Cortex

00:00:00 ◼   ► I'm ready to go. Welcome to Cortex.

00:00:03 ◼   ► What is that? Is that the-

00:00:04 ◼   ► Myke, isn't that how we start the show every episode?

00:00:06 ◼   ► One of us says "Welcome to Cortex." Isn't that what we do every time?

00:00:09 ◼   ► I think we could only really start the show this way if this was the last episode of Cortex,

00:00:13 ◼   ► because it would dovetail with the very first episode.

00:00:17 ◼   ► So the kind of cold open, as we would call it, the introduction to the very first episode

00:00:22 ◼   ► is me not knowing how to start the show.

00:00:25 ◼   ► Right, and me not helping you at all.

00:00:26 ◼   ► At all.

00:00:27 ◼   ► I think I just was sitting there like, this is his problem.

00:00:31 ◼   ► - You're just making fun of me.

00:00:33 ◼   ► I've heard this clip a billion times because

00:00:37 ◼   ► every time I post the episode to the YouTube channel,

00:00:41 ◼   ► I can never remember how I format the title.

00:00:44 ◼   ► It's like the pound sign, number, colon, name.

00:00:47 ◼   ► That's how we usually do it.

00:00:48 ◼   ► But I'm always like, do I do a pound sign

00:00:51 ◼   ► or do I not do that?

00:00:52 ◼   ► Do I just do it?

00:00:53 ◼   ► I can never remember.

00:00:54 ◼   ► And every single time I go and check.

00:00:56 ◼   ► So when I go to the YouTube page,

00:00:58 ◼   ► the intro of the first episode starts playing immediately.

00:01:01 ◼   ► - It's the channel trailer, right, of course.

00:01:03 ◼   ► - So every time I post an episode of Cortex,

00:01:06 ◼   ► I hear like the first 20 seconds of the original episode.

00:01:10 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:01:12 ◼   ► (upbeat music)

00:01:14 ◼   ► - You're going to be really natural right now.

00:01:16 ◼   ► That's what you're going to do?

00:01:17 ◼   ► - This is supernatural.

00:01:18 ◼   ► - Okay, go for it.

00:01:20 ◼   ► (upbeat music)

00:01:21 ◼   ► - So I know that in that episode,

00:01:23 ◼   ► you're like making fun of me

00:01:24 ◼   ► because I'm not sure how to start the show

00:01:26 ◼   ► because all of my other shows, it's like from Relay FM,

00:01:30 ◼   ► this is whatever, but we just start.

00:01:32 ◼   ► So the idea of you now creating a Welcome to Cortex,

00:01:36 ◼   ► this is episode 116, it's like,

00:01:40 ◼   ► I feel like we could only really pull that joke off

00:01:42 ◼   ► if this was the final episode of the show.

00:01:44 ◼   ► - We always do this, Myke, you're just forgetting.

00:01:46 ◼   ► We do levels, levels, then it's quiet on set,

00:01:50 ◼   ► and then it's Welcome to Cortex, right?

00:01:52 ◼   ► Just like a real show.

00:01:53 ◼   ► Quiet on set.

00:01:55 ◼   ► I'm sorry you have to listen to the first few seconds of that episode.

00:01:59 ◼   ► I do intentionally rotate on my own channel whatever video is up as that channel trailer

00:02:04 ◼   ► thing on YouTube.

00:02:05 ◼   ► Because it's the same thing.

00:02:06 ◼   ► I go to my own channel a thousand times to adjust things or to fix things or to get data

00:02:11 ◼   ► from the back end or whatever and I just cannot listen to the first ten seconds of the same

00:02:15 ◼   ► video all the time.

00:02:16 ◼   ► Like at some point I just go "No!

00:02:18 ◼   ► I can't take it!

00:02:19 ◼   ► I have to change it!"

00:02:20 ◼   ► I would assume.

00:02:21 ◼   ► I'm going to your channel now.

00:02:22 ◼   ► I would assume it's your most recent video right now.

00:02:25 ◼   ► No, I've left the Q&A one up for a little while.

00:02:28 ◼   ► I feel like the 10-year Q&A, I feel like, has a bit of a shelf life for being the top video for a bit.

00:02:33 ◼   ► But I'll change it at some point when I get tired of how ever I started that video.

00:02:37 ◼   ► But no, it's not the most recent video.

00:02:39 ◼   ► Your most recent video feels like a campaign.

00:02:42 ◼   ► Actually, it is a campaign. You're starting a campaign.

