want to get the wooden ones oh all right sorry go ahead your honor um beyond

Merlinthe scope of the question um mx mx coxman um in your previous attempts to affix a hexagon nanoleaf to presumably a wall had you had any problems with the included adhesive sticker units

AlexYes.

MerlinDid, in fact, the hexagons just fall off your wall within a day or two when you used the approved hexagon sticker components?

AlexYes, sir.

MerlinOkay, okay. Do you know off the top of your head what the weight of a nanoleaf hexagon is?

AlexI do not. Would it surprise you, Deponent Coxman, Dissin, Stein, Ski?

MerlinWould it surprise you to know that the the tear weight of a hexagon nano leaf, hexagon half a leaf, that the weight of that is 408 grams? Would it surprise you to know that?

AlexYou can't see my my eyes widen and my jaw drop, but yes, it would surprise me. Yes.

MerlinWell, 408 grams. So what I would infer from this, and let's drop the bit because it's not that funny. I would infer from this that the Hexagon Nano Corporation believes that the sticker that they give you to hold up the Nanoleaf Hexagon should be capable of holding up 408 grams of Hexagon. And yet it does not, correct?

AlexCorrect. I have a theory about this. They're not testing it on different walls.

MerlinLast night, I affixed a very, very lightweight whiteboard to my wall. Oh, no. Hang on. Don't get ahead of me. Oh, no. And it's basically like a piece of cardboard with a little bit of magnetic white laminate on it. It's a really cheap Amazon whiteboard. But you know me. I could talk more about whiteboards. I got three new kinds of whiteboards that I'm experimenting with. Okay? So I thought to myself, I thought, okay, this thing definitely weighs less than a hexagon.

And I have these shitty stickers. What if I use four, four, four, four, four of these? Because otherwise I'm just going to throw them out. What if I use four of these Nanoleaf stickers to stick my whiteboard to the wall? Right? Seems like it would be fine, right? And reuse is better than recycling.

Are you with me so far? Okay. I just sent you an image. I came in this morning and my whiteboard was on the floor. All four of the stickers that held it up had unfixed from the wall and fell down. Alex, would you like to read the output on my digital scale to say how much the whiteboard weighs?

Alex304 grams.

MerlinIt weighs 104 grams less than a hexagon.

AlexGoddamn.

MerlinIt's two-thirds of an LB, and that couldn't stick. It couldn't stick to the wall. So I don't know what I'm going to do at this point, but heads will roll.

AlexThis is – This is what I need in time. Never – okay. I was wrong then because that's just ridiculous.

Speaker AThat sounds like an error.

AlexThat truly does.

Speaker AYou buy a premium. You buy a premium. More like Creamulum. You buy a premium product like the Nanoleaf Hexagons, which are a very, very good product. Now I'm telling my kids, if I were starting over, I would not start.

MerlinI said this to Daniel Benjamin the other day. If I were starting over from scratch, I would not go Hue. I would mostly go. Oh.

Speaker AWell, just because I think the lights are just easier to deal with, and you can get them from Apple.

MerlinWow.

Speaker AWell, I don't know. You miss out on some stuff, but I kind of almost prefer to miss out on a lot of the Hue stuff. I don't hate you, but again, things that need a name, Pounce on Merlin's shit list. I use it, but I don't recommend it. Anyway, we'll cut all that out.

That's frustrating to me. You know what I'm saying?

AlexIt's very weird. I almost genuinely want to find someone from the Nano Leaves company.

MerlinHow did you arrive at that particular stickiness that you would deploy that at scale to feel like somebody who just spent $200 on your lights? and we're not talking about like imagine this being more like a like a like a max house like a nice house imagine you had a nice house yeah and you put instead of just being you know my my little room in hovel town like imagine that you put these on an actual like nice wall well i guess you don't have to worry about it leaving a mark

Speaker Ajust come in they tumble to the ground hey ladies check it out my lights are in a pile

AlexAnd in Shark Tank fashion, I would assume that they just get like 3M strips branded as Nano Leaves.

MerlinYeah, they're going to Co-Packer, they call it. Co-Packer, that sounds dirty. Why should I call my wife my Co-Packer?

AlexNo, no. Just don't call her leave for chow. No.

MerlinAnyway, what else is going on? There's really not much else.

Alexyou well we don't talk about Bruno which is a movie that you still need to just finish at least

MerlinI like it up till the part before the end I can't watch the end it's fucking family

Alextwo butterflies but are you just not going to mention mention the Apple computers no no I'd be happy to

Merlinalso also in band communication if there's a thing that you wanted to talk about you could do that and just throw that out there yeah I ordered a monitor a display as you said.

AlexOoh, what kind?

MerlinThe cheap coating and the medium costly stand.

AlexI think that was the upsell. Apple is like a normal company now and I've got a medium.

MerlinBut you can't do shit with the... I mean, if I got...

AlexDid you buy one? Order one? Yes.

MerlinBut like I was so goddamn confused because it was the only thing. And I mean, this is not that interesting, but we did talk about this on Rack Diffs. Believe it or not, we talked about technology. But I was just saying that like this is another one of those. Oh, this needs a name. The CGP Grey thing of like, even if I don't need or want this, I'm just happy to see them releasing hardware and it's good.

Speaker ALike that's the pattern I want to see. Keep releasing hardware. Keep having it be good. You know what I mean?

MerlinI think CGP Grey talked about this during the era of the shitty keyboard, the MacBook Pro dark years was like, it's nice to see you fix something once. But what I really would like is to see a consistent, like not obviously playing defense to where you're not seeing regressions or making terrible decisions, but also that like you are trying new things that fucking, could you imagine that goddamn studio Mac coming out during the Johnny Ive times?

AlexI can't. No,

Merlinhe would. Don't you think, I mean, I saw that and I instantly thought, Johnny Ive hates this.

AlexOh, God. The fucking little slit at the front. Like, googly eyes are going on that thing for everyone who has it. And it looks like a computer. It looks like a fucking computer.

MerlinWell, and it looks like a double quarter pounder with cheese. Like, it looks like a double Mac Mini. It looks like a chode. Like, you know. It does. Like 50-inch waist, 10-inch legs. Like chode jeans. A little tuna can.

And because we know she's got money.

Speaker AI don't like that sketch until it gets to the Cho Jeans part. But what a neat idea. And forgive me for repeating myself, something you won't hear for 10 days. But that's invigorating to me.

