309. The Thousand Cuts

Speaker AThis is Do By Friday, a weekly challenge podcast with Alex Cox, Merlin Mann, and Santa Claus. This week's challenge, go deep on an obscure Apple feature.

MerlinDo By Friday.

AlexOh, sorry. Are you going to say after show and then backtracked?

MerlinNo, I think it's funny when I mumble my words like that, like it's become so innate to the way that I speak that I no longer care, much like many of the writers on the internet today. When are we going to address the bell issue?

AlexI don't understand the bell issue.

MerlinAm I to understand that you literally still have not opened what your side of the call last week sounded? Am I to understand you still, I begged you, I texted you, I said, Alex, it's so critical that you leave in the part where I can't hear your bell. But then you made me look like a fucking asshole because you didn't use the side where your bell sounded like this.

AlexWait, wait, wait, wait. I thought you said leave it in because it's so funny.

MerlinBut leaving it in where I can hear the bell is not funny. It makes me look like an asshole.

AlexMerlin, do you not know what bells sound like? Well, so, but, okay, okay, okay, okay.

MerlinNever mind, don't worry about it. Actually, you know what? I'm taking you off the project. I will put this, I will put out a small sample, which is going to make me look like a bitter little man because you've made me bitter. I will put out a bespoke version of this with no processing from last week. And you can hear all the times Alex Bell was like, listen to my bell. Here's my bell. Because you were choking. You were, I don't like that phrase choking out. You choked the shit out of your gate last week. And here's your bell. No. And no one would know that because here's you.

Here's the version that you published. Sorry, Alex. I can't hear your bell. Do it again. Now who's the asshole?

AlexCan you hear it that time? Can you hear it?

MerlinWait, do it again. Do it again. Do it.

AlexI'm doing it.

MerlinHoly. We. Okay, listen. Okay. Okay. I really. Okay, listen. We have so much to talk about. And you're running out of internet. And you're running out of internet. We have so much to talk about. We have so many things to clarify. I didn't even search masturbating this week. I don't have time. We have so much content and yet it's vitally important that we now pause the podcast. How about we do some Always Sunny music here?

AlexOkay.

MerlinOkay.

AlexOkay.

MerlinThat was Jeopardy. Okay. I'm going to send you a sample and you can tell me if you think I've lost my fucking mind. Okay?

AlexAll right. All right.

MerlinShould we keep recording or stop recording?

AlexKeep it rolling. Keep it rolling. Oh, shit.

MerlinWell, I need to go edit it and send it to you.

AlexI listened to both sides because I assumed. Hey, you know what?

MerlinSight unseen. sight on scene no scope i'm gonna send you oh god this is wrong i'm gonna feel like such an idiot

Alexum it's gonna be really fun it's gonna be really really fun

Speaker Ahello children it's me santa and i want to tell you a funny story on last week's episode of due by friday you were probably very confused about why merlin could not hear alexandra ringing a bell Ho ho ho, what was wrong with Merlin? Well, as it turned out, nothing was wrong with Merlin. You see, Alex did something fucked up with their settings that made it so that Merlin could not hear the bell while they were recording.

Ho ho ho, and Alex fucked up again after Merlin said,

MerlinHey Alex, be sure to listen to my side of the recording so you'll hear that the bell sound didn't come through.

Speaker ABut Alex couldn't be bothered to do that. Ho ho ho, how about we compare them together now? Here's what you heard in the episode.

MerlinWhat is your major damage that you can't fucking hit a... The listeners are going to be going, what is wrong with Alex? Because it sounds like you're doing this.

AlexHold on, hold on, hold on.

Speaker BI'm holding on. I got nowhere to be. You're my Wednesday.

MerlinThere's no ringing, Alex.

Speaker AJust listen to all of those bell sounds. But here is what that sounded like to Merlin as they were recording.

MerlinWhat is your major damage that you can't fucking hit a... The listeners are going to be going, what is wrong with Alex? because it sounds like you're doing this.

AlexHold on, hold on, hold on.

MerlinI'm holding on. I got nowhere to be here on my Wednesday. There's no ringing, Alex. There? Please text me when you listen to this later. Please, please, please.

AlexI will.

Speaker AWell, Merlin must have been very naughty because he definitely didn't get the sound of a bell. Ho, ho, ho. Well, that was an amusing diversion. I guess since Alex has been very naughty, they owe Merlin an apology. plus the $40 Merlin Venmo'd me to record this segment. Well, I guess I better get back to work now. Talksmas is just around the corner, and I have a lot to do. And listen, no matter what rumors you hear, I am doing fine. And I'm very healthy, and I'm definitely not all gacked out on opioids

like that little girl on Dope Sick. Merry Christmas. Ho, ho, ho.

MerlinWhat I just sent you was... So when I record... Hello, everybody. Welcome to Dubai Friday. with my dear friend Alex.

AlexAre all of your podcasts with your friends just becoming very antagonistic? Because it seems like that's where...

MerlinWhat the fuck are you talking about?

AlexAll right, hold on. I'm going to listen.

MerlinAre you provoking me?

AlexNo, no. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

MerlinWhen I record in Audio Hijack, and this is talking about a work in progress um what i do what i what i do is what happened was when i record i record my side my side i record which is except for headphone bleed just my side um and i record your side which is your side and i record one that's my side but fancy that i never upload because you guys are terrible and don't like i made myself most importantly i record one

that I hope is useful. I bet it saves somebody's bacon someday. I also record one called Everything, which is in Audio Hijack. You want to do this? Go ahead. Go ahead. Explain what's happening right now. Go ahead. You do that.

AlexYou do that. What you do, you are a very, very good podcast boy. I'm a good podcast boy. Yes. You in Audio Hijack.

MerlinSometimes I even remember to upload my files.

AlexYeah. Listen, the thing is.

MerlinYou have a really sweet laugh sometimes that makes you sound a little bit like a, what are the animals, Return of the Jedi? You sound like a yub nub. You go, hee hee. No, sorry, you sound like a jawa. That's what you sound like.

AlexHee hee. Love it, love it. I have a blog about the best jawa, that one specific jawa.

MerlinSo what I just sent you, sight unseen, off the dome, no scope. I just sent you one called Everything, and I didn't even check it, but just go open that and scrub to the end and you tell me what you hear.

AlexOkay.

MerlinIt's very possible that I've lost my fucking mind, in which case I will own this.

AlexAll right. I'm... Okay.

MerlinI'm going to stop talking and... Okay. Just as a tip, you're not going to hear your bell, so don't be confused that you don't hear your bell because there's no bell sound. No bell. No bell, Jerry.

It's going to be so embarrassing if you still have a range of hearing that I just simply don't have.

AlexOkay, okay. I've taken Merlin back off of all of that. There's music there. I've taken the current timeline, Merlin, off mute. And there is something going on here. That's wrong. That's wrong. It should be at least cut off.

MerlinOh, okay. I'm sorry. I'm so confused, Alex. So what you're saying is I should have been able to hear your bell.

AlexI, okay, okay. Can you hear this?

MerlinI should have said, you know what? I feel bad. I should have said something to you about how every time you hit your bell, it sounded like this.

AlexAnd then you released the version where your bell's like this and I'm the asshole. No, I heard nothing though when I was ringing the bell. Nothing. I think you're gaslighting me. I think, I think you're provoking me.

MerlinOh yeah, I made up that timestamp. I made up a file called everything. I had it ready. everything was standing by so that i could fuck with you on this i would 100 do that myself so i

Alexwould like to think that you would care enough about me to do a fun how do you how do you live

Merlinit's it's that would even enter your mind that's weird who would you do that cock rings why do you

Alexkeep saying cock rings car pranks car pranks oh one of my classic car pranks

Merlindid you hear that i hit my bell i did i did hear that alex would you please clarify to the audience first of all let's get one thing out of the way i love alex very much mostly um can we clarify for the audience please that you have just listened to a track uh counselor you've just listened to a a track that uh claims to be the everything side the everything bagel of this recording Yes. Did you know, let's just put it this way. I fully admit that I've lost a lot of hearing range, but I usually can hear a bell.

Would you agree that when you hit your bell, the recording on my end, however it made it through the stratosphere, and we're literally burning internet right now. Alex is at over 90% internet usage, so this show may just very quickly end. Be prepared.

But this is important to me. I have sublimated my personality and self-esteem for every business relationship I have ever had. And I put up with so much. But to quote the great Jack Waltz, a man in my position cannot afford to be made to look ridiculous. And just to show you that I'm not a hard-hearted man, she was the best piece of ass I ever had. Did you, um...

AlexDon't know that reference?

MerlinOh, it's this obscure indie pic from 72 called The Godfather. um you um would you agree what what what what i'm turning into jiminy click for sure i want to also get back to how i have an antagonistic relationship with all the horrible people i do podcasts with but we have so much to talk about i mean but okay so like real talk so do you get though how like it didn't really sound like a bell to me it sounded like absolutely

Alexdid it sound sometimes like this i can't hear it at all but but you get it right okay then here's

Merlinmy processing there's the very good merlin fancy version which is not involved in this that's a separate swim lane yours goes yeah like the only thing in here is copyright and kill right to um

Alexyou know what i'm saying like so how is it hearing my you're something is happening you something has

Merlinchanged and it might just be your microphone is it possible that your new microphone is I'm so out of my depth right now.

AlexIt's got nothing. There's no software.

MerlinBut it's not crazy monodirectional or something?

AlexNo. I mean, maybe. Can you hear me?

MerlinDo it now.

AlexCan you hear me?

MerlinI can hear you speak. Yeah.

AlexOkay. Oh, no. That's just me talking. Can you hear? All right.

MerlinThree, two, one. Do the bell again. I can hear. Okay. It is. It's there, but it's basically, you know, like the one I do, like the Stuart Copeland one that I do. I'm not going to bring it close, but you know how, kind of like, let's be honest, my classic.

Right? Yes. Want to hear it again? I consider that kind of like a Stuart Copeland because we're both extremely gifted. And what I do is I'm hitting the high hat and then I'm grabbing the high hat or I'm hitting the crash and then I'm grabbing the crash. Ready? Here's me.

Okay. But yours is, what I'm getting with yours is more like, oh, no, I can't even do it.

