342. Queen Grandpa

This is Do by Friday, a weekly challenge podcast with Alex Cox and Merlin Mann. This week's challenge Look at Old Computers. Hello? Hang on. Okay. Hear me okay? I can indeed. Hello, I just got a new option from Zoom, but it's not important because here I am. Hello, Alexandra. Hello. Hello. There's that teacher or boss you had at one point who said you should always leave for an event or an appointment F uh like as if you were going to get a flat tire, was it? What are you talking about? I um uh oh I've been catching up with the MPU. What? Uh I I've been catching up with the Merlin podcast universe. Oh, I'm so sorry. I think I think in your in your usually kind of uh obverse disordered way. I think you're referring to an anecdote that I love you.

I told an anecdote on Duby or this is Do by Friday. Hello. Um on another show I do and on um back to work. And I was talking about how I I I believe in my soul that you one is either early or late for something. There's no such thing as being on time. An anecdote I told was we w um ah God what is the name of this course, Alex? It's there's a name for it. Everybody knows the name for this first aid course. Anyway, we took that. We were late and we've got to be a little bit more. Red Cross uh the EMT card g no I'm I wanna be cute. Listen, I only have a few more years of cute left. Okay. Alright, well, um, I wanna give you lots of runway for cute. Thank you. Um so type that one down. I'm gonna give you lots of runway for cute.

Um I'm gonna try not to be mean to you like I was last week, but yeah No, I think it's mean to insinuate that you were mean to me. Because why wouldn't I stand up for myself? You you have s you have such a a wonderfully condescending way of telling me that I'm I'm right about something by telling me I'm wrong about other things. I'm so grateful for that. Thank you. The clarity you give me. Oh man. See but the The fact that I got yelled at by an old man in nineteen eighty eighty seven because because I am easily traumatized, QED. That's really stuck with me over the years. Do you imagine that helps in your hands? Duffet. Uh it's helping it's helping. Is it like a French inventor? What is that?

I'm um it is it is now. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Fill repair. Um the third musketeer is love. I want to hear the end Oh, you finished your story. Well, I um I almost finished my story. It was just the point of the anecdote was to say Dan was asking me about my feelings on And have uh had for decades, I I'd say Mm-mm. No? Well okay. Uh what are we talking? Okay, so anyway, I'm not sure what you want to talk about here. I uh th just because people don't know when you when you say things and it people won't know what that means That you have had a passion for being uh That I got yelled at by a teacher or someone once about flat tires. I don't think a lot of people or a ton of people are gonna know that that was a thing I said on a podcast liter literally yesterday.

Hey hey everybody w this is due by Friday. Yesterday I was listening to one of Merlin's other shows, Back to Work, which I've uh listened to, in fact, since I was I don't know, sixteen. You know what asterisk Merlin? That's right. When I s when I said I've listened to it si li since I've sixteen since I've been sixteen, it does sound like I was c Like I'd I've done nothing else but listen to it. So uh edit. I three two one I don't bet. See this is the pr Alex, god damn it. Fucking AH I saw last week all over again. That's not what you just said is not confusing. People don't think you're you've listened to it every moment of your life since you were sixteen. That's bizarre. This is like my Larry David problem.

Oh, uh I've been thinking about that for decades, at least a decade. Which part? The early versus late thing? Mm. Oh or how I am. Time. Time. Oh, well yes. And how you are. Fascinating is a as a concept. You know only humans have time. Mm see, I think mm I disagree. Rocks have a clock. They have a different clock. Igneous, sedimentary, metamorphic. Uh dysmorphia. Just rocks. Just be. Just magnets. Um Milkstak. Yeah, because that's not confusing. Well references references to a TV show that is the what like the longest running Live action comedy on TV, I think people can probably pick up on. But anyway, yes. My existence confuses people. And as long as that confusion is not causing discomfort, I don't think it's a uh even a problematic thing to possibly confuse someone unintentionally.

Or maybe intentionally, you know. Oh no, I don't know about the parameters. Oh no, you don't know whether you're being intentional or unintentional. Cor correct. Which I think it's like when you multiply two negative numbers. I think you just proved how confusing you are in a way that you thought was proving something else. Yeah. Listen, I'm I'm uh not I'm not a geometry scholar. I'm yeah, I'm not Oppie as Uh Oppenheimer's Oppie. Is that Mr. Oppenheimer? Yes. Who uh y you think I'm being cute? No no no. In the prologue of American Promethe in the prologue of American Prometheus The movie upon which the new film Oppenheimer is based was um It it was noted in in the prologue that Oppenheimer was so beloved by his students, sometimes they called him Oppie, which I just thought was was indeed cute.

So I'm not being cute, I'm just passing along the cuteness. But I'm I'm not as smart as that fellow, unfortunately. Um Or fortunately, it wouldn't be great if I knew how to make a bomb. Mm. It's i it's a gift to not know some things. Well, knowing things and doing something Negative with that information are different things. This is what's wrong with the South. Well, one of the problems. Knowledge is not a sin. Except for people like you. I is it looks good on you. That's a Kyle Shack joke, don't laugh. I uh no no no, I did um that made me Chuckle literally in the way that I often chuckle at my dad's jokes because that is one of the few yeah, yeah. Does your dad like Caddyshack? Oh, he has he he he le loves Caddyshack so much There's just, you know, constant Rodney Dangerfield's voice a and my childhood home.

It's not the thing is you can't show it to anybody today 'cause it is it's pretty rough and it but it it's also just like You you can't put lightning in a bottle. And like to have been a young person, I always think of the I think it's one of the very first scenes in Freaks and Geeks. Um where the three kids are talking. And there's the one, the funny kid, the little the kid the kid who's not the cute main kid, he's not Martin Starr. He's the other kid. And he's like doing uh Bill Murray, uh Bill Murray personation. It's actually pretty good. And uh it's but that's what it was like to be a kid. I was thinking about this it's funny you should say that or I should say I I'm funny Uh I last night I found a video of Bill Murray on the David Letterman morning show from nineteen eighty.

That's one of the funniest things I've seen at least. Wait, the David Letterman morning show. Notes, notes, notes. I'm a big fan with the two, I think, is when his late night with David Letterman uh on NBC w with the world's most dangerous band. I think that was eighty two. He'd had a morning show. That did not do well, but so much of the DNA is already there. And Bill Murray comes on and does this. He's on for a really long time. They've got lots of bits. and it's really, really funny. Mainly it's it's Bill Murray who's got he's he's so mad at fucking Phil Donahue. And Dave's trying to figure out why he's so mad at Phil Donahue. And then he eventually figures out that that Bill has a suspicion that Phil Donahue's dating his grandmother.

And then this turns into a thing of whether they should call Phil Donahue and confront him. And they find out they can't do that. You you have to schedule it. And then he's like, Well can can we kill Phil Donahue? Is that is that something we can do? And it's it's uh uh yeah, it's on it's on the Twitter, but like Uh r uh what was my point about Bill Murray and That the Freaks and Geeks reference was capturing lightning in the world. Yeah, thank you. It's pure nostalgia for me. And I like I mean where do you even begin? A pool, a pond? Uh looks good on you. Um Oh god, now I'm gonna Oh, Cinderella's stor Cinderella's story, tears in his eyes, I guess. I still say that all the time. I think no one has any eye He's a Cinderella boy.

Cinder Cinderella story. Cinderella boy, tears in his eyes, I guess. You're lean and you're mean and you're not too far in between. But it's a dad, it's a dad movie, you know? But it's also a uh d it is a d a a d daddy-daughter movie, especially when your daughter isn't going to stay your daughter. No no no one ever states your daughter in numerous ways. See it wasn't that good. I thought it was good. It was almost good. Did we both just make the same funny joke? It I I thought it was a poignant joke. Yes. They're not our dogs anymore. That's for damn sure. Oh. Um, what I loved about Caddyshack was um the the stuff like, you know, the scatological incidents or, you know, the gopher. Yeah, the horses around, the zaniness.

Uh yeah, because I didn't really catch that's that's a lot of the Doug I think that's a lot of the Doug Kenny influence. Yeah, and when y you're like five, it's incredible. People know Doug Kenny best probably in a small role in Animal House. playing um stork. And Stork is the one who says to John Belushi, I think he has one line in the whole movie, and it's this, well what do you want us to do, you moron? Oh, I see this. I just looked up. I think Doug Kenny is the guy I think it's the guy that Will Forte plays in the very funny National Lampoon Netflix movie. Oh. A stupid stupid and feudal gesture. Also Bill Weasley's in that in a wig and uh he's he's unrecognizable. Has it been canceled yet?