MerlinI don't even need this monitor. I have the shitty LG where USB-C cables just fall out of the back at random. And I'm mostly happy with it.

Speaker AI've gotten good use out of it the time I've had it. But a Mac Mini with that monitor seems like a good thing. anyway I just wanted to say if you want to talk about computers we can talk about computers before we talk about my needs what did you think? were you bummed there wasn't AR VR stuff? what was your impression of we're talking here about for historical context we are talking about the most recent Apple event where they announced some it was mostly hardware stuff and a TV commercial for

Apple TV Plus for padding and so much about the iPad that wasn't really necessary. But yeah, March 8th, Tuesday, March 8th, Mr. Apple came out. And what was your impression?

AlexI was very excited because an entire new line of Macintosh computers now exists. Hardware. No one knew that.

Speaker AHardware.

AlexThey're making hardware.

Speaker AThey're not scared of hardware anymore.

AlexOh my gosh. I want to round up next.

Speaker AOh, change the pricing on iCloud. Teehee. Services. Make some hardware.

Merlinyou fucks if they're making hardware and it doesn't suck they're moving in the right direction i realize that is not a forever remark but the things that made me love apple sure the operating system such a different world but like but think about the stuff that i mean built with great software and and great you know and design ui ux everything but like you know go through let's go through the litany, you know, iPod, iPhone, sorry, iMac, iPhone, iPod, all those things.

Like each one was a big swing with hardware. And then again, I'm not discounting the importance of the software, but like just iterating the software is not the same thing as like the development, the time consuming development that goes into making something that's, you know, let's say have more time in it than say an Apple TV. But like where you try. It's hard to make that computer. Did you see how big it is with the chips and then the integrative pathway reservoir or whatever that snaps the ultras together? Shit dog.

AlexYeah, Syracuse is going to have a tough time drawing that one. Oh, boy.

MerlinI found this to be – it did remind me of our friend Max. Max used to go off all the time about how it's just a public relations event. Like, why aren't they hanging on my computers? And I was really struck by how techie a lot of the talk was. I mean, like, of course, I joke about the nits or whatever, but almost everything in the Mac part went way over my head. And that doesn't always happen. I thought that was kind of interesting. They really leaned into the chip part, like what we're doing here that's such a big deal.

Do you agree?

AlexYeah, they like the people who spend a lot of money there. I mean, yeah, all the laptops sell, blah, blah, blah.

MerlinWell, okay, then let me ask. Who do you think it's for when that handsome guy, I want to say John, when the handsome guy talks about computer spec stuff or the guy from Europe is in the clean room? Who do you think it's for when they talk about not just saying most advanced SFC ever, but when they talk about, look at this diagram to show you, this is all GPU, blah, blah, blah. Who do you think that's for?

Alextwo people uh or two groups of people us the people who are quote creatives and do need these and like entire companies and entire studios will be buying max studios but it's also just a general

Merlinflex on it is really powerful right like a lot of one over my head but that is a genuinely legit

Alexlike you can use this for stuff right and not just that though the chips are so powerful that you know for years intel just could dunk on apple just constantly and the chips just being slow and

Merlinshitty oh but they could dunk just by talking about just numbers just put out a number and go this number is so much bigger than that number you know right whereas apple tends to not say stuff like how many gigs of this or rams of that they want you to like be into the experience but intel

Alexcould just leave them in the dust with these big numbers and well and arm too and the whole thing of like why don't you just use a pc it's faster and that argument kind of goes away uh really quickly and with the whole shortage of chips like that is now a headline on the news of like people can't get chips in their computers so if if you can buy an apple computer and it's like unlike pc manufacturers apple has blah blah blah i did watch msnbc for like the first time and i don't

understand how you can stand it. I don't know. It was like in the middle of the day and I'm like, I hate all of this and I don't care.

MerlinSo it was probably Nicole.

AlexI don't know. Yes, it was.

MerlinNicole, wait, our times are two hours off. It would have been, oh, it might have been Katie Turr. She's on at 11. I don't know.

AlexIt was 9 a.m. my time.

Merlin9 a.m. at 7. Oh, Jesus Christ, not fucking Morning Joe. Oh, fuck me gently. That guy, oh my god, I have things to say to you about Morning Joe that I can only say in the after show.

AlexAfter show! Remind me about

MerlinMorning Joe. Hey, Alex, where would people find bonus content and a way to help support us with money dollars? Oh, you

Alexcould go to giveusyourfuckingmoney.com and what that does is it's called a redirect. It will take you to our Patreon page. And if you back us for only five low dollars every month, you get a second show every week every week we still talk every week an hour and a half and uh it's it sure is another hour no it's how did bet i thought i was your wednesday no you are by wednesday that

was a joke that just sounded mean i know i like that yeah no often uh the after show is in fact i don't want to say better more intimate on more than one occasion oh no it's different it's

Merlindifferent it is better it's different yeah because we're not i'm not all nervous about recording with you because i still get nervous about recording with you and then i worry about the challenge because i don't really usually care that much about the challenge or or even worse i care too much about the challenge but weeks like this where i don't actually care about the challenge i kind of fucked it up or are as nietzsche would say beyond good and evil it's a consolation um i'm gonna send i just added something to the doc uh this is something syracuse shared last night while we were recording. I'd never seen this.

And it's, I think, well, you must have seen this, but it's really good. Steve Jobs doing a Q&A at WWDC in 1997. So I think-

AlexOh, I didn't see this.

MerlinI think that is the year he came back and he's answering, quote unquote, answering questions from developers. And some of them get a little hairy and like pretty confrontational in a way where you watch now and you're like, whoa, you talk to Steve Jobs like that? And you're, oh my God. But it's really, really interesting. And the way that Syracuse presented this to me, he'll probably correct me for getting this slightly wrong or very wrong, is that Steve kind of lays out a bunch of the stuff that's going to happen in the next few years without specifically naming what happens in the next few years.

But a couple take-homes, takeaways from this. One is that, so this is 96, 97, right? This is the era of like you can go buy a Performa at Sears, vertical markets, you know, because they were really trying to go vertical market. They had an education line. They had essentially, here's an LC for your business. Here's a whatever, a different pizza box for your school, you know, which, and at the time, they were just bleeding educational sales, which had previously been such a big part of their bread and butter, you know, in the 80s. Steve, you know, got fired.

