300. Priceless Flexibility

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

MerlinHello, hello.

AlexHello, hello. Hey!

MerlinI'm sorry, ready?

AlexYeah, three, three, two, one. Hey! Hey!

Merlinthree two hey

Alexoh no

Merlinare you watching

Alexrobot porn

Merlinyeah I'm watching robot porn where do you get your robot porn

Alexoh this is a family friendly podcast

MerlinI have visited xxxcyborg.io you know what now. You ready? You're going to start? No, let's start.

Speaker BFucking A. No, no, no, no.

MerlinThat wasn't funny. Should we start over? Do you have a good

Alexopener? No, not at all. XXcyborg.io. Hmm. Well, this is another $5 a year that I'm going to... Okay, I'm writing this

Merlindown. Reject the default.

AlexWhat?

MerlinIt's not about you. It's about me.

Alexis this in the wisdom document that's all i'm interested in talking about

Merlinreally oh yeah yeah yeah well until everybody reads it they can't understand

Alexeveryone would be fine and everything would be better let's just speak as a hypothetical

Merlini mean i guess this presupposes that someone would want to understand me which is a fact not in evidence. I was just listening to a very funny interview with Matt Berry and now I'm myself talking like Matt Berry. Camero! Camero! He was on the show that used to be the Sound of Young America and he seems really cool and funny. Oh wait, let me save here. Hey, Parapals. Welcome to Dubai Friday where Merlin talks about shit he listens to. A terrible

Alexepisode. I did not. I've never, I would never call it shit. That's

MerlinOh, my God. Thank you. You're affirming my life experience, which I think is illegal, illegal in several states at this point. What is what's the opposite of affirm and reaffirm and then the opposite of that would be reject, right?

AlexI don't know. Math is difficult.

MerlinGender rejection therapy.

AlexI asked somebody in earnest, so, okay, really, though, what is lived experience versus just experience? And they told me that it's like, you know, an experience that you yourself has lived versus something that someone has an experience with, like reading about it or hearing about it. I'm like, no, that person's just lying if they say that based on their experience. No.

MerlinYou know, if you want to start a whole, as you say, a whole nother show just about this, I am, as you say, again, here for it. No, words matter. Because I think, Alex, sing it, sister, or sing it, they, the words matter. And, like, I understand words evolve, but even when they evolve, they still mean something. We don't just walk around just going robble, robble and hoping people figure it out.

AlexI mean, as fun as that is.

MerlinWouldn't that be adorable? That's what the, as memory serves, that's what the Hamburglar says.

AlexI always thought it was a South Park reference.

MerlinBack before he was a hot guy or an adorable child, he used to walk around. Do you remember when he became a hot guy?

AlexNo.

MerlinOh. Grimace?

AlexWait, no.

MerlinNo, no.

AlexOkay. Grimace is the purple one.

MerlinI've already got you. I'm sorry I took you off. Put a pin in there. Would you please write this down, Alex? That we're going to have a separate show about how words mean things.

AlexWords mean things. I think that should go in your wisdom document. You want to talk about...

MerlinIt's literally all I want to talk about. Words mean things.

AlexOh, I think I just made an ableist bad thing.

MerlinI just did a good thing. Sorry, deaf people. Did you... Do you like it when people talk to you in a podcast, in the abstract?

AlexYes.

MerlinOkay. Words mean things.

AlexUnequivocally, yes. I don't...

MerlinOh, I'm sorry. Let me rephrase that. have you been told that Alex likes being spoken to in that way when you're having a dissociative episode god forbid do you wonder whether they're talking to you or to they or at all is it a concern I bet you know what you're not answering because I'll bet you have to think sometimes don't you

Let's see. Oh, The Hamburglar. There's a lot of good YouTube videos about the history of McDonaldland. So when I was a youngster...

AlexWait, McDonaldland. Hold on, hold on, because I want to play in your space. Yeah, sure. The play place, as I think they called it. McDonaldland, that was like the imaginary land that Ronald McDonald inhabited?

MerlinYes, it's the eldritch fantastical village in which a clown that loves children is considered adorable. Couldn't I buy you lunch? Will you help me get this sofa in my van? I broke my clown arm.

What are you, size 14? It's great to watch, but I can't figure that out. I'm like, you see how the senator's daughter is helping him put the couch in the van? And then, of course, I said the line before. He's like, what's on your line? I'm 14. I'm like, huh, huh, huh? And the kid, in a rare instance of not immediately getting it, very rare instance, goes, uh, because he wants to wear her clothes. And I said, kind of.

Kind of. And now we're watching, I always want to call it Luther or Lester. It's not that. The one with Mads Mikkelsen, where he's Hannibal Lecter. We're watching that now.

AlexOh, wait, wait, wait, wait. So Hannibal.

MerlinI think it's called Hannibal. Yes. That's very upsetting.

AlexYou're watching the gay serial.

MerlinOh, my God. It's so gay. This is a joke. Okay, there's a couple. It's always two jokes with me. There's two jokes I've tried to stop making because they stopped being funny in the 90s. Well, one stopped being funny in the 90s. One stopped being funny in the aughts. It stopped being funny in the 90s to describe something as X on acid. Like, stop doing that. Find a better one. The one that I've done even fairly recently is to say, that person looks like X person and Y. And I'm not talking about chromosomes. But this person and that person had a baby, right? And I think the guy with the unflattering frames who should never have been issued a gun, a pistol, as you say, I think that fella, I forget his name.

You know the guy, the FBI guy? Will. Will, who couldn't pass the test, but somehow still keeps pulling a piece on people. Okay, it's just, it's like Jurassic Park. This is a bit in our house, like Jurassic Park, of like, oh, great, let me guess. You figured out another way to make the dinosaurs more deadly? In this case, why is he allowed to go places? And why is he sabotaging the careers of the girls, the women, the days, with the nice outfits? And then you got his name Lester. Lester's always back in his black apartment with his rotten oranges or whatever.

And so, but I think that fellow, tell me his name again, Will?

AlexWill, Will.

MerlinI don't, this is not a joke. It's just an observation. He looks like if Jon Snow and Jack Dorsey had a baby. Sorry, Kit Harington, as you say.

AlexJack Dorsey.

MerlinJack Dorsey is one of the founders of Twitter.

AlexNo, I know, but I'm just trying to see if there's a...

MerlinHe meals on rice and doesn't eat the rice. That's how he stays pure, crypto.

Alexoh he has really tiny nipples sorry that's not appropriate um fair enough program recently where

Merlinsomeone described someone's areolas as being like a helicopter landing pad and i thought that was funny oh you know what it was probably my new my new program new girl oh but i do think words you like that show it's right in the pocket it's it's like it's it's it's in as like normie comedies go it's really clever for a normie comedy but also like you don't have to pay a thousand percent attention but then you get to an episode like nick's dad's funeral have you seen when uh spoilers

when uh when uh a character actress margot martindale wants to have an elvis funeral and it's got the wonderful nick kroll in it no no oh my god because i stopped watching

Alexthat show after like three episodes so community ruined sitcom you said ruined again i i never

MerlinI never started watching it because I'm still mad at her about Ben Gibbard. Now, that's none of my business, but I still carry a little bit of a grudge. You know, my kid met Ben Gibbard in our kitchen once.

AlexYou have told me at this point.

MerlinThat's not my flex. That's my kid's flex.

AlexReally?

MerlinI think I mentioned it probably last week, if memory serves. He's definitely shaking.

AlexIs Ben Gibbard in your kitchen a lot?

MerlinI can't tell. I mean, oh, no, maybe that's my bet noir. Like, you see asylum attendants sitting at a dinette, la, la, la. And me, I see the marathon runner from Death Camp for Cutie. Oh, sorry. Don't yell at me.

AlexWhat got you into watching the show that should never have been canceled, Hannibal, previously on The CW?

Merlinyou that's a really good question well it's a it's a very good question but it has actually i

Alexthink a fairly interesting answer that will require it's not a show that it seemed it seems like something you would have to be dragged into watching oh that's most of what i watch before

Merlinnine o'clock it's all dragged in stuff just in brief though um this is one of those instances of i mean you know qed like i try to get my kid to watch stuff and it's it's a drag and i realize i you know again i'm trying to keep my shit out of it and just go like just follow just get on the floor and play with the kid it's true when they're baby and it's true when they're 14 like stop trying to be ego assertive about everything and as i say get your shit out of it but unless it's rick and

Alexmorty and oh my god teenager needs to watch rick and morty i don't understand if the teen no longer responds in the in the text channel uh you know what but but i i have but i'm like you know it When you want to grace us with your presence, you will.

MerlinOh, it'll happen. It's sort of like you love your grandma, and then you get a little bit older, and you love your grandma maybe more than grandma loves you. And then at a certain point, you just kind of cool off because you're in that weird stage of being a human being. And then you come back, and you love your grandma again.

AlexYou mean teendom?

MerlinI didn't want to say. I didn't want to be too on the nose. But grandma keeps writing you letters and sending you a $5 bill, whether you respond or not. You know?

AlexOh, absolutely.

MerlinGrandma loves you.

AlexYeah, yeah. Grandma's going to continue to text you about Rick and Morty.

MerlinWhat I'm saying is your grandma. You and Machi are grandma. If you would send me any more hot pictures of Machi, that's fine. I think it's a little unfair. Just be prepared because I'm going to keep sending you pictures of Margaret Qualley. Make you question your decisions, if you know what I mean. See your hands? Did you see your hands?

AlexThey're upsetting.

MerlinNo, they're amazing.

AlexThey are, but in an upsetting way.

MerlinOkay, so what I'm referring to, and this might be shown, the show art this week, I don't know. Notes, notes, notes. But I love Margaret Qualley. Yeah, because I think she is like an empirical American beauty, a raven-haired, gorgeous young person who apparently is like 30. But I also, I just, I love the parts that she does, and I love her dancing so freaking much. and um i've noticed as i watched fossey verdant which has recently been added to the challenge

sheet is that you know she's great she plays anne ryan king in that um and i was just like man is this a peter jackson thing or her hands as big as they seem you know what i mean it's almost hot dog fingers situation like she's got really no in a pretty way she's got really big hands and i kept trying to find like a fucking weirdo some people search for i'll bet i'll bet so i'm not going to do this. But some people I'm sure have searched for Margaret Qualley feet. I'm searching for Margaret Qualley hands. Because I go to hands wiki a lot. What's the net worth of

her hands? And then finally, I saw this one photo. And speaking of Peter Jackson, not the Hobbit movie, but in this, I'm like, is that forced perspective? Because I showed it to my lady friend. I said, see, Margaret Qualley, who, by the way, is the daughter of the great Andy McDowell, says, I said to her, I says, look, her hands are huge. And she's like, yeah. And I was like, I know what you're going to say. Like, she weighs not a lot. She's a slender dancer person.

AlexYeah, she's a dancer. Yeah, she was literally a ballerina, right?