Alexthat last ding was way i i put it at the end of my my desk which admittedly pretty small but it picked it up only a little bit like can you hear this

Merlinbut it sounds like it's in the distance right i don't know anything about signal chain and processing but if i did i imagine i would say that sounds it sounds like not a gate that's the wrong word for it not a gate but a limiter it sounds like a limiter oh no because a gate i think of a gate as being of course i think of uh you know the production on david bowie albums in the 70s and the gated snare of phil collins um so you know you know what a gated you know like what a

what a gated like what gated reverb is right yes but i which is which is which is that you set a gate at a fairly, a much higher than normal level. And a gate is just a way of saying this, no, no signal. God, I'm so sorry to everybody who does this for a living. If you contact me about this, you're going to have a problem. But you set a gate and you say to the gate, okay, until a signal reaches this, for lack of a better word, volume, right? Until it gets this loud, no signal is processed. And what that means is that when it, so you see, when the gate, when you get a

signal that's loud enough to surpass the level of the gate, put a bunch of reverb on. And it's a really cool sound that, you know, Roderick and I disagree on this. I think it got a little overused in the 80s. But it's a great sound. And it's a really interesting way, I think a very Brian Eno way to fuck up the sound of something is to have a real faraway mic, right? Real faraway mic with a heavy gate and then process it in such a way that when like a snare hit goes through classically a single snare hit listen go listen to uh intruder by peter

gabriel is a terrific example of this from i think his 1980 album right um but i think and then the compressor does a different kind of thing i think what we're talking about here is more like a

Alexlimiter that's what i'm trying to figure out if i get a signal in this range of this volume

Merlinyou know duck not duck that out but you know what i mean is that possible

AlexSo I guess I'm literally looking at the, oh, how to enable and configure original sound for musicians in Zoom. But no, but other people can hear the bell on calls. So I, oh man, I don't know.

MerlinYou know, this could just be that it wasn't meant to be, me and you.

AlexAs much as I hate Skype, I almost want to try it.

MerlinNot this week, but next week. I still don't understand why we're not using Skype.

AlexBut but the because it's bad. It's so bad. Zoom is bad, too. But Skype is worse.

MerlinYou know, you're that you're that kind of friend who's real social about things where they don't have to put in any effort at all.

Speaker BLike what?

MerlinOK, here's you. Here's you. You're you're Johnny San Francisco. And you're like, hey, I'm having a party here in San Francisco. Everybody come to my party. And the squee people come from all the fucking Castro Valley to our drive. No problem. I'll come. And then people are like, oh, I want you to meet my baby in Oakland. And you're like, oh, I don't know, man. That's pretty far.

AlexThat's you. You do that. Yes, yes.

MerlinAnd now you're doing that here where you're like, oh, because of my convenience, because of my shit ass Internet. I've perceived that Skype drops sometimes. Oh, please. Please.

AlexAll right. You know what the problem is here?

MerlinYou know what we used to say? You know what the problem is? Nut behind the keyboard. Jesus. Now, the final question on this, because what are you up to? Probably 92%. Do you have a gauge running like a New York Times jitter needle? Do you have a way of knowing where you stand with Cable Town right now? Do you know how much internet you have left?

AlexNo. No. Not at all. God, I'm blowing it on this shit.

MerlinFinal question. You should have to do this work, not me. how will you fairly share this with with our listeners in a way that's reasonable and fair

Alexto both of us all right i guess i need to use the use my track to drop it in and do like a bloop it a bloop it a flashback sound or something yes because i listened to the did you listen to both of our individuals like the the side the remote side that you captured did you listen to

Merlinthat um in a sense because i use those i throw those into dscript right wait and you still couldn't hear it in dscript alex your bell would not come through the signal there was no there's no there's no signal to process no bell no bell jerry we'll figure it out we got a lot to talk about but but do you feel like i'm i'm a little less deranged well unfortunately now i've revealed myself to be i'm hoisted by my own petard i reveal myself to be completely deranged because when that fucking came out last week i was like i cannot even list this i'm so angry with alex

Alexright now i thought that you thought that was the funny thing leaving it in is funny but there's

Merlinnothing for you to leave in because you just covering yourself with glory i uh i was just

Alexringing that bell and how's your belt going i mean okay moving on next topic hello uh how's it going is it good you enjoying having a bell it's pretty nice huh i literally don't i only bring it out for this show.

MerlinWe just got up to, we're in season four, better call Saul. I think we're around episode five or six. And so, and Gus is becoming a bigger character. And of course, stuff's been happening with Hector. And in a very walk hard sort of moment, Hector was just given a bell.

AlexYes.

MerlinWhich of course, it's a little bit like that. When I say, you know what I mean? The walk hard, the John C. Reilly movie where they make fun of biopics. like oh Paul McCartney sees his base in a window or whatever or you know I guess Ray Charles didn't see the sunglasses

Alexand I disagree I think they did it in a perfect

Merlinno no no when they that new character who my Madeline my wife says is a terrific character the new guy is he the new Salamanca the guy with the mustache who shows up his nephew yes and he's working

Alexwith Nacho he's pre-Tucco here's my warning he's Nacho friend yeah no comedy points. Welcome to Dubai Friday. Alex just steals bits and doesn't make them funny. I hope they can hear them, how bad they are.

MerlinThat's good. We got a lot to cover. How are you doing? You good?

AlexI am great. I am not confused, intrigued. You're confused. Don't worry about that. So let's just take that as read. You're super confused. About everything all the time.

MerlinYou often do not even know what it is that you're confused about.

AlexYou're so confused. No, not at all. I'm just like spinning around, hoping that someone like just pushes me in the right direction.

MerlinYou're like a sensate queer biped category. That was hurtful and ableist. I'm very sorry. This is my friend, the category error.

I have so much to tell you about.

AlexAll right. Shall we start?

MerlinWe should save the Little Lord's birthday for the after party, probably. But I wanted to explain that gift certificate because it looks really weird.

AlexIt's perfect. It's perfect.

MerlinDo you understand the thing I'm saying here? Tomorrow's the Little Lord's 15th birthday.

AlexYes.

MerlinAnd I was saying to Alex, I think I really killed it on what I didn't say was, oh, yeah, this is the like the. Well, also, what I didn't tell you is because there's three, I think, giving gift certificates or gift cards, it still feels kind of lame to me. I understand it's what people want, and it's easy. But I still always, I don't know if you look at the notes document I sent you, but I try to find angles into making that interesting. And so, yes, there are a couple of gift cards that were specifically requested. And then I made one.

I didn't tell you, Billy requested this. He said, why don't you just let me buy something that I want? And I was like, I'm interested in this idea. I think this is a good way to do it. but we have to make it weird.

AlexOh, what?

MerlinBecause then that's just lame. Then you're just like a fucking little rich kid. But it has to be weird or fun. Don't you think? That's such a drunk dad thing. I'll get anything you want. I'll put out my credit card.

AlexWe're going to talk about this in the after show. Give us your fucking money.com.

MerlinIn the after party, we're going to talk about this, but what you need to know is you've seen you've seen the gus fring doll you've seen the gus fring doll you've seen the mushrooms to grow your own mushrooms at home mushrooms you've seen what else was in there there's some other good stuff great dead pool um and then but there's other things and uh the the dessert course for this oh okay so there are two things i didn't tell you is that number one this was my i finally figured out what i consider a fun angle on this which is what i'm calling an existential gift card

So the existential gift card is you are given this really, like, I spent so long last night looking for, like, the most fucked up, like, template for a gift certificate that would still work with what I wanted to do.

AlexYeah, this is from a spa in 1999. That's a spa. Yeah.

MerlinIt's very much from a spa. The massage one was better, but it had a money-like border that was scotching the best part of the gift certificate, which is the fine print.

AlexAbsolutely, absolutely.

MerlinSo thing number one is you get an existential gift certificate that says from now, and this expires on January 1st, 2023. You can pick one item of up to $150 that you get. And mom and I are not allowed to roll our eyes mostly and complain about it or refuse.

Alexi because there's yeah sorry i just had an issue with that clause because i know that i would be looking at that mostly and just be very very alex we control everything ultimately i know well i i

Merlinknow in order for people to feel free you must give them the illusion of control i mean exactly

Alexi wonder i i'm very that's just this is your first day oh all right go on why why is this an existential go into the fine print well and i i don't think

Merlini'm gonna have time to do this because my job is mostly done this year i took the lead on physical goods and procurement and you know scrolling away and stuff like that and my wife's job's so crazy and she's got a migraine today and she's a little oh fuck but like so a little bit like my wife does is the rapper she raps and so she's do the rapping but then i thought it would be kind of fun and really annoying given that we have three digital goods there's that a hot topic gift card

and a gift card to our favorite like family fun like it's a brazilian steakhouse that we like to go to ever since the kid was little we go there like once a year um and i thought should i do an should I make a PowerPoint and make the kid sit through a really bad PowerPoint with like pictures of the kid naked and like memories? And then like do like, you know, of course, you know, you know me. I love I love an exploding dissolve or some motion graphics. So if I have time, I'll make it into a PowerPoint that the child is compelled to watch on a 65 inch TV and reveal slowly reveal.

reveal our heart-topping gift card. Wah-wah-wah-wah-wah. You know what? I shouldn't do that. That's really stupid. That's really... I shouldn't do that.

AlexThat's so excruciating that I think you should save it for like a 16. I did. I don't know if you know.

MerlinYou've been out of the game for a while, but I don't know if you know that Santa's had a tough time.

AlexI imagine. I imagine.

MerlinDo you know about that bit?

AlexI do not.

MerlinI think every Christmas for four years or so, as the little Lord has gotten older, the note from Santa has gotten more and more really, really sad.

AlexOh, yes. Yes.