AlexEven up to the mid 90s and oh God.

MerlinOh yeah, yeah, yeah. But Steve had gone off for Next Step and boys, he gave us for Next Step and Avi in this. but yeah he does kind of just lay out this vision but what's interesting is this is Steve Jobs for better or for worse is like at the moment when he's supposed to be up there bowing and scraping and apologizing about how he's going to make all these developers happy by doing the thing Apple's not done well for a while well you know there's a lot of stuff that didn't go great while Steve was gone where like I think people with a good heart were saying this is the way to make a regular computer company

if we're competing with fucking Compaq and Gateway like we need to make, we need to think about these computers. We need to be licensing this to clones, clone makers and stuff like that. And I think a lot of people may have just expected Steve to get up here and say, I'm going to put the ship right. It's going to be 1984 or five all over again.

Speaker AWe just won't, we won't sell,

Merlinwe'll sell even less computers now than we did then. But, you know, but instead he, he's talking about like all these things that are a seemingly not illogical, but counterintuitive approach. Like one guy gets up there and the developer's like, well, you know, get some really cool TV commercials. And Steve's like, no, I don't think we should do, it's not my decision, but I don't think we should do TV this year. I think we should focus on press because we don't need to be out there begging people to notice us and say that we're back. We're not going to take out a seven page ad

in the Wall Street Journal. We're going to try and reach journalists. And I think he actually says out loud, I think for the next year, we need to focus on the press and good PR instead of advertising. We need them to tell our story. because we need to impress them with how good we are instead of begging consumers. I'm paraphrasing. Instead of begging consumers to feel like we're good again. And I was like, damn, that's really ballsy. And he just talks about all these apps that he loves on Next, using Next stuff.

And I don't know. I think you'd really enjoy it. It's an interesting snapshot in time. And I guess, what year is iMac? 97, 98? I think so. It might have been announced.

Speaker AI don't think it was out.

MerlinYeah. Oh, God. one of the great quotes in this. And, you know, these guys, the same way I would be, they're up there being their weird, you know, slightly neurodiverse selves and saying things. And one of the things they say is like, I really, you know, in the last few years, there's a developer speaking, me paraphrasing, last few years, you know, like at the same time as people continue to say that Apple people are weird and Apple is strange and it's not serious, at the same time, it also doesn't feel like we're that different anymore, that we're not that special anymore.

And like the stuff that we make as developers, like we're here because we like that Apple is different. And Steve is like, he pauses for a minute. He goes like, I don't want to be different. I want to be better. He says, the thing is to be better, you often do have to be different. But I don't care about being different. I just care. If I could be better but didn't require being different, I'd do it in a heartbeat. I was like, God damn, nice distinction, you know?

AlexYeah.

MerlinAnd the vision that, you know, I'm not into Lion. Steve Jobs certainly to the level that a lot of people do. But, you know, he certainly is an interesting opinionated editorial kind of guy. I think he would have been happy with yesterday. I think that studio thing, he probably would have wanted it to like be smaller and float in a sink in a fish tank. But is that a true story? Do you know?

AlexI don't care either way. I think he takes the iPhone prototype. Merlin here is talking about. Yes, go ahead.

MerlinI bet it's on Folklore. Let me see if it's on Folklore.

AlexApparently, an employee came with a demo of the iPhone.

MerlinA very early hardware prototype of the iPhone.

AlexRight, right. And Steve took the phone, looked at it, and then dropped it into an aquarium. And as it sank to the bottom, bubbles came up. And Steve's like, well, if there's room in there.

MerlinWith bubbles, there must be unused space in there. Bring this back to me when it sinks straight to the bottom with no bubbles.

AlexAnd that's apparently in regards to also the headphone jack's shape. Since, remember, you needed an adapter to actually put in your regular 3.5 millimeter headphones since the carve out was all fucked up. I forgot that. Yeah, yeah, that was something. But I mean, either way, it's just a I think it also encapsulates the story that what's his name tells in his book.

The creative was it? Damn it. I literally just read it. The creative, not the creative habit. Syracuse or not Syracuse. A grouper just had him on.

Speaker AKen Kosienda.

AlexYes, he had Ken Consienda on to talk about his book, Creative Selection. And he was the guy who basically created the iPhone keyboard as we know it.

Speaker AThe predictive typing stuff?

AlexYes. Yep. And how you, you know, even if you technically type R, if you meant a different letter.

MerlinJust start banging on it. We'll know what you mean.

AlexYeah.

MerlinThat took me months to accept.

AlexImmediately, it worked for me. I was like, I am going to go with God and just try.

MerlinTrust the system.

AlexYeah. Well, you had a physical keyboard for a while, right? I was still on T9.

MerlinYeah, I had all physical keyboards. I mean, I've been on Palms. I had a Trio. and then, this sounds so douchey, but as a seasoned technologist and a well-regarded blogger, I was also in this thing called the Sprint Ambassador Program.

AlexAmbassador.

MerlinI'm a Sprint ambassador. I'm at the Sprint Embassy here. Technically, this land belongs to Sprint. And they would send the latest and greatest phone to just play with, a new one to play with every few months, like with free service, easy to set up. But what's interesting is, if memory serves, it was in 43 folder days. So it was the pre-iPhone era when I was mainly using a Trio. That's what it's called, right? The Palm thing?

AlexThe Palm Trio and then there was the Palm Pre.

MerlinYeah, first it was Palm, then US Robotics, and then Trio, I think is what they became. But I loved it. It was terrific. I still got it. It's got a Goatsy on it. I'll send you a photo.

AlexOh, that's right. the fucking... I got a Goatsy on mine. He's died. He died. Goatsy died? R.I.P. Yeah, Goatsy died. The guy with the ring or the guy who made the site? The guy with the

Merlinring. Oh, shit. We should throw a lemon party for him.

But, yeah, no, all of those. But then what's really funny was, and this is, we had fun with this, you know, especially the Gruber, Clam Chowder people of the world had a lot of fun with like the what, what, what we call them cell phones. What, what mobile phones look like before 2008, 8, 7 or 8. And then what they look like after. And it is pretty comical how much everybody, as much as everybody went into it saying, you know, oh, you know, you can't just, you can't just, you can't just go off focusing. You can't just like go make phones.