Because that seems like a amazing show then. And it's on Netflix. Oh, you mean remove uh bat they got Batgirlled? Relevance. I don't know what that means. They got Batgirl. Oh, because they got f Fucked by the brothers' Warner by being like, you know what, it would be more expensive to release this than I'm not sure. I say that I say that about my semen. Uh speaking of which I got some I got some bad fucking news. Um I don't I you know I feel bad last week I sprung in on you that our episode was being sponsored by Mission Impossible, the new movie in theaters now. I think we're we're breaking some laws. Um but this is literally something I have to do for legal reasons. And I I'm so sorry that I have to say this.

Oh oh right, okay. It was it was gonna be a small spend and a big ass. Can you clarify something? It's so many nouns that I'm gonna repurpose into verbs. Um big spend, small ask, small plates, this is we do it different here. Um they there was a big misunderstanding in the first place about like what they were gonna be paying. And I it's that becomes important. But on top of it all, I you know, they were unhappy with how the sponsorship went in a variety of ways. Problematic. One one of the least problematic things, but still it they had made it very clear that I, as the reader of the ad, read, I'm supposed to say and and it's so even more amazing when you remember that Tom Cruise does his own stunts.

I was supposed to say that. We talked about it, but you know those s the sections that like Moisess highlights in yellow that you've gotta say? Oh yes, but I I mentioned it. But I was not y you know, the the the the main copy per person I see. I because you're more influential than me. Right. Well my the problem is like uh my agreeing with you about something does not constitute a a legal instrument. Exactly. Mm-hmm. The big the big problem that we're gonna be dealing with for well, specifically you're gonna be dealing with a while. Do do you remember that um w the corn holders? So we'd suggested when you're going to see Mission Impossible in theaters. Yeah. You know, make sure you ask for the uh the the commemorative tie-in.

Uh two by Friday corn holders. And to to insist multiple times. Apparently that that that really got lost in the lights. And and now the problem is they went ahead and preemptively ordered Corn holders and they don't even say due by Friday on it. They basically just write due by Friday on a plastic bag and then like like give got the corn holders. It's gonna be very costly because they went ahead and ordered those. Mm-hmm. So you're saying our uh uh payout's going to be a l a little bit less than we anticipated? No, there's gonna be a payout, but it's not gonna be to us. Oh, um you you're gonna need to um I guess they're gonna send you something I think on Venmo. And the only corn holders that they could find and we can afford, perfect Venn diagram.

Um, made by people who you who are human trafficked. So this is uh that might be in the Ven just watch out for a Venmo note that says hu hu human trafficking. Cornholders or similar. Or similar? I don't know what it'll say. I don't I'm not a brothers Warner coin type testing. All right. Um Uh no, no, you you you bungled it. You bungle you bungled it and here. I told John Roderick the other day the problem with humor is you can't have too much of it. Sorry, the problem with humor is you can have too much of it. You can't have too much humor it stops being funny. Well Merlin, what is Roderick? Because um I think earlier in the show I mentioned another program you did called Back to Work with Dan Benjamin, and you mentioned that that might be confusing to listeners.

And y you talked about ha you said something on r on on Roderick? What i what is that? Is that a mountain? Do do you just so I am going in do you have a direction for this or or is this just gonna be another Freeform shit show that you host. No, this is just me m uh bullying you because Oh okay. Ha ha that's funny. Uh yeah, uh reference to something I recorded twelve hours ago versus a show that I've done for twelve years with somebody who's been in a pretty popular rock band. Oh I've been out yesterday. Oh my god. Okay. Well, I appreciate that. And again, I have to ask, do you feel like this helps what you're doing right now? I think it you do helps the people I want to help. Okay. Yes. Are these para are these para pals?

Oh y y yeah. Pig pal and and the pay pigs, because you don't like that term. Why do you think kick shaming You're uh oh kinksham. These is uh this is not a thing I want to learn about and like you keep saying it. It's funny. What if I do this? You know what? Fuck it. You know, I'm done. I'm done being the adult on this show. I'm gonna bear. I don't have time today. Listen, I'm You got time. I'm going to get corn holders this evening. They they're not until the other one. I didn't say if it was children or not. I think it's probably young, very young women. Okay. Okay, so so uh uh uh Matt Gates would be uh Shinzen, they have a corn holder factory. They're they're not allowed to leave. They have self-harm nets.

No, too soon. So I don't know how that'll go. People people love that movie though. We got tickets to Barbie tomorrow and I'm fucking pumped. Oh, um I have tickets. That's been his plan all along. Uh there's a cute name for it that's stupid, like Barber Barbeheimer or whatever. Yeah, mm Barbenheimer. I no, I understand. I'm happy people like it. I'm just like I don't own pink clothes. I'm not in the zeitgeist. And I think enjoy this moment while you can, because the entire idea of being this fucking obsessed with a movie about toys is gonna get so frustrating when Mattel rolls out the next phase of this and it just becomes Totally insufferable and it has no gosling. Well, y there's some good news in that you do the corn holders come through to to w you uh I uh luckily, um I don't think yet we are contractually obligated to see or provide uh an endorsement of cornholders for whatever new Barbie uh franchises.

That's the th you know, there's a long tail to this, as Chris Anderson would say. Like we could if we could these corn holders into AMCs, into Regals, into the five or six theaters that are still open. I don't know if Alamo will do it. They'd probably make their own corn. That's where we're going, yeah. Oh and couldn't get it. Oh, it's so fun, Alex. And like all the lore around LMO, I mean, I don't I I'm not like uh somebody who's known about it and been into it. I'm not like somebody from Austin who like makes it part of their identity. But like that it is a really neat operation. Have you ever been to an Alamo before? No. I one of the haddest parts is you know, like you know how I love Criterion?

I've mentioned I love Criterion partly because their curation's so great, their their app's pretty good, but I really love the trailers. I love the features, I love all of those things that they do. Well Somebody, some group, first of all, everything at Alamo, like all the design is just beautiful, well integrated. They've got a very specific kind of aesthetic. you know, like ha the kind of halftone look that I love, old Benday dot, you know, vintage look, sans serif fonts. But they'll they'll cobble together. It's almost like the smartest YouTube friend friend you've got. They find all this amaz like when we went to see Spider-Man uh the first universe movie, they had all this great stuff of like this is Spider-Man in Chile.

This is the when we see a Star Wars there. The They showed like Mark Hamill in Japanese commercials and stuff. They do all this wonderful stuff and all everything they do is so Well considered. I think a and they've got food and booze, which is nice. My my only tip to you, get there early, get in your seat early, and order the lion's share of what you plan to eat and drink immediately. Because once other people start ordering You th they basically you you're lucky if you get one or two passbys, uh in my experience, like w once you're half an hour in. I assumed that was the case because I've been to m many uh what I assume are subpar movie dining experiences where you like push the button. It's like it would be like it's like gas station coffee, you know?

Yeah, yeah. Um as you know, as as you said on on Roderick, no one should be a good idea. I'm not saying no one should look down. I'm just saying don't rob yourself of the opportunity to to enjoy things that turned out better than you expected. That's a different show. Oh man, I love oh we we need to have a gas station challenge at at at some point. Um anyway, I'm Going to attempt to get one of our corn holders. We'll we'll see if there's any jam ops. They work best in pairs, if memory serves. Yes. Luckily there I will be accompanied by someone. Sorry. Wouldn't that suck? Oh my god, I'm so sorry. I'm officially negative as of yesterday, but I have so much stuff. Seriously. Um but I mean it would be it would be kind of funny if it was so popular that we had to start saying sorry, one per customer.

You get one cornholder and it doesn't even say do by Friday on it. It's just it d the cornhorn was I like look like an ear of corn. Do you like those? Mm, yes. That uh bone is the only kind that there were for a while. Oh, absolutely. Well we've got other ones that are pigs. It's a pig butt and a and a pig head with um you know the stickers in it and then it kinda looks like it's a pig th uh discontiguous corn pig title. Hmm. I'm sure my family have has some Oh my god. You should go through, I don't know what they call it, like a Sotheby's or whatever. You go through the registry, find out what yeah, you should be able to look all that up. Uh what was it I just said? Discontiguous corn pigs, something like that?