00:02:45 ◼   ► It's a campaign for human decency. That's what it is, Myke.

00:02:48 ◼   ► So I mean, my only assumption here could be that you came across some news stories about school days being canceled.

00:02:55 ◼   ► I saw that this was happening in like New York or something, because I went Googling after I watched your video.

00:03:01 ◼   ► Right, what's he so mad about?

00:03:02 ◼   ► I'm expecting this was a pretty quick turnaround video.

00:03:05 ◼   ► Yeah, yeah, this was not months of research, no.

00:03:07 ◼   ► I've been in a low-key way coming across this idea for the past few months.

00:03:14 ◼   ► I just seen it mentioned in a few places where like some school district had canceled snow days.

00:03:19 ◼   ► I think it had never quite like fully gotten into my brain,

00:03:25 ◼   ► but I've seen this in a few places where school districts are deciding, "Oh, distance learning is great."

00:03:30 ◼   ► But yeah, it was New York's announcements.

00:03:33 ◼   ► My home state of New York committing such an atrocity,

00:03:36 ◼   ► deciding that yes, there would be no more snow days, there would instead be distance learning days.

00:03:41 ◼   ► And it was one of those things where I happened to read an article about it

00:03:46 ◼   ► literally as I was drifting off to bed

00:03:49 ◼   ► you know, just like going through my reader queue of articles and things to read

00:03:53 ◼   ► and fell asleep, probably that was the last thing that I read

00:03:56 ◼   ► and woke up furious.

00:04:00 ◼   ► I don't know if you ever have this but I just popped out of bed full of anger.

00:04:04 ◼   ► Just immediately like, "They've canceled snow days. This is outrageous!"

00:04:11 ◼   ► Just went from zero to a hundred in the moments where I came conscious.

00:04:16 ◼   ► And I think maybe in the space of just two hours, I wrote that script.

00:04:21 ◼   ► I messaged my animator, cause this was on Sunday, I think.

00:04:25 ◼   ► And I said, "Hey!"

00:04:26 ◼   ► "I'm so mad!"

00:04:27 ◼   ► I mean, I think again, as anyone who has listened to many hours of Cortex can

00:04:34 ◼   ► probably infer, sometimes I may not be the easiest person to work with.

00:04:40 ◼   ► and things can come out of nowhere and this is one of those moments of yes like you've

00:04:45 ◼   ► ever summed it up better than I could have hey guess what I'm angry like how fast can

00:04:52 ◼   ► we make a thing and he was on board with it so it went out the next night I think I think

00:04:58 ◼   ► it went out Monday night.

00:04:59 ◼   ► Wow that's speedy.

00:05:00 ◼   ► Yes well I was very much like we're gonna use all the animation tricks just to make

00:05:05 ◼   ► this as fast as possible like just everything to get it up on screen quickly.

00:05:09 ◼   ► I would say like the visuals of it is kind of like from an animation perspective a cgpgray made cgpgray video would be

00:05:16 ◼   ► Yeah, for sure, but with the polish of your animation team. Yeah for sure

00:05:21 ◼   ► And there's little tricks you can do there just having the window with snow in the background

00:05:25 ◼   ► We need the window with snow, right? So it sort of makes you feel like there's more motion than there really is

00:05:32 ◼   ► I was trying to think about it. This is not the fastest

00:05:36 ◼   ► Creation to publication video, but I think it is the third fastest I've ever made a video

00:05:44 ◼   ► I think I think that's about right. What beats it? Well, there was that incident with the Fine Brothers years ago

00:05:50 ◼   ► Yes, yep. So those two videos beat it. The only other one that also beats it is it's up on my second channel

00:05:57 ◼   ► It's the video where I show that the towels are fake in stores. I don't know if you've ever seen this one

00:06:01 ◼   ► It's like 20 seconds long, but I just point out that doesn't count

00:06:05 ◼   ► That doesn't count.

00:06:06 ◼   ► No, Myke, that is a video.

00:06:08 ◼   ► Like 100%, I am counting that.

00:06:11 ◼   ► I'm counting that as that counts.

00:06:13 ◼   ► I was out at the store.

00:06:14 ◼   ► What about the livestreams then?

00:06:16 ◼   ► They're like a medium.

00:06:17 ◼   ► No, Myke, livestreams don't count at all.

00:06:18 ◼   ► That's ridiculous.

00:06:20 ◼   ► The livestreams are in videos.

00:06:22 ◼   ► Well, what about your Tesla cup holder video?

