313. Existential Bridge Loan

This is Do by Friday, a weekly challenge podcast with Alex Cock. and Verlin man this week's challenge create a proper zettelkastin Fox Hello. Hello. Hello, how are you? Recording is in progress. I'm well. How are you? I'm great. Doing pretty pretty Great. I'm glad. I'm trying I'm trying not to be I'm trying not to be ego assertive. Hmm. I still don't really understand what that means. What does ego mean? It's a euphemism for always making people do it your way. Uh that's that's how I mean it anyway. Exactly. It's not that I'm unaware of it, it's just that I don't care. Just say it. Come here, let's do it my way. Man, look at me, I'm rolling. I had I had some ice team. That's not working out for you.

I like your guy. What is the way you like to do things? The way that you like to start podcasts That's the way that you like to do a pre-flight when it happens. I'm I'm curious about your ego. Oh. I uh well I I mean like I've said this a a million times, but you know, you you you know, Old habits die hard, I guess is one way to put it. And so like my first regular experience in doing a podcast was a weekly program about the Macintosh computer, where it was always impressed upon us by our host. that we're not going to edit this unless something goes catastrophically wrong technically. But so always basically the way well here's how I got it in my head is always act like it's a live show. in the sense of like not even a TV show that's being taped, you know, with you know, breaks that equal the amount.

Like not like the Tonight Show, right? Treat it like like a live, almost like a theater show where there is no way to edit this. Yes. Yes. And I I I I admit that there are terrible habits I've developed and kept as a result of that, but I think there's also a lot of really good habits. Like, and that's what leads us to have a bit, for me anyway, that's what leads us to have a bit like three, two, one, which now really sounds like Richard Split to me. Um I love this book so much. Uh uh I I'm I'm holding back on the last episode of the entire series. I'm gonna make my kid watch it. it um we've been watching v and i watch a lot of v but um but i um i think in some ways honestly that's a habit a lot of people could afford to learn from Be I don't know, it's it's just I like because I I like the back and forth, I like the the you know the bits, I like the building up, I like all that stuff, and it doesn't mean I dislike to to c to to to do a false dichotomy.

It doesn't mean I don't like shows with an outline, because I do. It's just a different kind of thing. And the shows I like, you you begin at a thousand miles an hour. Kind of like in some ways, really like the way, and of course, it must always be said, when I was about to say the incomparable, it must always be said that what what Jason does with the editing on that show is j just um b beyond human to me. Like I don't know w I don't know how he does it. I don't know how he manages to wrangle seven people with different sounding rooms and different connections. I I mean I know he uses things like isotope, but I would spend about two minutes with that and then just throw my computer into the sea.

I I I but what I love about a show like the Incomparable is you you kind of go you go straight into or show like Blank Check where one of their enduring bits is like they don't introduce the guest for like 15 minutes. And that's happened so often that it's now a bit or there I think there've been cases like with JD Amada where they don't remember to introduce him at all. Which are some of the best shows. You know what I mean though? That's I guess that's my the color of my crystal is I do kinda like entering as much as I enjoy a well-edited anything, um, the shows that I'm on, I I enjoy the free for all of it. it and so uh the my ego in that case is that I I do tend to think like whatever's in the show is in the show.

You just get started, you go. And it I'm not that's not advice. It's just it's really more of an admission. I would say that it's advice from me, maybe not to act as if everything you do is immediately alive. But try to imagine that what you're doing when it's being released, at least you're on a stage. When people do a sound check before a show, or when they're setting things up. Sure. You might not be live. That might not be part of like the performance, or it's you know, it's not the challenge. In the phrase, is this the show? Right? I just like I like that. To me it's the show as soon as we can hear each other. Exactly. In in my head, yeah, yeah. Um, uh I I think it's nice that you're nice to me on this podcast.

I appreciate it. No one else is nice to me on a podcast, so I really do appreciate it. Let alone in my home. Um but um but uh so I proposed that is it okay to talk about podcasts for just a just a minute? Because we both like podcasts and we do podcasts. Oh yes. I'm gonna I'm gonna open my new podcast beverage for the holiday season. Oh happy whatever the opposite of Rabbit Rabbit is. I'm we need to figure out what it is when it's the what it's the last day. You know, like they say, you know, you get the baby New Year, but like that's directly preceded by the old old old day New Year, um, who was the the baby last year is now old. So really, you know, you're really you're killing you're killed killing the uh the elderly even as you're, you know, uh kind of like suffering the baby.

Suffering the baby. Coming to HBO Max. I like that you're I like that you're nice to me. Um so framework. Tell me about podcasts. Um I feel like Okay, so so okay, let me let me give you uh one one one l like sort of logistical reason. I think what we're talking about is a good idea. And do we agree that what we're talking about here is like It it's not to say that it won't be edited, because it will be edited. It's not to say that it can't be edited, because except in the case of my um weekly Macintosh program. It can be I mean, you know, it can and will be edited, right? It's not it's it's more that it probably should have been edited. Well, I edited myself out. Um from that narrative. Did you ever notice that Philip Assue kinda sings like Morrissey?

She has several songs that kinda sound like Morris where she sings the third. Like she's doing the la la la la I'm singing the third myself from the narrative. When now when I do it it sounds like a like like a sad Morrissey monk. But it just wasn't like the old days anymore. I'll find that video for notes notes notes. Uh my pal from uh from the Bridgetown Comedy Festival has a very funny video about how to sing like Morrissey. And it's uncanny and unhearable. Un not unable to unhear it. No, no, no. I mean like once you hear it and you start listening to Smiths or Morrissey, you can't unhear the what he identifies what it is that makes Morrissey sound like Morrissey, apart from his t the timbra of his voice, is that he frequently sings around the third.

The um the interval. The interval. No no no, it's not bad. But like if you want to understand what makes Morrissey sound like Morrissey, and he demonstrates it in a hilarious, really hilarious way. I I'm a fan of Morrissey. I I know he's a he's a problematic they friend, but I I I I'm a big fan of Smiths. They're one of my all-time favorite pants. Anyhow, Philip Pasou isn't it is Philip Asso that gets herself out of the narrative, right? I believe so. Yes. No, I am pa I'm positive. Indeed, indeed. That's so good. Still haven't seen the movie. That's okay. We listen to and so it's wonderful because it's um It's Griffin and David talking with um this fella named Lim W Manuel Miranda about um all that jazz and Oh he's the one that bites his lip, yeah.

Yeah, I know, and we don't like him for that, I guess. I like her for that. Yeah, when you're on the Chinese platform, you gotta be mean to people you like. Um theater you can't say the name of that one play, you have to call it the Scottish play. When you when you talk about the T T app, you have to just call it the Chinese app. That's racist, isn't it? I shouldn't say that. Capturing all my kids' keystrokes, that's all I know. Woo-hoo! Yay! I mean uh talked about this on a different pro program as you like to podcasts. No uh yes. But tick you can't mm not can't Most people don't say the word TikTok on TikTok because of the Macbeth thing that you know. Because of McBear? Because well if Macbeth is The Chinese Chinese uh the Huh not title, not title.

Um The i if you say something negative about the clock app, apparently it's easier to be taken down or censored. But it's a good thing. Yikes. Oh yeah. Oh boy. is uh thank you Griff Lightning for your service. I think he was one of the first to go down with the ship and bravo, sir. Bravo What has he done? Has he done so? Um well there's Griff Lightning too who is definitely Watto and Griff Lightning did we're talking about Griffin for the Did he get did he get? He was one of the first people to be uh banned from Twitter. What? Because he made a crack? Yeah. Oh my god, that is so fucked up, Alex. It happened to Lex Freeman too. You saw you saw Lex's one, right? I I believe so, yeah. Oh my god, that is so dark.

That's so fucked up. Well, okay, so anyway, um that was really great for lots of reasons. Um that's a really good episode and because Limon Will Miranda produced f the wonderful Fozzie. We talked about Fozzie Verden on here, right? Fuzzy Fuzzy. We did. It was a challenge. I love it. Challenge. And um and it ends. All I'll say, I'll just say this. It's worth listening to because it is really great. He brings in what does he have? He brings in like a like a like a the uh the like s manuscript, the original manuscript of all that jazz when it still had all the real names in it and all that? Or like, you know what I mean? We're And rankings and ranking and so proves the fact that she was forced to try out to play herself in a movie about her terrible boyfriend.

But it's a really good I forgot why I brought this up. Except to say it's a really good episode. It's over two hours long. It's very good, very good car trip uh podcast in general. Ver and that's a very good travel podcast episode. Um but it ends with something that's very special, I think. That shows what a sweet guy Limmer Manuel is. Um anyway the Chinese What was I talking about? Um So here's the thing. Okay, so you go into talking about podcasting. Yeah, yeah. And and and so I'm well I guess to to backtrack, I'm I'm not saying you have to act like it can't or won't be edited, but it's a pretty good habit. For uh for well, I'll tell you why I think it's a good habit. Um I think it's a good habit because it keeps it lively and it keeps everybody honest.

Like so, like when I when I give you stick about your new project of making me look like a fucking idiot on this show, that is apropos of why I think acting like it's live is valuable. Because I you know, I don't want to crush the bunny by talking about it, but I enjoy a callback. I enjoy a not a herald exactly, but like I enjoy something where you're reintegrating a joker a bit from earlier. And somebody who's a close listener will get stuff that like some people will get something that you say, other people won't get something that you say. But like the most the beautiful, gar gorgeous, like like valuable little Fabroger egg of a joke can be so good and for two people. I'm I know I say this a lot, but it's becoming more and more valuable to me that like this one little joke is Like, oh, it's so good.

And it's I mean, one of the better compliments I've gotten from John Roderick over time is like 'cause he doesn't listen to the show because I don't think he really listens to podcasts. He's like he's like sometimes I listen, I'm like, I realize how many things you say that I just didn't hear, and I'm like, Thank you. Like 'cause that's the bit, is I'm doing I'm doing Richard Splett or I'm doing Gary. I'm basically doing sometimes I am doing gear. I don't even realize I'm doing but I'm doing some kind of little thing that's not for everybody to hear. And it's not for everybody to notice. And I'm not doing that to frustrate you. I'm doing it Because like once we're on the same page about that, it will delight you.