MerlinBut what I'm trying to get at, though, I'm not talking about the body per se, except insofar as like, no, no, she's really narrow. And the reason I say it's like Peter Jackson, you got Gandalf on this part of the table, you got Dildo over here, and you have a special table, you get forced perspective. And so they look little. And I wonder if it's owing to her small frame and her hands being slightly extended in front of her that we're getting a forced perspective things where her hands look very, very large. But then here's what I want...

Do you have it in front of you in the text channel?

AlexI do not.

MerlinHere's what I want you to do though. I want you to really concentrate on... She's doing Fosse hands. She's got her hands out. And I want you to think about the space between her thumb and her forefinger. Look at the reach.

AlexI don't want to think. No.

MerlinShe could play an octave and a half.

AlexThat's one way of saying it. Yes.

MerlinWhat are you going to say?

AlexNo, no.

MerlinYou're imagining Margaret Qualley choking you, aren't you?

AlexNo, no, no. What are you imagining? Carol, Cheryl. No, no. Say it slower. Although, again. Again.

MerlinAgain. Oh, my God. We just rewatched Anecdote. I uh oh hello um Nathan and so like I I I I don't want to talk about this too much but like I'm still kind I I like the rehearsal a lot a lot but I don't like it like I like Nathan for you and I was presenting to the youngster that my theory those are two competing theories and you tell me if I got this wrong but when we talked about um Mr. Fielder here and you know he says he got good grades but those are Canadian grades so I think technically the exchange rate's not as

Oh, that's true. He's probably actually got D.

AlexIt depends who's president.

MerlinIt was a very good business school. So close. But the – and I said – since the kid – and then we'll come back to other things. I said I thought of the Nathan For You episodes, the most direct precursor to the rehearsal was Smokers Allowed. And you said that in your opinion, the precursor is the anecdote.

AlexMm-hmm. I mean, they're together.

MerlinWe watched The Anecdote, and Alex, I've seen it before, but now having watched three and a half episodes of the rehearsal, I was like, oh, my God, Alex is so right. Oh, my God. We'll put it in notes, but y'all got to check out this episode of Nathan for you. Nathan has to appear on Jimmy Kimmel, and I think you already said this on the other one, but basically he has to come up with an anecdote, but because, and this is part one of the linchpin, He feels like whatever anecdote he tells has to be true.

And then to make an anecdote that's true, he does the most hilarious bananas stuff, a la what would become the rehearsal. I just want to say you were right.

AlexThank you. Thank you. I know.

MerlinThat punchline, though. What do you say? It's his mother's ashes. Oh, my God. So good.

Alexthe first time I saw that episode, it solidified for me what I love about Nathan Fielder, which is a person, a person or a character who really cares about playing by rules, but they are his own rules and they are.

MerlinHe ends up breaking a thousand rules in order to keep his one rule.

AlexCorrect.

MerlinYes.

AlexAnd throws all caution and morality to the wind. Yeah, yeah, which is something I've been known to do. You've been told? Yes, yes. You're technically, he's not lying. He's technically not lying. It's okay. He's not lying. Right, totally. I hate to be the, I'll be Kathy Catholic again. It's like, oh, you're always trying to follow the Ten Commandments and stay in line with the Beatitudes, but you gotta, you wanna weave around it? That's why I think butt sex was invented.

MerlinIsn't that – I mean, this is not a criticism of faith or religion, but like I believe that to be canonically true in certain – like in Judaism, you know, sort of like you see in Orthodox. Or like my friend Grant lives in Miami, which has a huge, you know, sort of Jewish diaspora community as is probably well known. And there's a thing you can do where you run a string or a fence around an entire neighborhood, and technically it makes it a temple, so you're allowed to go hang out on Friday nights or something.

And then there's stuff like the – and forgive me if you all know this bit, but a Shabbat elevator, you know about that, right?

AlexNot the specifics, but yeah, the other Shabbat things that are basic.

Merlinlike well you can get it you can actually i think you can hire if you do it in a oh my god so nathan fielder like a rube goldberg yeah like yeah but you hire oh my god it is you hire a rube goldberg helper yeah i think it's called a forgive me i don't mean it's if it's a slur a bit like a shabbat which is like you hire somebody who's not jewish somehow like they get they they they now if you hire them directly is that consider uh whatever the opposite of a mitzvah is but but a shabbat Shabbat elevator.

So this goes back to the Pentateuch. It's in one of the excruciating books of laws, probably Leviticus or Deuteronomy or something. But they're very repetitive, Alex. You ever try and read those? They're really boring.

AlexYeah.

MerlinI mean, you know. It doesn't get any easier. I mean, but the idea is like one of the things, there's so many things that come out of practicality, I have been told. They have been told. That a lot of it comes out of practicality. You know what? Don't eat pork in the desert. Yeah, because you know what? Like, we ain't got dorm fridges here. So, like, I'd avoid the pork. You know, stick to the manna or whatever. Merlin manna.

AlexAnd getting sand up in the manna is bad, too.

MerlinGetting sand up in your manna is no good. You got to bring two cameras. You got to get pictures up close, birds. And then that was a great episode. No, but here's one. I think the thing is, so I believe Sabbath starts on Friday at sunset, correct? Unless you're Jared Kushner. I think so. In which case the entire United States has a string around it.

AlexDid you read the book review? Did I read the book review?

MerlinMy God. What was the one I posted? Something like, it reminds me of watching a cat lick the igoo off a dog. What a withering review. As I think maybe Katie Rogers, somebody on Twitter said, I want to report a murder. But so they say, okay, well, this all starts off reasonably enough. You say, this is the day of rest that we learned about from Genesis, right? And so day of rest means what? Well, let's do some extrapolation. It means you can't do work. Well, what is work?

Work is, and I don't know the technical, official Judaic meaning of work, but it involves things like you're not allowed to do your occupation, but you're also not a big one. This is so fucking great. You're not allowed to start a fire, as in, like you're in Judea and you get some twigs and you make a fire. You're not allowed to do that after sunset on Friday, I believe. Well, the extrapolation to modern times, and I would love to have been a fly on the wall in these meetings, was like, well, you know, turning on the thermostat or opening the refrigerator that makes the light turn on is a contemporary or modern version of lighting a flame.

So like, and guess what? If you take that even further and it gets so funny that there actually is a name for this. If you live on the ninth floor of an apartment building in Miami Beach and you hit the down button on the elevator to go downstairs and like, I don't know, I guess, you know, separate your milk from your meats or whatever. Hitting the button, that's electric. You just started a fire.

And so you know what a Sabbath elevator is though, right? No. It's an elevator that is in automatic mode, and I think it stops on every floor going up and down. So you stand there in your corridor until the little room with the elevator opens. You get in, and you just stand there like, yeah, what? No big deal. Huh? What? No, I'm just in a small room right now. What is this thing? Oh, it seems to be moving. This is odd. And you can program, like you get your typical Otis elevator, and apparently, I'll find this for notes, you can program it to do that.

And now in Catholicism, you guys do a fair amount of this. I mean, you guys invented the indulgence, right?

AlexI think, oh, yes. Well, that's the thing. With the Sabbath—

MerlinIndulgences are basically coupons for sin.

AlexThey are. But the whole—

MerlinGift certificates for sin. Wait, that's it. The second take. It's a gift certificate for sin that you gift to yourself. Just don't do it on a Friday, Mazel Tov.

AlexYep. Well, but the thing with the various Sabbath technologies, it still puts some sort of inconvenience or something that causes you to remember that, yes, it is the Sabbath day. And like, because I'm visiting all of these elevators, I am recognizing that the like I'm recognizing what the day is. Whereas Catholics continue to build things around the just just build infrastructures to get around rules, but not in a way that like, yes, we just need to get to our ninth floor.

So let's invent something that still honors the Sabbath. No, no, no. We created indulgences, the gift card for sin. So you'd be like, OK, I really want to sleep with my mistress, but.

MerlinAnd this is a real long time ago. I remember learning about this in 10th grade world history and it just boggled my mind. But it's the idea that like I think it was specifically because they needed to raise money to, ironically enough, build more churches or line the pockets on their fancy dresses. And so they started saying, hey, here's a deal. You merchant class people, you can get something called an indulgence. You know how like right now you can go in and say like, you know, I jack my mean bone while Sister Susie milked a cow. And then we go dummy, dummy, we make you eat a triscuit and you're done.

And then I finish the backwash for you. No, no, no, no. Indulgence, if memory serves, was that you can buy forgiveness for a sin before you've committed it. Is that correct?

AlexOh, correct. and that's it's it's i just realized it's more of you're right that's a gift card whereas confession is a little bit like a uh rebate because you did the sin but it's not quite as bad but but it was also because church officials had were people were like how can you still endorse this powerful man he's doing a bad thing and so they had to find a way to be like oh he

Yes, he did murder his wife, but he gave us some money.

MerlinSo if Harvey Weinstein had been Catholic instead of a Jewish man, he might have walked.

AlexCorrect, yep, yep, yep. Huh. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Huh. That's what happened with Bill Cosby. He was like secret Catholic.

MerlinYeah, yeah. Those bits about Spanish Fly are funny. He, you know what it does is it irritates your urethra.

AlexOh.

MerlinThat's what Spanish Fly does. now here's my question for you though as a practicing I don't like to label you you like to label you you do that but when you're trying to figure out how to run between the raindrops of sin you I mean is it so are you playing as Hank Hill says are you playing lawyer ball is it something where like for example why the fish on Fridays because why Because there's an admission?

It's from the Bible, probably from the Old Testament, but you don't eat meat on Fridays, correct?

AlexCorrect.

MerlinCan you eat shrimp? Could you go to like a Golden Corral?

AlexNo, you can eat shrimp and especially—

MerlinThe Jewish people can't eat shrimp. This is a hell of a Venn diagram.

AlexYeah, but you initially weren't ever supposed to eat meat on Friday if you're a Catholic, and it was like a...

MerlinLike mammal meat, just to be clear.

AlexOkay. That's the worst. Correct. The mammal... Wait, no. You can't eat birds either.

MerlinI'm going to start saying that when I sit down. Hi, my name is Andre. Is this your first time dining with us? I'd like to tell you about some of our... Let me stop you there, Andre. Could you please give me an idea of your selection of mammal meats?

AlexYou're not allowed to watch Hannibal anymore. And a nice Chianti. It's going to go bad. bad places but it was or at least we were told it was to also honor the previous tradition of the sabbath as well as you know contemplation again with the symbol uh yes but then you know in true catholic fashion it's like oh well you know what's technically not meat it it was fish

Merlinbecause oh wait you're saying it starts with the workaround yes yeah it's not like you're fasting I mean, is the implication like you shouldn't eat animal things today? But, oh, but we found we found a marine loophole.

AlexWell, because it was like, oh, we're not eating meat because we it's also because then you're not killing the cow or chicken. And that's the same thing. Oh, Jesus also wasn't killed. So we're not killing anything today. Hooray.

MerlinThis is all so Nathan Fielder, Alex.

AlexYeah. But it's like, oh, wait, wait, wait, wait. Jesus gave out fishes. Like, we want to share the loaves and the fishes, right? Right. Yeah. Right. And so you can have fish for Friday. And then it was like, oh, well, actually, though, it was only in Lent. And it was only that time that Jesus was actually, like, in danger. So.