00:06:25 ◼   ► None of that?

00:06:26 ◼   ► No, because the Tesla cup holder was part of the whole Tesla project.

00:06:29 ◼   ► That doesn't count.

00:06:30 ◼   ► The towels are a lie, that one, right?

00:06:33 ◼   ► Yeah, the towels are a lie, which I also have to count because after all of these years,

00:06:39 ◼   ► after all of the things that I have made, that video is still my wife's favorite video that I've ever made.

00:06:46 ◼   ► Are you being serious?

00:06:47 ◼   ► I am being 100% serious. I just recorded it in the store.

00:06:53 ◼   ► Um, look, we are different people, me and you, right? Like, we're made differently.

00:06:58 ◼   ► That would greatly upset me.

00:07:00 ◼   ► No, it's hilarious. It's so funny.

00:07:02 ◼   ► This is what I'm saying, like, but like if Idina said to me like, "Oh, you remember that like

00:07:08 ◼   ► 20 second clip that you put on Twitter once of you like blowing raspberries at someone or something,

00:07:12 ◼   ► right? Like, that's my favorite thing you've ever made? That would greatly upset me."

00:07:17 ◼   ► It's so many hours I've worked over this content.

00:07:19 ◼   ► Look, you know as an internet creator, and this is the thing, everyone who makes anything has to

00:07:27 ◼   ► really deeply internalize. The world does not give a sh*t about how many hours you spent on anything.

00:07:35 ◼   ► No no, I know that, I know that. But my own wife, right? I need more.

00:07:40 ◼   ► But like, Myke, the fact that you wouldn't find this funny, to me says you haven't really like,

00:07:47 ◼   ► in your soul, internalized. Nobody cares, right? And guess what? If you spend 20 seconds

00:07:55 ◼   ► filming a thing in a store while you're shopping for towels and then you go post it on the internet,

00:08:01 ◼   ► that could literally be the best thing that you've ever done. And if you spend

00:08:04 ◼   ► years of your life tracking down information about an abandoned military weapons facility,

00:08:11 ◼   ► nobody cares, right? Like it's the number of hours you put in has nothing to do with anything.

00:08:16 ◼   ► You gotta feel it in your soul, it's perfectly fine.

00:08:20 ◼   ► Yeah, sure.

00:08:21 ◼   ► Haha, so anyway, that is also the answer as to why I have to count that as a real video.

00:08:27 ◼   ► Because it's my wife's favourite video.

00:08:29 ◼   ► Oh, now you've made it sweet again.

00:08:31 ◼   ► Haha, see?

00:08:33 ◼   ► So yes, this snow day counts as my third fastest real video.

00:08:37 ◼   ► That's the, or fourth fastest, third fastest? Fourth fastest, that's the way I'm counting it.

00:08:41 ◼   ► There were three that were faster.

00:08:42 ◼   ► How did you feel about speaking French in a video?

00:08:45 ◼   ► What do you mean?

00:08:47 ◼   ► Were you like conscious of it?

00:08:49 ◼   ► Were you concerned you might sound silly?

00:08:51 ◼   ► Not like trying to be on, cause you have a few lines of French in this video.

00:08:55 ◼   ► Do you ever get like, are people going to think I sound stupid?

00:08:59 ◼   ► No.

00:08:59 ◼   ► Yo soy parler vous français.

00:09:01 ◼   ► Like it's very easy, you know?

00:09:03 ◼   ► No, obviously I don't care at all.

00:09:05 ◼   ► I just plugged to have fun into Google and press the little button where it says

00:09:09 ◼   ► a word in French and then I just said it.

00:09:12 ◼   ► So no, I'm not, I'm not conscious of it in the slightest.

00:09:15 ◼   ► I mean, cause that's sort of just like a little joke, right?

00:09:18 ◼   ► Saying the French thing.

00:09:19 ◼   ► The worst I ever did with languages was it's in one of the Q and A videos.

00:09:26 ◼   ► I try to speak Dutch for a few sentences.

00:09:29 ◼   ► Somebody asked about if I speak any other languages to which the answer is no, but

00:09:34 ◼   ► I thought it would be fun to try to answer in Dutch and ended up going on one of

00:09:40 ◼   ► places like Fiverr or something and hiring a few Dutch people to say the sentences in Dutch so I

00:09:47 ◼   ► could try to repeat it. And just you do a few different people because it's a little bit hard

00:09:52 ◼   ► if you're just hearing one person to understand what the sounds actually are.