And as soon as like uh again, as soon as anybody starts to mention England in any way on blank check, I immediately start giggling and then I turn to my family in the car and I go, here comes the bit. And it makes me happy because I'm a super fan. Above all else, I'm a fan, right? So I love that. And so when I can do that, and maybe it's something somebody will get, that makes me really happy. So w why am I saying that? Well If there's somebody whose job it is to decide that that was over talk, I think that's that's the term, right? For what I do? Crosstalk. Crosstalk, sorry. Um yeah. But but like a good a a good editor who's working for some kind of like big company would go, oh, that's crosstalk.

People turn off when there's cross. I know I'm like that on like fucking CNN. When somebody starts screaming, I I turn it off reflexively. Like I I just it drives me nuts or like some fucking retired general's phone starts ringing. I can't stand it and I have to turn it off. But on a show, I can follow that. Like I'm one of the I'm one of the great interrupters. I don't want to put myself in the HOF, but let's just say Like like I'm that annoying guy on the show. I am the Elliot. I am the Griffin. Like I am the other Griffin. Like I'm I like I don't hate that role. I wouldn't have a job if I didn't have that role. And so if a diligent Editor, producer, whatever you call it, were to cut out every time there's crosstalk or like, oh, you know, we had to redo that bit because I could hear a siren.

Guess what? Now I stop trusting the system. Because if there's things where like like when you changed and you did, you absolutely as I guess as a joke, I'm not sure why. I don't know if it was your brain. or your sense of humor, but you recently changed two things to make it sound like I misheard something. Which is not terrible, but if that happens a lot, you stop trusting the system. If you think that there's somebody there who's going to edit out what they regard as uh extraneous or distracting or not professional, well, shit dog. I'm not your dude. Like Right? So wh what does that have to do? Well, if we all act like it's live, there you in a live show a theater is not a Tibo. You know, there's there's no way for somebody like you you've lost you've you know, in in a in a live show, especially an improv ish Or as Kent would say, improv esque.

God, I watch a lot of V live show. That's there. It's already there. You can't unring that bell, as they say. And that I think part of the good habit is like if you want to have a show that's not an outline show, if you want to have uh you know, playing playing with with each other in the space kind of show, you have to leave in everything that's not in a grave error or or extremely offensive. Or, you know, unintentionally like, you know, there are times when we say shit or I say shit where I'm like, oh gosh. Uh uh right? So get my back on this unless you decide to change it later and look like a fucking asshole. Aren't there times where both of us where you will say something? For example, you will have said something, I'll go, ooh, and then you'll go, no, no, no, we'll we'll definitely cut that out.

And you do. But there's other times where I'm like, you know, I I will say something that Where I didn't I'm not thinking about the fact that strangers could hear that and misinterpret how I feel about somebody. Or maybe I just said something true that's really mean. that I don't need to have out there in the world. I or sometimes, and and please tell me I'm good, I unintentionally say something that was unintentionally accidentally very hurtful. And is it not fair to say that, I don't know Every like once a month at least, I'll be like, hey, can you listen back to that and make sure that that wasn't hurtful? And then you'll we'll take that out. Because usually you can walk around. But like but that's because I asked you to do that.

It's not because there's somebody who thinks they have better judgment about what belongs in my podcast. You know what I mean? Why do you think it is becoming more important? to you because it's always becoming yeah, go ahead. Because it's always been sort of a touchstone of how I enjoy podcasts. Yes. Just because you know, in twenty uh in two thousand and nine. I'm not sure anyone knew how to edit except you know, PRX. So it was just natural to think that all shows were recorded live and the crosstalk was uh there. to be part of it. Was was you look nice today part of the Noah. No, I'm about to pay you. Oh well yeah. I mean there's the parts where obviously it's been edited. I mean the edits the edit well edited, what does that mean?

Well, the parts you notice are when Adam brilliantly decides to drop in. I mean something, you know, it's I think this is big in the in the Marco Pantheon. When um the first when he drops in we he's one of the best droppers. But like no, but he still makes cracks. Still he still finds a way to drop in um Titan Up. Sometimes in things that he does where he has to like in the after show, for example, on ATP, there'll be some kind of a blah da-da-blah and they have to bloop cr Casey Cursing or whatever. And then he'll just drop in like a few seconds. of Tighten Up. And anybody that works for me on so many levels. First of all, obviously it makes me really happy. You know, he's uh uh Marco's been so generous with m m um stuff I'm related to in general and me in particular, I'll never I'll never forget him putting something I wrote on the icon for his app that nobody could see.

It made me so I was literally this is not a humble prag. I was literally honored that something I wrote that he liked was on an icon where nobody would ever notice what it was. Right on the Instapaper icon. That made me so happy. But like for example Unless you're someone who zooms in theoretically. But how are you but like you'd have to get the giant size I mean it's not it's not meant to be seen. It's like do you ever look at an omni group logo? And the pattern is the word omni? No, I've never done that and don't do screenshots of all the apps I download. Are you doing the thing? I'm I'm doing the thing. You've been told that you do that? Alex does that? Um sorry, this is turning into me like like jerking myself off in front of a mirror.

I'm sorry about that. No, no, it's not a good thing. Shit. Is he done? Is he done? Can we come up? Oh, it's taking a long time. Yeah, he's still doing it. Just give me a nut. Just give me uh. He's gonna nut, he's gonna nut! That's how I knew that Instapaper had fully taken VC funding when the icon changed. I anticipated it. It's fine. It's fine. But anyway, that's right. No, not just you not just I I don't know. There is something about app icons that feel o disingenuous when it's I c it's really hard to pl place it. uh more supposedly palpable, like the Slack logo and more I'm like, do you really think that businessy business people are going to be more inclined to use your app, I suppose. I'm not the big money person But I remember I I remember when the Kindle app finally took the n words Kindle out of the iOS app and just had it underneath.

Yes. And I it still is upsetting to me and I still replace it with a custom shortcuts icon. However, I d like to think that someone w decided Okay, this is silly. We don't need a smile on everything. People know what this is. People have spent money on the-I stand alone in fucking loving the Amazon. I think it's brilliant. I love it. I like the Hitler mustache. I love it. I think it's a beautiful simple. Because it's a beautiful, simple, easy to understand icon. The second you see it, you know exactly what it is. It's Amazon. It's got the little smile. No, I agree. I completely agree. And uh in in fact I'm not sure. I like rectangles. I don't know, man. I just like rectangles. I'm oh hold up hold up we are we are we are taking this line.

Let me give you the compliment that I've been trying to give you for for eight minutes. No, I'm I'm genuinely. I'm not going to edit this out. I'm I'm not Two my Friday at Avignon, it's gonna be my own d um final cut for each one of these. I get final cut. It's in my contract. So I'm zoomed in on the Amazon uh icon right now, which I uh how you how are you zoomed in? Alex. Oh, I just Google for it on Google. Well, I yeah, I g I do the PM PM. But you can't nobody no normal person would ever see what an icon really looks like on iOS. Because there's no way to zoom in on that icon. No normal person would ever do that. uh easily see on the omnifocus icon I do I'm a big big zoomer. But the Or Millenni Zoom zoom and then we're going to be able to do that.

I laughed. I when I heard noticed you'd said okay groomer, I laughed. That was really funny. That was funny. You didn't cut that out, leaving your jokes. I I uh as I am zoomed in on the Amazon app right now, or the icon rather, which has the cute little holiday tape. And I'm gonna try it. Now that you're doing it. Okay, I'm clicking. There's super chunk. I'm going to here. I'm scrolling, I'm clicking. It's so cute. It's just is it a blue boy? I feel like it's a blue boy. No, not the Kindle app, the Amazon shopping app. Oh sorry. The blue boy isn't too bad. Okay, so so you're saying so I'm on any I just did a a spotlight search and it showed up. I do a screen grab, click, click, and now I go and oh shoot, I gotta turn off my clicker.

People hate the clicker. Okay. Oh yeah, I see what you're saying. Oh, because owing to the fact that it is I'm probably using this word wrong. Retina-ish Like it's it's way bigger than like seventy-two DPI or whatever it used to be. Yes. Okay. It's much easier than it's got diagonal lines for holiday tape, is that it? Yeah. And it's It's folded back as if it was washi tape versus packing tape, like the uh washi tape is Yes. Well, sure. Okay. No, she said I thought it was one of those things we my kid brought into the house and I was like, what I keep using that phrase, what does that mean Sorry, continue. Washi tape. Okay. Suburban moms la o like washi tape. It du uh uh uh no, it sounds Japanese, which is where it's like.

No, that's It's not ping pong. Uh the app that Amazon the logo, I agree, is brilliant. But what well what Hitler mustache? What are you talking about? It was just a uh a rectilinear um s like it looked like a Hitler mustache at first, didn't it? Oh, the I think I remember. So they very first introduced this change in the 'cause it used to be it was like a big A or something. Yeah. Might have had a smile on it. But then they went to this more abstract I was about to say Paul Rand, but I know I would get a million emails from people with tiny, tiny, tiny glasses about how it's nothing like Paul Rand. Ho ho ho ho Um but uh yeah yeah but I but I I I like that. Do you have a favorite icon on iOS? Like off the dome?

Oh, it might be omnifocus. I really like oh n uh drafts. I I the reason I didn't immediately think it is because Yeah, yeah. I I don't Here's here uh I don't apologize. No, I use a uh Not transparent, but i I always use dark mode on iOS and uh the same the I wanna get to the compliment. We still gotta talk about Zab Zal Cosmas. We still um and and podcasts. But the uh uh That's the compliment. The compliment is podcasted Jason Oh boy. The icon is a little bit more than a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a That's not even a thing. I just think that as an app it r doesn't immediately tell you what it is, however, it has really strong staying power.