MerlinBecause for a while, Santa was the opioid epidemic. And I did warn, I said, look, just so you know, I know it's only October, but just so you know, the chatter that I'm hearing from the North Pole is really not good. I've heard just so you know I need to prepare you you know it's kind of like the whole like grandma's very sick let's love her while we can Jesus Christ just so you know Santa's like apparently let's enjoy Santa while we can

Speaker Bit's his knee

Merlinhe's just it's like dope sick he hurt his knee supervising the loading of the sled because let's be honest he's not going to live fucking anything you know his B.I. is

Alexwhat's what those are for don't be ableist merlin i i did you man did you listen to that uh on the

Merlinmedia i on the there's a really good on the media about the they call it the f word and there's a really good um what next this week about one of my emerging medical bug one of my emerging bugaboos which is like all the ways that we talked about this like the fucked up power relationships that lead to things like fat people not wanting to go to the doctor people like me not wanting to go to the doctor queer people not wanting to go to the doctor um but that's sad let's keep it happy so

Alexanyway that's tomorrow little lord turns 15 um and hold on i'm new there yes come back to santa real quick is has santa been slowly dying so that like eventually you can kill him off or is that because if I recall, Santa does not bring the one big gift. Is this to mitigate like a-

MerlinOh, you're saying is this some- Beyond the world of dramaturgy, is this some kind of family jam up is what you're asking. Is this a way to get out of-

AlexI just think that'd be really funny.

MerlinI'm fine because I am proud enough of this journey that I've been on with Santa that I do sometimes share it with folks because it's funny, with the kid's permission. Open recent. Boy, I super don't use pages a lot, do I? Let me find Santa note.

Did Santa leave a note for you?

AlexNo.

MerlinDid you get a note with the eating up cookies and carrots and stuff?

AlexOh, absolutely. Also beer. Santa loves Heineken.

MerlinI love it. I love it so much. You should see what I did for Easter one year. for Easter one year I made rabbit tracks that went all the way down to the front door it's a lot of

Alexwork did I ever tell you that I did not I I never bought Santa but I fully believed that the Easter bunny was a completely like oh yeah that could just I just thought like oh yeah rabbit like Sure, sure.

MerlinYou know what? I never really stopped to think about it. That's interesting. Okay, let's do a good phrase from Blank Check. Let's do a two-hander on this one. I'm going to send you, I will send this, how was the easiest way to do this? There used to be a great trick where you could do Command-P, P. Command-P brings up print. You hit P again, and it does PDF.

Does it still do it? I might have learned it from David Sparks, but it's a pretty good trick. You've never done that? Like where you would do a lot of PDS, and if you do command, P, and then rapidly hit P again? When you get to my age, you're always P again. That's the thing I said, apparently. Cut that out. How many comedy points? How many comedy points?

AlexNo, none. Negative 10.

MerlinOh, I owe you comedy points. Okay, well, in that, okay, so here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to read 2020, and then I'm going to ask, but don't read this until I've read mine, okay? This is just the last two.

AlexOkay.

MerlinI think, oh, that's my wife. I'm sending this to, not my wife, I'm sending this to you. Santana 2021. Okay. Oh, and just so you know, like, just so you know, like, the letterhead, oh, this is the 2021, and nobody cares but me. Don't worry yet. Here's the letterhead from the 2021, which is Dan Aykroyd dressed as Santa in Trading Places, December 25th, 2020. Dear, dear name of child. Hello, and season's greetings, name of child.

And, of course, it's in a different font because it's obviously a form letter. I don't know if the rumors have reached you in San Francisco, California, but you may have heard that Santa has had another difficult year. Last year, at the urging of some determined and surprisingly hostile elves, I was persuaded to enter rehab for my profound addiction to opioids, herbal laxatives, and online sports betting. At first, I thought I'd gotten clean, but I soon discovered the monkey in my back had only grown more determined. Perhaps you know teachers or ministers in San Francisco, California, who have had similar struggles with chasing the dragon.

I apologize that my usual handwritten note has been replaced with this form letter, but unfortunately, my motor skills and short-term memory have been greatly impacted. Also, I totally have COVID-19, like, really bad. Anyway, I brought you some presents, and I look forward to being back to my old self at some point. Pray for Santa, name of child.

Speaker BOh, God.

MerlinThat's 2020. Would you please read the update from 2021? Just change it to name of child. Dear little lord

AlexDear Master Man It has been a year filled with Truth and power and also Pain as I found myself increasingly Red pilled by the raw truths Of QAnon my quote Wife Mrs. Claus threw me Out I now live out of The back of my sleigh and the Only loved ones left in my life Are my Facebook friends let's go brandon69 and uh maga rita vick margarita i just got it i just got it

margarita vick but at least i know my true who my true friends are i trust that you have not permitted yourself to be injected with biden's fake quote vaccine because it lets the phone company listen to your thoughts and it makes you gay also birds are not real one of these days a real reign will come. But until then, trust in the plan and never do what your parents say. Hashtag WWG

IWGA Where we go when we go. Oh, okay. Sorry, I'm not all...

MerlinJust seeing the letterhead is from Based Santa.

AlexOh, this is...

MerlinSo I would not want you to see a fake Spog certificate and think I don't try.

Alexi just no i don't try i immediately no i immediately knew exactly what this was and i was like i in fact i was concerned because uh oh because i received this in in the middle of my night i actually don't remember if i saw it at that time but i thought i wonder how many hours this took merlin to make not because you you you are a big i mean the thing is to make something

Merlinlook good to make something look good is good in the you know sort of in the platonic sense to make something look good is difficult to make something look bad is more difficult

Alexbecause it has to look bad in the right way this this looks authentic this is like it's Authentically stupid looking. Authentic. Yeah. It's so. Like, this is definitely something that an independent spa had.

MerlinCucumber water for customer only. That's one of my favorite lines from Better Call Saul.

AlexOh, God. His office. I love it so much.

MerlinCucumber water for customer only.

AlexIt's way better than Breaking Bad.

MerlinI've been super needy so far, and I've used all your internet. What's going on in your neck of the woods? Tell me. What do you want to do? What do you want to talk about? What are you pumped about?

AlexI want to hear about gambling on preventative care that you have in our news and topics. Want to take another run at that one? uh wait gambling on preempt did i say try reading it like a word try reading each one of them like that's the word that i wrote try that one gambling on preemptive self-care that's pretty different

Merlinfrom the one you said at first yep yep it doesn't say preventative care alex no it doesn't no it doesn't i almost put it in a new yorker umlaut but i i couldn't bear it oh god well pre-erminant sorry I sent that in the night you do not disturb Zahn a lot of the time I always hope that you're okay

Alexwhat well oh Matthew did not pass on some news that

Merlinnot news but a development how often do you how often does Matthew let you know I'm checking in on you

AlexI don't okay perfect thank you The system works. I don't like this at all. I don't know. Okay.

MerlinBut it also gets me a free dog photo most of the time.

AlexThere was a little bit of a mix-up in my psychiatric medication. And in my bipolar cocktail, there's a teensy tiny bit of my polar cox tail my my cox tail uh has a little like i take a tiny tiny bit of prozac for like anxiety it like evens stuff out like it's pretty common but um most

people who are bipolar or have some type sometimes folks with adhd need a very very low dose of an antidepressant or an SSRI because it can make you a bit much if you have a lot and can induce

Merlinyou're getting into that rare air where you you and your team have to take pains because this little bit of something a little bit of something else could be amazing but if that mix isn't right it could make it's like synergy right like one plus one equals 90 like even a small amount wrong with this. I know what some of this stuff can be. It's not just psychiatric drugs. It's true of all kinds of drugs where like there are unexpected weird things that happen at certain levels that I think are pretty slippery to figure out in a way. You know,

because like obviously you're like, why am I taking these pills, man? I want to get better. Can't you just dose me up, dose me up? And it's like, well, yeah, but we need to make sure like that this is not going to cause a way bigger and different problem as we try to solve the older

Alexand more familiar problems right yes the the very a mistake that was often made in the 2010s was a kid ah this kid is depressed cures some prozac my shrink talks about this all the time the

Merlinmisdiagnosis of bipolar as depression yeah and like but guess what and the drug you give somebody for depression as against bipolar it could make the bipolar way worse the bipolar you didn't know

Alexexisted yeah right yeah that yeah that's what caused a couple incidences wow incidents uh but because my the the little every week i just have the same like thing of i refill all of my pills like an 85 year old and just it's the same every week it's part of like a tradition but for some reason um you know it's very ritualistic but for some reason the like bottle that my usually if

a dosage changes the bottle uh looks different or a pharmacist will say hey just so you know this pill you're getting you now take uh two or oh and is it one of those like generic tiny

Merlinstickers like take me in the morning with water or is it like a big red sticker i would want a big red sticker that like oh by the way you we gave you fewer of these of a larger dosage or something

Alexright yes and like that that happens that should be in very big letters yes well that's the thing that that has happened before very big letters like oh hey just you know and usually uh it's a different like uh bottle size or a different pill size itself but uh this time around this teeny tiny little little baby pill did not have five milligrams of prozac uh it had 40 so the past two weeks that's up to eight times more yeah that's about up to eight times more um so

Speaker Boh no so too much prozac

Alexi had a lot of energy and then i suddenly didn't have any energy and then i had a lot of energy

MerlinMy demon dogs have unionized.

AlexOh, shit, dog.

MerlinHow long did it take you to figure it out?

AlexYes. No, Monday. Put differently.

MerlinPut differently. Had you eaten him up yum before you realized it?

AlexOh, this has been going on for two weeks, but it stopped on Monday because I was doing this little ritual. And I was like, why do I have like this doesn't seem to be the right amount.

MerlinI owe the right count. Yeah.

AlexI'm like, yeah, yeah, yeah. That I just don't have like I don't have enough anymore. Oh, oh, OK. And then I called.

MerlinBecause again, QED, we talked about this. The pill bottles are like it's, you know, it's it's funny to make fun of old people. But like anybody who gets anybody who has a life, there's not stuff you're going to notice on a bottle of pills unless you do exactly what you did. And I'm going to give you a similar anecdote in a second. We're like you forensically read every line of the bottle. Yeah. And you take the sticker off the covers up an important part and all that stuff. I mean, it just if you look into a cabinet with four bottles of pills in it, let alone 12, it's just how are you?

I mainly recognize by how tall the bottle is.

AlexYep. Yep. Yep. Yep. I I I these days I feel like generic brands are going with girth, which is. Oh, yeah. We talked about this.

MerlinYou got it. You got a wide boy. You got it.

AlexHe's thick.

MerlinYeah.