Oh we m we're just thinking about what we're doing. Alex, I gotta get better about this. I I've been so lax about this. And I I I I I I mean I know uh Oh man, I think I have long COVID. I do not. Why why am I laughing? No. Because it'd be funny if I had long COVID. Well, I I have all I have these symptoms. I have these symptoms that I can't complain. I can't like I can't complain. For one, I confuse words that sound similar Oh, I I can't relate. I Momo, where's Bo Bimmiller? Mago. But Pikmin. Pikmin. Um Transporter. And I have to learn how to say Pikmin correctly, I've been told The game's not even out yet. My game my my game. Oh my god. You know what that is? That's the long COVID talking. The kids playing like some kind of a preview of this Nintendo game?

Heck yeah. Do you find yourself saying that? Walking around, you go, Pic Man, Pic Man. Uh no. No, the Pikmin is not the space guy or the pig. Picman is someone else. And that's not Tom Nook, right? But it looks like Tom Nook. A pi a pipe. Doesn't it look a little bit like that game? What's it called? Across the island or whatever it's called? That everybody liked for a while. Island? Oh Animal Crossing. That you know what? You were pretty close. You were pretty close. What's the more Tom Nook is uh is an exorcist? That's Animal Crossing. That is yes. And there's a woman we like at the counter, right? Yes. Yes, uh Isabel. She's lovely Isabel. We love Isabel. Oh, and then there's one who sings.

And I I was at one point commended to a Spotify playlist of one of the characters who sings like I don't know, like, you know, uh Okay, one second. Kind of shit. Hold on. This is this is and like you, my my my My child doesn't really understand wha whether he likes something ironically or not. I mean, welcome to being s sixteen that's a lady who sure that doesn't he like s doesn't he sing it sounds like something like the lady in the radiator or something? Oh, I mean you fucking know that there's KK slider audio in here. I I have m have quite a KK slider collection. I'm not sure. Um well I I have a um oh should it ooh look it's a living photo I'm gonna send you a living photo of uh uh Mr. slider right here.

You know what? I don't know is honorific. I really apologize. Um no, I just listen. Listen, I I walked across my room So uh around the many piles of things I have that I've just really dedicated to sending you this picture. I don't know how many piles, Alex. Um yeah, um we're well. I think you're definitely in the middle of something. No, no, this is one of the few mmm I'm I'm actually Alexander has sent me a photograph of a dog with a ukulele. Yeah, and this was a a gift from a fr a friend of the show when I got COVID officially for the first time. So time is a flat circle. Thank you again, friend. And I just love KK Slider. How does he sing? Sing me a song like KK Slider. Hate me like your French girls.

Uh okay. Okay. It when you do it, it is delightful. Yeah. No, that totally works. Pretty close. I've just musical podcasting, fuckers. Pr And what were we talking about? Oh Pickman. Um we were uh uh You were discussing a lot of things and I uh and you keep implying no I was responding to a lie. I'm like Arlie Ermi standing there while you throw tennis at balls at me and I just I make up insults for fifteen minutes. I'm lobbying them. I am lobbying them. You uh no, it's a lob, it's a gentle lob. Um I um not going through anything, which is a nice Yeah. Ask around. Yeah. Discontiguous corn pig. Huh, that would be a good master password. Hello, I'm Master Pass. I'm Master Password. Hello. Hello.

Welcome Master Password to my hall of passwords. Have you played my game? Which first you must solve my rhythm. Did you get caught at the chess part just like everyone else did on Mastodon? Yes I did. In order to get into his secret lair you have to pass through an area that is just full of buses. And crosswalks and motorcycles and then things that aren't that. And I mean it's like it's like um, you know, uh Last Crusade. You gotta find the carpenter's cup. You gotta walk around and go find the thing that's a crosswalk. No no no get all their crosswalks. Keep clicking until there's no more crosswalks. I have no joke about recapture. Yeah, I uh it it Mmm you know how we've d discussed recently how too comedy ca too much comedy can too comedy not always be too comedy?

Listen, listen. Too comedy, too furious. Do you know why they're numbered that way? The Fast and Furious movies, do you know why they have that unusual naming system? I always assumed that it was just like uh somebody in Mark Marketing who's being a little bit too cute. I uh I I I recall There's actually a business reason why. Yeah. The for international releases, I believe at least one of 'em needed uh a different title, the kind kind of how to do it. What I heard it was the great Roger Corman in the sixties. Oh. I think this is correct and I'm not gonna look it up because I I really don't care But I think Roger Corman's very interesting. Now you'll know Roger Corman, who gave a lot of of filmmakers their start in one way or another, right?

And actors. Nicholson was a huge one for him. You know, uh so they put him in his movies. He's a senator in The Godfather too. With when they're when they're questioning Frank Pantangely. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. I know who wrote them. My wife, Mrs. Geary. And wait, what does Roger Corman have to do with the first time? He did a move in the sixties called The Fast and the Furious. Mm-hmm. And the whatever you call it, the license, the you know, permission to use that name was only granted for the first movie. He continued to retain rights, because I guess this is the kind of thing you do when you're a big show biz lawyer. You write it up so that no no no no no but you you're only getting you can only use Fast and Furious for the for the title of this movie.

You cannot call the next movie Fast and the Furious two, three, four, five, etc. Isn't that interesting? Yes. I think it's really interesting because like I mean it's a joke, right? We make jokes about the Fast and Furious names and uh Matt Howie's actually pretty good at that joke. Where where you show like then what the next ten movies for something would be called in that same style. I think that's kind of funny. It's words are funny. And um yeah, but Roger Corman, you know, he did he did those uh Edgar Allan Poe movies. There's one with Peter Laurie and Boris Karloff I loved as a kid. Wait, he didn't know. Oh, okay, sorry. Vincent Price and I think it's Vincent Price, Peter Lore. What what are you laughing at?

No, I'm sorry. I have been I've I've been uh j just swooshed back into time when there was a Vincent Price, you know him as the guy who did the movie that Paris Hilton was in. Uh I no, I know him from many things. Wax on Wax off thriller video. Yes, yes, yes, yes. Um but there was downtown. Ticket ticket ticket ticket ticket to downtown. Now we're gonna pay for that. Now you're gonna defend Mo fucking the estate of Michael Jackson. Listen, as John Mullaney says, we're Venmo is for drug dealers. We have not done drugs on this podcast yet. But No, we didn't. We we ended up avoiding the challenge. Yeah, but no, no, no, mmm, I'll I'm gonna contest that in the after show. Uh patreon. com slash Do by Friday.

You're so sweaty right now. I am absolutely sweat I am sweaty, thirsty. You're a sweaty money pig. You're a discontiguous sweaty money pig. No, I mean well that I I gotta be. I'm not I don't sell t shirts that I'll I stand up. I want money too, but but I think we have to ask ourselves. to URLs that are not germane to what we're talking about? Literally we would not be talking about this anymore. Patreon. com slash do by Friday. I was I didn't even reference give us your fucking money dot com I didn't mention how we have three thousand b uh packs of playing cards that I don't know what to do with. Oh god. I had so many so so I got a box, which I don't know, was probably ten or something. And like I I was exhausted with the whole concept very quickly.

They're beautiful cards. Kevin did a great job. We we never really needed playing cards. Uh a point that a point that I made somewhat unevenly at a point, I think. You know, Max, I don't think we really need like a gross of playing card decks. Our plan was to sell uh b decks of playing cards, really. You and I in particular are just obsessed with illusion. Okay. And the world of card. I think John C. Riley does magic. Um I uh oh man. Yeah, it's oh close up mag uh anyway. Um but uh then uh uh after um uh Max's Wha what did Roderick say yesterday? I went being being dad all over. Yeah, it was pretty funny. Bean daddy and the shit out of her, I think might have been the long. Tell me where the stinky toilet paper costs more.

He didn't even acknowledge my very funny long winter's joke. I oh okay, cool. Because every single time I open our linen closet and I'm trying to find something, I can never find anything. And I've tried, I've rebooted the linen closet title so many times. And I still can never find the thing I want. But you know I can always find a jug of fucking Fabriz, which nobody likes. It smells like. It it really it's it's become so heavily coated in my mind with something that exists to cover up the smell of BO that it might as well just be called like BO. Uh well So I said to John Roderick, Bart Bom getting ever COVID. It'll be for breeze And I thought because every time I look at that jug of a breeze, I I sing along to a long winter song called It'll Be A Breeze.

He probably loves that. Um yeah, I mean it's familiar, but not too familiar because that's one of my favorite records. Um it's called When I Pretend to Fall, and it is a very good album and the thing I I I I love so much about that album, but the thing that really gets me, because I'm like this, is the the sequencing of the songs is really well done. We've done Talked about this. It's got the vibe of a Merlin Mam playlist. Oh, or uh Merlin Man playlist. The uh I dri I really try. I try. I can't keep 'em all I can't keep em all, you know, up to date, but like as recently as last night, I was still removing and reordering things on my YouTube happy place list. The best place for music right now, if you are Where?