MerlinBecause then people are watching you at that point. You got to really – you got to cowboy up and make sure you're following the doctrines, right? Because otherwise you're going to be in a bad – okay. But like when I say lawyer ball, I'm also thinking about like – because that's such a basis for the wonderful Nathan Bitts. I mean the consequence of the funny Nathan Bitts is the – are the excruciating scenes like where he has to have the phone call with the guy about how the ashes – there has to be ashes. There has to be some part of his mother. Do you think I could have some of her hair and fingernails?

and he collects an entire Ziploc bag.

AlexIt doesn't need to be from a corp. Like, I knew that this show was really for me when I thought, why is he trying to look for someone with a dead mother? Just take some of her, like, just...

MerlinOh my gosh, you're simpatico. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But, like, Lawyerball, though, also could be like... But then the bit is, though, like, he has to hire somebody, cause someone to be hired who's a large enough person that the suit will look silly on him and that the suit will have a Ziploc bag of something in it that he can tell Jimmy Kimmel when he tells the anecdote were ashes. And so he bends over backwards to do that. But in the faith, okay, well, I don't know what.

I'm not dragging my girlfriend. But one time my girlfriend and I on.

AlexI'm not racist, but okay, go on.

MerlinYou know, there's so much power in the American dependent clause. I'm not racist but that's like saying the end

Alexor

Merlinworse yeah it's the worst word the but like one time this is silly but I think it's apropos of Catholicism Judaism and you I love that book

We went to, I think it was a, you know what it might've been? It might've been that we went to Georgia for her to buy a used pickup truck. I forget what it was, but anyway, we had, we had reason to go to Georgia. Okay. And we were on like, it was probably like spring break or the equivalent. Some of it, we had free time from school, from college to like go somewhere. And so we took a trip and went to Georgia. And along the way, I mean, she was definitely 100% vegetarian and, I mean, pretty close to vegan.

Like she did – she was in that awkward phase where she was not – she was really not just fronting. She, you know, she was a botanist. She liked plants. She liked eating plants. She always said when she got married, she wanted to carry a bunch of broccoli down the aisle, which always still makes me laugh. That's a sweet image. But when you're traveling through the South or Florida in this case, which is kind of the South, it's really difficult to find food along the way, especially quick service food that doesn't have meat in it.

And we stopped at a – not a KFC but a – what was it called? Was it – it was a chicken chain. And we went in there. And, of course, I got like the nine-piece death plate, you know, of fried avian. And Shelley was like, can I please have the side of greens? And can I have the side? She got all these sides.

And like, because she's a vegetarian. And like the greens had thumb-sized, like Walder Frey thumb-sized chunks of obvious pork floating in it.

AlexNo, no, no.

MerlinAnd I was like, Shelley, I don't. She's like, no, no, it's just greens. And I was like, oh, sweetie. No, you get my back. Is that kind of a Catholic Nathan Fielder? Oh, you. Is that kind of a Catholic Nathan Fielder thing a little bit? Like if that got – hey, if somebody put acid in the punch, it wasn't me.

AlexI mean if she really –

MerlinI'm not dragging her. I said that at the beginning.

AlexI know.

MerlinI do stuff like that all the time. Like if you – okay, like again, the classic trying to lose weight and you're like, oh, but like you know i'm pretty sure there isn't anything delicious any 11 o'clock food that i want right now and and but like and if i did find 11 o'clock food i know i shouldn't eat it because that's not something i want to be eating right now and then you find secret chips or something and you're like oh well i didn't buy these i did not cause this these are basically as they say in england these are sabbath crisps like these just i didn't i didn't cause these to be here now uh so i guess it's okay and i wouldn't want

them to go to waste now at that point it clicks do you did you have things like that in your youth

Alexyes that i believe there is oh god i wish i could remember what it was but there is a clause of like unless the meat shall spoil or something. So let's say the Cox family has an abundance of meat.

MerlinI wish you'd talk like that more often. Unless the meat shall spoil.

AlexUnless the mammal meat is scottled.

MerlinLobbeth thy holy hand grenade.

AlexOh, God. You're not...

MerlinSo don't, don't, don't, but keep talking. I'm sorry.

AlexOh, no. I'm just thinking of all the future Hannibal references you're going to make, and now I'm going to have to rewatch the series and it's so upsetting. That was like the most, oh, this shit was so upsetting.

MerlinWe just got to one where, actually my kid knows a name for this because she has a friend that's really into medieval torture and there's a name for the thing where you tear out somebody's lungs from the back.

AlexThat kid's these days.

MerlinYou tear out somebody's lungs and turn them into angel wings.

AlexYes, yes.

MerlinWe just got to that episode where the guy Jack Dorsey with Unflattering Frames is there and he kind of gets a little bit sass mouth with Sir Lawrence Fishburne And then he has to have a word with him.

You know, he was 14 in Apocalypse Now. Did you know that?

AlexNo.

MerlinSir Lawrence. He's also the red pill, blue pill guy in The Matrix. I don't know if you know that.

AlexOh, okay. There we are. All right.

MerlinSo what happened? So I'm trying to get my shit out of it. The document is really all I want to talk about, the project. And I need a better name for the project. I need a domain name for the project. Please put a pin in that.

AlexOh, wait, wait. You don't need to do it now unless you want. No, I'm holding on to this pin. I'm hanging out of pins right now. Are you saying that you're getting rid of the one thing that I don't like about the wisdom document, which is that it's called the wisdom document? And I don't think it should be called the wisdom document.

MerlinWell, it was the wisdom document. Then it became the wisdom project. And now I just wisdom's too fancy. You know, it needs to be something else. It started with me laying in bed Sunday and looking at domains on the Hoversite. I couldn't get close to anything that I wanted. Other kinds of things. I've just gotten the third domain name that involves give somebody your money. I was able to buy that. Give Roderick your money was easy enough to buy. Give Syracuse your money was easy to buy.

Give us your fucking money. Didn't we buy other ones? One time you missaid it and I bought give us our money. I think so. Those are easy enough to get. But Wisdom Project, The Wisdom. So then pretty soon you're getting into like mywisdomproject.xyz or whatever. Okay. The point is, and please come back to that.

This just sucks.

Speaker BFuck you!

MerlinI'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, we do this thing and it's become a bit, I think I've said it here, but like one of the things my kid does at some point, I know it's getting near bedtime because that's the point. The kid has been monopolizing the remote all night. And like eventually we end up in the little lozenge for what we used to call iTunes movies, of which we do own over 300. And the kid goes into all movies and scrolls through the entire over 300 movies that we have in the movie section.

And then the next four minutes goes something like this. Oh, Hot Fuzz. We love that one. oh incredibles oh such a good movie and i make remarks like this which makes the child angry and um but but that that that's a thing that we do i'm forever saying like oh god there's this thing you know i'm not gonna say chocolate and toy story but you know that's what i'm saying here and the other night i think i told you this i don't know where the kid goes it was past bedtime mom's long gone we're sitting there we're it's past dark and my kid goes to bed early

and goes like...

AlexWait.

MerlinYeah, go.

AlexA teenager who goes to bed early? Like, what is early?

MerlinMy whole family but me goes to bed early. My wife decided a long time ago that the lizard's bedtime was 7.30 because she's a mom and that's how her brain works. Well, we really should get him back in his enclosure. It's getting near his bedtime. And I said, you're out of your goddamn mind.

Speaker BThat seems...

MerlinIt's sweet. No, it's super sweet. I would love to be a lizard with a woman who loves me. You know? The mom who loved me. And out of nowhere, it was a Buddhist gift. And when I say this phrase, this is not asking permission, because the kid doesn't need permission. But it was more like, is this cool with you? The kid goes, could we watch Silence of the Lambs? And I caught my breath, and I went, yes. Don't overreact, don't overreact. Yes, we can watch Silence of the Lambs.

because that's one of the, I know it's problematic. Email Alex. But like, I need.

AlexI have an entire episode of another podcast in which it is.

MerlinIs it still available? Is it with Savannah? Did you tell Savannah I said hi?

AlexYes. Okay. Oh, not, well, you tell me to tell her that every week. So I did like three weeks ago. Well, then you should do it every week, Alex. We're friends. I will. I will. I will. She's so cute.

MerlinOh, she's not cute? You don't think Savannah's cute?

AlexShe's adorable. But I don't usually tell my friends how adorable they are. You know what? I should. Maybe I should. Maybe I should.

MerlinI think anybody would like to be told they're pretty. That's true. And so we watched it. I know. And it was fucking great. And as I've shared on other programs recently, there's what I consider to be two of the all-time great twists in Silence of the Lambs. there's this there's a second one that's about when scott glenn's team is going to bust into the house where buffalo bill is and it's not what we thought there's another twist earlier the first

great twist in the movie is when hannibal's in that cage in the middle of the room and then they got to get the emt or the the guard who got is near death they got to get him in the ambulance kid totally figured that out three minutes before it happened well that's because i mean because

Alexthis is a child that's watched movies very smart yes yeah exactly so back to the first two minutes

Merlinyou ask why and i said that's a good question it's because there are times when i think you know sometimes you get a little bit of a uh like maybe you've seen the thumbnail for something and it looks good or like my kid's entire knowledge of the world has come through tiktok mostly and like knows about a thing and like oh i know this whole story i'm like oh god okay um but but But I thought, so we watched it. It was great. It was fine. We ordered food and everything. We stayed up till like 11. And the kid goes to bed at like 7.45 or 8. I think because. What? Okay, goes to bed or goes to sleep.

AlexOkay.

MerlinOkay. This makes sense. This makes sense. That's a very good distinction because we're doing things. The child goes to room. And I'm no Syracuse. I do not demand that devices be on a charger outside the room. I know what goes on in this world because of the document. I know these things. I know that that's the world now. And if that kid wants to go have social time, as long as it's not like a registered predator, go have fun.

AlexKids just look at it that time.

MerlinBut that's what led to Hannibal. Because the kid had an awareness. Obviously, the kid has an awareness of Mads Mikkelsen. He's exquisite. And then that's how he ended up watching it. It's a little much for me, but I am delighted. Hannibal here, TV show. Hello. Hi, I'm Hannibal. but but the thing i like about hannibal is it's not what i expected at all it's not it's so far

Alexanyway it's not really about him it's about jack dorsey it's it's also a great show depicting why all cops are bad and why we need stricter gun laws because right like and also the good lessons in

Merlinhow to talk to you to your wife you know i said oh i was like oh oh sir laurence fishburn's wife i was like so what she's what's he's like oh i realize you're probably not cheating on me so i won't ask about that which is a passive aggressive way of saying you're cheating on me and i said so what is it and i think my kid said misunderstanding what metastasing is said oh yeah uh she's got liver cancer in her lungs i said oh yeah that's it but that's not the way you deal with somebody like that that's no good but i like it i like it so far that new girl are kind of the hits right

Alexnow interesting what are you watching right now that you like alex oh as actually because of you we're re-watching the first two-thirds of Community. Well, not just because of you. Because of the number of situations. Oh, it's so good. It's ruined.