AlexYes. So, oh, I should have prefaced this by saying totally fine. Like everything is fine. this is a total like normie amount but you did accidentally get up to eight times as much as you should have for a period of time uh four four sorry four times because usually i was actually

Merlinyeah but you know the other thing is doesn't prozac take a while to get up to the target dose or whatever it's called like you're not going to immediately it's not like taking adderall

Alexwe're in 22 minutes you've lost your fucking mind correct so yeah no so i will just be sort of i have lost it's not that i've lost my mind it's just it just kind of like uh it jitters away for a bit and then comes rushing back and i'm like hello um but but no like this is not a dangerous chemical amount for for most human beings and like everything's everything's fine uh it's just that's that's i uh been been weird fine but weird it's worked out well because i had a lot to do

the past two weeks and had a lot of energy. Are your West Coast projects you work on? No, my West... I've been on East Coast time recently.

MerlinI can't guess. I love my pharmacist. I have... I don't want to say too much, but I go to his mom and pop pharmacist now because I really... It's not a bit, you guys. Walgreens. Walgreens is comically close to our house. I mean, real, real, real close to our house. Like, very few things in the world are closer to our house than Walgreens. And yet,

nice. And yet, I really despise the entire experience of Walgreens. And I like these nice people. But, you know, I lost one of the lights. And I forget how I noticed this. you know what it was it was that i'd gotten a new um i'd gotten a new um not a new prescription but i picked up a month's prescriptions and i was sort of like doing my resource leveling of like i bag up all my pills into like separate bags because it just makes it so much easier to grab the am or pm you know why separate knob to grab the um grab the right pack right and i don't know

i forget i think it was because i was about to marry as we used to say in the restaurant did you ever say that we're going to a restaurant you're going to marry the bottles of ketchup Did you ever say that?

AlexNo.

MerlinThat's the thing where you have an almost empty bottle of ketchup upside down over a more full bottle.

AlexThey call it marrying bottles. Oh, I've seen that. That's adorable. I didn't know the name.

MerlinDo you know the term for when two cop cars, when two cops are parked next to each other and talking to each other through their driver's side windows?

AlexPegging?

MerlinAdam69. Really? That's a funny one, too. So I was doing my thing. I was making my pill packs, and I was marrying bottles. and I went, huh. And just, you know that thing, maybe this is not a gladwell thing, but you're like, huh, something grabs you and you're not sure that anything grabbed you. You ever like look at a page and you notice a word and it's like, how the fuck did I notice a word on a whole page or some corner of your eye kind of thing, you know?

AlexYeah.

MerlinAnd something, we're talking about a difference of just the shape of a digit. But I looked and I realized that, let's put it this way, that this particular drug, And this would not have been terrible, but it's not the kind of error you love to see. I usually take X every day. And these pills were one-fourth X.

They accidentally gave me fives instead of twenties. And when I contacted them about it, of course, see, I'm me, right? And so I was like, listen, listen, you're not in trouble. Just so you know, I think there might have been a little mix-up. Maybe I did some because I'm a woman. And, of course, everything's my fault. And I'm like, yep, yep, yep, everything's fine, everything's fine. But FYI, I didn't get 20s, I got 5s. And they're like, oh, my God, because they're imagining, like, review boards and stuff, I'm sure. You know?

And what did I watch where something like this happened? Where somebody was switching out the pills. Oh, you know what it was? It's that Florence Pugh video game thing I was watching, which was pretty good.

AlexWhat? Oh.

Merlinis it a Florence Pugh where she plays video games

Alexand she lives with her brothers in a trailer

Merlinwhat's the show notes notes

Alexoh Black Mirror that one no no wait no it's a new series anyway but they were really nice

Merlinabout it and incredibly apologetic about it but like you know sorry let's just add another chapter to that big book of adults don't get project managers that's another instance of like you better police this shit because you oughtn't count on other people to watch it for you. And I hate being like that, but it is a form of kind of like empowered self-preservation to like, I don't know, read the Eula and stuff, I guess. I don't know. So, not Florence Pugh,

Chloe Grace Moretz. Kick-ass. Kick-ass girl.

AlexOh, I have not seen this show.

MerlinShe's in, I'm going to find this now. We should You know what? I'm going to make a suggestion. But first, I'm going to mention that I'm making a suggestion. I think that we should probably get to the challenge because we might run out of internet. And also, it sounds like you also wanted to maybe talk about the new iOS app. Is that related or is that a separate?

AlexI mean, I haven't tried it. Oh, it's here in the notes. But wait, wait, wait, wait. Yeah. Sorry. I'll talk about anything. I got nowhere to be. Gambling on preemptive care. What did that, what that?

MerlinWell, like when I describe it, it's going to sound real stupid and obvious. But I mean, you know, I am so fortunate. Well, I'm sandbagging. I've deliberately tried to make my life a life that I would like to lead. And secondarily to hopefully not feel the need to bracket and apologize for that. But like, why would I want a life that's not the life I like? And I like having regularity to what I do. I like, you know, having a doable schedule where as long as I or my colleagues don't make a management fuck up, see also a wisdom document, as long as there's not a management fuck up, there's no reason for me to be fucking busy all the time.

There's no reason for anybody to be busy all the time unless there's a management error or you like, I mean, I'm sorry, that was a deeply privileged thing to say. But you know what I mean? It's like if you have the chance to make a life that you'd like to lead versus one you find antagonistic to the way you are, it's sure worth a little effort. So, you know, a part of that practice, though, is also then realizing stuff like, oh, are there patterns here I didn't notice? Are there things that I can take advantage of? Which is all a really fancy 75-cent way of saying, like, I've realized that, like, for a variety of reasons, when we record on Wednesdays, for example, this could be a challenge.

Like, I kind of space on eating until it's really, really, really late. And then I get into that, like, weird 3 o'clock zone where I'm like, I don't know. So preemptive self-care is I'm starting to think ahead more about improvement opportunities in the future for even very small things. So that's why I ordered lunch today. Now, why is that a big deal? Because I fucking never do that. I never do that. Well, when you do that, it will never occur to me that I could do that. preemptive self-care is realizing having the having the self-esteem the integrity and the

temerity to believe that your life should have quality and therefore it's beneficial to what you do how you live and how you are to look ahead to opportunities for self-care before you need it

Alexit's interesting that you bring this up not because it's obvious well oh i take that i mean It's kind of obvious, but. Well, but I would assume that you would know it just because you have been essentially talking about this for years and years and years. But back in when you were Merlin Mann, it was just phrased in a more fancy pants, inboxy way. But that's I think a lot of people took from that, like, you know, putting the suitcase suitcase.

Good Lord. Briefcase in front of the door, like just setting.

Merlinextends to almost everything that i care about it extends to like i why it bugs me that it's election season and i get all these texts that i can't stop like you're not supposed to be allowed in here you broke my screen door dude like you're not supposed to be here what the fuck and you know i mean like there's just so much quality of life stuff that i want to just implore people to be aware of not because they're sad about what they can't change or whatever but just To go like, you know, quality. I'm not talking about like being in a hammock.

I'm talking about actual like quality of life shit that don't break stuff you can't fix later. What do you mean? Well, like, don't wait till your relationship's broken to decide you need to care. Like, don't wait until your kid's in college to decide you should have been nicer and give him more hugs. Like, you know, you could do that earlier. It doesn't cost anything. And it's quality of life. But how do you find time to hug? well you say no to 10 000 things like an asshole anyway we're at soup my soup is here all as well

Alexis there any uh preemptive self-care that other than food that you find yourself not doing that

Merlinyou should be yes probably um i mean it could be all the way down to stuff like think about all the stuff that are like you know repeating tasks like it could be something like taking out the litter or like bringing up paper towels or like any of those like innumerable like little things you've got to do again things that nobody notices or cares about until there's like several of them and now you're mad like so yeah to answer your question yeah yeah yeah i think it's true for lots of like podcast days for me but it's also true for like i'll give you another example off

the dome um like i really love writing show notes for things but like the process of doing the show for Reconcilable Differences in particular is, like, for me to squeeze out these little rabbit turds of two to four paragraphs takes so much longer than you'd think. And so I realized that, like, because I do love that, I don't want to be mad about doing something I love. And I don't want to feel like I have, I've developed avoidant behavior about doing stuff that I love. So yeah,

I've already started doing stuff that makes that less trying, including, like, I think I told you But really importantly, I grab those files from Descript as soon as we're done recording, throw them into Descript, and immediately start adding markers to where the big sections are, which sounds dumb. But, like, boy, step zero, I've started.

You know what I'm saying? It's not going to be nine days later that I suddenly remember I have to put a podcast out. You know what I'm saying? Like, stake in the ground. Step zero. Just go in. And if there's three big bulleted sections, you know, there's follow-up, there's this thing from John, there's this thing for the extra. Like, go put all those in as markers. And then later on, you further rough in subsections, and then that helps me find a through line for the thing. Now, do I need to do that? No, probably not. But I do, I have learned in the fullness of time that there are a handful of people that enjoy that.

And I like doing it, so why wouldn't I? But then you need the infrastructure, right? Kind of. So anyway, there's lots of those. Do you have things like this? Are you aware of things where there could be a role for preemptive self-care?

AlexNo, I'm extremely high-functioning and have everything in order for my life.

MerlinWow, that must feel... I mean, it's always been that way for you, right? Yes, always. Pretty much since you popped. And the nun goes, dominey, dominey. We don't know what this thing is, but get it out of here. Ever since then, you've had it all wired pretty tight. And so you don't even know what it feels like not to be preemptively self-caring.

AlexNo idea. I mean, if I were to imagine something, I would think about how you often talk about the pre-vacation things. And if I was like a broken person. Yeah, that's a new one.

MerlinBut it really is. It's real, man.

AlexYeah.

MerlinEvery weekend, every weekend to the extent possible, it doesn't make sense for me to couch everything in everything. Guys, just use what works. You know, but I would say if you can, whatever your days off are, and for me, that's not always a weekend. It's like my day, my Thursday is my Thursday, but Thursday is also kind of my Friday. Thursday is my Thursday in terms of a Merlin Thursday, but Thursday is also the day when I'm mostly done with the work for the week. Whereas Sunday is actually a day when I have, anyway, if you could start taking whatever works for you.