Tell me, tell me, tell me. I It's YouTube. Technically people would say it's TikTok. Yeah, and they're like they they push a lot of other music stuff. It's funny how they m apparently they might as well have made everybody do shorts because there's so much stuff. That's it really is like a class full of kids who were told that they could get three extra points on their grade if they did some stupid fucking thing. There's all these things that make no sense as an iPhone video and I guess that's a thing now. There are some f fascinating things I've learned about YouTube in the past few weeks from your friends that work there. Uh oh no. Um well their job making YouTube videos. So a lot of people call them YouTubers.

You yes. Um so but they do not work at um YouTube, the alphabet company. But I Really try to keep an open mind now when uh Okay, here's here's the shoe. Discover the show. But it does. And It it it it does end up. Yeah, but that's that's so fucked up, Alex. That is that is that is really like saying my mom is so much happier if she doesn't have to hit me as much. No, it's like I really it really helps me to keep things calm. It really helps me to keep things calm at the house because like I just don't want things to get the way they get in a late afternoon, hint hint. uh i it didn't really do anything. But then uh the algorithms really started to matter. Alcoholic mom mad also literally does something.

It's just not wholesome as an ongoing relationship. Maybe you need to move. I uh wish that there was another place for people to put I oh they do a poor cut cat turd over on Twitter. I I know about Cat Turd 2. I haven't kept Oh he had a really good quote. I w I want to read this to you. I made a joke about this on Twitter this morning. Um Friend of the Show Jason Wilson had linked to something and um let me get you the Exact quote. This is a quote here. I'm talking here about cat turd. This is uh cat turd two. Um excuse me, cat turd two. Yes, yes, get you know, yeah. Don't go to cat turd one. That guy's a that guy's a piece of shit. Yeah, no. Uh and this is a a a piece on Twitter with the blue check of course.

Why me by cat turd? I'm exhausted mentally and physically. This cat turd thing has been a five year roller coaster ride. I basically work seven days a week. No days off, no vacations. I don't even know how I got here. I often ask. Why me? Alex, why cat turd too? Why a cat turd to indeed? Why does anything happen, Charlie? How do you get that coil? Okay, what else did I have for bits? We had, oh yeah, so let me go look up real quickly. So uh just so our audience knows in terms of keeping up, I did create a new document. And at least so far it hasn't given us any warnings. In the old document, I put a big red banner at the top uh that says wrong document. I'm looking at it right now. Are you curious at all how like what made me want to do that?

Um because I went there and I went, uh, that's the wrong document. And you know what? I can almost promise I will do this again. Oh, absolutely. I didn't add a link. I should add a link. But then then that makes it future non-proof, not future proof. It's kind of m making me bonkers that it still says this file looks s l suspicious because I don't know what linked it. it would have been Well, I mean, I the thing is that the I think the as they say on political Twitter, which is insufferable, um, you know, I think the word looks is doing a lot of the work there It there's they've seen something in it that seems unusual. And I'll bet you it is, I don't fucking know, but somewhere in there, maybe they changed their I don't know if you call it an algorithm.

Maybe they changed their formula for detecting that kind of stuff recently and to be more to be less permissive. And maybe there's something that I think l thinks looks like a bad news site or an I don't know, we might have gotten hacked. In any case, I think we've done the right thing starting this new file. And we have lots of good stuff to talk about in here. I agree. Oh yeah. Circus is wrong about ambient computing. Merlin doesn't get lonely. I told you the bit about the brothers. How many minutes in? Um here's uh g uh um circle circling back to to YouTube You think mocking the the people who uh uh m make those jokes on Twitter is is that wholesome? They they should be mocked if they're dumb.

It's That's not you can search if you think you y have made a joke. Um is is this is are you doing is this w what which which c what kind of bit are we doing here? Do you want me to like say a real thing or do you want me to make sure No no no. I uh m make uh now I forgot my book. Yes, I know. I don't think I support more than 20 of those people on Patreon. You just step in on my clit. I was gonna make a good YouTube joke and I forgot now. Um but big pockets and a cup for McClit When you go real when when you uh go to twitter. com or or the bird site, as you must legally call it on every other website apparently. So It's not metal d no, I but no, no, no, no, no. Okay, when I go to the bird site, which is what I have to call it, Mr.

Birdsight, and what what It doesn't. That's the crazy part. I keep going there and I go to twitter. com or as I call it Mr. Bird site and I go there and l literally nothing works. That's why I keep going there. You're doing a bit, but the fail whale was one of those. No, I'm curious if you hit the rate limit. Do you ever hit the rate limit? There is a clear and that's it. Really? Well I'm uh blessed with the checkpoint. You look at Twitter. You don't even look at Twitter. Why is this an issue for you? You don't look at Twitter. Why are you probeating me about this? I like it. I'm trying to get I'm trying to get I can't get with Blue Sky. I don't understand it. I also really don't understand Mastodon, and I feel very guilty about a thing I said a few months ago that uh uh was obviously clearly proven to be completely wrong.

When I said I think it's not a wholesome idea to go out and pick something as quote a Twitter replacement. And as one, everybody roared, I'm not looking for a Twitter replacement. I'm just gonna for threads or Mastodon or Blue Sky or Gleep Glorp or like I didn't say that, but alright, proceed, proceed. I just don't know how to be. on other places. I don't know how it works. I don't understand who sees it. Like I just I don't and and when I say that I'm not trying to be sweaty about it. Like I say, like I said to Syracuse, I look at I open Ivory and now I try to open it at least every couple days. But I don't really feel like it's a home to me. I mean, Twitter is the shadow I understand. Hmm. I wave over my head, I see the strangest site, Merlin Mann on a website that doesn't work Mr.

Birdsight. That's technically not a haiku, probably. Um Uh I I I'm not sure quite what to say about that. The the one real obvious thing is, you know This is very much the chicken problem. Let me just clarify that straight up. It's pretty unseemly when people who make stuff for a living complain about their job. Hmm. No, whether or not you agree with that, whether you think I'm just telling you I've been making stuff for a pretty long while and in unless you are able to do it in a way that makes sense with how you are It's it's just all the all the carping people do about this stuff. Well it's like, okay, we'll work in a mill. Like it it all sucks. But like we give all the power to these platforms who then become the only platform for something.

And then we're like, I don't know about that platform. They they sure are mean about about making me put notices on things and tell people to hit the bell. Otherwise no one will ever see my shit. That's all YouTube's doing. G Yes, no one's disagreeing with that. It's it's it sucks. Well isn't it ironic then how often we castigate So many millions of strangers that we will never meet in life for a decision we think we understand that they have made. We criticize their entire life, their lifestyle, their family lineage. their bloodline, everything about that person fucking sucks and they should be canceled forever because of their association with something that is corrosive. And then we say, oh, you know, after starving African child, oh no, the poor content creators, what's gonna happen All I'm trying to say is like it's just there's these weird standards that people have for stuff that are just fucking bananas.

If you don't like that job, do a different job. If it that job doesn't work the way you want, I I don't know I don't know what to say to that. I mean, am I just supposed to cheer along with Cat Turd 2 because he hasn't had a vacation? I am very confused at the moment. Are you upset about the people of their job. Oh yes, you seem investigating. You do not seem upset right now at I at all. Um, are are you ca c like trying to figure out why someone would make their job YouTube if they don't like what's happening with YouTube? I uh who's complaining about strikes me that you have you have a view of the world that is A lot of times, not always. You have a very b expansive interior world that I think is really, really interesting.

And I think the way that your your mind works, the way you think about things is fascinating and often unusual. And it's one reason I I I really do like you but I I also feel like sometimes it's odd to me what you've decided for almost no reason to be excited about and what you decided for almost no reason to just be like fatally mad about. It sometimes confuses me. Not mad about a uh anything at the m the the moment. Don't put in the paper that I was mad. The please. Please. I am I w I don't I'm I I'm not mad about about anything. Just a moment ago I said, I'm not sure. I'll try to I'll try to be more kind about it. I d I didn't realize I was being ugly about it. I I just think it's a bit of a So I wasn't supposed to say honest things.