00:09:55 ◼   ► And I spent a long time trying to get it to be phonetically good and I was pretty pleased with

00:10:05 ◼   ► myself actually. I thought like, oh I think I've done about as good of a job as someone could do

00:10:10 ◼   ► trying to repeat three sentences in Dutch about how, "Oh, my mother speaks Dutch, but I don't

00:10:16 ◼   ► speak Dutch," and something else is what I said. But the Dutch people disagreed, and also,

00:10:23 ◼   ► my own mother disagreed. She sent me a message afterwards of like, "Oh boy, was that horrible

00:10:30 ◼   ► to hear your American accent try to speak Dutch, like, that sounded brutal." I think that was more

00:10:39 ◼   ► of a like a little bit of a letdown. I thought, "Oh, I thought I did really well. I just repeated

00:10:43 ◼   ► the sounds. How hard could it be?" And turns out phonetically trying to read lines in another

00:10:49 ◼   ► language, you're probably not going to be successful even if you think you've done a

00:10:54 ◼   ► pretty good job because your brain is not picking up on any of the important parts. You just don't

00:11:01 ◼   ► know where does the emphasis go, you can't properly hear the different sounds. So the

00:11:06 ◼   ► The Dutch was a big fail, but the French, I didn't care at all.

00:11:09 ◼   ► I spent two seconds on Google and repeated it once,

00:11:12 ◼   ► and I actually kind of thought it would work better for the video

00:11:15 ◼   ► if I don't sound very good at French,

00:11:17 ◼   ► because that's sort of the meta point that is being made.

00:11:21 ◼   ► Like, nobody learns French in a school.

00:11:24 ◼   ► Literally nobody.

00:11:25 ◼   ► - "J'ai joue avec l'indi n'a terre." - Oh, yeah?

00:11:28 ◼   ► - I play with the computer.

00:11:29 ◼   ► It's the only French line that I remember.

00:11:31 ◼   ► - Did you take French in school?

00:11:33 ◼   ► - For a couple of years, and then I did the stupid thing

00:11:35 ◼   ► and then transition to Spanish so I have equal zero knowledge of both languages.

00:11:42 ◼   ► Maybe did French for three years and then Spanish for three years?

00:11:46 ◼   ► That's no good.

00:11:47 ◼   ► That means you learn negative amounts of languages.

00:11:50 ◼   ► You start mixing up French and Spanish even more because you didn't learn enough of

00:11:53 ◼   ► either of them.

00:11:54 ◼   ► Right.

00:11:55 ◼   ► That was a terrible idea.

00:11:56 ◼   ► Why did you switch?

00:11:58 ◼   ► Because I wanted to go to Spain.

00:12:00 ◼   ► If you were in French class your school trip would be to France and if you were in Spanish

00:12:04 ◼   ► class school trip was Spain.

00:12:06 ◼   ► Oh, okay.

00:12:07 ◼   ► And I'd already been to Paris as a kid and I wanted to go to Barcelona instead.

00:12:11 ◼   ► So I just, what language?

00:12:14 ◼   ► And so went to Barcelona.

00:12:16 ◼   ► Did you have a good time?

00:12:17 ◼   ► At least that's a good reason.

00:12:19 ◼   ► Yeah, I mean, I did.

00:12:21 ◼   ► I only really have one big memory of that trip.

00:12:24 ◼   ► I mean, I don't know how old I was, maybe like 15 or whatever.

00:12:28 ◼   ► But my main memory is we stopped at a like a service station or whatever.

00:12:33 ◼   ► So I'm like a big coach because that's what that's the other terrible thing is we drove to Spain

00:12:37 ◼   ► I don't know why they decided to do that took 24 hours

00:12:40 ◼   ► I don't know. So I guess it was a cost saving thing, but it was terrible

00:12:48 ◼   ► I don't know how much money it could have saved. Yeah, I always see these weird deals like oh fly to Spain for 10 pounds

00:12:54 ◼   ► And I just like how could it possibly save that much more money driving?

00:12:59 ◼   ► It seems like that can't possibly be true. Surely schools can get like a bulk discount on buying tickets, maybe?

00:13:05 ◼   ► I mean, I wouldn't be surprised if it's like it's just easier if you're dealing with 60 kids to put them on a bus

00:13:10 ◼   ► then try and wrangle them through an airport.

00:13:12 ◼   ► Ah, you know what? That is the answer. You're correct, Myke. That is the actual answer.