It you don't get tired of looking at it. Sometimes I get tired of looking at the blue boy I especially get tired of looking at the Audible app, which I I get it. It's an open book and you're going to be able to do that. Speakery thing. What why is it cut it's got a V on it? Oh you know what? This would be good bonus content. This would be good for Coxmash. For Coxmas adjacent, I've used it. Quick capsule, I'm gonna write that down. Um iOS icon draft or similar. Okay. Um I really like you know, uh this is again, I am so basic. I I I think I love the uh uh icon for Instacart. I think whoever Instacart brought on and I I'm guessing because there's a big change in their whole look in the last, I don't know, six months or so?

I don't know. But like I love the TV ads. I think the the the way the icon the um Have you seen Instacart's TV ads or commercials? I have not. No. Well they like you know whatever, it's blah blah Instacart, right? But they show lots of iconic like sort of objects. The way you would like hire somebody to make an icon set. of like 256 kinds of food or whatever. And like you have a design language for it. There's always like a certain angle. Like remember on Zappos, it used to be so where the shoes were always like in exactly the same. They were always like shot in this same position so you could see this see different sides of it. Whoever came up with like sort of the visual language for Instacart, uh the redesign has done a I think done a really great job.

I think the Instacart logo is extremely good. And it took me a minute because so the Instacart it's hard difficult to explain an icon, but the Instacart icon um is a carrot. But the carrot is composed of the orange part of the carrot is essentially a location flag. Like you would drop In a map app. And the stall. It looks like a pin is what I think Google Maps calls it. Uh a pin. Google Maps. Yeah, but that thing that's like a teardrop r inverted teardrop shape that usually has like a circle in the middle to indicate kind of like a target, you drop this here. So but like so meaning location. And the s the green stalk part of the carrot is three lines that are obviously a green arrow. And the green arrow is pointing You can look at it as a carrot, or you can look at it as an arrow pointing to a location, which is what Instacart does.

I haven't seen I don't think I've seen this before. I've heard you describe it to me before, but now I just think it's really clever. It is Do you think this has been inspired by the FedEx logo? Are they the OG of uh Double labeling? I I don't even know. Wait, no, somebody f is that Paul Rand? Somebody f was it Vanelli? No. Paul Rand, somebody famous did the FedEx logo. You know what? Yeah, I as soon as I said it, I'm like, oh no, oh no. But like that kind of design I think is so much trickier than it seems. Like I have spent hours on Usenet, whatever that is, but I've spent hours out on the internet trying to find as many PDFs of brand guidelines as I can find because I'm obsessed with them.

Like you can buy the NASA one. Like for a while somebody had recreated and was selling the NASA. I don't know if that's the right word for it. Brandon guidelines, but basically show you like all like here's the font we use, here's the colors that are acceptable, and then that with that wonderful weird section you could tell made people cringe of like never show the McDonald's arches. at ninety degrees. Like don't turn the arches into an E and they put a big buster over it. I love that kind of stuff. I that that's that's to me that that's that's my porn is like looking at well in addition to porn. Except for Christmas porn. I hate Christmas porn. porn. But I like regular porn. Um within normal parameters.

But like another porn. No no don't think about it. I'm in front of the mirror. You know what I'm saying? I love That. Um it could be. I think that's tough. There's a lot of Apple icons I don't love. I don't love the home icon. Um at all. You know what? I'm gonna be a craven cunt and say we're gonna save this for not necessarily the after show, but for Coxmas. Mostly because I'm not sure. You're working on that? Yes. Yes. We're going to have an office party. I'm also going to notes, notes, notes. put in some of my favorite Chicago designers and force you to look at them because I'm not sure. No, that's that's an easy sell. I I I just uh I I love style guides. I love any and all style guides, whether it is for writing or design.

I like it, but I like it on like multiple levels. I mean like one that's so this is so basic for the basic guy is I'm I'm a f wow. I'm a fan of Jan Sitchold and the new typography. Like, I'm not saying it's perfect, but like what that guy was doing in the 30s is pretty wild. If you've never looked at it and you like this stuff, y'all, check out a book by uh J A N Jan Sitchel, T-Si-C H something Trolled. Uh Jan Sitchold's um The New Topography. And it's where I mean, I don't know if it's the exact basis for a lot of uh It's a J Jason. Oh my God. Start charging me five dollars. It's adjacent to stuff like A4A5A2 standardization. Din middle shrift. How'd you get din middle shrift? Or how'd you get din as a font?

Well din was a font that that like in the same way that we have those fonts you see on highway signs. It was a standardized font, standardized paper sizes. But also Jan Sitchell like his is he created a lot of the basis for like he made the rule book that you could then fuck with. Swiss typography. Yes, you and you eventually end up with something like Emma Gray in the nineties and the the crazy Cranbrook school stuff, that crazy design stuff in the nineties. If you think of like Remember like the way like you remember Cranbrook, you know what I mean? That style, that crease style. That it's like the nineties type of stuff. Well, it's that nineties often aped by me nineties style that's way harder than it looks of like crazy typography and integration with illustrations.

We'll find some Cranbrook stuff for notes. But Jan Sichel was the guy who like laid out a lot of the basis for what became kind of grid-based design. And what we think of as now the Swiss the the Swiss typography look. Like anytime you land on a site, like who had one back in the day? Was it Jack Chang? But you land on a site or like what's his head, who did the um design for that word pr WordPress? one that I loved. But when you see okay, you know what? Datum. The Datum site I would say is very inspired by Swiss design, Swiss typography. Big big big huminous faces and like a a kind of a blocky look. Um I like that kind of stuff. Um so one neat thing is no matter who made the like brand guidelines book, like they're probably, you know what, they're a designer.

And so I like the way the actual books look. Like the NASA book, I c I'm not gonna pay that kind of money for it. I bet I bet Steven has it. But like the NASA one, I've flipped through it on the website. There's a whole website of like, you know, NASA stuff. NASA stuff. I love I I love that stuff. I think design is so fascinating. I wish I'd been better at it. But like I really admire it a lot. Watching people who know how to like, you know, put those elements together to create a desirable the desired sort of message. Well still making it beautiful. Ugh, it's like it it really is such an art. I love that stuff. What's that have to do with Amazon? Oh, so anyway for for Cocsmas, Coxmas adjacent, we're gonna we're gonna we're gonna we're gonna talk about icons at some point.

Yes, yes. I can pay the compliment and answer the question. Uh yes. Podcasting. Podcasting. Question marks. I was wondering why now the man with the mustache told me. Uh the case. Money clock engraved. Uh yeah, this is uh You want it? Go get it. Dad, can I have fifty dollars? Do you get a money clip that I throw away? The man in the mustache told me. I can't believe he's a real person. I cannot believe he's a real Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. No kidding? Oh shit, we gotta have him on the show. That'll never happen. He's a man most acquainted with misery. You could just look at a child and know the price of their coffin. That joke never gets a laugh, but once it's in the act, you keep it. Hi! Welcome to Do by Friday, a show where I see if Alex can remember things that I almost quoted correctly from John Mullaney.

Why, you ask? Um, why has that become more important? And I think what you were intending to say is like The why has it become important to you? See well you tell me. What I what I heard you say was why is it because of things like you look nice today that it became important to you or because of not very quickly that it became important to you to act like it's live. Is that was that kind of the question? Yes, it seems like uh y your dise I don't know, um maybe not desire, but yeah, your your desire to have things feel uh like they are live and more dynamic has and I want the listener to know we didn't fuck around with this. Right? Like you you there's nothing you didn't hear in this unless that's part of the bit right Right, right, right, right.

Yes. Like a girl. Okay, well here's the funny part of that. What I was actually what I was referring to Well what I thought you were saying that instead I'm gonna answer your question. I'm gonna answer a different question you didn't ask. Well, what is the thing? It's not the recording live thing that's important to me. It's the reaching two people. And I keep talking about it. I've talked this is the third time this week on a show that I have mentioned how important it is to me to focus, whether that's Twitter and the handful of people who could get my dumb joke. or whether that's a podcast, like where somebody gets the weird callback or the like for example, like that bit so close, like how that's become kind of a bit on reconcilable differences, where John's constantly correcting me.

I got to use that on him. last night because he misquoted something and I got to say so close. And to me that's funny, because you're recontextualizing if I can explain humor to y'all. You're recontextualizing something, you're saying the same thing, but it now means something different or has a different valence. And if somebody had cut out every time I misquoted something in a way that John never got to say so close, We wouldn't have a bit that I now consider funny and can turn around and use on him in a way that people might find amusing. You know what? Thanks, Jim. Like the other night the other night I said something I I was talking about something in with recdiffs and um I'm I just made like I I said something and I did the sweaty thing where I then had a respondent to my own tweet by saying and we we really need to work on this document.

And a couple people like that. I don't think they're doing that because they're encouraging me to I think they like that. Maybe they they at least recognize that bit. Right? That's fucking what I live for and the part where I want to pay you a compliment is like One thing that bewilders me about you, and I'm always curious about, we've talked about this, and I'm not trying to press a bruise here, but the thing of you like preemptively defending yourself against the voice of the people who've traumatized you in the past. Fair? You you you you're you're you're kind of you've well that you've girded yourself and said hey I'm gonna make fun of myself first And like you're not all you're not allowed to hurt.

You're not allowed to hurt me again. And I'm prepared for the fact that like as soon as I walk through bust through this door, like uh t you know, five to fifteen percent of the people will just hate me in this Starbucks or wherever it is. Right? And and I mean am I am I s is that a fair way to put it is like when I'm curious because I'm a d a white dude who's now fifty six Like I'm I've had that, but like nowhere near the way you've had it and nowhere near as recently as you had it. Like that's this is a very live issue for you. We're about to have a big spike in According to to a friend of the show, Bob Wachter, at UCSF, we're we're in the midst of a moderate spike in San Francisco. Like it's in the water.