I am curious. I feel like you did something slightly confusing and a little bit unfair right there. I'm giving you a do by Friday foul. Give me back your corn holder. Oh, but it but the children have already made it. Dugga dug it challenge. I added something to the document recently that I don't know why I feel like bringing it up right now, but something I added to the document recently that I think is might be somewhat confusing or like ambiguous to people. Um in life, try to become try to become a person whom it's fun to teach things to. Mm. Yeah. Because not everybody is fun to teach things to. And if you if if one is somebody who's not that fun to teach things to Well, one knock-on effect of that is you might go, Nobody understands me.

Teachers are mean, like, whatever. But like you I I I think if you become somebody who it's fun to teach things to, you're gonna learn a lot more and you're gonna attract people who are good at teaching things. You know what I mean? I think that's true for a lot of things in life. It's a lot like The Secret, that book. Um I I've Uh always thought of it as it's you're going to learn as much as you d like to if you are going to match the enthusiasm of your teacher, which I I don't think is exactly this the same, but I mean like if when you get a teacher who's like who is excited about something And is able to communicate that in a way that's maybe not how like the thing is one thing that's so difficult about any kind of education or just pedagogy or parenthood or any of those things is that you l one learns pretty quickly that the the how you feel about something is n not the way the people who you're teaching it to feel about it.

And you can really bang your head against the wall trying to recreate whatever it is. Like, you know, I l I m I s I heard the Beatles on Ed Sullivan in nineteen sixty four and that's why I wanted to teach music. Hey you guys check out the Beatles, check out the Beatles. It's like well instead like you have to really help people find their own path to the thing that excites them. I said this last night about my kid and uh whatever. But like my kid does a lot of cooking. And I was just saying to Madeline like how I I love that he's become a person who enjoys cooking. He made Madeline's last night that were really good. Madelines that were really good with the chocolate and everything. Um and he's just at somewhere I I I don't know how exactly it started, but and I don't want to oversimplify this, but he just a lot of times he just decides to cook something.

It could be a recipe, it could be a thing he heard about, but he literally like walks the Whole Foods or Trit or Jesus gets the stuff come home comes home's like this is what we're having for dinner. And that's neat to me in a lot of ways. There's a lot of like soft skills things in that. I don't want to overanalyze this, but you know, I'm talking about it. You know, first of all, the Ability this sounds so simple, Alex, but it's really, really not. The ability to think about the future even a little bit. The ability to think about like I'm not hungry right now. And I'm still I I like the idea of buying the materials for this dish and then putting it together. There's people in their thirties that don't know to do that.

to like to to well to think think about again thinking fast and slow like the kind of like operational thinking that's needed to to make a good dinner. That's not why he's doing it, but like that's a s that's a skill, believe it or not. I'd hur I'd hire somebody who started cooking when they were 15. That's a curious person. And it's somebody with who's self-possessed, right? But then there's other knock-on effects. Uh my gut, I don't have data on this. My gut is that my kid is now trying more foods in general. I don't have a strong stance on this Apart from not wanting my kid to have an eating disorder, if I can avoid it. Apartf but like he I think he's trying more things. He's he's still very much his own person, but like that's one of those little things where you're like To just go like, oh my kid likes cooking or whatever.

Well, but now how how can I primarily stay the fuck out of the way? But where necessary you know, help where I can and stuff like that. And and 'cause the more things a kid figures out and gets to do and makes their own the more likely they are to want to learn new things and in some cases to want to teach those things. And I would like to believe the more humane if you're not just some some bitter old piece of shit old man teaching first aid in Sarasota, Florida. You know, you all you you become that kind of generous personality that Mr. Tibbs Numbership, sorry. Um you know, what what's the movie the other Sunny Bonnie movie uh to serve with love? Like you become that kind of teacher that people will always remember because of your humanity.

Again, Sherry Hacker and tw when I was a senior. The way that she had an impact on me that was very big at the time. And then there was a second or third or fourth effect of her later on when I was old enough to arrive at what she was teaching me even though I didn't know it. And that's fucking magic. That's human magic that that can happen. Oh. I see don't now that I have met a developed mentally uh family with a developed mentally disabled child as the father of a daughter. I know how p shitty it is to use the R-word, a word I used to use so much because it's a very funny word. It's a really good word, but it's incredibly hurtful. And that in the abstract one can understand that. But like that's just one word for one situation a and I think this goes f so much for queer people, like meeting queer people and realizing that they're not some kind of Eldritch monster.

Uh I'm I whatever. But like it's when you when your inside soften up a little bit, whether that's about cooking or human foibles or whatever that is. I think that can make you a better person. As against the sort of person who's constantly redoubling their effort to prove that everything they think has always been right. Cooking. Check it out. Cooking. Have you made the omelet from the bear yet? Uh no. Oh goodness gracious. No. I am I I I last week I I Uh one day I made it three times. A couple days I made it twice. Oh and then several days I made it once. I did I did my own version of it. I I mean I f I saw the recipe getting passed around. So you know what talking about that one episode where Chef makes the omelette at her apartment for the guy?

I've I've just seen the the the clip because because uh there's been some people in my family that are omelet enthusiasts. No kidding. Well I figured this is probably like something approaching a meme. But there's just a wonderful scene. I forget the names of the characters. It's um The woman who's like the what's her I forget the character's name, that wonderful actress. Car Carmi's lady. She would love that. Why don't you just call her her father's daughter? Um they have a sweet scene in the last episode. Um But it's the pastry guy who rules and she's she's making him an omelet at our apartment and it's just one of those lovely kind of like food media moments and she's just doing the simple thing but she's doing it with such care.

So the uh here's here's here's how I do the omelet, okay? Three eggs. Don't do four. That's too many eggs. Three three and I didn't do the straining. I don't really understand why she does the straining, but I'm guessing it's for consistency purposes. I'm not trying to make her omelet, I'm making a version of it. You do three eggs, salt, pepper. I I put a little milk in the eggs, you know? You can do milk or w some people like milk, some people like water, some people like nothing. I frankly don't care. This is what I do. A little bit, little splash, little splash. And then um eventually I I got moved into more fixins. But to do the basic version, you may have an omelet and inside of it, do you remember she like sque extrudes some kind of a cheesy it looks like a play-doh Dr.

Drillin Phil kind of thing where she puts the makes the innards out of some kind of like a room temperature probably. Yeah, it it looks as if I it it it was very top sh chefy. I I don't know. It I I it was cinematic. I enjoyed it. It's not that's not a kind of tool that I have in my house, I don't think. It's my you could probably just do it with a pastry bag or whatever it's called, but Then because the good part, which is so here's what I discovered. Somebody suggested this on one of the recipes and I tried it. There's this really yummy, completely bougie product. I think it's called called Borsan. And it's like it's something you would get to like put on a plate at a like a party, like at a cocktail party.

It's it's like a little like imagine like a cup of cheese. Like it's a solidish cheese, but it's got herbs in it. And it's not it's not quite the tang of blue cheese, but it's really flavorful. So when the almost starts setting up a little bit, I put in some of that. Then I do the flip, add a little she adds a little butter, I add a little butter, and then you put crunched up potato chips on top. Oh holy sh Which is exactly as fucking amazing as it sounds. My my my I suggest the the the the well you know your m your mouths may vary, dill chips could be good, all dressed would be amazing. But I just do like um you know that one kind of fancy kettle chip company. I do their their sea salt. Oh fuck.

You know what I mean? The Cape Cod the Cape Cod chips. Sure. Yes. The kettle chips. So anyway, but no look up curiosity stream. Check it out. What about Nebula? It's our streaming service we put together for $100,000. You can see all this over there on Nebula. You can also see that lawyer guy that makes the O face a lot. Stage Combat Woman, she's on there. Uh Lindsey Ellis, she's going to No Lindsay Ellis is is just writing her books. Oh. You know do you do Lindsay Ellis got uh got bean dad in like the most insidious Oh man. Hey, look over there, it's an electric vehicle. Oh my god. The challenge this week was, I don't know, kind of mine, kind of yours. And I was telling Alex how I'd be really enjoying watching um some YouTube videos.

about computer stuff and particularly the things like computer chronicles and different things. And I I I think I'd call the challenge something like watch some old computer videos and You made it weird and said what just look at an old computer that you didn't turn on. I said look at old computers. That you don't turn on. Is that the molar Mac you put on uh Nesta? No, that is the E Mac Oh, that was their education mid-90s all in one? Yes. No, no, no. Uh late, late. Um, it was right i i it w it was the uh like the MacBook Air during the retina or uh the sorry not retina during the uh horrible keyboard uh fiasco butterfly fly keyboard phase but Apple kept around the Macwick Air. Yeah, it it's it was like that because the Emacs were they existed when the G4 IMAC came out, so uh schools were like, I just need this.