Ruined. Ruined. Library. All sitcoms. Just, it's... Well, it was a perfect show. There are spans of that show that are perfect.

MerlinThere's payoffs. Annie's boobs with the pens.

AlexOh my god.

MerlinThe episode where Chang's in the walls and you're like... And then you just hit him on the head. Ow. Ow.

AlexOh, my God.

MerlinGod, that show's so good. Okay, good. So you're doing community.

AlexWell, yesterday, I, oh, and we're, I, before we started recording, I was like, I wonder if Merlin is going to mention numbers today. And so far, you're right in that you didn't. But we are losing. The TV show? No. Our editor, Quinn, got a real job.

MerlinOh, gosh. Wait, are we doing this right now? Wait a minute. Is this going to be an in-passing?

AlexOh, no.

MerlinOr is it an in-memoriam?

AlexIt is going to be an in-passing.

MerlinWe're going to let you all know, Quinn.

AlexShe's not dying.

MerlinWell, she was pancaked by a drunk dump truck driver. They don't usually list the cause of death. Don't say babies forever.

AlexQuinn let us know yesterday that after September, she... Oh, I'm hitting my mic. oh see now you are making a thing and it's going to make me cry because I'm so happy

Merlinshould we do a proper end Hannibal man that's a hell of a trip I love TV you see the slack about my new TV setup I'm very confused about

Alexthe new I'm behind on podcasts so when the slack suddenly blows up that thing Casey said

Merlinabout virtual channels you can make a channel like in a channel lineup and it can be anything you want it to be

Alexwell that's hold up we need to No, no, no, no. Hold on.

MerlinWe're going to get to Quinn in a minute.

AlexWe will talk about... Quinn is getting a real job. I promise, it's all connected.

MerlinI want to officialize this. I don't want it to be an in-passing. She deserves a true in-memoriam.

AlexWell, yes, but she's still...

MerlinThe ones we lost, Alex.

AlexQuinn is still going to be editing, though, until September. Okay, Quinn is getting a real job, which is very exciting, and especially because I wrote a recommendation letter for her back in the day. Quinn, you could edit that out, but I don't want you to mostly because the past two years I've written a lot of recommendations for people and they've all gotten the job and it makes me very happy.

MerlinThat's Martha, not Marty, right?

AlexYeah, it's like you guys want a job? Have me write a recommendation letter that's apparently the only one.

MerlinYou should get some Martha letterhead. Just you scowling.

Alexbut but quinn wrote a brief but really nice note like uh hey guys heads up and texted merlin and i and uh god what was the phrase she used that was the funniest thing that i at the time thought it was the funniest thing i've ever heard in my life she's a good writer i bet she went to a good school yeah i know i think i think it was in massachusetts she said um she said a bittersweet announcement yeah no no no uh wait wait wait um oh oh uh priceless flexibility which isn't that

funny but it at the time it me it just i don't know and the reason i thought it's priceless flexibility the term price thank you for the priceless uh flexibility as i could uh what i forget whatever but then i was like that's the funniest fucking thing i've ever heard and the reason at the time it was the funniest fucking thing that i'd ever heard is because i had tried a new substance called thco which is oh that's why you included that link yeah because you provided

it without any context at all yeah well i i asked quinn uh may i mention this on air and uh she's

Merlinlike sure i can't wait to find out and then you dropped in a link to something called thco yeah

Alexwithout any context at all yeah yeah no uh thco is i'm increasingly talking about thco acetate the

Merlinhemp derived compound three times stronger than thc is that what you're talking about yeah they

Alexshould really put that on the tin but increasingly i am uncomfortable with needing things that requires a doctor's note or an oh sing it sister yeah oh try working on your nighttime sleep without a doctor oh god yeah so like i i've accepted lamictal will always be part of my brain diet like that's just how it is um you better you better pick a bit a month when you're not busy if you decide to stop taking it oh god yeah that's gonna be uh hopefully that won't have to

Merlinever be an interesting time but um this is to deal with how you are it would be nice to not need like a prescription for stuff that may or may not work yeah but but but i will for a while

Alexbecause that's the bipolar brain but with the whole breaking of the foot and now getting much better like i don't um i was really resistant to taking painkillers just because i'm terrified of opioids but uh you know the doctor's like seriously no you should still be taking painkillers hannibal

Merlinjust gives that girl mushroom tea yes well he says it's half of well half a valium but it wasn't

AlexYep, yep, yep, yep. And I have found that THC9, which is like weed, basically, is a great, sometimes a great way to reduce pain. But again, you need an ID and it's a whole thing. It's a drug. And so is THCO. Oh, however, THCO is legal in most states and you do not need to show an ID to get it. You don't even need to be 18 or 21. So I was like, oh, OK, instead of Advil, let me try this and maybe it'll help my foot.

MerlinCan I ask how you heard about it from a friend or something?

AlexFrom. Oh, yeah. It's advertised everywhere. Like it's the new hotness along with THC Delta 8 specifically because it is legal. And if weed isn't legal in your state, now it's like, oh, everybody, come on, get this.

That was like the hey, you guys.

MerlinHey, you guys. I don't know who that voice is. It's Rita Moreno. Hi, I'm Rita Moreno, here today for marijuana products.

AlexWell, and so I was like, oh, oh, I'm going to try this. That's nice. And so I-

MerlinI want to self-medicate myself. I want to self-medicate myself. Yeah.

AlexAnd hi, Gwen. But also, I really don't – like, it's a bit, but I really don't enjoy smoking. Like, it's just not for me.

MerlinI mean, like, I –

AlexLike, any substance.

MerlinOh, dude. In my early COVID – because you remember how defensive I was about when we did the challenge. And then I discovered these edibles I like.

AlexWe've never done a drug challenge. And I know that because I've never expensed drugs.

MerlinOh. Sorry. No, but I got some, as they say, as the hippies say, flowers. and like it's nice especially if you want to be super high but but the benefit that i like of that i learned to like with these particular edibles was like how i know exactly what i'm going to get out of it yes plus or minus maybe 10 i'm never shocked i've been more shocked by cbd oil than i have been by by that i i feel the same way we our neighbor whom i love uh enjoys a marijuana cigarette

pretty much every day. And it just makes our whole house stink. And I'm like, oh, I don't ever want to do that. I smoked a cigar last week for the first time in months and I tasted it for three days. I think smoking may not be my thing now.

AlexYeah, I wish that I would. No, I don't. I am very glad that I don't enjoy nicotine or, well, I've never even had a cigarette. But I feel like if I did slash could smoke, I would never stop because cigarettes look so fucking cool. And I can't like bring back cigarettes. Vaping looks so stupid and cigarettes.

MerlinThis is why you got to watch Fosse Verde. And Bob Fosse was smoking five packs a day. He makes cigarettes look very cool.

AlexThey're so cool.

MerlinSo you heard about like on podcast this THC. Oh, yeah. And it's like, yeah, THC.

AlexOh, it's it's everywhere, especially in the Midwest, because I mean, we're in Chicago.

MerlinBy the way, can your new title on our show be THC.

Alext-e-o t-h-t it's not funny it's not even a joke i mean no but that's not even a joke so you got where'd you get it where'd you get it uh oh um the cbd kratom which is an actually a lovely i know i know it's like the whitest store in the world that stuff looks so fucking scary to

Merlinme it's well okay okay okay it just it looks like one of those things where like you're a friend of a friend is like yeah this changed my life and you're like oh what were you like before Are you sure it was a positive change?

AlexWell, this is like one of the places where, you know, you get overpriced hemp oil and stuff like that.

MerlinJust send me a link, please.

AlexI did I did oh right now okay hold on

Merlinoh no you sent me a link to something called Leafly which from the clever name I imagine is an adverbial version of marijuana yes

AlexLeafly is like whatever if you try to google some sort of weed

Merlinis it like tech crunch for drugs

Alexactually yeah oh no more of the verge actually because it's got

Merlinmore oh I see they stole a phone no wait that wasn't them who stole the phone That was Gawker.

AlexYeah, Gizmodo.

MerlinIs Gawker back?

AlexPeople keep telling. Oh, that is.

MerlinIt's in the notes. Is it? Is it? Well, it's in the pin board. You have to explain that article to me.

AlexI will.

MerlinSo you got some.

AlexYeah, so I got some THCO, and I was like, oh, cool.

MerlinYou're not going to send me a link to where I can buy this, are you? I'm going to have to literally beg you.

AlexHold on. Hold on. Hold on. I didn't have it. Oh, see, that's the website. That is explaining what THCO is, which I should have read.

MerlinYou know, Bob Fosse directed Pippin, and I think that's the show that Quinn likes.

AlexNo, it's Come From Away.

MerlinI'm not going to come anywhere. Not with you. I do that.

AlexOkay. Okay. Okay.

MerlinI think Quinn Rose's podcast is named after a song from Pippin, if memory serves. Hey, Quinn, put in a funny bit here where you talk to us. Quinn, I invite Quinn to do that all the time, and she never does. I assume she's too busy with her other things in her real job. but like it'd be funny if you would put in some commentary for once thank you for inviting me to

Speaker Cinsert my own commentary here's the thing no

Alexthis this was like oh so it's uh yeah try this because i was i was actually getting cbd treats for my cat i promise yeah he was we got a new couch and it made them anxious anyway i was like

Merlinoh cool change is hard we changed the room that bando's enclosure is in and he gave his side eye

Alexfor a couple days yeah it genuinely can't oh i'm well does he have a better enclosure like is he

Merlinliving is true no same same enclosure different room he's got a little more of a view it's like

AlexHannibal Lecter and how he wants to be able to see the Duomo oh okay okay okay okay and uh so i i had a uh a gummy a regular strength thco gummy and i just was like okay this let's see how this goes um it went i i we've talked about how i've never taken psychedelics and i probably shouldn't

Merlinuh so like b b z b that's cbd plus thc in the after show will you tell me what i should get

Alexplease oh i don't know if you should see that's the thing i do not know if you should get this

Merlinbecause the experience i really want mushrooms i really want to do mushrooms i've never done

Alexmushrooms it it i felt i did not feel insane but i'm like holy shit this must be like is this what

Merlinlike tripping is oh no see i don't want that that's the kind of thing i don't want i don't think you would like this it's not that i didn't like it a hallmark a hallmark of tripping is i feel like when it's sort of like you're in that weird phase where you're like you know like when you're a kid and you first drink and you're like, oh, am I drunk yet? Am I drunk yet? I think one of the hallmarks of psychedelics for me is that liminal feeling of like, hmm, something just mostly feels not quite right or normal, not in a bad way, but I think something is happening. I think at least the hallmark and other people will disagree, which is fine. But like, I think

the hallmark of especially LSD is the sense of, even though I know this is in my head, it doesn't matter. It's, it's as real as anything I've ever felt. And I feel it very strongly. Oh, Lord. Yeah. Like I told you the first time I, the first time I ever took acid, which implies correctly that I did take it many times, not many times, a handful of times, but, but the first time I told you, I had, I sat, I sat in my room with my girlfriend and we sat around and, um, I had the feeling that thoughts were like, you know, how like blood does stuff in

your body and moves things around and like i had the including air and stuff i had the feeling that thoughts in my mind were conducted through a liquid and the liquid was becoming slower and slower and then eventually the liquid stopped moving and for for an hour the only thing i could think was the thought that i'm thinking right now is the last thought that i'll ever have

Alexokay yeah it was not like this oh my god oh my god that's horrible that would be for you That's horrible. That's horrible. Well, but I have never, as I took my THCO edible, I was like, I was in a bad mood. My foot hurt. And I was like, oh, man. God, you must be so sick of that. Grumpy grump. Yeah, it's a thing. It's getting old. It is. And it takes a while. Like all edibles, it supposedly takes a while to set a kick in.

but it didn't kick in for about three hours oh no and i that's how people fuck themselves up with

Merlinedibles right yeah we're like it's oh it's been an hour i don't feel anything so it'll take seven more and you're like oh dude clear calendar you're gonna be so unhappy right and this was like

Alexpurely and i i do enjoy like go go recreational drugs like woohoo but this was not intended for recreational use so but by like because there's one point there's one aspect of recreational that's

Merlinkind of synonymous with like occasional informal like i'm not a druggie but i i use it like recreationally like i'll smoke pot at a party there's that meaning of recreational but i mean to state this perhaps obvious but i think important like recreational also kind of means it shouldn't be like if you take if you like in my day we used to call it mdma uh you take that And that's going to be your primary focus in a good way for a really long time. Ditto for acid in most cases. But you know what I'm saying?