00:13:17 ◼   ► The bus, even though they are vastly more likely to die on a bus ride than a plane ride,

00:13:23 ◼   ► - Of course.

00:13:24 ◼   ► - Administratively, it is much simpler

00:13:27 ◼   ► and you can write up the risk assessment

00:13:29 ◼   ► in a much easier way if it's on a bus.

00:13:31 ◼   ► You want controlled environments,

00:13:33 ◼   ► you don't want uncontrolled environments.

00:13:34 ◼   ► You're totally right, that is incredibly depressing.

00:13:37 ◼   ► So you were on a bus for bureaucratic reasons.

00:13:39 ◼   ► - We're on a bus, stopped at a service station

00:13:43 ◼   ► and everyone went into the service station or whatever

00:13:45 ◼   ► and we were buying some snacks or whatever.

00:13:47 ◼   ► And I was lost out at the service station

00:13:49 ◼   ► and walked out and the bus wasn't there.

00:13:51 ◼   ► (both laughing)

00:13:53 ◼   ► I can't remember where I was exactly.

00:13:55 ◼   ► It was somewhere between France and Spain, right?

00:13:58 ◼   ► Like we're either in France or in Spain at this moment.

00:14:02 ◼   ► And 'cause we're driving through, right,

00:14:04 ◼   ► to go catch the ferry to go home.

00:14:07 ◼   ► And I just have this visceral feeling of,

00:14:11 ◼   ► well, I'm (beep)

00:14:13 ◼   ► Right?

00:14:14 ◼   ► Because what am I gonna do?

00:14:15 ◼   ► And I don't know why they did this.

00:14:17 ◼   ► The bus had parked around the corner,

00:14:18 ◼   ► so I just turned the corner and I found it.

00:14:20 ◼   ► And when I got on the bus,

00:14:21 ◼   ► everyone started laughing and clapping at me because they knew what was going to happen

00:14:25 ◼   ► to me when I walked out. I don't think they were intentionally playing a prank on me,

00:14:29 ◼   ► but it was quickly realized that it was the opportunity for one.

00:14:33 ◼   ► Oh, okay. Maybe this was the bus driver's idea of a funny joke that they do this every

00:14:38 ◼   ► this is how they entertain themselves. Okay, we'll park around the corner and we'll watch

00:14:41 ◼   ► all the kids come out one by one and drop their handful of goodies that they've purchased.

00:14:47 ◼   ► Oh, it was just me because I was lost. So the people got on the bus and they turned

00:14:51 ◼   ► the corner and then stopped to wait for me.

00:14:54 ◼   ► I think they pranked you, Myke. I think that's what happened.

00:14:56 ◼   ► Well, I would prefer the pranking rather than they left and then one person was like, "Oh,

00:15:02 ◼   ► we forgot him."

00:15:03 ◼   ► You would prefer the pranking to that?

00:15:05 ◼   ► I prefer the pranking.

00:15:07 ◼   ► Why?

00:15:08 ◼   ► Because if they're pranking, then they meant to do it to me. If they weren't, the margin

00:15:13 ◼   ► of error for me actually getting left behind in a country in Europe was way too slim for

00:15:19 ◼   ► my liking, right?

00:15:20 ◼   ► You said you were somewhere between France and Spain and you'd taken both language classes,

00:15:24 ◼   ► so you would have been fine, right?

00:15:26 ◼   ► I would have been fine, I was ready.

00:15:29 ◼   ► Even if we were right at the border and they were speaking some kind of version of the

00:15:32 ◼   ► two of them, then I would have been completely set.

00:15:35 ◼   ► Right, they left you in Andorra.

00:15:36 ◼   ► Yo soy Michael.

00:15:41 ◼   ► Bebo and Londres.

00:15:43 ◼   ► Okay, I still don't understand how you prefer all of your classmates actively pranking you

00:15:48 ◼   ► to just forgetting you, that seems like obviously the wrong decision, but...

00:15:51 ◼   ► No, I'm fine with it. The pranking is fine to me, because the pranking is still like,

00:15:55 ◼   ► they're just, we're all having fun or whatever, you know, like, at least they had me in their

00:15:59 ◼   ► minds. If they just started to drive away, there was a point where everyone had forgotten

00:16:03 ◼   ► about me.

00:16:04 ◼   ► Okay, I see. Now you have hit upon the difference, which is that my target goal in school was

00:16:10 ◼   ► constantly to have everyone forget about me. Just be like this invisible wraith. And so

00:16:16 ◼   ► Being left behind would feel like, "Aha, I'm doing it right."