Oh, okay. Yeah. I I would have I would have I would have skipped that and just bought the Vim or or the VI if you prefer. But I played with my E Mac. So the challenge challenge was to watch to do something with little computers and talk about. Now my question for you, I put this in the document, I forgot to ask you. Uh the the the nature of this challenge if we do videos and I did, I prepared a bunch, is gonna have a media component. So should we establish I don't want to make too much work for you in particular. This is uh uh patreon. com slash do by friday answering the question though is it Alex ding ding that bell Um, no, I am happy to put whatever uh audio and or video you would like in.

But I actually have a clip of uh s well z let's let's get into it. But f after you set your precedent. What what do you require? I would I I just want to make you happy. I'm here to service you, Merlin Matt. We're all just trying to get through the day, Alex. Don't don't Don't don't don't don't you know shine it up, you know, a as some kind of a a valiant effort that you're doing here. You're just trying to get through the day like anyone. I'm yeah, but I I I have I don't want you to be happy. I I would be like if you were happy. What about the sound of the bubb the bubbly dream thing where I see what it would be like if you were happy? I'd be running for any council probably. Oh, Alex. I'm riding trains.

I'm using drafts on trains. New draft. Alex is at a place where um they're able to be on time to things. And they're able to uh do executive uh function things and do things uh uh such as annoy Merlin with third person bits that aren't that funny but become a funnier when uh I know that other people are listening and also annoyed. And names uh yeah Alex you don't like it when I mention names on the podcast. Oh your friends are celebrities. You don't have any friends that aren't famous. You never mentioned that. Uh see uh I mm s save it for the loneliness uh uh topic, but uh no, I don't I don't have a sort of thing. So we can cover this however we want. Um I I mean like if there's anything that that I can point to as the like sort of prime mover of this interest for me, it was specifically watching these things.

Uh so again we mentioned on the after show last week, but I there's this TV series on PBS um in the 80s and 90s that at least I was aware of in the 80s and 90s called Computer Chronicles. And it was a pretty geeky, not like deeply geeky, but like they they interviewed Lena Storvalds and stuff like that. So like, you know, and Kevin Kelly and stuff like that. Uh it's it's really kind of about the that piece the PC age, the computer age, and each half hour-ish episode has like sort of some reporting on Some aspect of personal computing, some event that's happened, looking back at something, and um I think it's a really well done show for for what it is. And in retrospect, it's such a time capsule of so many things for me, you know?

Where it's like, yeah, yeah, like the the the whole way the show looks and the bleep bloot music and everything and it's so f it' like like so many shows about technology, each year the credits seem more dated. The the credits for this show seem less dated in the mid-80s than they do in the mid-80s. Oh yes, yes. Because it's got lots of like sh like modem sounds. You have mail. Sorry, you got mail. This thing says they've got mail. Microfocus, creators of visual programming tools for software development, is pleased to provide major funding for the Computer Chronicles. The story of this continuing evolution. What can just give me a sense of like uh what did you do for this challenge that you you found interesting and want to share?

As I mentioned in the after show, I also watched the computer chronicles. Grandfather liked it. Yeah, it would be on uh in we would uh play chess and watch the computer chronicles because he really wanted me to be smart. Uh but it it was just on in in the background, but then I started to get interested. The I don't wanna be a good queen grandpa. I just um Oh did you say you wanna be a good queen grandpa? Uh a good queen Um means I also like I like I wanna be a good clean grandpa. He's a very clean old man. Oh well th that show wa watching that show with him got got me a excited about computers uh I I already was excited about computers because we said to us it's it's retro and old fashioned but Just even like a thing one can't appreciate, then why should they, is like you go like, oh my gosh, like l you can't even if you were in that room watching somebody do this Sometimes, you know, for so many things, like whether that's a big hard drive or a fast processor.

It's like watching somebody do something with a computer that you've used a lot and watching them do it better and faster and in color. It was so thrilling. There were no Apple stores. There were authorized Mac dealers and uh repair people. But like you know what I mean? Like you what would you do? I mean most most of my compute computer exposure uh up until college and Mac use was seeing trash 80s at Radio Shack. Yeah. We didn't have we were we didn't we couldn't afford rent. We I didn't have a PC. Jesus. There's there's a great um th there's a great uh Gateway two thousand c commercial that's Uh like, hey, we know you wanna touch 'em. Uh it was also in nine hundred line. Um, where the whole thing was You can actually come and try out our computers.

This was the early nineties. Yeah, they they were they were good stores. We know a lot of you wanna look before you leave, so we built Gateway Country stores where the computers are working online and yours to try. Visit our stores or call 1-800-Gateway. Get a Gateway Essential PC with an Intel seller on profit Actually, I think I have a photo. Oh god, I'm almost positive I've sent you a photo. I'm gonna find I think I have a photo. Of me and the other developer sitting around eating subs at eleven at night and I have memory serves one of them is sitting on a gateway box. Oh. See, this is just uh on YouTube f for a a while, you know, because you go down the rabbit hole of retro retro Mac and then you know watching Susan Cairn talks and then uh you oh oh uh smoke show as you'd say.

Um but I I the the dog cow moof. That's definitely a smoke show. I it kind of started to click that one it it was shows like this that ended up kind of um not necessarily getting me into podcasts in the future, but it really kind of primed my uh enthusiasm for just listening to people be excited and uh teach one another uh stuff. Again, it's a it is a kind of curiosity to to be somebody who watches like dumb stuff on PBS like I used to do. No, I'm sorry, I'm not gonna say that. Watching awesome stuff on PBS and like even if I even if I don't know what it's about, like there are things that's like you sometimes you just nothing else to watch and you watch a nature show and you're like, oh this is so interesting or something about government or you know, whatever.

used to show and then plus they have faulty towers and Doctor Who. But you know, it's um yeah, it's funny how again it's back to this theme though of like sort of following your nose. And you you never really know what the thing is that's gonna plant a seed that becomes a I don't know, a big existential tree later. That's so cool. It's nice that you have that memory uh of being your grandpa. Yeah. I uh my grandpa just sold so said racist things to me a lot. I d d don't worry. I've got a big thing. Grandpa, you've explained to me so many times why the blacks can't be Masons. He says, Well, we have a lot of reasons. And he he literally he took out a whiteboard on an easel. Hey to be careful though with that oxygen thing in his nose.

Did you get the photo? Did you get the photo? Oh this What you're looking at here this rules This fucking rules This is uh January of the year two thousand and what you're looking at is A completely windowless, airless room in what from the outside really looks like a warehouse because it's mostly A printing press. It it it looks like a shot from office s space. Oh someone who's like, the guy in the green shirt in the middle? Yes. With the beard. Okay, so uh this like when I first started working there um six months earlier in June of nineteen ninety-nine It was amidst all of the buzz about the new George Lucas movie. And like Len that's Lenny. And Lenny had l collected there's a thing where you collect Pepsi cans and he'd like collected all of the uh Oh my god.

Phantom Menace. Like all these he had he I think he had he had characters of it, but he had all of them lined up. And sometimes somebody from so what we're looking at here Uh we'll put it in notes, I assume. But like it's a bunch of We have chapter art n now. I'm uh Patreon. It is cool. It's been Chapters are so stupid. I love 'em. Okay. So so but it's just it's a really this is a very, very, very joyless room. Um, with the kind of lighting that Dan Benjamin and I hate, and everybody's got a little cube and Sometimes somebody from a couple cubes over just to just to because this really frustrated Lenny. He'd be sitting there doing his cold fusion code and then brook, somebody'd shoot like a nerf gun and knock one of his cans off of the wall of his cube.

So I can really place this in a certain place in time. So anyway there's a bunch of um people sitting around and e eating sandwiches uh late at night uh on on a lot of gateway boxes. E V seven hundred. I don't know what kind of model that is. Oh my god, there's a woman. Uh Windows Windows uh Windows version of uh Where's Waldo Uh this is well and and this is the beg this is the beginning of She was so good. She was so fucking organized and like she I uh would always carry around like a legal pad and had like She she was so good at like showing her work about anything that we were planning to do with the application. Ugh, she was so goddamn smart. Had you met? I uh I think that uh this broad conclusions about a photo you weren't there for.

Wait, what uh well uh is it a broad conclusion? To assume that a very organized woman in a workplace in the year two thousand was who was talented was really diligent about showing her work because perhaps needed to, you know, do a bit more than Um, and so anyway, he liked Star Wars. He was a nice guy. The guy on the left with the glasses, he was really into the band Remstein. And he was very he was very um I I think I w W I was a little threatening to him. Not for any particular reason, apart from I'm me and I was on a Mac. I was the only just so you know, you you notice how you don't see a lot of boxes for Apple products in this room. So this is that job, this is my dot com job, and this is the job where I was initially not allowed to connect my Mac to the network.