It's like the way I wish Marco understood what priority means. Like the thing that you're doing right now is being on drugs. You're not going to watch a baseball game really. You know what I mean? You're not going to like scan a bunch of stuff probably. you're you're you might not even really i would not commit to like watching a movie even unless it's something that you know what i mean like recreational to me means i can still do other

Alexstuff and be a person well that brings us to community yeah oh shit dog okay so and unfortunately so i took this uh edible around i think 4 30 my time and oh so it kicked in within like an hour and a half and quinn texted us oh hey um my shit and i was just like uh the phrase oh is this why

Merlinyou thought i was mad at you because you were tripping yeah yes yes and so then i oh shit

Alexalex this explains so much it right i because i am of course i can't believe you withheld that from me oh but i thought i also thought that i told you no i didn't i didn't no no but you were

Merlinyou were probably not operating in top Martha mode.

AlexYep. No, I was a full on accidental recreation mode. Cause I'm like, Oh,

MerlinI didn't mean to.

AlexOh, what did I say? Uh, uh, Oh, I was like, I got it. Cause I got all excited.

MerlinLike this makes so much more sense now that we were having, this is, this is what it's like to be friends with you, which is so often really, really delightful because as with the way that we kind of collaborate on links i was telling billy last week my job is sometimes to go in and make sure you know stuff like did alex notice that there was a parentheses in this wikipedia article what wikipedia well paste it in on a phone probably i'm sitting there in front of the on my on my mac studio i got my mac studio uh computer i got my studio display i have many windows open and i'm fully in the mode

I've got marked to open over here. I got VS code over here and I'm carefully looking at all these things. I'm revalidating all the links in marked. And so it could be something as simple as leaving up for parentheses or just sometimes you just pasted something in that was, I don't even know what kind of error it was. I don't know why it was in your clipboard, but you've pasted it in twice in different places. So it must have seemed important at the time. it's like i have to i have to like unravel the the connections or lack thereof

in this case you just dropped in a link to something called thco yeah yeah well because

Alexi was like quid can i tell this anecdote because i think i made myself uh my own man of the week which is a apparently checking your mean bone uh no no no no i was not i was not on meth but i was on THCO. And so I texted you and then I was like, oh shit, I probably should have given Merlin like a heads up that I know Quinn wants a... We've been texting

Merlinin the channel with the three of us and said that. And I could see how you would be because like, I don't know, whatever. Like, I think my response was good, which was positive and I hope supportive. And like, I'm genuinely happy for Quinn and it was just like a quick thing. And then you went and typed a bunch of stuff. And then you're popping up in the you and me channel. And, um, and can I say, can I say roughly what you said?

AlexOh, please go ahead. Yes.

MerlinI mean, I thought, I thought, I understand now this is, I should get the exact time, right? So I don't hoist your petard, but like, um, oh yeah, you said, I want to, I mean, you said something about how you wanted to edit the show again, which I thought was great. And then you said more and you said more. And then I responded all good exclamation point. You kept typing. and then I said, let's talk tomorrow. And you added the dreaded question mark tap back to that. And then what did you say after that?

AlexDid I say, am I in trouble?

MerlinYeah, I probably did. I said, not at all. I'm just making a practice of telling people when I don't want to talk about a thing when I'm leaving work.

AlexWhich is so healthy and so good.

MerlinOh, this is good. This is good. I'm going to read you what I said. This could go in the document. Just making a practice of, and it's not just you, it's not just work. It's just that the world's not allowed to change my mode. And I'm just making a practice of telling people about about I said, I am a scheduler of things. It is my existential armor. And this is why no hop ons, no hop ons, no strap ons, no, no hop ons. No one's allowed. If we're there to record a podcast, except in most except in rare circumstances, we're not gonna do anything but that thing. Like you're not allowed to do it to do a strap on business topic or to like harass me about something you wish I did differently.

Nope. Not you, but, you know. And I said, I'm a scheduler of things. It's my existential armor. That is true. I said, but yes, whatever you think is best is fine, of course. And then later on, I got home, and you hadn't responded, which always worries me. And I said, I hope I didn't seem mad. I am not mad.

AlexAnd I thought I had responded.

MerlinAnd then at that point, you know what you didn't say? You know what you didn't say? I'm super high on whatever THCO is.

AlexYep, yep.

MerlinWere you scared? Were you scared that I respond badly?

AlexOh, absolutely.

MerlinAnd then are you also worried like wrong channel? You might've accidentally sent it to your mom or something. Tell her I said hi.

AlexOh God.

MerlinTell your mom and Savannah I said hi.

AlexWill, will do. Hey, Bonnie.

MerlinWas that part of it? Is that part? Hey, Bonnie. Was that part of it though? Is like the whole like, I like there's times where I'm like, I just know, you know, like the whole like admonition about like when you take this, don't operate a motor vehicle. Like there's that feeling of like, Oh, I was just about to operate a motor vehicle, except it's texts. I'm going to not operate that motor vehicle right now.

AlexYes.

MerlinI do that a lot.

AlexIt was like a –

MerlinThis is not the time for me to be doing this.

AlexWell, and in fact, you are – I'm actually trying to create a shortcut in iOS that – I'm sorry, like a focus mode in iOS.

MerlinIt just deletes all of my stuff.

AlexNo, no. Oh, focus modes have been working great for me.

MerlinBut like a focus mode that takes – I know, I can tell. I find it out UK. Sometimes I text my family, and I don't hear anybody's phone buzz, and I'm like, mm-hmm, I know. but i i it would be nice i i make a point my kid admits that my wife does not my wife does not admit that i am muted oh oh oh oh i'll find a i'll find a way to make her regret it

Alexi've pretty much of everything muted all the time forever but now i also want to uh have a thing of like don't text this person at these certain times like a reverse do not disturb i and part

Merlinthe problem for me is like i don't know maybe this is such a projection i think it's probably the right word for it but assume i assume that everybody uses do not disturb at least manually and i guess because i i mean i've got i i automate dnd i have a nighttime one called personal where it's just after like 5 30 i don't get alerted about anything but from my family or like food service delivery things and then after i forget what time it is but probably 9 30 it's like kind

of like wind down mode and i don't hear from anybody and then i look over and i see the the green icon with like a red 19 on it i'm like oh no like what is happening over here did it did you

Alexknow in in certain focus modes you can just make the the badges go away now and it's amazing i

Merlinthink they did that for for my when i take a nap i made a shortcut that tells my family i'm taking

Alexa nap it turns on do not disturb sleeping mode anyway i uh yes when i was like this has not happened in a very like oh god i can't even remember the last time i was like really high oh that's why i can remember it was when actually the relay like you notice it's a little bit it's

Merlina little bit out like sort of out of your control or like yes it's like you know when you're driving and you forget you're driving, not when you're high, but like when you're on a highway, like I always used to get this when I was driving my mom's house, listening to like NPR, driving for six hours. And I go like, I don't remember the last, I don't even know how many minutes it's been since I actively realized I'm driving a car. Yeah, that is terrifying. But that kind of feeling, but with drugs, where you're like, oh no, has that water been boiling that whole time?

AlexAnd I was like, oh God, Merlin's mad me, Merlin's mad me.

MerlinOh, I'm so sorry, Alex. I really didn't mean to. When I'm mad at you, you'll know it.

AlexYes, I know.

MerlinI'll give you a reason to cry.

AlexAnd my spouse was like, nope, you are just having a, whatever you had is just a little bit. It's a little, a lot. Why don't you just chill? And he said the smart thing was just like, just pretend this is party weed and you're having a great night. And I was like, oh, that's a good idea. Party weed. party no you know what party weed is party weed is the weed you take or at least in our household party weed is the weed you have before you watch adventure time or rick and morty for

about six hours so what i did was just put on community and sink into my couch in the most

Merlinstereotypical way you did it though you change i think matt's suggested something really smart which we talk about a lot here changing the frame like what if like like again from the document like if there's a memory that you hate and you realize it's because you're ashamed about it imagine how differently you'd feel tomorrow about that memory if you weren't ashamed like change the frame like start you know and this is very much in the trauma book which I've been listening to again very much in the trauma book in that words the section about words and talk therapy and like

how all that works it's so good and like boy Matt is so smart you're really fortunate to have me

Alexoh god yeah it's like having your own personal RA he needs to stop getting hot it's just very frustrating

MerlinI don't want to talk about people's appearance Alex but no everyone

Alexcan talk about his appearance anyway but here's the issue

Merlinshould we can I suggest in band then we transition well hang on oh my god

AlexI'm going to tell you what I tell my wife

Merlindo you want to finish my thought Okay. Here's the thing. Have you finished your anecdote? Which is a great anecdote. Hi, Matt. Hi, Savannah. Hi, Bonnie. And when you're done with that, let's roll the in memoriam for Quinn. And then after that, I'll hit the bell and act like I'm excited and we'll do the challenge. Does that work for you?

Speaker AAll right. Sounds good.

MerlinDo you have any anecdotes you want to finish, Alex?

AlexOh, yeah. The anecdote that I was just going to finish, actually, I've been seeing them everywhere and it's very upsetting. Like our neighborhood has been Tesla gentrified.

MerlinOh, I bet the Tesla people are mad. There's so many Teslas now.

AlexSo many. They must have had it. But the problem with sitting on the couch and just having a show autoplay is sometimes you hit an emotional episode. And I was like, I don't want this. I don't want this. I don't want this.

MerlinCan I ask, were you watching In Order? Yes. At a start? Like what? Early? So like season two?