We can see the COVID's coming back. And I said to Madeline less than I was like, God, I'm so grateful that we live in a place and when I say live in a place, I don't mean San Francisco. I mean I mean the sunset. Like our neighborhood, everybody's wearing masks all the time. And I love the fact. that even though I don't wear a mask, especially outside all the time, like and I will now because spike. But like I love the fact that I can slide right back into wearing a mask just this afternoon if I feel like it. And I I've never I get glares for not wearing a mask outside. I never get glares because it's a Chinese neighborhood. And every Asian person in our neighborhood is wearing a mask all the time, anywhere that they're in public.

They wear them in their car. Right. So first of all, step zero, thank you for the grace, as we used to say in your church, thank you for the grace of me understanding why Asian people wear masks. Well, because in Asia you wear a mask so you don't make other people do sick. It's not because I think white people will give me a cold. Well thank you for the grace of me now understanding that and being less of an idiot. Right? But also I'm I'm genuinely grateful that if I think I might be able to help this by wearing a mask, I have no compunction. about wandering into some place where I'm told to take it off. And it's and and I was saying to Madeline, like, and I think people like not people like Alex, but in other places, doesn't that still happen?

Don't you still get the stink eye about that? Absolutely. Yeah. No, no, no. Say say words. I want to hear this. Tell me. Yes, it's not at all. But you can you can disambiguate it, you or you can uh decouple it from your Situation a a as a human being, it's the mask that people are focused on, yes? Yeah. And because of spikes you get less of the look or at least I have gotten less of a look and i when you're in a place like a grocery store or a restaurant, I think mm at least Chicago's kind of hit the plateau. of you know what you do you there's no one yelling at each other so Odd. It's very why are you wearing that belt? Yeah. You don't need that belt. Take it off. Well, I believe me, I'm to to quote Hoke in uh you know, to paraphrase Hoke in driving mistakes, I'm a grown man.

I know when I need to make water. I'm a grown man. I know when I need a belt or a mask. Mm-hmm. Matt and Billy went downtown this weekend on and took Muni. And when we were having this conversation last night, Matt was mentioning how like Actually for the first time in a crazy long time now, a majority of people on the bus and and and Muni Metro are not wearing a mask. Whereas that in our neighborhood Because the the El Teravol that goes through our neighborhood is, you know, it goes through our neighborhood. So a lot of the people who are on the train are the same people you see on the street. I'm not trying to be coded about this. I live in a Chinese neighborhood, right? So like and those those folks wear masks.

It's SOP. Like whether you're like uh a recent import who goes to SF State or whether you've lived in your house for sixty years, you know, whether you came here from Laos in nineteen eighty, like however you got here Asian people wear masks, and it's totally normalized in our neighborhood. It's not a great neighborhood for striking up a conversation with a stranger, if I can be honest. But it's a great neighborhood if you want to just wear a mask and not have anybody fuck with you. been really loosening up. Oh, interesting. Well, I mean, yeah, but is it fatigue, you think? Gorgeous. I mean you have to imagine others are. Like it's not fun to be on a plane and wearing. So here's I'm gonna get over this because it's getting it's getting mushy.

Um the way that you conduct yourself in that way, I feel like right now I've got a new kind of appreciation for that, just in this one sense. This is guess what? This is directly related to, Alex. Directly related to the chicken problem. How do we stop preemptively apologizing in ways that are absolutely not helpful? Right? It isn't that in some way the chicken problem is I feel like I'm not allowed to I feel as though I will be I want to put this so carefully. I feel as though I will be judged for saying anything in public that anybody could perceive. as certainly privilege, but also uh especially obviously uh unexamined privilege. Like that's one of those phrases like, well, that's what privilege is, right?

Like I don't want people to think I'm an asshole because I'm mad about my um my laptop not being delivered, right? Isn't that kind of a classic example of the chicken problem? Absolutely. And I would fight against that by saying, well, most people aren't Apple nerds who have multiple laptops. And this is a systematic process of the stuff. Right. Right? It can't make you stop because it's not really a person. Yeah, there certainly will be people out there who are unkind or who let's say in good faith. Hmm. um lack the context for understanding what I'm talking about. But like I what I'm saying here is I get what you're what happens. Well, I don't say I get it. But I have something analogous, if you like, adjacent to that where I'm like, look I I want to be done apologizing for the parts of how I am that I don't hate.

I really want to be done with that. And I know I won't be done with that for a while, but in the meantime I've given myself a bridge loan. I've given myself an existential bridge loan to get better at realizing what makes me happy and what I'm happy doing with and for others. And I want to move to a place where I'm less chastened by everybody else who it's not for. So when I say it's becoming more important, it's not editing that's becoming more important. It's the ability, forgive me. See, you can feel it. I can feel it right now. Forgive me. The I I wanna if I can make this my fucking job, dude. Like it I know it's not really my job, but I can make anything part of my job that I want, which is what makes it a really good job.

Because if I make a playlist that somebody likes That's cool and that's part of my job. If I make a callback joke that somebody likes, guess what? That's part of my job and it makes me happy. And so when I think about the Alex girding yourself to walk into the Starbucks feeling, what I'm saying is like I want to move toward a place where I feel less compunction. I'm already okay good about this, but because of my privilege, but I want to move to a place where I don't distrust my brain. I mean I I I I I distrust my brain in the sense that yes, I want to learn new things and I want I absolutely want to evolve and I There's ways in which I do feel like I'm getting better at that, but I'm tired of the perceived pressure to be somebody different.

It's something I have to remember every few years. So what is the thing that's precious? The precious thing is, hey. I'm not I'm gonna quit worrying if you didn't get it. I'm gonna quit worrying if like you need you need a fucking Norton edition to understand like what this means because I care more about the two people. Hmm. And I and I and I haven't put that into words as as such until this moment. It's you that made me realize that. That's the thing that's important. The important thing is This is so fucking funny. There's this thing that's been credited to Gandhi for years. This wonderful quote, right? You might have heard this wonderful quote. Quote that's been attributed to Gandhi since, well, spoiler alert, the early 80s.

Uh quote attributed to Gandhi is that in um almost nothing they something along the lines that there's almost nothing in life you do that will be important. but it's very important that you do it. Now the problem is that actually originated on a short you could a shirt you could order from Mother Jones. In in the mid eighties? It wasn't actually Gandhi that said that. Oh, that makes me happier actually. And it wasn't even Mother Jones. I mean she's fucking dead Well yeah. I just like that some copy editor probably had a really profound moment and uh spread that. That's lovely. And and this also extends to my joke stealing. Like not everybody I mean, as I again, as I've been fond of saying, maybe I'm having a moment, but not everything is everything, right?

Like like not everything is what you think it is, not everything is related to something else. And like, yeah, I'm stealing a joke, but I'm stealing a joke and not crediting it because if you didn't recognize where it came from, it doesn't matter. And if you did recognize where it comes from, you get it. So when I say spare squares build it beautiful, I'm totally taking that bit from Ilya Kalen. And you wouldn't know that. I don't it's not a funny joke. It's a stupid fucking bit. But if when I say that that I'm honoring Elliot Kalen Because anybody else who loves the flop house as much as me, who's a fan, will hear it and go, oh, he's doing that, right? Talk about going to pasta garden with Joey Pants.

You know what I'm talking about When I say you say when I put on a suit, I look like a large ventiloquist or a very sick boy. So invital that you don't trust touch the wasteland monster? Totally my bim bam. Yesterday on uh the other day on Roddock on the Line I or on uh Dan, Dan's show, I said I was still on island time. People are nobody's gonna know what that means unless they know that Justin said that and I because I love that bit and that person. You know what I'm saying? And like Uh so anyway, I'm not I'm not trying to I'm turning into some kind of woke Dane Cook, which is the worst comedy. But no, but I I like I and I'm sorry, this is the show, right? And like Unless you cut this out and change it, make me sound like a fucking asshole.

Hi, Pearl, and I masturbate in front of the mirror for you. Hello. Coming, coming, hello. Coming, coming. Hello. Processing calm. Why am I the couch? I not. Do Why are you the count? Ha! One. What did you say? Why are you the count? No, yeah, I I just sounded like the ki the count from Sesame Street. The Count of cum. One step button. That is a very good guide by Voices EP. So in the early days, they still sounded more like REM from about 87. Boy, I love I love Richard Split. Have you watched Detroiters? I've seen about half of it. Well like the first episode is funny, but holy fucking shit, that show is such a world. It's such a mood. And like, if you like, I think you should leave. Man, it's really important to watch.

Oh my god. There's so much good uncut shit with uh with Tim and Sam. Oh my god. The show's so goddamn funny. I would also say the first episode is very much a pilot in the sense of the floor. It's funny, but it's not funny in the way they're like burning the burning the king of hot tubs with the boiling water is funny. But like it's not it's not as funny as when the f startup moves into their building and they don't have a the bathroom that they like to go to. This well, yeah, and and that's why I've started to treasure a lot of uh shows on Netflix that are good from the beginning if they're just l like okay. Oh, it's it's so improbable, isn't it? It's it it it's like Really refreshing. I watched all of Inside Job uh over Thanksgiving weekend and uh it's a little bit more.

Oh really? I've only seen the second season, because my kid loves it. The second season not as good. Oh really? But then they uh in my opinion, but then they're so good as the day. He is He's so good in Archer. Like, oh my god, Christian Slater. What a gift does that be like Billy and I were talking about that. Like what a great like, you know, second second career. You know. Right. Sort of. Like starting with like Mr. Robot and all that stuff. What is it? Richard Split. Oh, yeah, wait, let me find this. Oh my god, Richard Split. I I you know, I might make my own supercut. I'm getting over my skis now. I may make make my own Richard Split supercut because I have not found any that are satisfactory for like what what I want to capture.

Uh uh here's here's one of the lines though. This is from l very late in the run. I don't want to brag. Boasters are roasters is what Grandma Split used to say. She had a form of rhyming dementia called Lindrum syndrome. Oh wait a minute. I think she probably just need that. And then and then another great use of the one word so The the way that Richard you know um Carl Van Hoot begins by saying saying sir but when Richard goes so like it's so funny. Oh yeah their numbers are going up. Oh wait a minute, that's upside down. So Oh, he's so good at it. I love him so much. Yeah, they're going after Jarvis. Taffy Lee Fubbitz. They don't usually list They don't usually list the cause of death. Shut up.