Like we're, we're big business boys and we're Blackberry and we understand this stuff. And we are, I don't know if you remember how, like, how, of course you do. I mean, Blackberry was it. It was IT. It was everybody had a Blackberry period. It's a bit. Crackberry. Well, yeah. But like, even in all the, or as I like to say, you know, I used to say, like, I've never seen anybody look happy using a Blackberry. They always look like they're draining a wound. Like, no, and people just always look so stressed out, but couldn't put it down. That was everywhere into the early days of the iPhone.

And then one day it wasn't like that anymore. But what's funny was in this Sprint Ambassador cock up, they would send me these phones and they used to be so goddamn weird. And you could see the swings got faster and weirder after the iPhone. They sent me one that like it had screens on two sides and you're supposed to flip. One was like an e-ink screen and you're supposed to like flip it over to do different things with the phone. and it was almost like trying to use a swiss army knife it was so goddamn weird oh i mean

good try i guess but i um a day like yesterday makes me happy um and i i keep covering myself with accolades for saying this but you know i i've often said i i i enjoy if somebody's gonna tell me about what they like and what they don't i like it when they tell me why but i really like if they put it in context of like, well, not just the bracketing of here's probably why I feel that way of like, oh, I'm still grandfathered in with AT&T. So like I got to get a phone that would work with them or whatever. Like just give me some context.

I have a kid and they spit up all the time. So like I don't want to get a nice phone or telling me what you like is fine. But telling me what you like in the context of exploring, interrogating why you think you like it. But then the thing I always tried to do with 43 folders and sometimes succeeded was here's why I like this Quicksilver. Here's why I like Firefox. Here's why I like these different things, or Mozilla or whatever.

Here's who I think it might be for. It may not be for you, but given that I think this is for me, here's who I think it might be for. Or maybe even more saliently, hey, this is not for me, but I could really see this being for this person, with a good heart, with good faith. Talk about who this might be interesting for. Don't just say thumbs up or thumbs down.

That's not a thing. Just talking about what you like and don't like is not useful unless somebody's super into your opinions. And unless you run a popular podcast network, nobody's going to care. You have to put that into some kind of context. You have to find that balance, the humanity of that. And so, yeah, I'm covering myself with accolades because I'm saying, I don't even need this monitor per se that I ordered yesterday. What I am saying is a day like yesterday makes me happy because I do feel like seeing new hardware come out, it's not necessarily a great sign, but it puts you at ease for the

things you worry about, right? Don't you kind of worry when Apple gets too quiet and you're like, are you making a car? You're not making a car. A bunch of people left. You're like, what are you doing with Apple TV? Like, as I said to Dan, like the most mysterious thing to me right now is I can't tell what Apple, what, what Apple as a company, especially the C-suite, I can't really

Speaker Atell what they love right now. I can't tell what things they would cancel to make one thing great. I could not tell you apart from money related things. Well, cause like you could also then a cynical person, understandably, says, oh, it's about iPhones and money. It's like, yes, but I don't think iPhones, I don't follow this closely or at all. I don't think iPhones are the growth area they used to be. I don't even think cell phones are the growth area, or smartphones, are the growth area they used to be. Is it services? Well, okay, if you're excited about services, why haven't you gotten fucking great at it? Why are you just merely okay at best with

these services? Apple TV Plus, cool. You hired some really good people, and they have good taste,

Merlinand that's awesome, but there's still such a train wreck to so much of using Apple TV. What services stuff are you excited about in a non-financial way? Do you want to make sugar water

Speaker Aor do you want to change the world?

AlexOh, that shouldn't give me goosebumps. I don't like that that's still a part of me, but I guess it is.

Speaker AWhat do you think there? And so you watched something like yesterday and I always put this poorly,

MerlinBut I have this governing theory that like, okay, so Apple isn't just here to sell you. Let's say let's start with phones, which for a long time has been their biggest profit and largest. Like they make a lot per phone compared to a lot of other companies.

Speaker AThey are, I think, purported to be the most – their margins are really good on phones and they sell a lot of them, which are two different things but are related, right? Okay, so let's take the money part off the table for a minute even though, yeah, you know, fiduciary responsibility.

MerlinOkay, so there was a time when you could tell very much what people are excited about because you could tell what Johnny Ive was excited about. There were times you could tell. Here's one for you.

Speaker AWatching Craig demo Universal Control. That might have been a put on, but I got – I'm using Universal Control right this minute. From the first time I got this thing to work a few weeks ago through today, I continued to feel giddy. That it exists. That it works. And that it's fucking awesome. and has real world use cases in my literal day-to-day life and work. You can't fake that well. I think Craig was very excited to be able to show universal control

and I'm excited to use it. Is there a way of saying when you watch an event like yesterday,

Merlinoh, so I was going to say, it's not that Apple wants to just sell you a phone. Anybody can sell you a phone. They want to sell you a phone because you'll probably buy apps and they get 30% of that. That's cool. But maybe it's halo effect. Maybe it's getting you into the ecosystem. Like there's like a dozen boring reasons why they're quote unquote excited about something and can't wait to see what we do with it. But is there a smile they can't wipe off their face right now? Because what they, the question becomes yesterday, Tuesday, March 8th, they did this presentation.

Based on what you saw on those videos, what does it say about where Apple thinks the world is going? I can't tell. I mean, obviously, they're excited to have this stuff. But do you know what I mean? When you go back and watch Steve Jobs do a talk from 1997, you can see 1998. You can see 2000. You can see 2007. You can see the future when you go back and watch that. If you watched yesterday's talk three years down the road, what will it have foretold?

AlexApple Silicon, Apple Silicon, Apple Silicon.

MerlinBig chips. Chip, chip, chip.

AlexWell, and...

MerlinNo, no, no, no. They were really leaning into it for sure.

AlexI mean, even talking about, wow, the A15 is in our lowest. I think, yeah, the SE is like the cheapest phone, right? I tuned out during that part.

MerlinYeah, it's the SE. I think it's the third version of that. And they've now, there was a time when Tim Cook was the operations guy who was sticking pieces from gumball machines and these are things that had been on sale for six years. But now, man, those ain't gumball machine parts. They've scaled up with these chips. with this stuff and now they've got reusable silicon that is fucking magical you can't

Alexlike stumble into an apple employee without them mention it like one of the sales assistants without them mentioning the chips which is very very strange that has but they're you mean they're

MerlinThey're like proud of what they're paying.