AlexNo, no. Episode S1E2. So because I planned on.

MerlinThat's when they're still having Jeff have a separate episode with each person where they're like establishing everybody.

AlexYeah, that's the one where it's still like, man.

MerlinIs that Abed? Is that the Abed episode?

AlexNo, that's episode four, I think, the film studies one. I love that one. Yes, but there's emotions. And I was like, oh, no, oh, no, I don't want this. I just want to laugh. No, no, no. I want the meta jokes. And I was like, fuck. I went back to my mainstay of trying to figure out a way to make just a playlist of episodes where I can say, hey, hey, dingus, play whatever. And then it just has a playlist of certain, I don't care where it is, but in a playlist of certain episodes of comforting TV, which I think might be possible with something on Plex and channels.

MerlinWell, Casey pretends like he listens to this show. Listen, first of all, don't anybody out there dare tell Casey that I ask him to let me know if you heard what I'm saying right now. because you can't get off that easy. I want to see if it takes a few weeks. What Casey recommended on ATP and in Slack?

AlexYeah, well, because I was behind.

MerlinThat's the thing I'm doing? Yes, yes. Oh, Virtual Channels. Channels, what a terrible name for an app. It's like having a product called Web Search or something, or like the band The The. It's rough. But no, Channels has a thing called Virtual Channels that I would love to talk to you about because that is exactly what that would be perfect for. Only Alex positive episodes, please.

AlexYes. Yes, exactly.

MerlinAnd if you got stuff from Plex, it'll play those things too.

AlexNo feels. Only trips.

MerlinYeah. Yeah. I really do love that show. And like, you know, I'm not going to be one of those people, one of those YouTube people that yells about the show.

It's almost as bad as the Disney people. Everybody's so fucking mad about Disney and community. it's like can we just like things but like are people mad well never mind i don't want to know why people are mad well there's the there's the dan harman not there season that everybody hates and i thought it's funnier than people say and but like really though i don't know my mind about this my mind changes about this very often almost like a favorite beatles album feeling but like you know i tend to think that tv shows have secret weapons and part of what makes somebody a secret

weapon oh challenge part of oh part of what makes somebody a secret weapon is that two examples come straight to mind abed on um well abed and troy really as a as a dyad but abed in particular um dwight on the office like these things were like you could tell when they conceived of the show first of all my god the casting for the the shows you're like how did they get it so right a lot of times it's because they hire that one woman that cast all the all the great Mike Schur shows but you go like okay Abed I mean let's say it like for the really especially

like almost all the first season he's simply coded as a delightful person who is very much on the spectrum but with fun things like his tv references and stuff Dwight Schrute when he first starts out I mean he's just a I mean he starts out pretty strong and people forget including me that the second episode of the American Office is the racism one. Like, it got good fast.

AlexDiversity Day.

MerlinDiversity Day. Oh, so good. Written by Larry Wilmore, right? The guy who's the consultant guy in that.

AlexOh, really? Oh.

MerlinOh, that's so cool. Googie, googie. But I think A Secret Weapon is often somebody where, like, you may not appreciate until you've watched into, like, the second season. and you're like, oh, they not only really figured out what to do with this character, this character has suddenly blossomed, if you like, into the secret weapon. We're like, Abed is, I mean, not only I think, I was going to make a reference to St. Elsewhere, but you're not going to know that reference, where we learn, spoilers, at the end of St. Elsewhere, we learn that the entire show has existed

in the mind of one of the Doctor's spectrum-y kids staring at a snow globe, right? In this case, the whole show could be in Abed's head. in some ways. But then with the addition of Troy, it gets so good. This should be a challenge. I love a secret weapon character. And I sometimes think it's different people on community. Who do you think is the secret weapon on community?

AlexI mean, Abed's the obvious choice, but then I think it sort of becomes...

MerlinBut also Senior Chang, we don't say Senior. But when they figure out what to do with Ken Jeong so quickly and he's God, he's so good with the Cuban shirts. I said this before I forget what the exact line is but when he walks up to Annie and he goes he's eating her brain. He's so good. I think it is considered that at least in the YouTube community that that show kind of it became

that show such as it was in some ways with the debate episode.

Alexwait

MerlinI remember the debate episode

Alexbut that's a little too late

Merlinit's an early one it's them versus the other the nicer community college Jeff the disgraced lawyer

Alexis that season 1 still?

Merlinand he's going to try and show that the guy with the disability doesn't really have a disability

Alexoh yeah I forgot that part yes yes

Merlinthere's that one I saw a YouTube video about this intend to agree that Breaking Bad gets really good with episode six, the one where they first meet Tuco. Oh, that's the episode. And Mr. White becomes Heisenberg for the first time. That's like six episodes into that show. It's bananas. It's $1,900 chemo. It made me so sad. I forgot why I was asking you this. But a show like that, though, you keep coming back to it. Like with Dwight Shreed, I was just watching an episode of The Office I love. And I'm sorry.

I'm basic. I like The Office. But the episode, and I put this on the internet the other night, but the episode where Michael burns his foot on the George Foreman grill is such a funny episode. Have anybody but Dwight come pick me up? And one of the great, well, so many great cold opens, but where Dwight goes to get him and he wrecks his car and throws up on the windshield and he obviously has a concussion. And that's the beginning of him and Pam being friends a little bit.

AlexOh, yeah.

MerlinAnd there's this great like 50 seconds on the show where Michael's in his office. Dwight has a little handheld battery powered fan blowing on Michael's foot wrapped in bubble wrap. Dwight at this point already has what appears to be brain damage. And Michael's dressing Pam down because Pam is not treating him like a friend or a beloved family member. And she says, do you want me to get you an aspirin? Because you seem a little fussy right now.

AlexYes, I'm fussy right now.

MerlinSecret weapons. But we'll set you up with this. You go to which money? Oh, giveusyourfuckingmoney.com, patreon.com slash dobyfriday. It's no rhetoric on the line,

Alexbut it is solid.

MerlinWe appreciate the money, and we use it for things like drugs and costly cable TV subscriptions. That's true, Kip. I have a whole room in my house I had built just to make fun of people who give me money. I go in there and smoke my comically large cigars and burn $20 bills. I light $100 bills with $20 bills.

AlexI do feel a little bit guilty every time I use HBO Max. I'm like, is this a good use of people's money? It's a really bad app. It's a wonderful program or lots of great programming.

MerlinI'll tell you what's not a good use for our listeners. Hi, Parapals. Did you know that Alex uses some of your money to subscribe to Bloomberg?

AlexOh, God.

MerlinWhy don't you just go all in? Get Wall Street Journal, too, so you can read all those articles people link to. I know.

AlexIt was... A moment of weakness. $300. $300 for a year of Bloomberg.

MerlinBut you enhanced your relationship with Gruber. That was nice. It was nice to see you guys talking to each other.

AlexHe's fine. He posts from his phone, too.

MerlinYeah. He's a degenerate gambler. I wouldn't get too close to him can I do a thing here?

Alexdo it

Merlinhey everybody, we've been doing the show for a while I don't even know how long Alex can say but it's not going to happen this week I don't think but we do want to say, we have not planned this I'm just saying this aren't I good at sounding like I figured something out?

Alexyes okay ready?

Merlinyes that was my Matt Berry version yes now if I'm going more New Zealand if I'm doing more of like a Wellington Paranormal. I'll say, yes. Hey, everybody. This is a podcast. And unlike anything else that I do, this one's edited. And our editor for this show is Editor Quinn, which is a dear friend of ours who is going to be moving on to, I don't like the phrase real job, but to something different that means that Quinn will have the capacity or cycles to be the editor.

And I would just like to join Alex in using this occasion to say, oh my god the shit that you put up with quinn like i i i don't i i doubt quinn would quote unquote listen to the show if it weren't something that was necessary for editing but quinn does a great job is super fast and efficient if i could write a letter of well you know what maybe i'll just write a general letter of recommendation for quinn oh that could be used for anything yes you know and just include lots of different scenarios obviously great at

podcast editing good actor super fun hang uh getting to hang out with quinn i told you to go to a went to a good school well i don't know about that but i mean it's no brown but we um sometimes i'm no brown if i'm being honest but um quinn quinn's been uh swell to work with and uh and gets it and uh i'm gonna miss having quinn around and i'll just see quinn even more from a distance but did you have anything special you want to say about how quinn was uh pancaked uh by a drunk dump truck driver?

AlexNo, Quinn's stupid, and I hate her.

MerlinStupid face, really stupid face.

AlexYeah, I don't want to go see a movie with you this weekend. Go fuck yourself.

MerlinBoy. Your interior world is really wholesome, Alex.

AlexWell, it's very funny that also—

MerlinSorry, you've been told that they're in the interior world.

AlexYeah. I think it's not so much that Quinn and I are friends in that Quinn is friends with Matt, as everybody should want to be.

MerlinAren't you guys technically kind of pivot friends? I mean, aren't you – like you've got a lot of pivot friends. You've got a friend where you're friends with somebody, but Matt's even closer to that person. I know you've had relationships like that. Who's the primary friend in your relationship?

Alexi mean i am the one who begged quinn to move to chicago for like years uh basically i think i

Merlinbecause she was living in providence after finishing at brown yeah yes and i was like you

Alexyou please please move to chicago and by move to chicago i mean please don't move to new york or la which is where all of my friends go when they leave oh my god no it's like trying to keep

Merlinyour friends out of a cult yes it's just i don't want to be mean but could you please not move

Alexthere yes and and you know it is it is not my place to say anybody who lives in la that's happy

Merlinuh no literally no i well the only thing worse is san francisco that's what oscar wilde said the only thing worse than um and and quinn if you want to drop in um uh you're not obligating cut this out meta cut this out if you want but if you want to you don't have to say anything but if you wanted to, I don't know, play a song or something or, you know, or remember yourself the way that we'd like to remember you.

Speaker AWe'll be right back.

MerlinI'm starting to get to hang out and talk to Glenn more. I told you this before and then we'll do Dugga but that relay event you were at that right? oh yeah you're one of the ones on the team that cheated about Android

Alexno I won because I was so angry I'm still mad about that I'm not going to say

MerlinI can't believe I work with those relay guys

Alexbut she saw the questions and I was rooming with Kathy Campbell who wrote the questions

MerlinTalk about a shortcut, am I right?

AlexNo, specifically was like, Alex, you do not come to this area of the hotel or of our room because this is where the question cards are. And I was like, OK, OK. It's like every time I came into the room, I'm like, are the questions hidden? Because I don't want to cheat. I don't want to cheat. And then I got really mad because some people knew the questions and the answers. But but I still won. Quinn and I and Sparky and Flo fucking dominated. Anyway, sorry, Merlin, you were talking about something.

MerlinIt was just nice to meet people. I got to meet Helene from the Golem and the Genie. I got to hang out with her. She's a big rock star in literature, you know.

AlexI know.