But if you have a day off, try the trick. Try the trick of pretending that you're on vacation on your day off. And I would bet that it's probably more difficult than it seems. But one reason I suck at vacation is because I suck at weekends. I suck at all those things because it's so hard for me to unhook. So why wouldn't I start rehearsing the kind of unhooking I think would be beneficial? Why wouldn't I start experimenting with that in a less consequential environment? Nobody cares what I'm doing on Sunday. Who fucking cares?

AlexWell, you do. and and that's the problem if if i was a broken person i would uh be stressing out about a accidental vacation that is happening this weekend and matt and i sorry sorry pause what the fuck you're doing the thing alex okay in the bit no i'm gonna ask you just for my own mental health

Merlincould you just say this like a person i you're gonna go visit family this weekend is that the

AlexNo, no. I am this weekend.

MerlinThere's just so many layers of abstraction to this thing until I can't really understand what you're actually saying. So derealized.

AlexMatt and I are going to St. Louis this weekend on sort of a last minute. We didn't think we would be able to. And then Matt was like, oh, I can take the weekend off. And so we're going to see our favorite band Ludo, the three concerts in over three days. It's, oh, that's so cool.

MerlinGood for you. I love this.

AlexSo happy and so excited. But, uh, it happened very suddenly and I'm like, oh, oh, so this is like a, oh, we're going on a vacation. Oh, we're, we're going to drive there. Oh, oh, I don't, I, not only do I have to, I mean, I, I did have all of the, uh, you know i have bags and bags i you know have the infrastructure in place to go on a trip very quickly but i do not have the infrastructure in place in my brain to go on a vacation

Merlinwhich is it's one thing to be it's one thing to be at home preparing for all of that and it's another thing to like do that strangely human thing that weird thing about human consciousness that makes us presumably different from other kinds of life that we're aware of is that like, you know, well, why do we get anxiety? We get anxiety because we can imagine a situation that's not happening right now. And like you can handle or manage the checklist of stuff to make sure the bag's right.

But like, am I getting this right? Like that does not buy you a sense of stability, calm and look forwardness to actually getting to fucking St. Louis and being unhooked.

Alexit's the it's the unhooking because if i was going uh if i had a task to do if i were there to do a talking yeah i i would be all all ready setting up for a card conference a cards conference yeah exactly right yeah yeah and i'm like oh no we're just gonna gonna like hang out we we don't have to do anything we're just gonna go and and what will i be sad about this i know i don't

Speaker BI should figure out what I'm going to be sad about.

AlexI don't know. What am I going to? Wait, wait. There's already people to watch the cats?

MerlinThat's a different area called preemptive self-harm.

AlexYeah.

MerlinI should be sad about something that isn't happening. All right. Can do.

AlexDig dug. I don't. Dig dug. I don't remember who's challenged.

Merlindoesn't matter was uh probably mine probably mine because i think it might have spun out of

Alexum god not stage manager what was the challenge last week uh uh fuck fuck uh read no not rediscover

Merlinobsidian uh oh mind map uh right uh however it happened um it's just uh oh you know what it probably was i think it was it might be mine doesn't matter but i was thinking about and talking about like how even though it's a very old not dead but old piece of technology like spotlight's pretty great like spotlight the little magnifying glass you click up at the top is fine but there's a lot of cool stuff that like i always have to look up like how much stuff you can do

with spotlight how long spotlight been around at least 10 years probably right like stuff like date colon width colon all that stuff has been in there the whole time the ui for it's a little bit wonky it was so my pitch was like because i was rediscovering um not an obscure apple thing but like a not very current cool actively promoted and developed thing which is like shit dog once you've mastered spotlight keywords you can start making smart folders and change your game you can

do so much stuff to make your life easier um in a million ways like i don't i forget i'm gonna i'm trying to avoid that thing where I make assertions about the entire planet. But I have a feeling most people who could benefit from it don't know how much you can do with Spotlight. And I think that was what inspired this challenge, which was to dive deep on some kind of like relatively obscure or not hot, not current, not cool, not new. But go to some, at least in my design of this, you tell me what you thought.

But my thought was go, is there a thing that you are benefiting from that you could benefit from more is there a thing you didn't know about that you could do more and i always have like five of those that i'm kind of toying with including things like dictation right things where i'm like god i really should be using this more and then whatever i go back to the old ways but that was my conception of it figure out like a weird obscure some kind of an apple or mac thing um that could potentially be like a cool secret weapon and learn more do more with it well how

Alexdid you read it i think i almond but no no i didn't really almond butter because i tried to get into launch launch pad i see i don't even know what it's called i tried to use launch pad some more and i'm like i don't don't like it don't need that weird my curly world where you

Merlinhave a key command that makes so many different things happen with sets of icons and screens

Alexthe no no no the the the built-in the built-in uh uh fuck the like replacement for dashboard you you do the uh four finger claw yeah it's i i don't know why you can order those sort those

Merlindifferent ways right yeah it's all i ever get i hit it by accident and get a bunch of icons that

Alexi don't know what i'm supposed to do with yeah and you have to sort them like an iphone like the old old days of just real i mean it's still it's like battle star galactica like the reason we like this ship is it doesn't have internet yes there's there's little cutoff corners of the launch pad it's just it sucks but then i i didn't know this until um hey christopher lally i'm gonna mention your name and not curse you out my friend christopher lally yep i know i know when you

Merlinsuddenly abruptly start talking to a specific person it's very unsettling why do you do that

Alexcan't you just contact them offline see no no should i start doing that should you start

Merlinmentioning people that occurred to me all right well you know my friend robbie desotel died a

Alexfew years ago hey robbie you should just do it as a as a test well you can't do it to dead

Merlinpeople should i say hi to some other dead people yeah oh that's not a bad idea oh you know roberto

Alexclemente that guy could hit um so holly josh holly what's his name christopher lawley uh i didn't know in the newest ios that shortcuts kind of god i want to love shortcuts so bad but The problem is Shortcuts doesn't care if you love it. It doesn't. It really doesn't.

MerlinYou can tell. It's a little National Honor Society, if I'm being honest.

AlexOh, yeah. More or less. But I was like, okay. I almost work. Apple, you got me into the iOS stacks where on your home screen you can have the widgets and the widgets on the apps. Siri suggestions. the there are serious suggestions uh well it's not a pile alex it's a it's a it's a set of eight icons where they will present you what it thinks you'll want the yes but if you go to okay let me

add let me send a little screen shot uh because when you go to um like i have that but i also have the recommended and it's just what apple decided that was relevant to me and created a stack of widgets and it's you can turn on smart rotate and it will supposedly know what you want to see when

Merlinoh i see not just icons you're talking about the things where it's like sometimes it's photos

Alexsometimes it's a calendar etc yeah yeah uh and it's it sucks it sucks so hard i feel like it used to be good but it's so bad it's it's just i i don't know it makes it it makes me sad why's it bad because it does not rotate the the uh widgets that apple thinks that it may rotate but it's it's

Merlinmore it feels sometimes truly almost truly random it's not it's not as contextual always as one

Alexmight like but it used to be where you know you'd you'd swipe to the right to the yes you would pull your thumb to the right of the phone and the series suggestions would have uh at a certain time of day be like ah yes this is when you use sleep your sleep app oh yes this is usually when you would order dinner oh it's email time and it it felt pretty smart i still get that i do feel

Merlinlike i still get that with because my i have a my home screen is mostly serious suggestions my second page is literally just four sets of serious suggestions and i i've started it as a jokey game but the truth is if i scan that page i can almost always find exactly the one i want immediately and yeah at night it is frequently grubhub honestly grubhub and doordash often pop up it's I don't think that's pure chance.

AlexWell, I hope not. I would like to think it's learning. But the other new, the new feature in iOS 16, I guess, is like, it, the, oh God, it's so confusing to talk about shortcuts. it's iOS creates shortcuts that are not in the app, but show up in a spotlight search. Does that track what I said? Yeah, it's sort of like a suggestion.

MerlinLike, here's the thing I could do. Well, if you notice that, like, I was...

AlexIt shows up under Siri's suggestions.

MerlinLike, if you go to shortcuts and you're in, like, I was in all of the platforms, shortcuts, apps, for reasons of this challenge recently. And I always thought it was kind of neat that sort of like the way HomeKit, I think HomeKit is actually doing this way better. Home is doing this better now. It's like, hey, you just set up a smart light bulb. I have a feeling you might like it in these scenes. Would you like it in this scene? I'm like, oh, shit, yeah, I actually would. That saves me so much time. Similar thing where you get shortcuts, right? And it'll be like you'll see, it'll prompt you to like, hey, text Matchy

or do this thing, right, where it gives you things you've done recently to kind of, I think, to inspire you to like, how would I use this? Well, I use it for this thing I do all the time. Well, that's cool. I've gotten in honestly with Grubhub which is like do you want to reorder the meal you ordered and it's like oh I don't yet but I will definitely remember that I can do that and I don't want that particular meal to be like a Siri command but like you know what I mean it's sort of letting you know hey here's the thing I can do for you without getting in your way but the things that are

when you ever use that phrase like not visible that's usually like a hmm why is it not visible like where does it live

Alexright like i so uh you know you tap the little search that's now at the bottom of your home screen and i have it so that series suggestions pops up but then uh you have like more suggestions i have uh turned do not disturb on until uh until this event starts at 3 15 uh or i have resume 504 too much apple in my apple the atp show that i was listening to and you just said a phrase what

the fuck resume 504 is that an error no that's that that was just the podcast number 504 there's of what of what of atp um is there a chance that you have become strangely obsessed with that show

Speaker Bbecause it kind of feels like you've become strangely obsessed with it yeah uh-huh well

MerlinBecause you keep doing that same joke that's not funny about the incidental computer show. You keep saying that. Like you're trying to suck up to them. You have a Casey List joke as your name right now. I get the sense that there's something that's having an impact on you. Please don't become a stalker or like a tower sniper. What? I'm just worried you'll go too far. You'll become like the David Letterman lady. I don't want you to do that. The David Letterman. Oh.

AlexThe. No. No.

MerlinDon't go in the house and try on their clothes and stuff like that.

AlexWhat? I. Oh. I'm very upset.

MerlinJohn has very long arms. He needs that for his work.

AlexNo, no, no, no, no, no, no. Suggestions come up. That's good.

MerlinWe like that.