They don't stay babies forever, idiot. He's so great, I love him. Hey, how are you doing? How was your uh how was your uh await time? Um would you have a wait time? I'm sorry, I'm projecting. I I I I I never know how to put this. And of course, chicken problem, but like I canceled all my podcasts last week because I was like I need a break from that voice. I was so happy. Oh were you relieved? Is that what it was? No. I saw actually I saw that rectif s popped up and I thought I hope Merlin's not posting. Oh we record this two years in advance and we're just checking it out of it. But you care a lot about the show notes and Oh, it's a companion light episode. Wasn't it fun to hear him talk about it though?

I thought I mean it sounds dry. If I saw the show notes and said, Oh, it's an hour of John talking about an app. But it's fucking Syracuse and s and like even as much as you couldn't like see what it was he was having me do to have to be. No spoilers for For recdiffs, I have not been I'm I save it for when my cat is stressed out, Francis' favorite podcast. Well, let's just say if there was a spectrum for cats, he'd probably be quite up there 'cause he's he has a lot of skills. And a lot of fixations. Um it's kind of a rain day. Uh yeah, yep, yep, yep. Um and he really likes Syracuse. Oh boy, gonna be late forgotten it. Oh boy. Definitely, definitely gonna miss uh Reddit. He likes counting. He likes um in Syracuse's voice.

Cat. Two. Three. Great. Oh, good. Great. Yeah, and it dovetailed with um you know, the uh the other the other two um people being off. And um so that was good. We had some nice hang time, had Jubilee, you know Mm, oh that's right. I forget that school is a thing that happens sometimes. Yeah, yeah. School's still going great. So good. Um yeah, so all is well should we talk about the thing? Because I I I don't want to run us into like talking forever. And but I don't know, what do you think? We talked so much about me, but we'll we'll we'll we'll we'll you know there's always future episodes. In indeed. No, because I feel like I've done a little bit of a slip-in and Good that sounded weird. I w I mean sometimes I just get to go into into what I would never call Terry Gross m mode because nobody can parallel her her skill.

But I like asking you a question. The uh you know what she deserves just like I think she should hire and just sh show up for the importantly Yeah, I am. That's what they should call the show. Some guy who died a couple days ago. You know what that band's called? You know what that band's called? The microscop microscopic septet. Isn't that a good name for a band? That's a very good name for a band. It's a very good lead-in song, too. That's a good song. Good ass song. Man. I miss when uh NPR did podcasts. You know what I miss? I miss Bob Edwards. on Morning Edition. And like the Oh boy, I miss it. And like sometimes I'll go back and I'll listen to like old like the top of the hour. Like because it used to be so they've the morning theme, morning edition theme by BG Lederman.

Uh, who also did Fresh Air. Uh, he wrote a ton of those. And I learned that from my NPR coffee table book, Ladies. Um Okay, if I saw that on somebody's coffee table, I'd be like, oh, I'm not sure. I bought it for the photo from nineteen seventy Diggity probably two. I bought it for a big ass photo of Nina Totenberg, uh Koki Roberts and Susan Stanberg. I know one of those and Oh Koki used to be the I think what, Tuesday morning political commentator person. Sus Susan Stanberg was like the OG. Oh, I know Susan. And you know her cranberry relish recipe. And then you got the you got Nina, you know, reenacting uh Supreme Court things with her handbum. I don't know who that that is. She's the one who just had that book Everybody Dragged about uh RBG.

Oh, okay. I'm not up It would start top of the hour and the morning edition theme, it would be played as what I would call I don't know if it's the right term for this, I'm not a musician. I think I would call it a trumpet voluntary. Like it starts with this. Remember the little trumpet at the top of the hour? And then we're going to this kind of smooth leg. You know, and then Bob Edwards. Fucking Bob Edwards. God he was good. Had a huge head. Huge head. Um well you had the book. I was going to say how do you know that? But uh Scott Simon's got a young Scott Simon um playing hoops in it. I haven't seen it in years. I bought it in like the early nineties, so at a remaindered bookstore. So it's probably a book from the eighties.

NPR coffee table book. I can feel my penis sucking up into my body cavity. I'll use it as a coin purse. Yeah, I've got I've got exact change. It's in my penis purse. No, you are before your time. May I? Yes, please. Digga digga digga challenge Wow. Three, two Challenge. Keep that in. Don't cut that out. I'll know if you did. I will publish it. I know, I know. You did okay. You did okay. Challenge this week was somebody's and the challenge this week is to explore uh the world of Zettelkosten and uh to to try implementing Zettelkosten to Uh now I'm just using my own words, but like to learn what that thing is and what you can do with it and what it's for and the tools and the like sort of What's Red Scare say?

Praxis. What's our praxis? Right? That's praxis. That's praxis. She's dating Louis C. K. She's dating Louis C. K. Austin! And and who's gonna who's gonna take uh take a run at describing Oh, yeah. I can sure as heck try. So Zettel Caston was a system of note taking uh developed by uh some someone lumin. I wanna point out in passing. I love that you're starting with how it started. That is a huge step forward in your storytelling. Thank thank you, thank you. Um Richard Lumen, Herman Lumen? Um and anyway So what this what this guy did this guy do? What what'd he do? He created a system of note taking that in his w not his words, but sort of the idea was to have a box of ideas. Cause Zettel is uh Zettelkasten's a German word and so he uh called his collection of notes his castin and the uh sort of way he wanted it to work was that everything was an atomic note that could flow freely to one another without having an overarching structure.

And in the corollary to Marilyn's observation Um anything could be anything, right? Kind of. Like i if you you got an index card, that's the Z ul, right? And then the constant is the big box, like Think of just think of this. Think of a card catalog where some German nut who I very much admire. But let's let's be honest, a nut and von Germans and then Th But like uh where you you make notes about a lot of things. This could be a reference, this could be a quote, this could be an idea, this could be a paragraph of writing, whatever it is, it goes on an index card, it goes into like think about the card catalog that your parents used, not me of course. I never used that. I'm a digital native. I've gone native.

Um right, and then the idea is but the note this the isn't it fair to say the the part and arguably the part we still are probing is like and it allows you to collect atomically and then make connections And for whatever kind of work you do, whether it's writing or what have you, especially writing, but for lots of different things, let's say I think probably most valuably a researcher, right? Like couldn't you imagine this being for somebody who's maybe not somebody who's like you publish stuff, but like you're pri you you write as a result of your research, but couldn't you see this being amazing for somebody who researches things? Right. The main uh place I heard about it wa well, the the place I started to hear about it was productivity YouTube because of of course as, you know, the new cool way to take uh notes because digitally all of our Zettles can be uh texts, uh just text files and both of us are very horny for dot txt and dot MD over here at Do by Friday.

And you don't need to have an overarching structure 'cause it's just lives there. And there in Windows Challenge. How is this different from what I'm already doing? Right? And that is where I thought, okay, cool. Oh, I'm gonna learn an I'm gonna learn a th I already kind of do this. Now I'm gonna learn a way to in in my own the way that I used to describe project management as not being the water in the glass, but the glass that holds the water. Like it's isn't that what we're talking about? Like let's get into this because we're gonna learn. Ooh, it's interesting. They all start with an with a with a date stamp. I wonder why that is. And finally there's gonna be this way to connect all of the little shit that we've captured, whether that's on an index card or especially for me an NVALT.

What's your go to? Currently it is uh giraffes to obsidian, basically. Yep, right. But like yeah, exactly. So Things like drafts, the way that Alex uses drafts, I think, if I could speak for you, the way you use drafts, the way I use MVLs, I feel no compunction at all about like is this worth writing down? Let alone let alone like how long is this thing. It's where I compose tweets. It's where I like capture the serial number from a home kit device. But it's also it could be also like where I'm capturing citations for something that I'm writing. It's it anything can be anything. That's apparently a controversy in the note-taking concerns. There's like a cast in that Ovignon. Sorry, I've done that joke twice now too.

But like where and there's like I noticed that Christian, uh the person who r does the site and I think is the I think of as the digital. I'm not gonna try to say Christian's last name, but but th there there were several articles about like uh Fegin Feggen? Fest Fessen Festenkop? Uh right? Isn't there like a Christian and Sasha and uh on the Archive on the about section on the Zettelcaston. de like official digital site, they don't even put their last names on the front page. But and let me just say straight from the outset, I'm gonna have a lot of apologies in advance. I'm gonna say about Christians, the same thing I say about everybody in the neighborhood. Christian's English way better than my German.

Let's just get that out of the way right away. You know, but yeah. I I had half a year of seventh grade German and it's not strong. Oh really? That's oh that's a guy who claimed to hate Nazis, but that's a different show. Oh, that's mmm. It is. It absolutely is. But but yeah, and so it's uh there's this effort to I mean and I'm really, really like expansive. Oh shit, I gotta find the Flugen Blugen. What's it called? Here you talk about it. No, because it's the one where it's like dark dark plugenplugen, remember? Zelkastin, dark Isn't there a dark for Zettel? Oh see, for some reason, goddammit, both of my Macs think Zettel Costin has an R. Between the E and the L, and I don't know why, unless that is a German word that I just don't know.

Or maybe I'm just a consistent, I'm consistent in my mistyping. I don't know. So under introduction you go to introduction to set alcastin. Alex, are you loving the app? Are you loving the app? Isn't the app good for something like this? Oh, I'm sorry. I thought you meant the archive. Yes, I am loving the app. Isn't the app good for this? Oh my god. It's so perfect for this because I was able to go in and highlight stuff. I'm so pumped for we can talk about this. Oh it's so good. This is not the show. Is it on by Amazon? Is it do you know? Oh, Reader? No. Is it? No, it's been independent for a while. Wow. Uh because it was Fog Fog Fulgazettle. Fulgazetle. Fogazettel. And then you got dark and there's dark Folgazettle.