MerlinI know. Whereas I'm a rock star of not finishing things. I'm a regional rock star of not finishing things. I'm like somebody you'd see at the other county fair. Or really more of like a traveling carnival. I'm really more like a self-help carny. not art carny that's a different kind of art it's a hybrid mattress challenge this week the challenge uh was i don't know somebody's and the challenge this week was um something alex and i had both been playing with this is one of those little cheaty back

door challenges where it's something we were both finding ourselves doing more recently anyway which is looking at a wonderful old school returning to to rediscover a wonderful old school ajax web 2.0 a site called pinboard.in. It is a bookmarking service. If Memory Serves Miche used to actually make fun of Delicious for how little it was being developed. And so I think he just decided, like by fiat, to just go out and make Delicious but better and made it easy to bring your stuff from Delicious. You were on Delicious back in the day, I'm sure, right?

AlexI believe he acquired Delicious.

MerlinHe did that.

AlexRight? Hold on.

MerlinIt's a bookmarking app. And what do we say in our text? We think it's the best thing or the purest thing on the internet, something like that?

AlexIt is incredibly pure. And I would even say wholesome, which you have not redefined that word, but you have made it. I've reframed it. You have reframed it, much like my weird trip. And it's one of those things that I initially was like, do I just have nostalgia for this? Like the way I have nostalgia for like screenshots of Tumblr from 2010.

MerlinI think saying you have nostalgia for that, at least for myself, is not inaccurate. Nostalgia for like, I used to use this a lot. And spoiler alert, I've been using it all along because all my Insta paper book markets, as I'll describe, automatically go to pinboard. But also the nostalgia of like, gosh, I mean, do you remember when you first used Flickr or you first used some of those Ajax-y sites? And it was like, oh, my gosh. What these youngsters, including you may not remember, was we were coming off the sort of boom, boom, 90s, the dot-com years, then the dot-com crash.

And I feel like when we look at Web 2.0, maybe the third definition somewhere down is people did not make stuff because there was easy, fast money to be made. They made things because they wanted to make something really cool and beautiful that utilized what was then very cutting edge technology to make something genuinely useful and unencumbered.

AlexUnencumbered feels like the important word for the things that have lasted from that era.

MerlinYou ever go to a bank site? One of my bank sites in particular, because I have many banks. One of my bank sites in particular, it really is like looking at a website. It was like being a Mac user in like 1999 or 2000 because back then, like everybody made their pages and their sites to look good on Internet Explorer without any consideration how it looked on a Mac. So all the fonts were really small. It looked really weird. Nothing was resizable. It was before, you know. But then you come on. Do you remember how Flickr? Flickr was so friendly with nice big letters and everything made sense and it was complex but uncomplicated.

Like there was a lot it could do. Well, that is, that's words mean things. That is very much Pinboard to me, which is pretty sure a one-person operation where the most basic logline on it is like when you see things, for whatever reason, you see something on the internet and you want a place to put it other than your own browser bookmarks, which we should note. The whole idea of syncing bookmarks is a fairly new idea. If you want a place to put all your stuff, Pinboard does that.

Huge API. I'm not huge, but, you know, powerful API, does lots of stuff. But, like, it's really, it's like a series of very sharp scalpels. Like, it just does this stuff and it just does that stuff well. Like, how often, Alex, something you and I complain about, you see an update to an app, bug fixes and blah, blah. But then, like, you see an app that just basically is dead, like an App Store app. but it's like for functional purposes, dead for 18 months. And the only updates are things that like let you share it more.

They're trying to build it into a platform. Well, you know what? Pinboard has that. It has collections. It has groups. It has all these things that you can do, but it's all based on that core functionality of here is a URL, a title, an optional description, and optional tags. And then what you can do with that is inspiring.

AlexOh, go say more about that.

MerlinOh, I thought I was just trying to, I stopped talking because I thought I should throw to you.

AlexI know, but by inspiring, because words mean things, what do you mean by it is inspiring?

MerlinI mean to fill with air in an Aristotelian sense. Inspiring in the sense of, so unlike one of my co-hosts, I'm not here to say that all ads are terrible and we should never have ads on podcasts. but like what it bugs me though the way that for example advertising is used as a kind of cudgel over time where like you know there was back in the day we had banner ads of exactly this one size and then you know you could have you could if you're a real scoundrel like i was for a while

you could actually sell links that are hidden that would increase people's page rank that was a kind of advertising there's affiliate advertising but like even by what probably 10 years ago So, I mean, at that point, probably Google owned so much of the online advertising market. Later, Facebook would, you know, get big at that too. But you just started to feel like so much hostility. This sounds so naive to even say at this point. There was a time when people used to think like this, where you go like, oh, I'm not going to use that app.

That seems really hostile. And now, how many people do you know that are still on fucking Facebook because they, quote unquote, have to be there? And it's like, oh, my God. It's all so venal. It's so hostile. It's so not a thought to user experience apart from like the rounding errors or improvement that you get out of optimizing your shitty identity stealing engine. You know, I'm not against online advertising. I'm against, as John Syracuse says, malware. Right. But then so what's inspiring about it?

Well, what's inspiring about it is like. I want to I want to make I want to make you a treat like my treat right now is that. dumb GitHub project. That's my treat. Like I don't, I, I benefit from that because it's, it's fun for me to do and it makes me feel good when people like it. But that's a, it's like Maria Bamford and her one hour Christmas special. This is a gift I made for you. Just here's a, here's a little thing I made for you. I didn't make it to like earn any money, let alone fuck

you money. I made it because this is a thing that I would want. And even if it's not something I would want it's something i know somebody would want and maybe a lot of somebodies and in the instance in the case of pinboard like i mean that's it's really pure and it's just inspiring in that sense of to make something of quality that one can be proud of that isn't some kind of a weird cover or subterfuge for some deeper grift it's not about engagement even it's not

about influence. I mean, you could make anything weird, but I'm the sort of person that I appreciate guardrails in life so much that I actually, I don't mind people locking down how a service works just because of the 0.1% of people who use it to do fucked up shit. I don't have a problem with that at all. Like make your thing good. If you don't know, if your thing's not good, it's going to be difficult to do a post hoc improvement through policy if you think is good don't you

want to keep it from getting stupid and shitty and don't you want to keep it beloved amongst the

Alexpeople that you respect and and don't you want to continue to love it because oh i know all of my i think most of my favorite things on the internet is someone stopped loving make it or they stopped loving what they did but continued to make the thing which seems because you have to because

Merlinit's your job because your mortgage because of whatever because of your vc and it's like i it would be there's not many companies that have ever existed in the world to get more aloha than me from me then you know smile smile on my mac slash text expander like you know historically like it's like i said on the slack like i have a very strong personal link with what that company made and the people who made it and stuff like that. And so when it starts to seem like, you know, the milk's starting to turn a little bit, I don't want to be disloyal, but it bums you out a little

bit when you're like, you took all that VC money and turned off the SDK for why? Like it's just, it bums you out a little bit, but like that's how it works. I mean, that is, that is really, that's how, as I guess it was Hoover, whoever the president was, I think it was Hoover said, the business of America is business. And that's true. Business, business, business. But in this case.

AlexLiving under capitalism, as Cocker said.

MerlinNow you can give, I hope I'm saying his name right. I apologize. I think it's Mache. He has a sort of unusual name with a critical in it. But like, you know, it's still around. I give money to Pinboard. I, you know, it's not that it's just he's doing it for some kind of, it's not a UNESCO project. Did I say UNESCO? I might have said UNESCO. I think I meant UNESCO. It's not like a UN thing. It's not something that's being done to help people have wells, but it is something, and it's partly at least a business,

but I have endless aloha for somebody who finds a way to make something sustainable. Nothing's broken on that site. All the stuff, as we'll talk about probably, all the stuff that's broken is a result of it no longer being the IT app that people develop around or for.

Alexit i'm gonna well actually you because you cannot use pinboard you you must you must pay but i remember this like from web 2.0 oh right he did a meta filter right you had to like pay some amount yeah yes yes and it was uh like totally sliding scale and i think it's different now but it and it was like very clear it used to be on the front page of why it needed to why you had

to pay to use it because he's like if you're not if like i want customers not you like my user should be my customers and not the other way around like because i'm not collecting any of your data and it's like i want to keep this working and i want to continue to like it and there was a lot of basically backhand comments about dig and delicious and stuff like that But it endured. And it sounds gross to say he didn't compromise his morals. No, I don't know a good way to say it.

He did not compromise his vision for what made this service good and continues to make it good.

MerlinWhat the thing is, how it works, and who it's for in some ways. We talked about maybe in the after show, I guess, last week. We were talking about Blot. I think it's Blot.im. but I am that lightweight blogging thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And we talked about how we both really like the way that developer sort of thinks out loud in this sort of notes area of the site.

In the pinboard FAQs, which will be in notes, pretty good FAQs. This is all very well thought out. One of my favorite sections, because this is the kind of stuff I like to do, or the kind of stuff I used to do when I did things.

AlexWhen you had folders? well you know I've

MerlinNo, I've always been at FAQs. The Bacon Ray website had FAQs that were very funny in the 90s. And I used to have FAQs on my Squarespace site.

AlexOh, no. FAQs are – oh, I thought you were doing a bit. No. FAQs are amazing.

MerlinIt's a great opportunity for creativity.

AlexYes. I like to think of FAQs as like the ultimate place for Easter eggs where – but the – by optimality –

MerlinBut because they're atomic as separate FAQs, they're separate things. You're probably not going to see this one FAQ. And by the way, Casey's buddy who makes that channels thing, their documentation is really good as well. But FAQs, like you can get fun about it without making the whole thing unserious. But so the section, so like I said, this will be in notes. You got general FAQ, payment privacy, importing bookmarks, saving bookmarks, you know, all the things that people would want to know. Outside services account search. Last section is called Anxieties.

And there's three anxieties that are listed that I would like to read you now. Really, just the first one's plenty. Anxieties. What happens if the guy who runs pinboard gets hit by a bus? He answers, the bus is likely to be fine. He's a good writer. Go find his presentations. His presentations are terrific. The bus is likely to be fine. They don't go very fast and are designed with passenger safety in mind. Next question. How do I know the NSA is not looking at my bookmarks? If you're worried about this kind of stuff, don't use a bookmarking service.

Who can see, last one, who can see my private bookmarks? I can. I routinely look at raw bookmark data, which includes da-da-da-da. And he says, I use the metaphor of a hotel manager. I have a key that opens every room, but I try not to use it without a good reason.

That's the kind of thing that's kind of cool, though. How many sites have you been to that have like a, and I'm not saying I do this, but like how many sites have you been to that have some kind of like a, I don't know what the phrase is. there's a name for this but like the what's the legacy like what's going to happen like if i did get hit by a bus does somebody know the the way to unlock the hashes and stuff like does anybody know how to do anything with any of this like can i trust you basically yes and um that's um

Alexit's a really good site it's i i i was going to say it's it's not a very it's not a great it's not a pretty website which was very functional yeah but but like back in 2011 that was a big deal to have a really i i guess would be considered boring bare bones site because

Merlineverything was pretty and suddenly dig 2.0 and everything was in some ways gosh i think really pound for pound this is there was a change that started happening that i think if we're being honest and not being snooty old people, I think one huge benefit that came along was, and it's not just stuff like Bootstrap, but the standardization of sites. Like the idea of having sections that you could expect to find on most websites, like about or search or home or whatever. Hey, guess what? It didn't used to be that way. And maybe you could say, oh, that was more creative back

then. But I think we've mostly really benefited from something like standardization in websites. But again, also when we did the – maybe it was whenever we were talking about Blot and we talked about like that guy's values about how he doesn't want to have another like B2B looking site with a three-column setup and you have to contact somebody to talk about pricing and all of that. And that instantly connected with me because as much as Bootstrap is a great framework for getting stuff rolling, it has led – Bootstrap-ish things have led to a lot of like not just standardization but genericization.