AlexBut because I do almost everything on my phone through Spotlight on my phone, actually, or search. That's the other thing. It's hard to dive deep on a feature when there's no documentation about what these features are actually called.

MerlinBut, like, it's also interesting because, you know, they're talking about this on Upgrade. Jason was talking about lots of new review things. And, like, you know, the settings thing on the Mac is really bad for a lot of reasons. But, like, on the face of it, you go, like, well, that would work, right? We're making it just like iOS. And it's like, well, they're different things. And, like, I do everything that I can via Spotlight on iOS. I don't need to click on icons. What am I, a fucking monster? but that does not transfer directly right over to the Mac in the same way.

I can tell you because I was on the betas, and I could never remember where update software was.

AlexOh, no, not at all.

MerlinI'd have to search. I'd type in UPD, it would pop up, and then I would just do that again every time I had to find it. Like, that's not a great pattern. I mean, if you've got so much stuff under there that you need, I don't know. I mean, I've been out of the game for a while, But the UX and not even the UX, the basic information architecture of that, I feel like could use a lot more help.

So but like I'm with you. I love Spotlight on iPhone. I don't love iPhone as much as you do. But when I do use it, hell yeah, like I'm doing everything I can in there. Like, why would I be I would be plucking around my meat fingers trying to find pictures to touch. That's weird.

Alexbut I tried to get even more into this of like I turned on the stupid tips notifications and re-downloaded no because I was curious

Merlinyou know you can find webpages from the internet in your safari no good you can make the volume go louder or quieter unless it's turned all the way up it can't get any louder but you can turn it down those are buttons

Speaker Bthanks tipsley

Alexit has I hate tipsley I'm going to keep saying incidental computer show and get out my scope to look at Syracuse this is creepy

Merlinyour job can't love you and neither can accidental tech podcast

AlexI don't they can't love you I don't know why I would want

Merlinthey don't love you like I love you

Alexwait she was really crying

Merlinmy Angus please stay did you know that that's what it stands for

Alexyeah my Angus please stay I don't like it yeah we threw him

Merlinout of the bus Scottish bus

Alexdon't know that one oh he's Scottish

Merlinwell the name of Angus you know like Angus like the guy who did the small fry my favorite Pixar short

Alexoh that's such a good one

Speaker BDJ Blue Jay Taekwondo that's a really good short

MerlinGary Grappling Hook

Alexoh all right so if you use the tips app it's from canada there's a lot of scottish people in canada

Merlinyou ever noticed did you notice that half of the people in um kids in the hall have a mac name that's because there's so many scottish people in uh canadian i thought that was irish these are

Alexthe days i know i know these are the days i know oh uh yeah you can't really go deep on obscure mac or any apple feature when it's presented there's no depth to go on there's there's really well no i'm like okay so let's say i'm a normal person who has gone through this tips app and is like oh cool yes i want to use spotlight and i'm like trying to have like normal people

Merlinyou know that you can dial a 10-digit number and speak to someone else who owns a telephone

Alexno but it oh yeah it's all about it but then suddenly it's like oh did you know can automatically uh add shortcuts i'm like wait wait you haven't excuse me tipsley you haven't tipsley should have made that very clear up is yeah you don't know what a shortcut is it's suddenly it's like a capital s well i'm getting namespace pollution like if i came to do this

Merlinfrom pcs and like let's say i retired and bought a mac or bought an iphone whatever who cares but the point is i spent my entire life being a windows user who learned shortcuts because shortcuts means key commands it's another one of these fucking totally avoidable dumbass mac max max it's like it's like they're they're deliberately trolling us with these fuck-ass names apple tv apple tv apple tv you say it three times into a mirror and it appears but you don't know which it might be the app apple tv man what about that tipsley

AlexSwift, you are. Or you like Kit, I don't know.

Speaker BI hate every character we've come up with.

AlexI don't like this.

Speaker BOh, you know, it's a certain character who we do really need to make sure we turn into a breakout star. I'm not going for it. No, I'll do it.

MerlinWhy don't you give me something like, you know, we're out somewhere and we're near each other in proximity. Maybe we're at the terminal waiting to leave. And now you do some kind of like really fucking annoying complaint about technology.

AlexOh, God. The brightness on my screen just keeps... I don't know. I can't do this bit. How's that working out for you? I'll do another take.

Speaker BHow's that working out for you? Don't you hate that guy?

AlexDon't you fucking hate him? I hate it. I feel like I can feel the spit and the air being projected at me.

Speaker BWe threw it again in Margaritaville. It's done by the villages. I have a golf cart. How's that working out for you?

AlexI'm turning to Shecky Green. Why am I doing this?

MerlinWhat's up? Keep going. Wrap it up. Wrap it up.

AlexThat's it. I was just like, okay. If you're going to keep shoving new features. Because mine's sad and I don't want to do it.

MerlinMine's sad.

AlexThe problem is mine is also sad because I got really excited.

MerlinAlex, we want to. We want to dive deep. We want to do things. We want to. We're excited. And if you put up tutorials, I'll read them. I will if you put up documentation I will spiral bind it like I will I love this stuff and again as with the discussion last week I mean it's just it to me it's criminally negligent that you can't get a list of all everything you can do with Siri and voice or you know what I mean like there's times when it used to be you could go to the go to the fucking uh Barnes and Noble and buy a book

with all this stuff in it and like I I don't know if I can buy any more take control of books I think i have all of them but they're really good but but like it is it's a little bit crazy to me that and this is a very mean secondhand thing to say but i've heard from one more than one person who uses apple to make apple things to make apps uses max max not max but max not apple tv but

Speaker Bapple tv fuck off but people who do that for a living are like guys you know i'll do what you

Merlintell me to do but you do need to tell me and you do have to give some documentation about how it works and maybe just as a cherry on top like you could provide some pretty good support and not just say we closed this bug because of the duplicate all all the kind of stuff we hear our actual friends with jobs talk about it's really and like but i don't think my case that i'm making is it's

Alexnot that much easier for a consumer i had a i had a exactly i wanted to feel like okay what is this on like the customer end.

MerlinI made a little joke on the internet yesterday because of doing the way I, the thing that I've been trying to do with this challenge, which felt like a perfect fit for what we're trying to do. And I struggled because I'm a writer, I write. I struggled with whether I wanted to say, what did I say? Something like, sometimes I get the feeling that Cupertino has lost its ardor for people who like using a computer. And a phrase I almost used that would be more accurate but would get dumb responses was like, I think maybe Apple just doesn't like power users anymore.

And power user was a very specific, it's been used in different ways, but power user had a meaning in the 90s. It meant, no, fucking A, I mean, I'm not developing in C, but I'm also not your notional uncle. Like, I'm somewhere in between. I want to figure out how to take this thing and do more with it. And that has been a temple of Mac usage, at least since I've been around, you know, three years into the life of the Mac. when I started using a Mac from the beginning. It's been like, you can do these, at the most basic level, you have preferences to pick.

Oh, that's cool. I can change the background using the fat bits. I can do that. But I mean, part of what this has offered us all along has been this opportunity to go on a journey with this company and their products and get it to do the thing that you want and then to use that halo effect to say, hey, you might like this iPod, you might like this, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So I really do not mean this as an institutional criticism of 40 years of the Mac,

Alexbut guys come on come on i think it can be an institutional criticism of the way that

Merlinoperating system just seem to lose interest in any kind of follow-through to make the thing fucking good i know i have a feeling that it's out there it's in our lineup it remains in our

Alexlineup that's all we have to say about it but i i am quite confident that there are people listening to this or like no no it's not that we have lost interest it is that our managers have lost interest the pictures are that small yeah that like it's it just makes me really really sad because that one person trying so hard and to to line up buttons and cannot do it because someone just pushes or pulls right i don't know how and i would not count on that that that that many

Merlinprofessional developers who, let's be honest, pay a fucking team of people to do stuff. I mean, Marco's had a really interesting journey with this as he figures out how to make his piece with SwiftUI. I would really not count. I think there's a lot of companies that are going to let Legacy sit at this, Legacy shit, sit there exactly how it is until it literally stops working. I would not count on a lot of very large, let's put it this way. I would not count on a lot of large teams or companies who are not primarily interested in Apple,

but make Apple things because that's where the people are, where the eyeballs, where the fingers are. Like, I would not count on a lot of them getting, if they're at an annual meeting, like, did you see the news from Google today? Like, you know. No. Like, it's not great. Like, they're not doing this. They're not doing well. They've cut all this stuff, and they're looking at 30% losses in profit in several divisions. And like, I don't think this is, I would not count on a lot of expansion by which I mean, oh yeah, you know, we got into this iPhone thing, whatever, 2009, let's say it's been

great for us. Da da da da. But now it's hard to make money from this. They keep changing the things where we don't find out why are things still in review? Like all of the myriad, little, the thousand cuts of being an Apple developer title, right? Just like, fuck. So like, you're going to that meeting where you're like, we really need to cut. What did the fucking guy say? Like, people need to be... Ah, he said the dumbest shit. I almost tweeted it because it's so goddamn bad.

Yeah, so is it Sundar Pichai?

Speaker ARight, is that his name?

AlexI believe so.

MerlinThe headline is, Google profits plummet 27% in quarter three earnings report. I'll just be glad you don't make shoes for yay. And what was his really remarkable? You're ready for some really good leadership. Sunderbha Chai has been gearing up for this report all quarter, saying that Google's productivity is, quote, not where it needs to be. But Chai has slowed hiring since August, revamped the employee evaluation process. Awesome. And said that the company should be, quote, more mission focused, unquote, and, quote, 20 percent more efficient.

OK, everybody. Got a couple. OK, we've got our orders. We need just a couple of things we need to work on. Number one, I need everybody here to be more, you know, mission focused. What does that mean? I don't know. Also, you all need to be 20% more efficient. 20% more efficient at what?

Good game, guys. Good game. So in that environment, in that environment, the economy is just a series of unfortunate of cock-ups. So much shit is fucked right now just from having to make any kind of... What did I hear? Oh, shit. Snap is... Oh, they're fucked. Well, they, as of this week, are supposedly, they're going to bounce from their 30,000...

Speaker B30,000 square?