AlexRight. Like a selling point is a chip for people who are looking at a phone? What? Yeah.

MerlinDo you remember when Pentium first came out? Bum, bum, bum, bum. There were all those ads for Pentium. I'm like, what the fuck? Like, why have you branded the inside of a computer that's so strange? Which I guess tells you the story because I'm still singing the song from the late 90s. It must have worked. But yeah, it does feel kind of weirdly un-Apple like with those terrible, terrible names. Why would you ever name anything, Max? It's still so strange to me.

AlexUltra.

MerlinWell, but like Matt, but like when they started, when they made a phone call, when they made a phone call, M-A-X, it was confusing. But they've continued to do it because it's a homonym with what they call their computers. It's so confusing.

AlexI don't know who.

MerlinHomophobe? Homonym.

AlexOh, the homo.

MerlinIt's a trans phone. What? No, it's a trans phone. No, homophone. It's not the same as a homophobe. And hyperphilic means you got rabies from the water. Is that right?

AlexI don't know. I read about burp fetishes all morning. I don't know what anything means. What did you learn? That there's a large group of young men who are very into burping as a source of sexual satisfaction.

MerlinThey burp or a lady burp?

AlexUsually a lady burp.

MerlinI think that's a Henry James book, The Lady Burps.

AlexAnyway, good for the guy who was like, hey, everybody, let's not record women burping without their knowledge.

MerlinTo the exclusion of farts or balloons, this is a freestanding burp fetish.

AlexThis is fully burp fetish. And some people care about the length, not just how you use it, the volume. They call them size kings. Yes, yes. and how it like the rumble I think they call it anyway I guess that will be in show notes

MerlinAlex what website were you looking this up on

Alexno no it was like input or something I don't know I don't know but it's because I was reading about of course I was reading about an Apple some VR rumor and the reason I still think that they are most excited about wearables is because of the emphasis over and over about how powerful these chips are and all of the like why do they keep mentioning how powerful it is to render things

in 3d like they used to talk about that with like oh here's this ar game that nobody's gonna play that's incredibly shitty they finally stopped demoing those here's here's an awkward here's an awkward guy uh i'm playing a race car game on stage okay you can you can see that that hammer you'll definitely be talking about this in a month yeah oh my minecraft is is on the kitchen table

Speaker Ayeah that's uh something that we're gonna do oh god yes but you think it's coming just far off

Alexyeah but like you said the enthusiasm around universal control they continue to be really passionate, I think, about how people interact with their hardware and software. Oh, absolutely.

Speaker AHow it all works together. Yes. Think about handoff writ large. I mean, handoff is something where like one of the first time I did it, I was probably confused. The second time I did it, I was probably confused. Handoff is, I don't want to say it's quite the level of what Quicksilver was for me in

Merlin2005, but it has become a very much no look feature. I know that on this Mac I can hit copy, and when I hit paste on my phone, it'll just be there.

Speaker AI don't know how it works. And by that I mean I understand that it's some combination of Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and Disney Magic, but I don't understand how it knows and is so good at it.

MerlinMy biggest beef with handoff is when I copy on one computer, like command C, a bunch of files to command V onto my Synology, and a laptop on the other side of the room interprets that as please grab these 60 gigs of movies. But I do tend to drag those.

Speaker ABut that handoff, handoff is huge. I mean, think about back in the day when Pastebot, for example, was the first one I remember. Oh, yes. That's Tapbots, right?

Speaker BYep.

Speaker AIt was like a clipboard,

Merlinmultiple clipboard manager for the phone, like so clever.

Speaker AAnd now today, handoff, I think, I mean, I know you have to have handoff on in order to do universal control, but it's such a classic Apple thing. Maybe like Touch ID, where it's like, I could explain this to you all day long. I could demo this to you all day long. Come back to me on the third day you use this. Don't worry. Don't report back for the first time you try it and it didn't work or whatever. but like come back to me after the third or fifth day of using this and then give me your opinion

because it might fucking blow your mind how much you know actually how quickly you start to depend

Alexon this not just use it because it's whizzy and airdrop too i know that people oh my god yes yeah thousand percent every christmas that ends up being like a huge deal and i i mean the first yes

Merlinthe first year or so because everybody's in a room and you want to send photos and stuff and

Alexthey don't want it yeah and they don't they too many if you try to uh send it over iMessage you know and i it generates an iCloud link and then you know grandma doesn't know what to do with the iCloud link and i understand because sometimes i don't know what to do with it instead you can say

Merlinhey grandma hey grandma watch your phone because in a minute you're gonna see a bloop that's from

Alexme it's okay to click it yep yep and and then it's all and then it's just in her her library and the this has been another through line for the past almost decade it tells you then it tells you

Merlincasey sent texted me something last night and i still love it when i click i go to the safari and then it says up in that little ribbon it says you know from casey list yeah and then that but then that's all i captured in safari and when i open safari it remembers like oh here here's the thing

AlexAlex sent me. That's all so, so cool. And that's the thing. I think what they're excited about is how you are using their devices. And maybe there's like a failure to kind of integrate services into that. Like, I doubt anyone's really excited about iCloud, except for the... iCloud Drive. I mean, I'm excited about iCloud Drive. But, oh, I see.

MerlinI wish you would download everything all the time.

AlexPlease, my data.

MerlinAt this point, iCloud has become like Siri in the sense of like, well, what do you mean? Do you know what I mean?

Speaker ALike with Siri, does that mean dictation?

MerlinOr does that mean the gender neutral voice? Or does that mean, like what does Siri mean? And like with iCloud now, I think there's a danger there. Certainly, luckily this hasn't happened with Apple TV. talk about transphobes homonyms but you know when I was a kid and we would go to Disney World the one true Disney World in Orlando Space Mountain was sponsored by RCA and there was all kinds of RCA you know

branding stuff mainly though when you got off Space Mountain and so this is actually really clever like if you ended up well I was about to say chickening out I could totally understand not wanting to go on the roller coaster, right? You stay with your family. You wait in line.

AlexFucking pussies. Fucking pussies.