I knew exactly what he meant when he said, like, the site with the three columns. Like, here's the bronze, silver, and gold plan or inquire for more, you know, fourth column. It's not bad, but, like, I'm glad that standardization happened. But one interesting side effect of the Zeldman era in the early 2000s, as I struggled to understand more about why I would want my code to, you know, validate. and how that makes CSS so powerful.

And as we've said before, it leads to the ability to have Ajax. I got in the habit pretty often. I forget the bookmarklet, but I had a bookmarklet that you could just click and it would reload the page with absolutely no style sheets.

And that's how you tell what kind of craftsman you're working with. Like, it really meant a lot to me when I got back into comics and I started understanding, really understanding for the first time, the difference when you say, like, well, this person wrote it and that person did the art. Well, often, sometimes one person does all the art, but often three different entities do the art, not counting the letterer. You've got the pencils, which usually is what we mean when we say art. There's one person who did the pencils, one person who did the inks, and then there's

a person or persons who did the coloring. And then there's somebody different who did the lettering, right? And that's like a whole art of its own. And it's like the – oh, wait. What was my point? What was I talking about?

AlexThe webs – how you know what sort of people you're working with.

MerlinOh, yeah. So make me sound smart. When you click a bookmark that turns off all of the decoration, let's say. So you still got the underlying HTML document. But when you look at that, it's like a la comics though. It's like the difference between there's one person who can design a table. There's another person who does the woodcraft to build a table. And then maybe somebody else altogether that does the final carving and painting and all of that stuff. When you turn off style sheets, you see how solid a piece of furniture a given website is.

I think. Is it still super functional to the extent possible without any decoration? and you know i say that now because back in the day i mean you know alex i have images turned off in gmail on one of my many odd things that i do you would not believe how much even for example from channels this new thing that i'm subscribed to like you don't believe how many well you do

Aleximages turned on if you can say oh yeah no i've had it turned off forever and but you ever get

Merlinthose emails where like there's literally no text it's all just a placeholder for where an image would be if you loaded images and you're like i get why you do that for the 99.999 percent of people who have images turned on and respond to shit like that but like it's almost like when an ios app pops up the thing for saying can we share your data with other ad stuff it's by no means a deal killer but it's definitely my first kind of pink flag of like hmm i want to keep an eye on you it's like

AlexWhenever I go to someone's house and I see that they have a ring doorbell, it's not that I'm immediately like, oh, because, you know, not everybody knows.

MerlinThey don't want people stealing their clan robes.

AlexBut yeah, it's kind of like the first something something Kingsguard Game of Thrones reference. I don't know.

MerlinOh, sure. You're talking about Jamie Lannister. They call him the Kingslayer. mm-hmm um okay well let's wrap soon i i do you have stuff you want to talk about in terms of like what you've rediscovered or what you've done i'll just spoil mine by saying like i haven't done anything particularly new and unique i just wanted to outline like how the the not weird the surprising way in which even though i am yes actually using actively going to the website and using pinboard more now like for however long it's been it's been so beneficial to me i wanted

to talk about why that is but what did you do this week in rediscovering pen board i just kind

Alexof started importing like everything for some reason instapaper won't work for me and it still says your bookmarks will show up soon and it hasn't but who is it a pay only feature something no well maybe on one end or the other i no i don't think so i pay for both still work and

MerlinAnd spoiler, spoiler, that's one of the most powerful things for me. Just the way this stuff gets piped. And that, you know, really on that instance, so basically every time I book something, bookmark something Instapaper, it gets added to my pile, which pile lives in the sky. So pile in the sky, as you say. But like that means whether I look at it on a Mac or on an iOS device or wherever, all my Instapaper bookmarklets are there. But it's Instapaper's functionality, as far as I know, using the API, that then automatically sends all of each of my Instapaper bookmarks

and it marks it as private and read later. But that's like how I feel about Gmail and photos. Gmail used to be a way to send email to people. Photos used to be a way to like get a picture of a baby. Gmail is now also the running receipt for my life. If I want to find out, I want to find out when I bought my first, Oh, I made that crack in the channel about moving from a 1080i TV to a 4K TV. And because of Gmail, I was able to go back and find when in 2008 I bought that 1080i TV.

It's a running receipt for my whole life. Ditto photos. And now the third one I'm going to add to that is pinboard. I can find anything. Because if I'm interested in something, I just almost compulsively hit Instapaper. Whether or not I read it later is not significant. But I know it's in the pile. And then the search inside of Pinboard means that all that Instapaper stuff, the over a dozen years of that that I've had, it's all just in there and I can do stuff with it.

AlexI've tried to add fewer things to previously Instapaper, now Matter, the Read It Later app. But then I usually end up regretting it. Like, I was like, oh, crap.

MerlinBecause you're creating noise.

AlexNo, no, no. I end up regretting not saving a link or saving a story. Oh, I see. Because I'm like, ah, crap. Where is that? What did, like, where did I see it? Slash, what did I want to do with it? And now everything is going into Pinboard. Like, everything just so, so, oh, God, I have like 500 something links in here. And it doesn't matter if I am not going to read it later because I don't automatically mark things as read it later.

But if it has a certain tag, it goes to matter because I know that I want to read it for later. And, oh, God, the power of tagging.

MerlinMatter needs like two more features and it will be the best thing ever. The fact that it doesn't, that I don't have a way that I know of to get my Instapaper stuff automatically in Matter after the initial import, that drives me a little bit crazy. I don't understand how you add a link when you're trying to add a link not using a bookmarklet. It's very confusing. Matter's great, though. I love the way that you can like—

AlexI haven't even thought about that. Oh, yeah, I don't have any idea yet.

MerlinWell, and you know what it was? I couldn't sleep last night. I had a rough night of sleep, and I had listened to some Game of Thrones. And then sometimes I just want, you know, I just want some, if I could get like just hundreds of hours of probably a woman could be a man just reading Italian poetry to me. I want something that's not, is not meaningful to me in the same way as a podcast or Game of Thrones is. I just want, but you know, what's great is that the way that matter handles reading you something is so good. I use it all the time now.

Do people know about this? Well, you don't need to know about this. It's a different service. But between that and that ability, the thing I did this morning where you're able to post like a readable screen grab of something, of a quote.

AlexOh, I love it.

MerlinLike on political Twitter, you can tell, Alex, how many people are on a desktop or laptop computer all day. Yes. Because so much of the shit they post is utterly unreadable, even on a Mac, let alone on iOS.

AlexYeah.

MerlinI hate it. Whenever I do a screen grab of text, I try so hard to do everything that I can. Sometimes I can't get as few columns of text as I would like. I mean, I want it to be imminently readable. And to have this blast where it's like, all I really want is these 15 words and it makes a beautiful thing and posts it. We should talk more about matter. I keep trying to talk about it with Dan, but we never get to it. But I really feel like I could love matter.

AlexInteresting. Interesting. I'm surprised that you like it.

MerlinI like when it reads to me, Alex.

AlexOh, so do I. I love it. But the other thing that I've rediscovered with Pinboard is the RSS feature of just subscribing to certain tags. I love it. I've been playing around with the popular tags on the site.

MerlinYeah. And for anything you've... But just one that's been around forever that I've just... I don't know why. I don't think about this more. But like there is a natural – what's the word? There's a really good word for this that I'm failing at. But like a – not nascent. But a natural community component to bookmarks on Pimboard that requires no effort, which is that if a ton of people have added that same bookmark, you could see like what tags other people used. And like the API also allows for stuff. And again, a lot of the shit broke in the years since Pimboard was popular.

But there's stuff on GitHub where you can build bookmarks that do stuff like this. One I was looking at today that looks amazing where it'll do stuff like it'll automatically do a block quote. It will do this. And then it even uses it. It basically traverses the DOM. Forgive my saying. This is not a German podcast. But it goes through the DOM and basically figures out the structure so that it can do a better job of suggesting titles, relevant text, stuff like that. like I'm not done with this

I'm going to do more with this I'm just not a javascript expert I don't know how to even turn a .js into a bookmarklet I don't know how to like remove returns and stuff but it's all in there it all just still works oh hell yeah

AlexI'm very good at computers are you good at computer? no very bad at computer real quick want to recommend pins which is an iOS client for Pinboard that connects to...

MerlinIt might be the last man standing at this point. There used to be like half a dozen full-featured Mac in iOS. I sent you that link last week that was like, holy shit, look at this article. There's all these great things you can do with Pinboard that I forgot about. 2013. All but two of the things were broken. Now, I don't even remember how to make a bespoke bookmarklet for our tag. I don't even remember how to do that anymore.

AlexOh, God, I didn't even know that was possible. Oh, fuck. Okay, I will continue doing this challenge.

MerlinPins, but pins also, I think, works with shortcuts, I believe. I started playing with that in the shortcuts app. I believe there are, if you go to the page for it, I think pins actually has two pretty straightforward shortcuts for pins, like, you know, that are the equivalent in some ways of the, like, here, just bookmark without, you know, interaction.

AlexOh, shit.

MerlinOr the full version. Oh, hello. Yeah, I deleted those just yesterday as I cleaned out my 350 untitled shortcut number 72.

AlexOh, God. Oh. I cleaned house.

MerlinI cleaned house yesterday. Good. Got to make room for channels.

AlexOh.

MerlinGot any wish casting? That's a fan term. I shouldn't use it. But do you have any ideas for like something you wish you could do with via by with pinboard that you can't do right now? Is anything scratching an itch that you wish you could do?

AlexThat's a difficult question because like the answer is yes, but it's just because I have not like it's possible. But I haven't gotten deep into the stuff that's on GitHub because all of the things that we mentioned that are like. broken it's they're not features supported necessarily like like they're broken because

Merlinsomeone else stopped they're not broken because pinboard changed right right yeah and and that's

Alexwhy i'm like again horny for just being able to export everything and you can export them with tags and if you wanted you could go to raindrop.io and whatever so i am i guess i don't even know enough still to know what I what more I would want I'm sure that I will figure it out

MerlinI guess a bookmark that's a pretty natural consequence for me anyway when I use something enough I do find myself you know like what is it they say in in sales you know you know you sold the car when they ask you what color it's available in like it's I don't usually start complaining about something until I love it.

AlexRight, exactly.

MerlinThat's why I'm this way with you.

300. Priceless Flexibility

Show notes

Transcript

300. Priceless Flexibility

Show notes

Transcript

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