MerlinThey have a giant... Okay, so Salesforce Tower, that really, really ugly thing here in San Francisco, there's currently 20 of those available as commercial real estate in san francisco no yeah if you were to flatten that out and stretch it over like right over the poop and the buses and everything there's something like 20 of those that's become like the standard for like which is sort of at the very least misleading but whatever it's makes the point for sure um why am i saying that because if you make an apple thing and you made it through all

the the gravy train and the salad days um and now like and now like if we want to do this in a forward-looking way we got to do this all in SwiftUI we got to like read you all of our stuff i guess what i'm saying is like what's that line from airplane i guess i picked the wrong week to stop sniffing glue it's kind of like it's kind of like that right now like i would be re-evaluating at a much let's just say deeper and more profound level than mr uh uh pichai i would be drilling deeper than 20 generic improvements on things and being like you know

how about this? How about we run in maintenance mode for this Mac stuff for a while? Because I don't feel welcome as somebody who makes things for them. There's no fucking money in it. There's no, there's not significant addressable growth in their biggest market, right? Like how much can iPhone sales and understand this is, I don't mean to be all Jason Snell on you here, but everything is baked into stock prices and stock prices determine the value and then how much more future money you get baked into the stock price is like wherever wherever you are

right now so like all this like oh the stock went up when this happened the stock went down well the people buy stock because it makes more money well you've already made a bunch of money yeah go tell it to people on wall street hey you know what you made a lot from apple in the 80s so don't be selfish no they're trying to tell people you should buy more stock in this company because they're growing and I can prove it to you in these ways. I'm ranting here because while I don't have a way to diagnose either, I mean, I can diagnose

why I'm frustrated about this. I can diagnose things I think they could do to improve it. You know, because it's like Patty Hearst all the time. We're like, oh my God, thank you for opening the door a crack and vertically sliding in some pizza. You're so good to me, Apple. Thank you. You fixed something once. Oh my God.

He has risen.

AlexI just realized what the, I think what makes me so sad about this is, yes, the firsthand knowing so, like, not just our friends, but knowing there are just so many talented people out there who are being fucked over. but also because these entry-level things with the Mac not, I mean, I am like, okay, if people want to get really into the Mac,

they will get into the Mac. But with the state of, especially the App Store, and I didn't even really know about the ad by drama. I mean, like, just, oh, God. Which part? the increase in I don't want to mention upgrade the ad thing is

MerlinI hope that's a trial balloon because it's pretty gross

Alexoh yikes but also it's like capitalism Alex doesn't like it yes but also I don't think anyone's saying meh meh meh about you right now I really don't I'm sorry I'm putting on more patches on the vest but the

Merlinoh so that's so I can tell which Targaryen you are

Alexyeah I think that a lot of younger people who use an iPhone for the first time or any platform for the first time, seeing all of these things in place and using apps that are bad and an OS that is unfinished, who is going to be excited about making that in the future?

MerlinOr the corollary, how are more people at director and higher levels not pissed?

Alexit's mental because i mean i i'm actually not uh i i read the i know a lot of folks read the uh what is it um how apple lost its soul the the trip mickle book trip mickle it's such a good name uh and i get get um mike curly loves it jason snell uh hates it and uh they're they're like both right but what i got from that book wasn't like oh tim cook big evil

bad and more so i got johnny i've sad emo boy it was very it was very sad but it was just so clear that uh yes awesome the this company is making all of the money so we can have our good treats and toys but but there the the talent is in the um the talent is in operations which is not to like

like it's a fucking hard-ass job it is it is but isn't that also the kind of problem that tim likes to solve right right and but and if you have a ton of very talented people just in this one area it just feels like okay we we've invented this new like he invented like a new way to um establish inventory like it's just fucking bonkers and you're like oh yes this is why

this man runs the most successful arguably the most successful company on the planet

MerlinI think it's also that he knows every dollar is made of dimes.

AlexYeah.

MerlinLike all the things where we're like, oh, you're not including this and you're not including that. And it's like, well, think about scale. Everything they do, I mean, makes your entire life feel like a rounding error compared to like, you know, the big decisions they have to make about the consequences of. I mean, think about something as dumb as the box that your thing comes in, which you hope is beautiful. But like, it's not just how much packing in there. It's not just how much it weighs. It's not just the dim measurements. It's also like, how do we pack these? How many of these can we fit into this? And then how many of that can we fit onto this palette?

And it's like each one of those decisions has knock-on effects down the line. It's like there's no simple decision about any of that stuff. I doubt that there's any simple decision. I'm just, you know, if I'm being unkind, I don't mean to be. I'm just being frustrated.

AlexWell, but where are all of the people who are like, oh, we are going to – Like, I assume Craig Federici loves computers as much as he says, or I would hope I would hope that he does.

MerlinHow else would he organize his canoe trips?

AlexI'm like, OK, if supposedly Tim Cook is like getting curious.

MerlinPull them into free form so we can Apple Pencil collaborate, draw a circle. Can it have a gradient? No.

AlexLike, who's who's the one?

MerlinThe dumb fucking.

Alexgetting mad. It's such a bad app. I know.

MerlinIt feels like an ambitious open source project from 2005.

AlexI thought that maybe I was just doing it wrong. Did you see I drew the logo real good? You did.

MerlinThere's no gradients though.

AlexNo.

MerlinCan I do mine and then we can leave soon, please?

AlexYes, do yours. I hope that there's somebody at... You can't make them love you.

Merlinmad your work your job can't love you atp cannot love you and apple cannot love you oh my god i am

Alexnot as horny for atp as you are for upgrade so you you do your thing i listen to it almost every

Merlinsix weeks i just happened to listen to yesterday's i don't like podcasts anymore but i did listen to it was very good um jason's great at that he's done that for a job for a really long time he's he's 83 years old he looks amazing makes a good biscuit i don't mean i don't i don't mean to be bitchy about this. Everybody, do me a favor. Whether you are on, especially if you're on Ventura, but like whatever you're on, on a Mac. If you're on a Mac, and if you're not, don't worry about it. You're not missing a lot these days. Everybody out there, please go to Wisdom.

Wisdom.limo. Okay? And you are, I'm guessing, on Ventura?

AlexNope.

MerlinOh, shit. After show, we will talk about that. This won't be as good then. Well, okay, but you'll see. In that case, you will see what I'm trying to do. Now, I'm going to treat you all like a bunch of dumb fucking babies because I know even though you guys pretend you know this and do this, I know you don't. I know you don't. And yet I do. I can prove that I do this. And this is huge. So here's my obscure thing. To again quote myself, it should not be difficult to pass information from Apple's best app to Apple's most promising app. That is my thesis.

And so let's do a little exercise together. And if this doesn't work for you, I literally don't care. Go to any webpage. I just did that one because I want you to visit my site. Okay. Now click on the share arrow, or as I say, the share arrow. You see a share arrow up in your thing?

AlexI love this share arrow, yes.

MerlinHit the share arrow. Now somewhere down on that list you see, or I forget how you do this on Monterey, but you see notes.

AlexYeah, I do indeed. So we agree.

MerlinDo we agree, Counselor, that you are on an internet webpage, and you're looking at a webpage, and the task I'm giving you here is to please send something involving that webpage to notes. Any people listening? Stop acting like you fucking do this. I'm so angry. Hit notes, please.

AlexYes.

MerlinDo you get a pop-up? Do you get a pop-up?

AlexI do.

MerlinOkay, well, do you notice?

AlexI do, center of the browser window. You want to point you

Merlinto several things about this that I think are really neat. You see a little pop-up. I don't know what you call this, like an interstitially window. It says notes, and oh my gosh, look at that. I believe it's called a card. You see an image and some text and the URL of the page that you are on in a card in the way that Twitter, for example, presents a card that gives you a pretty, they call it a hero image. You see the main image, da-da-da-da. So far, so good. Now, also notice that above that, it says add text to your note. Well, you're about to send this to notes.

And you can have text before it and you can have text after it. But really, this is all about, I was going to say, think about doing show notes. But how about do this? Think about Tyler's birthday. Tyler's birthday is coming up. And you, let's say, for example, as I said to you, you do what we do and you share a document. I'm forever sending links to those things, right? This is why I say Notes. One of the reasons I say Notes is one of the most promising apps. I mean, given how promising it is, it's so crazy what a redheaded stepchild it is. But let's finish this.

We're in something called Notes. We see the hero image. We see the text. This is cool. You can write text above it. You can write text below it. This is all very good. Now, this is neat. It says choose Note. Now, unless you've very recently done this in Safari, it'll probably say, do you want this in a new Note, right? But notice also, click. And on mine, I get a selection of notes under iCloud. I get a selection of notes under on my Mac, all gold. But I'm going to just for fun select new note under iCloud. Okay. And do you see a save button? Is that what yours is called?

AlexYes.

MerlinIt's save. And you probably didn't notice anything. And the reason you didn't notice anything is because nothing happened in Safari. But now if you go to notes, oh, my God, I've got this beautiful thing that just got added to my notes. I hope people can see the value of this. All of you who pretend to do this all the time.

It's bananas to me how many people I'm not seeing doing this. So that's great, right? That's so great. Now, in my note, I can click on that, double-click on that, and it'll take me somewhere. But we also get all the goodness of notes. We get so much stuff. You get tasks. You get collaboration. You get drawing with a pencil, like all the different things. Such a promising app. This is so great. this is really in that case really all about me sending something from safari to notes let's do another one super quick on whatever page you're on i know you know this just play with me hit the

share oh i'm in the space hit the share oh click on reminders and guess what similar thing now it says reminders and you get a lot of those same things you see a cool card here you see a notes section you can hit the i i kind of wish they would actually just i don't i pay for these pixels Let me use them. Like, I wish I could get straight to date and stuff. And you get to choose what list. So in the same way, as I sent a cool thing that I want to refer to later, I can send that to a specific note. It does add it to the bottom of the note.

I wish I had more control of that. But I can send a thing to a note. And in this instance, I can send a web page to reminders. Merlin, you fucking idiot. Why would you do that? Because that little card means when my reminder pops up, I have a thing to click on that takes me to that thing. What would you use that for? How about an email where I'm out of the game of snoozing. There's finally an email I need to respond to, but I don't want to deal with it now. I'm going to mark it as read, and I'm going to create a little task here. And I'm going to say when I arrive at the house, remind me to respond to this email. Do we see a benefit to this?