MerlinLiteral. Literal little flicky beans. You go, you go, your family goes and gets on the rocket, and then you can wait for them until they get back. And then everybody exits through the House of the Future, which was campy, but fun. And it was like, in the future, you will have laser discs that will enable you to watch Elvis concert on TV. and you go through it and say, space dog, what are you doing? And it was kind of like a real kind of slightly ghetto version of Carousel of Progress. But it was always fun because you'd come back, you know, every couple years or a year or whatever,

you'd come back to Disney World and RCA had dutifully updated the stuff in the House of the Future. So mainly you just, you know, talking about, did you ever experience this at Disney World?

AlexDisney World? Not Disneyland. And I'm wondering.

MerlinBut, you know, the fact that you can go back, if you watch it, if you're broken like me

Speaker Aand you go back and watch Defunctland videos about Tomorrowland. They've always had corporate sponsors. My favorite ride was If You Had Wings by Eastern Airlines.

MerlinMonsanto did that terrible 360 vision shit show. But RCA sponsors. And so you go through and look. It's a giant. It's supposed to be the House of the Future giant console TV.

Speaker AAnd then maybe the LaserDisc gets replaced by, it wouldn't be a Betamax, probably a VHS. And over the years, but it was still campy. And it had what I think has come to be called the Tomorrowland problem, which is by the time anything is presented as the future, it already kind of looks like the past.

MerlinBut, you know, you go past that little, the main scene of this was like a family, like a, well, my mom in real estate would call it a great room.

Speaker ASo it's kind of like a kitchen attached to a living room and the whole family's sitting around and enjoying RCA products. What you're describing might as well be from RCA's House of the Future. A bunch of people with, you know, maybe they're related, maybe they're friends. But if you're on the same network, you suddenly can do all of this shit. And we do it all the time. If anything, my wife gets frustrated because she forgets and hits, you know, when she goes to hit the share arrow, instead of sending it as a text, she'll send it as airdrop. And she's like, oh, I feel stupid.

I didn't mean to do that. But I can, like, run the TV from my phone. I can say, oh, my God, you've got to see this video of the Bang Bang machine.

Merlinor my kid goes, I want you to see this Genshin Island or whatever.

Speaker AAnd you just, you hit your phone, you hit the thing. Everybody knows how to do it. I think you could argue that, and I'm not saying this to sound like a funny old guy, but if it works, that's fine. There are people today of your age and younger

Merlinwho are much more familiar with how to use their phone

Speaker Afor video photography, social, much more than they ever in their entire life learned how to use a fucking phone as a phone. And now there's just these things that are like the gestures of modern life that we are all okay with, and that's all afforded through these technologies that make that easy and still relatively secure.

MerlinYou know, like a lot of people don't like stuff like UPnP or whatever,

Speaker Aanything like all these different demons that can be exploited, but this is Apple, you know? And while I still have not watched TV with anybody, we keep threatening to do that, our two families. But I don't see this huge appeal of that. That would have been fun in 2020. But what you're talking about here, all this little shit that connects stuff together, all this little shit title.

MerlinIt's really – but like taken as a whole, you know, if you take two giant steps back and look at it, it's really – it's marvelous.

AlexAnd I think all of these little shits are forming, basically, in the Tim Apple intestines. And eventually there's going to be just one big healthy fiber drop. Also, you know, 5G. We joke about how often it is mentioned, but there's a reason why they mention it. It's not because people are going.

MerlinDo I have to change my account to get it? Oh, I don't even know. Well, I've got AT&T. And the latest person I freaked out with this, I think, was probably Sydney. Because I have that uncanny ability. The second someone picks up the phone, they say, hello. I say, are you on AT&T? I hate it. It sounds different when you call somebody when you're both on AT&T. It sounds too clear. It's really creepy.

AlexYeah, I don't know.

MerlinBut I've got, so like right now, let me turn off. I'm clicking. I'm turning off Wi-Fi. And I'm in an area where, according to their dumb fucking maps, I am full 5G eligible, but I'm getting 5GE. We bring good things to life. I'm getting 5GE. I probably have to change something on my account and pay more to get full 5G, right?

AlexI'm pretty sure because that's why I'm also like, nah. But right now, unless you are using your internet with the Wi-Fi you have, you do not need 5G, I think. Unless you are- 900 down, baby. Oh, my God.

Speaker A900 down, 17 up. 17 up, 900 down. 17 up. Best of circumstances. 17 up.

AlexI, before I, you know, I've been looking for a new office and my first question is, uh, what are the internet speeds? And most brokers can't tell you that right away, which makes me very sad and upset. But, uh, yeah, unless you are completely.

Speaker ASeems like a question that people would have that you would be prepared to answer.

AlexRight. Yeah. Like, they're like, we got this for square feet. I'm like, but first, but first.

MerlinIt'd be like going to an automobile dealership and saying, oh, I really like this automobile. What kind of city mileage does it get? And they would say, there's no way of knowing. It's an unknowable thing. They don't like talking about that. They like talking about value. I think they like selling to people who are excited that a phone's included in the package. That seems to be – some bunch of fucking boffins have decided that that's the way to go. I shouldn't speak though because I have good experiences but still

Alexwell wait wait wait

MerlinI don't need that but other people 5G and 5G is going to enable a bunch of shit right that's the idea

Alexand with Apple's special you know W chips on top of that like already what they're doing with AirTags I know that there's all of this stupid fucking moral panic around AirTags fine email me

Merlinit's like somebody saying like it would be like somebody i sometimes when i hear that that pearl clutching and i i get the under i i get that if that happened to me my ex-boyfriend was like stalking me with apple technologies i would be furious and sad and and really bummed but i do feel like sometimes the logic of that kind of pearl clutching comes down to like we should stop selling pencils because pencils are really cheap and can be used to stab people and you go like well that's that's true but like you also have

to be the sort of person that would stab somebody and there might be better ways you know i'm saying though where you take this this lodging oh yeah that's actually very concerning that you could be

Alexused for that it's like well yeah but shitheel's gonna shitheel yeah but let's only allow handguns on the street as long as it's if it's a semi-auto and not an auto the only thing that stops a bad

Merlinguy with a pencil is a good guy

Speaker Awe gotta wrap this up because i need my break and then we come back and if you want to talk about your your exciting uh new world maybe you could talk about it i don't know you could talk about

Alexthe after show oh oh yeah i'll talk about it next week too because then uh let's milk that for money just milk milk milk is it milk milk lemonade yeah uh next week we'll probably talk about like my technical no my real unemployment but technically not an unemployed so we'll alex alex big fan here

Speaker Acould you please say a sentence that describes what the fuck you're talking about oh i guess well so imagine it's a five paragraph essay give me the give me the topic sentence of your five

Alexparagraph essay that you will bring us next week uh alex you are no longer i'm no longer at cards against humanity and i am a independent broadcaster as merlin you're at liberty fuck you god damn it i am an independent broadcaster writer speaker and broadcaster hi i'm merlin man and my shit don't stink oh the challenge this week was mine and it was

Merlinthat's it that's all you're gonna say well alex is no longer at cars and i was gonna talk about

Alexit next week you gotta wait you gotta come back there's no well no there's like yeah there's um i'm very excited to do my own thing which is why i was so excited to be on time this week and then i wasn't you fucked up i fucked really bad way to start things off if you ask me really just going downhill i i literally was like matt i never i there's a there's a potential for me to never be late or reschedule a podcast ever again. And he's like, no, this is not going to happen.