Which is like a drow elf. Is that racist? It's like senior chang. Chang. They don't call him Senor Chang, they call him senior Chang. That always makes me like Fogle Zettle. It's like saying A bag. It's just funny to me. No chess. I uh well yeah, you know what? That's very ableist to view. He has a terrible case of Changnesia. Get fake Changnesia You underestimate the power of the dark fogelzettal, says Daniel Lurd Lurdik. We're getting way, way deep too fast. Yes. You take notes, you take notes, you know where to put them. And then the part where my brain is still struggling so hard and then somehow you find connections. This is uh the thing that supposedly makes it special and uh makes sense in an analogue world uh that every note card has a n starts with a n number.

So it's like note one And then if you take another note, you think, oh, is this related? Is is this related to the idea I just had or a completely new idea and if it is a if it's related you would do 1A And then uh it's like, oh, here is a new idea. Uh uh note two. You would mark it you would mark it as w market as one A Right, yes. The second the the corresponding note and the I So implying and outlying sort of, right? Uh but well the whole thing is th like, oh, you're not thinking in an outline. Except I kept looking at the structure and thinking, well, is this got a really good post about like how to how to write in an outline. I thought it was one of my favorites. Yeah, uh here is what kind of made uh this whole process of uh zettle c costing drive me up a wall and uh pace around my apartment a million times.

Doing like the Zettel Coston method, if that works for your brain and this I don't want to say convoluted, but this system of letters and numbers in this ID tag is I I think it's fair to say y you know me. Like I I will if somebody says that something is Easy when they really mean simple. Like I will say, well it may be simple, but it's not easy. This is not a difficult system, but I think it is fair to say it's a complex and complicated system. Yes. I mean it would it would be if look put another way, starting off with nothing, like it would be real easy to find yourself going, wow, this seems really complicated. Right. And knowing that Christian is a software engineer and uh looking at his work and I can totally see the connection of how this would be a great way to think.

In in and um mm any sort of like you said, uh researcher or Uh uh even if you are like wants PKM fiction. Did you ever see Stephen Berlin Johnson's um wonderful article from Deck like 43 folders days, let's just put it that way. I can carbon date it to like between two thousand four and two thousand eight or nine. Um did you did you ever read his article about Devin Think? How he uses Devin Think to write his books? Um Stephen Berlin Johnson, who did like He he's he's one of the really good turns out authors. He wrote that book about TV. He wrote oh god, for some reason all I can think of is Jerem Jared Diamond books. Stephen Berlin Johnson Devon Thing, try that. Tool for thought? Dev well Devon Think is the app, but Steven.

Would you would you permit me to do one thing just to get it the fuck out of the way? Yes. So I can feel better about our conversation. Everything I have to say is in apt everything I have to say here, I just need everybody to understand. I I mean nothing that I'm saying here to be a criticism. of Zetelkosten or the archive. I sound like I'm doing some kind of like terms and conditions apply, but everything I have to say about this is in no way either a judgment nor Neither a judgment nor a criticism of the these systems or anyone involved. My my struggle with this is that The struggle that I and began with and ended with is how is this different from what I already do? Which is normally not a problem in life.

You just go, oh, well, there's just a thing I didn't understand. My problem is I've read I'm gonna say at least hundreds, probably thousands of words about Zosten in the last two weeks, and I don't feel that much closer to understanding how this is different from what I already do, which is nobody's fucking problem but my own. So anything I have to say about well the way these things are written or the way they're organized or like it's all kinds of petty shit I'm gonna say. It's not Christian, if you're out there Um I I only speak a little Spanish. Lo siento? Yes, hasta pasta And so they soap and fruit. Corta el pillow at the ore. Oh I just I think I just ordered a steak and asked for a haircut.

Uh oh. Like as you do. I mean okay, write that down. Capture that. That's a pretty good business right there. You know? But uh but no, what I'm trying to say, what I want to say, and like I'm trying to also give you the opportunity to not feel like the asshole from the outset. I went into this knowing I've heard about this forever. I know this is adjacent to things that I already do. My question going into this was, and really like loaded for bear, excited, like I'm finally gonna learn Like a formalized system that will better support what I'm already doing. Mm-hmm. Through nobody's fault, but my own, okay? The problem was I went into this not just, I mean, obviously years ago, but now let's say in the last two weeks since the challenge was it was issued.

And once it's issued, it can't be withdrawn. It can't be withdrawn. No, no, it's illegal. I went into this saying, how is this different from what I already do? What and like if we're looking at this as a Venn diagram So much of this is stuff I already do. Not not as a brag, but as like, oh my God, I couldn't cope if I didn't do a lot of this. It's cool that this is stuff I already do. How Is this different from what I am already doing? And how would I derive benefits from better understanding the philosophical underpinnings of how to do it? And and as well as tech tech tips about like what it all means. I I there's a part of me that feels regressed, like I may know less than I knew before. And it's only it's just my fucking fault.

Well I don't know, man. Because I went at this mostly through learning the archive Which is an app put out on Zcosten. de probably by Christian, right? And like in similar, more similar than different from say NV Alt. Or additional velocity. So I just want to s stipulate and pre-apologize and bracket by saying uh if there's a failing in me not understanding how this would help me better operationalize something I already do, I do not blame other people. But I've read a lot about it and I don't feel like I'm much further than I was before. I have more questions than I did before, which is probably good and Zetocostany, or esque, as Kent would say. Do you wanna get on this train with me? You are chicken softwareing so hard because I don't think that anything you're saying is uh c a condemnation of How do not yet were well not okay.

That's why I put mayonnaise on the shit sandwich. No, because iTunes makes you put the little asterisk in it automatically. I have certainly done this. I did this on the book cover for my book I didn't finish and my publisher didn't want to use. I but I did it in a clever way. Look, here's the deal guys. Curse or don't curse. If you're not gonna curse, you can be funny about it, but if you're gonna curse and you are the person you're a fucking adult who named something with the word shit or fuck or what have you in it. Don't put an asterisk in it. What are you, six? See I did that. I did that by having the Dymo tape. that I used for the deck on the book I never finished. Oh, that's right. I just distorted it so you couldn't see the bullshit uh vowel title.

The stuff I've been capturing. Oh, it's getting broad. No, I haven't because I've I've been like I've been I wanted to build up a little more, like you would before a date. Or your wedding night. You gotta go y you need to stand in front of the mirror while you're gonna be able to do it. Yeah, I hope you brought a squeegee. And it's on a shit. You really tried to do it. You were chicken software and cause you were really trying to Figure out how this system is different than yours and I found sort of the same uh Don't make yourself the villain for me, Alex. You don't have to No no I will be the villain. We talked a lot in text about this We tore the side of the side of the side. Oh, we barely did.

What's left of our hair has been torn out with this challenge. It's not uh I didn't so much find a problem with the system as I found an issue with everything and mostly everyone are uh uh uh involved with the sort of weird note-taking culture of It's a racket. Say it. It's a racket. Well, it's a it's not just hi, I'm LifeHacker. I'm here on the weekend. Soak your dishes. It's so but it's I'm I keep thinking if you're taking notes about taking notes Oh well that's a whole that's a whole yes. That's for the whole thing. I just kept losing my mind because I spent so many hours. Oh I know. And it's a phrase the phrase I use is trying to pick up the tweezers with the tweezers. And when you're writing about how difficult it is to write, woof.

And and that's why I really appreciated looking at the archive the the software and like the stuff Christian has done because okay He uh pure good thing to pure good thing something. Exactly. Like okay, I see that and and seeing how uh Lumen did his thing. Found everyone uh sorry, by everyone, I I mean uh surrounding the rackets and the explainers and the life acts blogs. N everyone kept saying, Oh, Lumin used this to write over sixty books. Oh, you know I did a screen grab of the one where they said he had a hundred and fifty unfinished manuscripts. You know I highlighted that and I was like, oh great. So now we're giving points for things you didn't finish? Hello! Hello! Yeah! I'm the king of that!

Uh like, okay, and and I couldn't really find uh I I was genuinely interested. How is this different from like how's this different from like Scrapbooking with a master's degree. That is yes, yes. I'm like, is this a this is like digital hoarding. It is uh I wouldn't even say that because at least with digital hoarding you have uh something more than a little bit. It doesn't take up uh cubic inches of life. It what it just knew. I'm trying to get 'em all. I'm trying to figure out I'm sorry I'm I I'm very interested in what we're both saying, but I am trying to find out how you say good faith in German. I don't think that's it somehow. I wanted to see. I wanted to see uh like read some of this guy's writing and I couldn't find a good translation of stuff.

You're talking about you're talking about the OG. You're talking about the El Ron Hubbard of Zettel Costin. Yes. Okay. Um and everyone just says Lumen. F from now on I'm by everyone Uh I I mean the the the like the Oh but the way John Cochrane John Cochrane his first season, John Cochran, who who I follow on Twitter, John Cochrane says to says to uh says to um Propst. Hey, could you please refer to me as Cochrane? Because I'm a scholar of Survivor and I have learned that the people who are legends on this show are known by their last name. And Jeff's like Okay, whatever, I got a shirt with loops. And then when he does, no spoilers, but he has Cochrane comes back and has Like it has told me statistically, you know the statistically about Cochrane's second season on on Fans vs.

Favorites? Like he did something impossible in terms of like he basically is the Lou Gehrig of survival. Oh. Well you got Ozzy who got voted out three times in one season. That's a record because of Redemption Island. And no Jim, there is no double Redemption Island Island. But but but but when he well I'll just say it, he wins wonderfully. He wins wonderfully. Oh God. And then Brenda makes Donna or makes Don take her teeth out. It's very upsetting. But and then when he wins and he he does look like a very sick boy in his little outfit. He's adorable and his family's there. And it's so cute. Probe says to him Um, you you really earned Cochrane tonight. Like you've earned the right to be an a a legend on this show by being remembered by your last name.