00:16:19 ◼   ► You know, "Don't put these paying any attention and I can just do whatever I want."

00:16:23 ◼   ► "I'm gonna live in Andorra now!"

00:16:26 ◼   ► This is at the stage of my school life that we spoke about recently where

00:16:30 ◼   ► I started to make more friends and cared less about school.

00:16:33 ◼   ► Ah, okay.

00:16:34 ◼   ► Itself, so it's kind of like in that area.

00:16:37 ◼   ► So pranking, I guess, was a thing in that part of my life.

00:16:40 ◼   ► And at least that way, you know, I was trying to have friends then rather than focus on schoolwork.

00:16:45 ◼   ► Again, why I also decided to not be good at any language class and to be half good at two.

00:16:52 ◼   ► Well again, I'll just gently suggest that even had you stuck with French for all six years,

00:17:00 ◼   ► your conversational abilities would be not fluent, shall we say. That would be my expectation.

00:17:08 ◼   ► So don't imagine the counterfactual world where you would have learned how to speak

00:17:13 ◼   ► French if you had stayed in those lessons. I always feel bad, like, I know I always just

00:17:17 ◼   ► harp on the language lessons as totally pointless, but I just, I can never not poke it because

00:17:23 ◼   ► it just feels to me like the, like such a crystal clear perfect case of school does

00:17:29 ◼   ► not do what it says it does. It's like language is just, no one can disagree with what happens

00:17:35 ◼   ► in language classes.

00:17:36 ◼   ► It is the easy one for that argument that you make.

00:17:39 ◼   ► Because nobody remembers that stuff.

00:17:42 ◼   ► You could make more of an argument for like how much Shakespeare do you remember, how much biology do you remember.

00:17:49 ◼   ► I think people can more easily recall those things.

00:17:52 ◼   ► The languages that they took less so if they didn't continue it in any meaningful way after school.

00:17:59 ◼   ► I have to be slightly careful here, but the reason why language is like, "Oh, wow, look

00:18:04 ◼   ► at this really fat fish in this tiny barrel, like it's so easy to shoot," is because with

00:18:12 ◼   ► a lot of school, how to put it nicely, you are learning about a thing and it's way easy

00:18:23 ◼   ► to one, fake that knowledge, and it's way easy to fool yourself into thinking you understand

00:18:33 ◼   ► a thing better when the domain of knowledge is learn about history. Whereas with language

00:18:42 ◼   ► classes, there isn't a version of this where you just learn about French culture, but never

00:18:49 ◼   ► ever learn any of the words. That's what a lot of classes actually are, like you're learning

00:18:54 ◼   ► about a thing, but language classes pretend to teach you an actual skill of "we are teaching

00:19:02 ◼   ► you how to speak French!" I guess what I'm trying to say here is, with most classes,

00:19:09 ◼   ► there is not a clear and easy objective way to demonstrate that you have completely failed

00:19:14 ◼   ► to achieve what you're trying to achieve. And with languages, it's like, "Oh no,

00:19:20 ◼   ► we could very easily demonstrate that you have completely failed what you were trying

00:19:23 ◼   ► to achieve." Six years of French in school produces people who can't speak as well

00:19:29 ◼   ► as toddlers. Like, that's the level that we're talking about here. So that's why

00:19:32 ◼   ► it's a very easy target. And most of academia doesn't allow itself to be such an easy

00:19:39 ◼   ► target, which I think ends up having people give them way more benefit of the doubt than

00:19:44 ◼   ► they deserve.

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00:21:36 ◼   ► I want to touch on note taking apps. I want to do a little check in. I've had a good

00:21:40 ◼   ► experience with an app recently.

00:21:42 ◼   ► Oh yeah?

00:21:43 ◼   ► I just wanted to follow up on that a bit.

00:21:45 ◼   ► Which is Craft. I think I spoke about Craft before.

00:21:48 ◼   ► You mentioned this one in passing a long time ago.

00:21:51 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:21:51 ◼   ► Craft.

00:21:52 ◼   ► Yeah. I think the best way for me to describe Craft is

00:21:56 ◼   ► imagine in your mind how good you thought Evernote could be.

00:22:00 ◼   ► I thought it could be so good.

00:22:02 ◼   ► And that's what Craft is.

00:22:04 ◼   ► Hmm.

00:22:04 ◼   ► That's what Craft is right now.

00:22:06 ◼   ► It's an excellent application for all kinds of notes and mixed media type stuff.