MerlinBut it takes away one of the main excuses. This is why I'm so burdened with this. There's no excuse for me to be late for anything.

AlexNo, no. You have a family. You have a real life.

MerlinFuck you. I have cats.

AlexI got hexagon lights. I have a landlord.

MerlinYou also have an assistant to the regional landlord.

AlexOh, God.

MerlinWhat are we calling her? Denise?

AlexNo, what are we calling her?

MerlinDougie slash Douglas.

Alexand then do we have a name for the uh the intern she's uh she's essentially the grace like i now i'm convinced she doesn't exist because she doesn't answer her email she doesn't like thousand dollars in travelers yeah but uh i was i was very happy because my spouse stood up to our landlord and was like dougie no we cannot have the new fridge delivered on wednesday my spouse works from home on wednesdays and we cannot have a new fridge delivered on wednesday any other day And I was like, oh.

MerlinI would love to talk about that sometime. Yes. I feel like people, especially in the pre-2020 times, like it's almost like you have to apologize for not having, oh, God, this, you know what? Save it. I got to, okay, this needs a name. But like if I have a job that's different than the kind of job that you have, you just think it's okay to, not just me, but you just utterly disrespect anybody that doesn't have the same kind of job that you do. And like, you know, I fucking live here. I sleep here. I shit here. But I also work here. And how is it that the place where I live could somehow be treated even less respectfully if I'm doing knowledge work from there?

It's weird that that's subtractive rather than additive.

AlexRight. And the thing is, we've the running joke about my landlord is how many laws he has broken along with most Chicago landlords. But it's been two years.

MerlinHe loves making rules.

AlexYeah. Like it's been fucking two years.

MerlinYou're not allowed to use the windows. You're not allowed to use the walls.

AlexWell, see, that's the thing. We are now allowed to use windows, and we are now allowed to use command strips on the walls. It's very exciting. But because he's like, please, please pay rent to...

MerlinSomebody, please?

AlexPlease, please.

MerlinAnybody?

AlexWe have quite a rotation of neighbors upstairs still. But yeah, so that is also why we can, I guess, tease this. I'm looking for an office space. Oh, it's a good movie. I want to watch it. Anyway, yeah, so I don't have ever known.

MerlinAre you also looking for potential freelance work if it's a serious offer?

AlexYeah, I'm looking for...

MerlinWhere would people go to query you about that?

AlexOh, that's the thing. Not yet. Don't email me about freelance work yet. Okay, cut that, cut that, cut that. Cut that, cut that. She's a woman. But thank you. If you want to email me at alexcoxfm at gmail.com.

Speaker AYou think you're the first person to ever pee on me?

AlexOh, she... That was really funny. I would love to have people or stomp on people's stamps, but I don't have anywhere to do it yet. All in good time. So the challenge this week was mine, and it was to find something. Wait, wait. I have the dock open.

Speaker AFind your comically sized object.

AlexFind a comically sized object. And I cheated because I knew exactly what I was going to do coming into this.

MerlinI fucked up because I love this challenge. I don't want to make this about me because I'm going to throw straight to you in a second but all I really have is this little Ewok that I love but in a different time with a different headspace I would have fucking killed on this challenge I would like to think that if I had a month I would be able to get a Harley Quinn sized mallet I know I've got shit like this in my life that is comically larger and my example here again Lane Kim Lane from Gilmore Girls when her mother's going to send her to South Korea

and she gets a suitcase that's almost her height, that kind of thing. The way you phrased it, though, or the way I rephrased it, I don't know. It sounded like you were saying, is there something in your life that an ordinary person would look at and go, that is ridiculously large for what it is or that's ridiculously small for what it is.

AlexYep, yep, yep.

MerlinI didn't thrive on this one. I'll send you my Ewok. It's really cute, but what was your ringer? Well, you had a ringer, it sounds like.

AlexOh, I guess... No, I think I've got a double ring because pill bottles are often, I think, just never the right size, rather per-description pill bottles, because when I get my brain meds, they're either six pills in a gigantic bottle, or it's stuffed to the brim with pills and cotton, and the label doesn't even fit on it.

MerlinIt's almost like there's less flexibility for large pills in large bottles. where like if I've got like my propane, I think we have the same propane, same beta blockers. Like you can fit a fuck ton of those into what I would consider a standard size one. But like my gabapentin, they're kind of big and I take a lot of them. So that ends up being like a joke size,

Speaker Aa little bit of a joke sized bottle.

AlexThat's, I'll put, I'll take a photo. Where's my phone? I'm so good, I guess, that I didn't even have phone. I'm photographing my Ewok for you. But the other thing that I still find ridiculous is the size and okay this is my i i i truly think that this is standing your truth do it my phones are too big they're too big they're too big they're so heavy too heavy they're too big so heavy it's and both of us have regular regular sized iphone pros i got them on the non macintosh

for yeah yeah and it's just so fucking big and and matt has a has a maximum one as well

Merlini've had this for months and it still feels heavy to me every single morning yes yeah it which is weird i'm not usually i stop noticing anything within a day after it's changed whether that's improvements or disimprovements but like i'm holding this in my hand photographing my ewok right now and i'm still like this feels half again too heavy yes which is okay that means

Alexthere's battery. That's good. But it does feel too heavy. And this this goes, though, to what's Apple excited about? Sure, sure. Yes. The phone. I totally agree with you. Like they can't be excited about phones forever. But they're embracing how many people use their phone as their main computer. And oh, God, they even said it yesterday. Even people who have a computer

Merlinuse it as their, I think you could make the case

Alexthat. It used to be my main thing.