From Safari, I want to send something to notes. From Safari, I want to send something to reminders. Do we not agree this is kind of a neat thing?

AlexYeah, it would be cool if it was in something like tips, because it seems like a lot of people would want to use this.

MerlinWell, that's fair, but just, you know, go ahead and just type whatever your key command is for doing this. Because which key command do you use? So what I, command option shift R and command option shift N, because everybody knows how to do that. What's your key command for sending the notes? What's yours?

AlexOh, fuck you. Oh, shit.

MerlinThat's right. There's no key command for it. There's no key command for sending from here to there. So I made my own, right? In the last year, I had the transformative experience of going into Keyboard Maestro. Yes, not PTT. Keyboard Maestro. And Keyboard Maestro has this real fucking gorilla bullshit that says, go to this menu. Pull down that, well, not a macro, but using the API, select the thing that lives at this place in the menu and do that and give it a key command all in one place.

Amazing. So up until yesterday, command, option, shift, R. It means bloop, a thing pops up. Can I just mention I do this fucking all the time? Unlike you posers, I've lived this. This is how I do things for work and life and family. Existence. Existence. Command, option, shift, R. You've got a reminder. Command, option, shift. All right, you're with me so far. Okay, let's drop the bit. Venture comes out. And you'll see an article in Notes from a friend of the show, Jeff Johnston, the guy who does Stop the Madness, talking about what is exactly it is that's so bad about the new share menu in Ventura.

And it gets right to this issue. Because here's the thing. It's bullshit to me that there's not a simple, really simple way. And why is it not simple? Well, the thing is, you can go into keyboard commands under settings or whatever we're calling it this week, preferences. You can add key commands for almost anything. What you can't do is drill down to lower levels for things. So if it's like a, it can work with a sub menu, but it's tricky. You can't do that just on a Mac. So guess what? This is on Monterey, right? You fire up Keyboard Maestro and you say, hey, I learned this from Syracuse, a friend of the show.

You open up Keyboard Maestro and you say, hey, do this thing. Select from file, go down, select share, and then from share, I want you to select notes, dot, dot, dot, right? And give that a key command. That's because you have to be, you can't even do this with BTT. You've got to do this with Keyboard Monstro because you have to have the ability because you're a consumer and you want to remember things. You need the ability to select from a subvenue in an app using a macro utility to generate this. It's a real pain in the ass, but that's what I've been using.

Right?

Speaker BCommand options. Oh, my God.

MerlinIt was such a pain in the ass, but I got it and it worked great. But then what happened? Well, I'll tell you what happened, which is the version of Safari that they ship with Ventura has one of their new beloved Mystery Meet apps. One of those wonderful apps where it kind of exists and it kind of doesn't. And what do you mean by that? Well, think about every way you can manipulate navigation and the Finder on a Mac, depending on what you flipped on in accessibility. We don't have time to get into this.

For example, I always have that flipped on. I know how many times I have to type tab to get through an installer. Tab, tab, tab, tab, tab, tab, right? I know how many tabs. Tabbing through the interface on a Mac, I know a lot about how to do that fast, right? Filling in forms, which I will eventually master in Better Touch Tool, but not today, Satan. But so what? No big deal, right? It's a menu. It's got to be fine. Hey, did they add key commands for those? Ha, you know what?

They super didn't. And just so you know, all the standard Mac affordances for navigating that list often just don't work. Can you arrow up and down? Kind of, but not really. Can you tab through it? No, not really. But it does have key commands. No, it doesn't. So I opened up Keyboard Maestro yesterday with the seemingly simple idea of, like, I need to fix this for Ventura. And it can't be fixed for Ventura yet that I know of.

Speaker BWell, fix it for me.

MerlinBecause so far, I don't think there's any way to address those things. There's probably, if it works, it will be with Keyboard Maestro, and it will be some deep down under the hood shit that's real fucked up, more fucked up than select a sub menu under file in order to have a key command for this. I'm being very emotional about this because it frustrates me. They did not, Apple has not, the team that does macOS and Safari never provided me an easy way to share something.

Do they want you to share stuff? Oh, fucking A, they want you to share stuff. There's so many sharers everywhere. And sharers has basically just come to mean. Sharo is about as meaningful at this point as Siri and iCloud. What the fuck does that mean? Share? Oh, no. You ever try and get something out of, what was the one I was using today? There's certain kinds of apps, especially like media apps, and this is not Apple's fault. But the only way to get something out of an app is to go to the share. Like save and save as. That's old school. Oh, we don't do that anymore. Everything saves now.

Ooh. There is no save as, unless you had an option. But you got to share.

AlexThey don't want you to know.

MerlinOh, how do you get a movie out of iMovie, Alex? You know how? Share. Well, no, no. I just want to save as. I just want to save as, you know, with these settings. No, no, no. You share. No, I don't need to share it. I just need to save it. Well, go to share. Okay?

The share menu is everywhere, and it becomes anonymous with do shit you need for your work that's not obvious, that everybody or almost everybody needs. That's what share means, and that provides you a share-o everywhere. Oh, here's one.

We needed to print out a recipe. My kid wanted to give their friend a recipe for a wonderful dish my wife makes. And my wife, she's really gay-bones for the New York Times cooking app. It's kind of hard to get out, and I was like, let me take a shot at it. So I get my wife's phone. now admittedly this is in the new york times app but using ios's stuff right so the first thing i think is like probably just got to make a way inside a print that makes this easy oh sorry to not just print this out but to make it into a digital file where if it was anywhere else in

the world i got a million ways like on my mac oh you should see the way i can get shit out of shit i'm amazing at this so i grab a phone and i'm like don't use it for a second i go to print well sorry i'm on the recipe for uh cinnamon uh sugar uh no fry donuts which were outstanding

Alexi hit the shero market mark marker want that oh for sure please oh you're so good i'm almost done

Merlinrant resume rant i hit the shero this is very shero takes me to the print like interstitial page how many up what page range da da da da and i looked at it for just a second until my brain got a little bit fried. So understand, I was on a recipe and I hit a shero. I landed on the print page. You want to take a guess at all at an affordance that existed at the top of that fucking page?

Speaker BThat's another shero. It's another shero inside the shero.

MerlinYou clicked on the shero to get inside to print and now you're in there. Because guess what? And my instincts were right. I clicked it and let me save as a PDF.

AlexOh, it's a shero. Because from across the room,

MerlinI'm like, oh, you should be able when you're on the page, like you never use this, but at the very top, click on options and you'll see an option in there for saving as PDF. It's like, no, I don't see that. It's because she's in the app. So I was able to do like all of that. Share means lots of things. It's not a new idea. And yet, how do I hook that up to anything that I need to do constantly? There's a reason, Alex. There's a reason that I say, you know, I keep my kitchen knife in the kitchen, not in the attic, even though we have more room there. we have a storage shed

don't be creepy like in another city and like it would be I have so much room in that that I could easily store everything in my kitchen in that and it would make the kitchen so much cleaner Alex if I did that it wouldn't be a kitchen anymore a kitchen needs a certain level of what some people might call clutter because that's how you make food and that's how you live and houses are for living not for storing Like, there needs to be stuff here where I do things.

Am I making too much of this? Absolutely. But it's really frustrating to me that I figured out with the help of some friends and, like, where I can, I'll always just steal somebody else's implementation of something. But this one I had to mostly come up with kind of on my own. It was not surpassingly complicated. But, like, it bummed me out. I discovered this new thing. And for the last year, I finally figured out how to make it do what I wanted with a key command. Who cares? Well, I do. I don't need you to care, but I need you to know that I care. And so I had that working, and now it doesn't work,

and I haven't figured out a way that it can work. Do I doubt that there's any way in the conceivable universe to make this work? I do not. There's absolutely a way. But really, just sit with that for a minute. I want you to think about the thought I just made up, that I imagine someone thinking, of like, there's got to be a way that you can do this. Is that really what you want to print outside the big white store? you'll eventually figure out how to make this work. That is not. That is not. And I don't think it's a corner case to expect developers to have documentation

for a programming language. I don't think it's unusual at all to have a more sophisticated way of explaining why the HBO Max thing can't play this video ever. Like, all those kinds of things. I know it's all weird stuff, but like 1,000 cuts, 10,000 cuts, 5 million cuts. How many cuts will it take to get to the center of the Tootsie Pop? It bums me out, Tim Apple. So I'll figure out how to do it. If you guys have a way to do it, all I really want to do is be able to hit Command Option Shit.

Command Option Shit.

AlexOption Shit.

MerlinI'm not changing it now. Option Shit. Option Shit. Command Shit. Upgrade. Follow up.

Speaker BI just want a way to send it to another app. Why is this? I could do this with quick keys in 1992. What am I going to do? Am I going to build a screen scraper? Am I going to get a screen scraper in Perl? And I'll run that from the command line? Oh, but you can have a key command for opening the terminal.

It worked fine for me. How's that working out?

MerlinCut that. Ready? Nope. Cut it. Cut it. And here's the good one. How's that working out for you? That's still bad. Where are we stopping? Don't make me look stupid.

AlexNo, I'm not going to make you look stupid. You sound smart.

MerlinAlex, doesn't that seem frustrating a little bit?

AlexOh, yeah.

MerlinIt's hard to make a case for why I want this, but it's sort of like when you're, you talk about matching and broken dogs, but it's not as bad as your power being off, but it's a little bit like, let's say there's a trick to flushing the toilet. because it's broken a little bit right now. So there's tricks to flush. On the one hand, don't flush anything big. When you do flush it, you got to hold it and then jiggle it. And there's a pretty good chance it'll back up. So be aware that every time you use the toilet for anything,

you can't just hit the handle and walk away. You know what I mean? Yeah. So you follow what I'm saying, right? Like you got to do it gently. Don't shit too much. And then be ready because 8% of the time, it's going to overflow for no reason that you could predict. That suddenly makes using the toilet a little bit more stressful, even or especially if you know about the trick. Anybody else doesn't know about the trick because they haven't sat there enough to know it's a fucking problem. But you know it's a problem, and you're going to cringe a little bit

every time you've got to go drop deuce. And that's how I feel about notes.

Thank you.

Show notes

Transcript

309. The Thousand Cuts

Show notes

Transcript

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