00:22:12 ◼   ► And it has some collaboration tools and all that kind of fun stuff, folders and blah,

00:22:17 ◼   ► blah, blah.

00:22:18 ◼   ► I really, really like it.

00:22:19 ◼   ► I've been using it exclusively for everything related to Cortex brand.

00:22:25 ◼   ► So all of my text notes and imagery and links and inspiration and all that kind of stuff

00:22:30 ◼   ► all goes in there, which I mentioned before, like I wanted to separate all that stuff out

00:22:35 ◼   ► from my Notes app and I didn't want to get it all mixed up with other stuff that I was

00:22:39 ◼   ► doing so I've been using Craft for that.

00:22:42 ◼   ► And I've really, really been enjoying using this application.

00:22:46 ◼   ► There's a few things that I still want them to add that I believe that they are working

00:22:50 ◼   ► on.

00:22:51 ◼   ► One that I mentioned I think in the past was tables.

00:22:52 ◼   ► They don't have a way to put a table into a note, which is just something that I want

00:22:58 ◼   ► to have for a few different reasons.

00:23:00 ◼   ► But I know that they're working on that.

00:23:02 ◼   ► I really like the way that the app works.

00:23:05 ◼   ► Everything's happening like natively.

00:23:07 ◼   ► It's not doing the like the bananas stuff that apps like Notion does or whatever, where

00:23:11 ◼   ► it's like actually just like a web view inside of the application.

00:23:15 ◼   ► Like it feels good on every platform.

00:23:17 ◼   ► On the Mac, it's a Catalyst app, but it's by far the best Catalyst app that I think

00:23:22 ◼   ► I've ever used.

00:23:23 ◼   ► I would never have known that it was.

00:23:26 ◼   ► So I guess the question is, it says it's a fresh take on collaboration, so you can share

00:23:30 ◼   ► and work on the documents with someone else?

00:23:32 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:23:33 ◼   ► Interesting.

00:23:34 ◼   ► Something I also like that they have in Aroma Collaboration, every note can be published

00:23:38 ◼   ► as a webpage, so if you just wanted to share a note with someone, you can do that, and

00:23:44 ◼   ► you get a link and you can share just that link.

00:23:47 ◼   ► They can't edit it, although I think that that is something that they're working on

00:23:51 ◼   ► as another thing you could possibly do in the future.

00:23:54 ◼   ► But like, I've done this where I've wanted to share feedback with someone, I've just

00:23:57 ◼   ► collected it all in craft, created a web link to it and just sent them the web link and

00:24:03 ◼   ► then they can see all of the stuff.

00:24:04 ◼   ► Yeah, it looks very nice.

00:24:06 ◼   ► It definitely has much more user-friendly feel than other note-taking apps might have.

00:24:13 ◼   ► I was just curious about the collaboration part because, I don't know how to put this,

00:24:17 ◼   ► like the one thing that I feel like I still don't have a good solution to is, it's how

00:24:22 ◼   ► to merge at some point my own notes, you know, in a thousand quotation marks, my own notes

00:24:30 ◼   ► on a topic with the fact-checking of a topic that's done later in this post-Tcoi world.

00:24:38 ◼   ► But I think maybe it's just because there is not a good solution to this and these are

00:24:43 ◼   ► two different sorts of things, but I was just wondering for a second like, "Oh, maybe this

00:24:46 ◼   ► is the solution because all the fact checking stuff is done in Notion and I just hate Notion.

00:24:53 ◼   ► Notion is very good for the team communication and the library of how does the company work.

00:25:02 ◼   ► Notion is a great tool for that. I just, it makes me sad to ever have it open if I am

00:25:09 ◼   ► trying to work creatively on a script. Like it just, it's, you know, it feels very much

00:25:14 ◼   ► like "oh this is the database of all of my horrible tax information and all the administrative

00:25:23 ◼   ► stuff."

00:25:24 ◼   ► I'm not exactly sure how you're using Notion but I reckon a lot of it could be done in

00:25:29 ◼   ► Craft instead.

00:25:30 ◼   ► I know that your assistant has become a big Notion Nation person so maybe it would be

00:25:34 ◼   ► impossible to move them.

00:25:36 ◼   ► Yeah, no I have absolutely no intention of ever moving away from Notion.