MerlinYeah, like somebody in China is going to use their fucking phablet and that app that you know, the app that What's His Hat always talks about. Wii U. Wii U. Wii U on. WeChat!

AlexOh, sorry. People who

Merlindon't have what we would consider a computer, a home computer, a PC. Yeah, for sure they're using that as their main computer. But I think the case to be made for people like you and me, well, maybe not you and me exactly, but for a lot of people, a lot of our friends even, You could make a case their iPhone is their main computer that they have on Mac for stuff. But like the one that they use the most hours and like taps per day is an iPhone.

AlexUntil March 4th, my or rather after March 4th, my my Macintosh professional book became my main computer. But until then, the only computer I, quote, owned was my iPhone. And that was like, all right, we'll get to that.

Speaker AThat's some tricky wording.

MerlinI understand what you're saying. That's a slightly tricky wording.

Speaker AYou had computers that had been provided by your workplace that were owned by your employer.

MerlinThe computer that you owned, that would be you didn't own like a laptop.

AlexCorrect. Now I do. We got to buy off our laptops and thankfully it's, oh, my beautiful, beautiful M1 Pro Max. Yeah, and the M1 Max, it's like all spec'd out. And oh, I love it. I love it so much. And now I'm sure I've mentioned it before. I mentioned it everywhere. Now I go there instead of my iPhone to do things just because I love Mac OS. Oh, God, so good.

Speaker AI know, I know. What I'm sitting on the couch. What I'm sitting on the couch now. It used to be that I was always on my 2019 MBP at home. And then I would be on my 10-inch iPad, which I still love, love, love, iPad Pro. But honestly, seriously, this thing, and it is heavy, but that's okay. I don't mind. It's got cute little feet, like a dachshund. But I love using this thing so fucking much.

AlexIt's not heavier than I would expect, though.

MerlinNo, it's solid is what it is. If it had tapered edges and weighed this much, I'd be mad for some reason. but the fact that it's built like a brick shithouse and like it's made for doing stuff it's made for work but doing non-work is also really fun i recorded a podcast on it yesterday for the first time and it's boy it sure is a lot easier than it would have been

Alexwith uh previous ones oh my god and the just the sd card on the side oh man yeah but uh as like Stephen Hackett tweeted, modular, modular, modular. Apple is a, we said it before, universal control. This is, having all of these building blocks in place is what makes me excited for whatever is going to go on our face. I know that we've been talking about it since the 80s.

Before I was born, people were like, next year VR, next year VR.

Speaker ATell me, man, Jaron Lanier.

AlexBut I love his book though. Not the social media one, the other two.

MerlinOh, because he hates the internet now, right?

AlexHe doesn't hate the internet. He hates social media.

MerlinDoes he hate being misunderstood by people like me?

AlexOh, my God. In Jaron Lanier's defense, he seems like a very gentle, sweet man. And I know that people didn't always like Microsoft, but Microsoft's been doing some pretty cool shit lately.

But, you know.

MerlinThey're only going to fire two-thirds of the team.

Alexum here but but um what's this has to do with your larger or small object okay so because the large phones since 2016 i believe have been their most popular oh it could be wrong i i don't want

Merlinto say or at least no but they were reacting to market forces for once apple's like holy shit everybody in china wants a giant fucking phone also other people do too yeah right wasn't i mean that's kind of what it came down to is like for once we're gonna have to like listen to what people Yeah.

AlexKind of, right? Yeah. And now there's all the rumors about like a consumer phone that's a big boy and doesn't cost like $2,000. Like the big.

MerlinOh, that's an interesting idea.

AlexYeah. I'm kind of like you that I don't really look at rumors unless it like come. It's like something interesting like reality OS, which I try not to. God bless you.

MerlinAnd I know I'm acquainted with people who work at the shovel blogs, the two big shovel blogs. My goodness.

AlexI mean, listen, in high school, that was so my jam. And it gave me –

MerlinI know, but it's the lowest form of quote-unquote journalism.

Speaker AThere's a guy I like on Twitter who wrote – what, to say that now iOS 15.3 beta 35 is out and we don't know much about it, but here's a video?

AlexWell, well, think about, you know, what's Steve Trotting Smith finding reality.

Speaker ATrotting? I think it's pronounced Trotting.

AlexI don't like Trotting. Sounds like a Doctor Who actor. Mr. Trotting confirming that reality OS is in the code like that. It might not be called that or whatever, but that is.

MerlinConfirming that reality OS is in the code. Did you just turn into William Gibson?

AlexWhat's happening? No, no, no, no, no. there there was references to like reality os as a something something in the api of one of the newest betas and most people don't know or care about that but it's interesting to think about okay what is what's after the as what mark zuckerberg put it like the phone internet oh yeah

Merlinno no i agree i agree q q ed i totally agree with you totally agree with you and i i know that uh

Alexsome people who have less famous podcast networks are just like not excited about the new direction of computers but it's something that i think about all the time and i get really really excited about it all the time what does this have to do with large or small um because uh i think phones the size of phones are ridiculously big and uh and like i held an iphone mini up up to matt's phone the other day and i was like good god in heaven but so what was your what's your ringer uh no i

don't have a ringer i i said you said you already had one in the bag that was going to be really funny because it's super large or super small what's happening the gigantic ass pill bottles all when i have my phone again i'll take a picture of my ridiculous i guess i mean they're they're

Speaker Agigantic hands but they're short oh i want to say i mean is it bigger than the usual big pill bottle

AlexOh, oh yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like this is, and my smallest pills come in here. And it's like, I don't know. It's like, I don't know. If someone, you know how-

MerlinDo you think they're trying to send you a message? Is it like when you get Chinese food for yourself and they give you five forks? Is it a fuck you?

AlexNo, I don't know. I don't know.

MerlinNo, I know that's a bit. I know that's a bit, but it is true. I am disheartened at how many forks they give me. It tells me a lot that affects my self-esteem if they gave me that many forks. I know they're fucking with me. I hope they're fucking with you, but it still makes me feel like I'm neurodiverse.

By which I mean fat.

279. All These Little Shits

Show notes

Transcript

279. All These Little Shits

Show notes

Transcript

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