But then again you think Boston Robb is known by an uh an appellation and and a and a f and a surname. What about Amber? She doesn't go by last name. I think this whole thing might might have been a terrible fuck up. And you're telling me the Zeto Costanier, the Costanier the The g Zetokostanier. What was he called? Lul Lupin? Lupin? Lup Lum uh Lul. Lulubell. Lululemon. Lulmin. Lululeman. Lul everyone pronounces Lululemon's name differently, but I just wanted to know, okay, you admire this guy's Very productive. Very, very productive. Prolific in productivity. Yes. But what is it that you like? I've heard of Rainer Maria Wil uh Rilke. I I've heard of Gunter Grass. I've heard of Thomas Mann. I've heard of I was gonna say Kafka, but I think he's Czech.

I've heard of a lot of German authors and I haven't heard of Lupin, Lupin III. I mean uh it might be just so a real-time follow-up. Go good faith, and that's difficult because that's a hyphenite English phrase. And again, really Germans kind of invented that. It might be Gutter Glaube. Which sounds a little bit like the beginning of Rock of Ages by Def Leppard. Unter Gleben Glauten Globin. Mm Alright, go go go off King because I I got uh I got I got nothing. I'm like, okay, this is a Uh this number system. And again, credit where do me. I spent so much time well I'm sure the stats will show it, Christian. Don't be creepy. Uh don't don't don't be Inac creep. Um, but I I read a lot, I learned a lot, but like I it did feel a little bit like um I don't know, one of those weird nights you regret.

Like, oh, I think I learned about medieval torture on Wikipedia. And like you go deeper and deeper and deeper, and then the night is gone, and you wake up like covered with sweat and you're like, what happened to my night? I just kept f and Christian has really to Christian's credit we will absolutely put so many of these links in notes because I do think there is a lot of stipulation too. I think there's a lot of extremely valuable stuff in this, especially if you don't do what Alex and I do. Because you know what? Let's go back from step two to step zero, skip steps one and three. What I'm saying to you is this is valuable. There's stuff in here that is fucking great. I never got the answer to how it's different from what I do.

and how the system will help me make connections. How this guy made connections in a card catalog, I'm still not totally clear about. Maybe I'm just a bad reader. Um but this would be valuable for y'all to look into. If you aren't doing this Alex and I, it's just that we're at we're playing like we're kind of doing we're doing index cards in difficult mode in some ways because we've already done this a lot and like I already know how to search for things and stuff. Right. Well Marilyn, what is it that you do? Because you keep saying uh you know, that that thing you do, but this could be someone's first episode. They might be a good thing. with with a with a with a heart and full of Gutenglobin, Clayton Globin.

Uh it's a funny language. Lieutenant Metcalf claimed to hate Nazis. He had a vein on his head that would get very, very large, and was taught in the room where there was also a bow constrictor. Because our creepy science teacher had yeah, I've I've seen I've seen many rats and and chickens and uh rabbits eaten uh by a snake. It's also where I saw the exorcist when I was twelve. It was basically inappropriateness in uniform. Um Gutroglauba I'm just letting this ride. Neither here nor there. Um So something um I I uh uh a lot of people don't know this about me, but uh I've been a fan of index index cards. Well I've been a fan of alpha supplies for my whole life. It's part of why I would look forward to a new school year, right?

New folders, talked about this way too much. much. But the smell of it is so good. I know, but like but like you know the duo tang with duotang folders. I don't think we say that anymore. Duotang folders with the three prongs and you get your paper and You gotta get your number two pencils and that ritual of my mom and me going to the store and getting school supplies. But honestly, index cards index cards came to the fore for me at the most obvious in retrospect the most obvious time in the world, which is going from high school, public high school on the west coast of Florida to an okay good liberal arts school, um, where I had to use the library a lot. Now what's a library? Well library is a big place full of books.

Look it up. It's called a bibliothec. Idiot. It'll stay on forever. Um you but you go in there and you got the car catalog, and you got librarians. And a car catalog Uh uh related to this challenge, I think it's so interesting, at least in the Dewey, not sorry, this wasn't Dewey, this was Library of Congress. So I had to pivot from the Dewey decimal system that I'd learned. Since I was in second grade to the Library of Congress, which makes so much more sense. But you go and you can look up what what do you do? You got subject cards and you got author cards. And you got title cards, right? There's three kinds of cards, uh, if memory serves. So really, like already the the seeds of this and the the seeding planting had happened in nineteen hundred and eighty six for me, right?

Did did you have Library of Congress at your at your school? No, we had do we have to do that. But do we also didn't do we also have multiple multiples? But like you could go to the subject of memory serves. I mean for sure, obviously you've got A card catalog that if memory serves was in order, you could go to the author catalog and you could find books that way. You could go to the title catalog, find that way. And there's also like subjects, but every book also had a subject, and that's how you know what section it goes in Right? So like God, I can barely remember this now, but I want to was Ps. Doesn't matter. I'm not gonna try and flex because I don't remember. But here's the thing, Alex.

You got cards. You got cat card catalogs. You got and it's so great. You go in there and it smelled so good. That musty old book smell when you'd open up the card catalog. But guess what? Over time And and I'm also uh related and important. Um my work study job my first year was in the library. So like I shelved books and I checked out people's books. I took their student ID with their full social security number on it and uh we check out books. Oh, every single piece of paper generated at New College has your social security number on it. I know. I believe me, I know. But w what I'm trying to get at here in terms of like the prequel, if you imagine me, like I'm you know, so like I'm I'm young Peter Quill in this, like So I worked at the library.

I spent a lot of my time at the library. It was a quiet place to be where you didn't have a roommate. You could sit in a carol and cradle your balls. Now see that's a callback to you look nice today. No one will get. But um Um I was surrounded by index cards. Obviously there's index cards in the card catalog. But did you have this at your school? Like if you had to write down because you'd have to like you'd look something up and then there'd be like little golf pencils. And you'd write down stuff on the on old index cards. So they'd reuse index cards that had a blank side on them. And they were I mean they weren't like golf pencils. It wasn't intended as like something you grab a handful of, but they were free.

They didn't care. They were recycling. They were reusing, right? Like old index cards were like there. Index cards are what I would use when somebody would ask me to ask to help find a book. And you know, when you work at a library and reshelve books, like you get good at knowing where that thing probably is. You can like look up when it got returned. You can see it might be on a cart that's back. You know what I mean? All this stuff. You know all this, right? From library stuff? No. Well this is liberal arts. This is what you learn in liberts. Do you I mean we we had a computer, but you know it was hand cranked. And the in fact we weren't allowed to interlibrary loan is the only time that you would get into that.

Or if you had to look up like order articles. And stuff like that. But yeah, this is all physical. But what I'm trying to get at is like from nineteen eighty six on, index cards were a huge part of my life. It was part of my my schooling. It was part of my part-time job. And like because you could grab a bunch of them I'm not even getting into that fucking bullshit. Fucking bullshit when they t try to teach sixth graders how to like do an outline and write it on a card and show me your cards and Fuck that. That's a terrible way to teach writing to people. I hate it so much. How would I know what I write until I've written it? It's a very hard boom marks thing. How am I finding out what I gotta find out if you didn't find out what I gotta find out And then flash forward and like I find myself using index cards to write things down in the real world in my thirties.

And that's what led to the hipster PDA, which is just the notion of carrying a stack of three by five cards and a bulldog clip. And it becomes a way that when you're at a rock and roll show, you can tell your friend about an album. If you want to write down, you know, somebody's email address so you can like hang out, right? It's atomic. A card is a card. They cost almost nothing. And in the GTD system that I had implemented, it was the most critical way that information got from anywhere in the world into my one and only inbox. box. They're tiny, they could contain multitudes. An index card could be the biggest idea in the world. It could be the most the the smallest idea in the world. It could be difficult to read and you just throw it away.

You tear it in half. Whatever. But that's how I got into it. So index cards are kind of in my blood. You didn't have that because you're a a digital native. Mm-hmm. I mean we had little post-it notes next to the computer that you could write down where it was after you looked it up in the system. And there were those little pencils, but then eventually you just l you know, you left the book. Yes, absolutely. That's so fucking cool. Well to state the obvious I did not. I was not on the internet till after college. No, you don't say. Well, I I just just to like go ahead and finish the weird, you know, contrast. It's like I was not on the internet until two years after three years after I graduated.

So like I I mean I used a Mac. That's how I learned to use a Mac in college was like writing stuff, writing papers or whatever, you know. Wait, so you didn't even have the internet like in the computer lab? We had Apple Talk so we could print on a laser writer. Oh Watts. Wow. Okay. That's it. There were people there. Yeah, my friend Watts, who you probably know as Coyote Tracks on the Internet, Gruber linked in the other day. Like Watts and I entered new college at the same time, graduated at the same time. Like he was a computer guy. Like he was very much of a computer guy and I think he was on the internet the way you could get on the internet back. Like when I got on the internet in nineteen ninety-two or three or whatever it was, it was all telnet, you know, it was all text.

Anyways, nobody cares. So I in my bones from that point on I started to understand like in a way that wouldn't fully form for ten years, I started to understand that an index card can be anything. Which is powerful. You can always like I've like I said recently, you can always make a mark. Just remember you can always make a mark. And that's that's such a big thing. Now, in fairness, I was using index cards throughout most of my young adulthood, younger adulthood, mostly for capture and the occasional like sharing with other people. But again, to quote the great Malcolm Gladwell, it's not that we need to use less paper, it's that we need to keep less paper. We need to file less paper. I totally agree about that.

So it wasn't until f later on that I started to understand that, oh, that bullshit they taught me in elementary school that was bullshit. Like there is actually something to that. And this actually, Alex super relates, you know, not coincidentally, to our mind mapping challenge, which is I tend to I have access to minutia. Like I'm not worried about the big idea, but what what both invigorates enlivens and and challenges me is how I take all the minutiae and then reverse engineer that into what my bigger idea is. And index cards are great for that. So before I go on more, that's my genesis is directly in index cards, the state of mind that this costs nothing and doesn't need to be special. You know, the first page is profound kind of thing.