Mm, yes. Secur security risk. Yeah, footprint for NT to support max printing. Too much. Can't do it. Um Uh but it is it is it's it's it's fun for lots of reasons to me to watch these videos, sometimes just purely personal, like oh like I said, one of those I put in notes, I don't know if we'll put in notes, but uh I s I I dropped in the document a a bunch of ones that I've enjoyed. From kind of like not not weird to very weird. So like this includes like like I say computer chronicles, right? Um their tour of System 7 from 1991. Really, if you if you used him back in the 80s, really check out the one that's uh HyperCard episode from 1987 is really good. And then I just included some other computer things that make me happy.

Links to the Computer History Archives project. Um, yeah, so but then there's a few that are a little bit wack-adoo. Did you have any you wanted to share? I made a little uh YouTube play. Oh, you're so smart. Oh my god, you're so much smarter than me. I should do that. No, no. Um I'm uh well, I seem to know more about uh women, but um good Good for me. The the uh thing that got me really excited and it was something that I did not r remember was ha how often they featured mobile devices and it was very like, yes, on the go. This is a personal digital assistant. If you're a serious mobile executive, you've got to carry around a lot of stuff like a notebook computer, a fax machine, a cellular phone, an electronic organizer, and all the batteries and cables so they can and work together.

Or you can just carry one of these. This is a personal digital assistant, a PDA. In fact, this is the expert pad from Sharp. It's their version of a Newton. In fact, it uses Newton technology. Technology from Apple. Today we'll take a look at a whole new class of computers, PDAs, on this edition of the Computer Chronicles. Uh and a in a move that I will try not to do over much in this episode. Te It's very difficult for me to not do this move every couple minutes. Hey y'all, we're talking about a time when there was people were not connected to the internet at all. Normal people were not on the internet. Pseudo normal people could dial up to the internet. And yes, in in the nineties there were people who, you know, there's a really good video on how to get on the internet from 1993 on Computer Chronicles.

It's really takes me back because they're doing it on a Mac. So I'm seeing all the stuff that I used to see. You know, get your PPP set up and throw away throw away the TCP IP perhaps, which you have to do a couple times a week on a Mac. Um, but um but it it's it's fun personally, but it and it is it is just kind of a time capsule and it's you really get a sense though, don't you, about like what a different time each of these times was from where we are now. And when you talk about a mobile device, I'm not sure I'm just I'm doing a bit, but like it's just I didn't have I bought my first Orinoco probably card in like 2001. And it was this giant unwieldy thing that you had to jam in the side of the, you know, power book.

And that way you could get internet if there was and there wasn't internet anywhere. There wasn't Wi-Fi anywhere. Like the you know what I'm saying? So that's why the idea, I'm just trying to get your back on this, the idea of an episode like like for example when um yeah like I said before when Carrie Elways takes out his palm seven in the Blackberry movie, which I also had. I had a palm seven. It was the least good palm I ever had and I had a bunch. Palm five was my favorite. And um and so anyhow, it it's it's just weird though because it's not that anybody should care, but there's something fun about like watching the moment where something changed a little bit in this world and not that many people noticed.

I mean these videos have uh many many many views which I only mention because I don't think there are a ton of uh si sixty year olds like watching these millions of times. It would be cool. Uh I either some almost fifty seven year olds that do. There's there is yes. Uh there but um you C can i like I I think that's the way I like the way you use sixty as the way that my my kid says When when were you born in the twenties or the forties or sixties? When were you born? You just pull a number out of the air that seems improbably large to you, and that's 60. Um no, the only reason I said no no no no no no no no no not improbable Kevin Kelly. And and Stephen Levy's age, and those are the most prominent people of uh There's Steve there's an interview with Steve Case before he was at AOL.

Oh Steve Case was like the the vice president of marketing at the a place that I think got, you know, merged into AOL. But he he looks he looks like Matt Gates. Is that on the uh the I've got it on my Twitter on the Twitter? I'll find it. Um but that's just I I specifically s did indeed say 60 because that uh like of um it it features people who are now th that old and the who who the audience um w was at the t time. Uhhuh. And it led me to search for apart from your grandpa, your senses no this is an actual question. Um Your sense is that the people who were watching this were probably middle aged or older mostly? Oh, not not necessarily m uh middle aged like the the other thing. It's yeah, it it it's I don't know.

Please don't use that for the title, please, please, please. Uh I don't think the division is that much different than uh when I started watching oh I don't know why I'm embarrassed about this. I shouldn't be. When I started watching a lot of r revision three shows and uh Twit twitching. Is that the big thing? That was yeah, that was the uh dignation uh uh to to their credit, they didn't use the word podcast. They always uh just called what their stuff was often. I remember that being more popular. Was there a guy named Alex? Albright. That's it, Alex, that's it. Okay. Okay. Yeah, but but apart apart from Dignation, there were uh tons of other th were actually like really good and informative shows that were sort of um t w like that they weren't like twit in that it wasn't so much news based d t necessarily as uh a topic or like um ta like environment.

Maybe maybe closer to what Leo did with his call for help and things like that. Yeah, yeah. Uh when I when I did that show a few times, I mean there would there would be Um, you know, sort of like with me, obviously, it was stuff like whether it's for Macbreak or whatever, we were doing stuff like Quicksilver or whatever, but they would do a similar thing, I think, right? Of like sort of thematic stuff like Sal is gonna be on to show us Apple Script and stuff like that. Right. And specifically the show Texilla with um my uh there was a number of rotating Um it will it'll be in notes, but this was very much like my uh computer chronicles. And and I um miss a lot of the oh gosh, what was it? Uh it directly preceded Rev 3.

Uh oh the Screensaver uh days uh that was on uh the Screensavers was this show Yeah, and and Kevin Rose was also on that show at some point. That's a little before my time attention wise, but that that lines up. Yeah, it it was this computer show that um was on a network that I don't even remember the name. A depth as in like cable TV network on that boy channel. Yep, and then it be eventually became cheese or Jiz or what was it called? Yeah, it was uh Jiz for um honestly was like something like that and it pivoted to um uh male centered video game content and they quickly went out of business, which is why um Rev3 and Twit existed. The in uh the only reason I think that period of time is super interesting is was the realization um of people in media both on management side and on like the ta talent pr production side of like, oh, we can just put these things on the internet now because it's really costly to put a show out that like ten people.

Eventually eventually, yeah. But that used to be a big cost for anybody who did that. It was so expensive. Even w even with like Libson, that was still not a trivial cost. Oh, oh, for sure, for sure. And I um th I I uh am thinking more of the um like it no one was buying ads on on uh G4 and the Well I mean like there's one thing there's an elephant in the room that's worth at least mentioning which is like So th the what the and we're kind of concatenate or I'm conc mentally concatenating two different periods, but you know, there's there's a period where I I remember when I first got a copy, Stalin, of Premier in 1995 or six. And I was making like what we would later call mashups. Like I would I would do a song that was like, you know, a combination of what goes on by Velvet Underground and um dang dang da wrong by Archers of Loaf and I would try and make that into a song and And what you made with these quick time videos that were so small and it would have burned through my entire shared account, even with hardly anybody watching it.

It would have burned through that all so quickly. And then in a much later time you've got YouTube Vimeo, etc. , where you could put stuff like I put up a bacon ray song the other night and it's just it's just so easy to put a thing on. I just knocked it out in iMovie, threw it up on YouTube and that was it. Like and but like it in retrospect, why is that interesting to mention? It's not. But If you've got a show about computers, and let's just go step further and say if you've got a show that's kind of about the internet, or let's get even more specific and say it's you've got a show about internet culture, in 1994 you could see that being a segment. Unlike Good Morning America. But at the time when we've crossed that line to where there it is more affordable, sustain sustainable to s to put these things online.

I mean, yeah, if you got a show about internet culture, it makes a lot of sense to put it online. Boy, is that ever obvious? Yeah, but it wasn't always that obvious. Especially if you wanted the big money. If you wanted like to the money that you get from producing or hosting a TV show, I think was much more substantial at the time and certainly more glamorous as, you know, I think Leo felt slightly dinged. I don't know a a ton about the man's life, but I I feel the sense that like there was a real letdown for him as those shows became less and less of like a big deal as a TV show. 'Cause that's how he thought of himself. No, I mean I I can imagine I I think about all of the awesome um Mac ma magazines that I uh right I I I missed like the the ha heyday, but still, I mean I think I I had uh uh God w when the last issue of Macworld was published, I was like, oh Sh shit man and it had gone uh way downhill not for the faults of Which which I was typing.