But anyway, so then when MVL came along and it had an easy way of like creating these, you know, potentially very trivial notes, it costs nothing. to like c write down whatever you want. And like I said, it could be a draft for a Twitter thing. It could be my list of my my stupid biographies. Things that are a jest now, right? Like, oh here's all my biographies. Like here's my running list. Here's a here's a dream. And that's where we get into the stuff you've heard about well like oh Dream X. Why Dream X? Because it's a sorry England a nonce word where I can find always this exit Project X. projects. I can always find exactly that kind of thing without namespace pollution. So why am I saying that?

Uh because we've had a lot of tea. Shut up. And also because like I think there's elements Don't you think to using tags instead of categories? Big part of Zettel costin, which I think is smart. Tags instead of categories. Um you know, um atomicization, like keeping things small until they need to be big or keeping them big until they need to be small. But I'm gonna need to spend more time with this to understand. I don't know if you need to because uh the understanding of it is almost like trying to understand how another person subvocalizes. I I mm not almost like it's a pretty big leap. But it is very much Yeah, it's like trying to understand how somebody else thinks in like an ineffable way.

Right. I'm like, how do you get from here to there? Why just jumble it together? But I also start with the jumbles, I just end up putting them in lists. Basically. But the thing that seems g appealing to people is the way to connect these notes into bigger ideas. Exactly. And that's that's where I'm like, wait a minute, so I'm so I'm supposed to do that Well, don't don't you sort of already do that with taking the same thing? The tags, the tags, yeah, I think the tags are a kind of implicit metadata. And you know, uh so so the thing that that uh our friend Christian makes is an app called the Archive that again is very it's not saying it's like stealing from this, but like, you know, because NVALT And that idea of like how NVAT works where it's it's it how you find things and create things the same way in a way that will make zero sense until you do it and then you'll never look back.

Right? Yes. Um I mean that's that that is the the magic of NV Alt in addition or anything like it is the in the archive is that in addition to having all these different kinds of notes that are small and easy portable, is also just that like it really gets into your deep into your brainstem that I find things and make things the same way. Like today, right before we started, in addition to our show notes on um or s whatever you call it, the w our shared document on Google, I also have stuff in MVL. So DBF. Shownote X E313 2022 1130. I like the date at the end because I'm weird like that. But note X, why note X? Because then that won't get confused with the word notes or notation or like whatever.

So if I go in and start typing DBF, it auto-fills with one of those things of show notes, I kind of a command arrow to the end and backspace back to E31 and change two to three, type the date, and I got a new document. Which like you know what I'm talking about, right? Like it's it's magic. Mm-hmm. Yes. Yeah. And so that's yeah, you're right. There's an there's an implicit kind of metadata and connection there, but like The the the part maybe I maybe I'm just looking for something that wasn't there, but I thought there would be more. I don't really need to know that much about index cards and cabinets. Personally, other it would be valuable to other people to understand the atomicization because that's a new idea for folks and they should get they should get to enjoy that the same way I did.

The part I'm still hung up on is like, okay, I can do this thing in HTML comments. I guess to like do the equivalent of um what what does Brett call it? Not an interpolation, but um you know where you can like Do include documents in other documents and marked will know that and like that's super powerful. But like okay, you I think you do that manually. There's the thing where you put anything in double brackets. Again, something drafts does, something NVL does. You put something in double brackets, what does it do, Alex? It it creates a back lake or a wiki style link. So you use tags instead of categories, importantly, but tags enable you to have an inline way to organize or identify things for future use.

You've got links or trans transclusion is that what it's called when you when you put a document word Um but like right now I'm like, well and then like the thing is I was on the beta for NV Ultra for a while, and Envy Ultra has a thing where I think I think Envy Ultra is trying to do what I what I'm looking for here, which is find relationships I'm not aware of between these things. Like if you go to NVIUlltra and you click on that dingus, it'll show you like Things that we think are related to this note, I think mostly based on something like word use. And things like that. Huh. Because well that's what Obsidian sort of does or or tries to do. Well no, it just the way that it looks for not just backlinks, but but things that could be backlinks and things you may just not have linked to if it's a really specific phrase or something like that.

So it identifies th through use on so like in my head, uh John Syracuse could Well see, I would say he'd explain this, but he's so good at bitching about something and then not explaining what he meant. It's really his gift. I'm guessing there's a word soup, emotional word soup of like non-small words, non-common words, like are they unique or unique ish, or as Kent would say, unique esque words that indicate these things, whether that's synonyms or whatever, that would tell me these things are related. Right? Yeah. Like um, oh the other thing we should mention in that that's really cool in the archive is um save searches, which is a really neat idea. So safe surf just will and and and NVUltra does that.

I think NVALT does that. NVAL, the thing is NVAult remembers bookmarks to uh a page or like a note, but NV Ultra will let you do substrings. So you could say just show me everything that's NBF Show Note X. Anytime I want to hit a key to bring up just my show notes from and and Christian does that in the archive. So that's great. So you could say something like just all save show me all of my my notes that were created in a given month and make that a save search. Mm-hmm. Yeah, and that that's why I think I respect but don't really understand the exact method. That's how I feel about the whole world. I respect it, but I don't understand it. Well and and the same way I sort of respect people who do the whole uh Marie Kondo thing in the proper way, as you'd say it.

Uh the way uh s m mind maps were originally created. Like not that you uh can't take a donated our copy of Marie Condo last week. I got to hold up that tiny little fucking stupid book and go thank you for your service. And then I did a bow. Very, very racist bow. I said, You no longer bring bring me joy. Piece of shit show or the other TV show. Oh the keyboard. I I uh really enjoy reading about the like we said uh uh like we mentioned with the design uh design guides I uh like trying to understand how a person uh thinks or acts on a project or idea or whatever. But and people who are usually like good at talking about it and passionate about it. Yeah, and the place that you can't really find that is YouTube's productivity racket that uh in you know Berlin, you might be surprised to know The people who have videos about uh Zatlakosten also have very long videos about the city.

I'm mainly interested in finding people that have some kind of a system that I could subscribe to to learn more is mainly my interest. Yes, yes. I would I would like to learn more. Hit the bell and subscribe and uh Do you feel like it really helps people discover the show? It uh it it does. And you know what's great? Watching a 35 minute video about how to reach inbox zero in five minutes. It was Very, very good. I would watch that, but I would really I gotta be honest with you. There's two things I would love out of that, at least. Oh god. One is that if I did have questions or comments, there would be a place where I could put those but also if there was a list with Amazon affiliate links where I could find the kinds of cards that this person showed me for 35 minutes.

And also how how am I gonna eat a McDonald's for free? I wish LifeHacker would write more about that. Okay, I couldn't find that article. I want to know how to eat a McDonald's for free. Well the bitter irony is I did have McDonald's last night. V very, very bitter. I finished I finished with Squidward and came home and they'd save food for me, but I was still like, meh, I could do me up some uh some of them fries. Oh. Did you get it delivered? Yes. No, I don't know. No, I d but but how was the delivery? It's really hit and miss with McDonald's. It's close by. It's at the mall where our apple stores are. Oh, okay. Okay, okay. That's hard to mess up. Um, I apologize in retrospect. I hope I wasn't too mean.

I think this stuff is valuable to explore. I think the archive is interesting. Oh and I did take notes in the archive that I can share with you. So why why does the date thing have to be at the beginning? I uh y yes. I understand the time size I do understand. See I've had one forever called F-Date. And so let me give you all my date formats. I'm gonna need to put so here's F-Date. F-D-A-T-E. I think I'm typing this to you. Yeah, okay. I got another one called UDATE. Is this in the super secret? This is in our little channel. There we go. Um let's see. Oh, and then I I've had one, I actually have, believe it or not, I've had one for a while called Z Date. that creates um in Zuston format. Like I get so like F date is finder friendly.

It's a date stamp that that will you know that will be okay with the finder. U date is more human readable. I use that for H's. in um markdown documents. And then Z date is exactly that. It makes a Z-Costin formatted date. Which is, I'm sorry, let's not there's no reason to be evasive about this. In order with no spaces, all numerals, year four characters. Month, two characters, day of the month, two characters. Um, you know, 24-hour formatted hour, so 13 right now for me, and 23 is minute. But why is it at the be why is it have to be at the beginning like that? Well it's because that's the title of the file itself. So when you're it's a But you mean that would be like if everything that I wanted to cook with had to begin with the word kitchen.

Well that I mean some people do that. Some people's This is not my garage salt. I don't know the reference, but it's a sort of sort of sort of sort of sort of sort of sort of sort of sort of sort of sort of sort of sort Well no I'm saying I but I I guess what I'm saying is that to me with salt maybe I'm a weirdo from Ohio, but it is implied that that is a kitchen thing. I I I don't I think for how many spaces that takes up for basically metadata, I don't understand why. W Everyone does that. Well, because it's free. There's no re I suppose there's also no reason to do that. Is there a setting to say I don't need to see the timestamp except when I need to see the timestamp? It just seems weird to have that first.

I think There is an obsidian, yes. But but again, like the I think that w aga once again, what I really uh respect about this system and uh specifically what Christian has built, it is It is exactly for this kind of thinking. The same way at least initially, Omnifocus was built Yeah. Yeah. I still don't necessarily love the tag system instead of context, but the oh well. The uh uh Oh boy that was the when I was still adjacent to that that project. That it was like they were nice about it because they're all so nice. But that was never like especially with Tim, that was never in consideration. Like we're not gonna let you have a bunch of different tax Like no, that's not that's not the system.

I mean uh in my words, not Tim's, like that would be like giving you J just you've always wanted to have four steering wheels of different sizes. You'd be like, Well, wait, can't you just use one at a time? Well, yeah, but I really like steering wheels and it really helps me in my in my in my In my system, in my process, it's very helpful to me to have multiple steering wheels. And I can always add another steering wheel. It's like, yeah, but aren't you just driving the one car? Don't tell me how to organize. I'm steering wheel boy. Steering wheel boy steering wheels. It is Stir, stir. raw transcript