Which magazine Uh Macworld. Because at that time Mac Life and Mac User had all been either sold off or shut down. Um And this is public, but at at the end, you know, uh Macworld, PC World, all of that, like they were just slashing their staff left left and right, and the whole thing ended up being those a ads that uh for pr products that you either already owned or weird uh hard drives. So many of the sponsors in the PBS style, you know, like um by the Chubb group or the, you know, the MacArthur F foundation or whatever. Like the sponsors at the beginning are so funny and one of them is almost always that what was called the software. The Software Alliance, it's the anti-pirating group, reminding you that it's illegal to copy software.

Don't copy that. Floppy. Also brought to you by Mac Connection and PC Connection. And I I think I said Mac Connection there's Matt Connection in Mac Warehouse where like different catalogues, but oh my god, I live for the Mac Warehouse. Yeah. That was that was like pre no no Mac Ware Warehouse. It was so cool because every every one of them, like it would come out I don't know once a month or whatever. It's just a wonderful catalog. Very easy to understand. Just so fun to browse. It's like the nerd version of a Sears. catalog and I'm gonna say something and it don't don't make too much of a remark. But and there would always be on the cover you'd see like w like a pretty blonde woman with a headset.

It was like call one in hundred, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And if you ever did call one in hundred, blah, blah, blah, blah, And they say, okay, well which uh which order which uh one are you looking at? Which uh you know, which version, what, you know, issue number? And you go, uh I don't know. It's the one that just arrived this week. And they go, uh look for the blonde. I go, okay, I found the blonde. They go, what what's the number next to the blonde? Whenever you call them, they would say look for the blonde What a great heuristic. That wasn't that wasn't problematic. You're just just describing the uh that's actually a problem. It seems like the world changes. It's the craziest fucking thing I just sent you away.

Did we grow and learn and make the the world better? Who knew? I don't know if this was this I don't I don't know if this is the first thing I ever had in Macworld, but It's an early one, I'm pretty sure. It's called the It's from April 25th, 2005, and it's called the Inbox Makeover. Yeah. This makes me really happy I remember this because this one oh Well look at that, there's an image, triage, timing, keep it short. Oh Freelance Writer Merlin D. Man also runs the 43 Folders website. Isn't that nice? Oh, that's so nice. So I don't have any of these that are actually that I I I mean I don't know if any of these would be that funny to play here, but I want to just highlight a couple. One of these I had to put in here.

I I you know sometimes you'll see something online. Or like for example, like you're reading an article and somebody that you know or something you knew a long time ago is mentioned in the article. Right. Mm-hmm. And so like a a woman that I s started and finished college at the same time as who who lives here in the Bay Area is a wonderful woman, Jen Jen Granick. Um it's like, oh hey, Jen Granick, the lawyer, is like her civil liberty stuff is, you know, going to this court and blah blah blah. And like that's that's that's so cool and that's so exciting. And s but like if it was like your your uh uh like nursery school best friend that you saw on TV, you'd be like, that's so goddamn weird. And there was this thing that feels so much like a a Macintosh Florida thing.

It feels so specific to being a Mac user in the nineties in Florida. Um and it was a thing called Mac Academy. And Mac Academy was a thing where you could, no surprise here, buy videotapes that showed you how to do stuff on your Mac. And my company had several of them. So one of the gems in here, uh look for Mac Academy, Colin, Macintosh The Basics Part One. All right, here. It is in fact something that I would identify as a kind of, he says jokingly, ASMR. Because just the sound of somebody like and then you go to here and you click the mouse here and you go to copy and I'm clicking, I'm clicking. That's a fun one because I think it was very much a Florida operation. So like I'm not sure how a Mac Academy, but like it was something people who used Macs knew about.

But you know, like stock art or whatever, it's not something people personally owned a lot of. You didn't have like 50 of these Mac Academy videos and you weren't gonna get them from the Leon County Public Library, probably. I don't know, I shouldn't say, but That's a funny one if you want to see Mac stuff that really like at least f is very contemporaneous to the time I was really using a Mac a lot. Dragging for icons means we click on them to select them, hold the mouse button down, and we can drag the icon and reposition it on the screen as we move items around So we can drag items around by just clicking and dragging. So we've got point, click, and drag. Those are the basic Macintosh operations you want to be very familiar with and very comfortable with There needs to be like an a a term for the ASMR of just I I I I for I mean I guess hap haptics and sounds, I guess.

Um but the uh the the click of the Mac the OG Macintosh mouse. Oh my God. In You'd think it went tick-tick, but it really went on the old one was kind of yellow. It actually kinda went tock talk. The one with the big heavy ball that had the gunk all over it. Pick man. Pickman. He just he says it constantly now. He just gets in his head and just walk around the house going, Pickman and then I go, Pig man. So no no So you you're criticizing the voice that I do for an unreleased video game for children? Man. I am not criticizing. I'm I'm referring to my son. Oh, he needed to answer me. He never answers me. Oh, teens these days. Very disappointing. That's a very good one, hypercard. I put in some joke once.

Um that are still nevertheless funny. Oh, of course I put in I mean this I don't know if this could be considered to be just Slightly overrated, but it is pre- Oh god, it didn't make it in. I'll put it in. You ever seen the mother of all demo demos with Doug? Engelhart, I think is English. I want to watch your whistle with this, but uh 1968, I believe. Google Um mother of all demos. Okay, and I I want to say this was at Park or similar, but that can't be right. Oh, team at SRI uh at the time called the Stanford Research Institute. So highlights and disc well shit, let me find the real one. This is this c this is just generally referred to as the mother of all demos. The mother of all demos is a name given retrospectively to Douglas Engelbartz.

December 9, 1968, demonstration of ex- dude, 1968, okay? The live demonstration, 1969, nice, featured the introduction of the computer mouse, video conferencing. teleconferencing, hypertext, word processing, hypermedia, object addressing, and dynamic file linking, bootstrapping, and a collaborative real-time editor 1969. I'm I'm not even joking. I've I've goosebumps. That's insane. I mean it's an hour and forty minutes, but it is actually it's pretty fascinating, especially if you put yourself back in the mind. of back then. And instead of noticing how primitive it is, my goodness, no, notice how ridiculously advanced it is. Oh, yeah. God, every time I Actu there's a lot of funny ones that are um about ergonomics of using a a computer because Did you see the Computer Chronicles one?

The oh the photo of the woman and she's sitting there and the and her computer or excuse me her keyboard is above breast level on the desk. Yes. Yeah. For the ergonomics video, I almost sent it to Syracusa. I was like, look at this, look at this. Well the but Yeah, I that whole uh there's just a whole series of uh uh the th like yeah theories of ergonomics for new computers, um b of like, well what lift with your back We have we we've no sit this way before. I don't know. Um, but the way that it things are i introduced like the the mouse is in introduced and obviously uh you know files and susie care says well we say cut and paste and I'm like oh but The the thing that I kind of started to fixate on was how uh uh everyone talks about where your eye g uh eyes go.

um like where they gravitate to the colour. The um uh we put this here because we um want it to be uh your d desktop, which is the same thing. Yeah, they they talk a lot about UI. Just just when you log in, you'll see an animated desk of If you want to make a phone call, click the telephone. And uh the the reason that I y just really uh uh watched them like some people watch train videos was how the good ones reminded me so much of the iPhone introduction and Even more so because it's you know the the new hot hotness uh vi just vision. Give me the Fs and Bs, the features and bullets Like there's this people and this was this almost all of these times were from a time where you're like, Well, the old one was three gigaflirps and this one is seven gigaflips and you're like, What's a gigafurp?

I'm like, uh you wouldn't understand Or like, you know, does this how much RAM does this have? Like what's the, you know, and that that matters in lots of things, but it was always these kind of like head-to-head competitions. The thing that you see in uh iPhone introduction and in any other good thing is actually showing you in a sensible way, how this has a place in your life that you maybe n had either never realized there was a place for this in your life, or in some cases you'd abandon ever trying to find something that did what you wanted, that this thing now does. But you're you're right, it is it is kind of funny. Old interfaces to me Windows interfaces continue to just seem so baffling to me.

But you know, that's just because it's it's like Canada. Like it's just similar enough to be really frustrating. raw transcript