00:25:39 ◼   ► I genuinely think it is really good at the purpose that it's built for which is being

00:25:44 ◼   ► this kind of connected database. I've just kind of, it's been on my mind, is there a

00:25:48 ◼   ► way to have collaboration on, say, just the notes on an active video? Not like, not everything,

00:25:58 ◼   ► but like, here's the two active projects and here's a way that my notes can be visible

00:26:06 ◼   ► to other people working on that project with me.

00:26:09 ◼   ► I think Crofts could do that for you.

00:26:10 ◼   ► Yeah, maybe. It seems like it might be possible.

00:26:13 ◼   ► I was kind of thinking there's a way to split your databases in Obsidian,

00:26:21 ◼   ► and I thought, "Oh, maybe I could do it this way," where there's—

00:26:23 ◼   ► I have one database in iCloud, which is my personal database,

00:26:26 ◼   ► and another database in a shared Dropbox folder, which could work to be like,

00:26:31 ◼   ► "Oh, this is just the active videos," and then everyone can see what's going on there.

00:26:36 ◼   ► That doesn't sound dangerous at all.

00:26:38 ◼   ► I don't understand what you mean, Myke.

00:26:40 ◼   ► Look, what could possibly go wrong with trying to split a database of all of your knowledge about everything into two parts?

00:26:49 ◼   ► I don't see what could go wrong with that.

00:26:51 ◼   ► I'll take a look at Kraft based on your suggestion.

00:26:53 ◼   ► I've been using it for collecting ideas like in note form for new projects, mixing it up with links and stuff like that.

00:27:02 ◼   ► There's a lot of nice formatting options.

00:27:04 ◼   ► options. So we've been working on a new website. I guess we could tell people about the website.

00:27:09 ◼   ► Oh, can we tell people about the website?

00:27:10 ◼   ► Well, I mean, it's available. It's like on the web now. I think the project's done.

00:27:14 ◼   ► So we've been working on a new theme system website. It's now themesystem.com.

00:27:19 ◼   ► And it's beautiful.

00:27:21 ◼   ► Yeah. So we've been working with a really great web designer. And it's been a project that's

00:27:25 ◼   ► been going on for a while. It required a lot of things, really, like copywriting and working on

00:27:31 ◼   ► and illustrations and I had to come up with a bunch of example pages that we

00:27:35 ◼   ► could put of the way that the journal works on the page.

00:27:38 ◼   ► This is pure, like, you know, I'm working in craft and slack, right?

00:27:41 ◼   ► Like that's how all this stuff's being done.

00:27:43 ◼   ► It was like just a good example of like a collaborative project for me of

00:27:47 ◼   ► getting all the copy in place, putting it all in there and then taking the images

00:27:52 ◼   ► and annotating the images, keeping them all in craft so I've got like a record

00:27:55 ◼   ► of how it was building over time.

00:27:56 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:27:57 ◼   ► I'm really, really pleased with the new website.

00:27:59 ◼   ► It's like the first step towards like a next phase of what we wanted to do with

00:28:05 ◼   ► the journal product, which is eventually we want to start trying to get customers

00:28:10 ◼   ► that don't listen to the show.

00:28:11 ◼   ► Like that's the ultimate goal for this product is right.

00:28:14 ◼   ► Court accidents know how great the theme system is, but we want to tell people

00:28:18 ◼   ► about it that don't already listen to the show, don't have the background.

00:28:22 ◼   ► So the website is serving multiple purposes.

00:28:26 ◼   ► now one of like a instruction manual effectively of how to use the journal,

00:28:31 ◼   ► but also as a marketing tool.

00:28:34 ◼   ► And previously the one that I had just built on my own,

00:28:37 ◼   ► it wasn't a good marketing tool at all. It was kind of just like,

00:28:40 ◼   ► here's how to do it.

00:28:42 ◼   ► And so I needed a bit of help in like condensing that and also making it

00:28:47 ◼   ► really cool visually.

00:28:49 ◼   ► So working with a wonderful web designer, David on this,

00:28:53 ◼   ► like I think we've made something really nice. And this is like,

00:28:56 ◼   ► So next is like, okay, now we have that,

00:28:59 ◼   ► how do we start marketing and advertising for the product?

00:29:02 ◼   ► Like that's the next thing.

00:29:04 ◼   ► Which I'm really intrigued about how that's gonna go.

00:29:07 ◼   ► Like I feel like I have no great sense of

00:29:10 ◼   ► what that's going to be like.

00:29:13 ◼   ► I've never done anything like this before.

00:29:16 ◼   ► - Yeah, I mean, I have absolutely no thoughts on this

00:29:19 ◼   ► because the things that we've discussed,

00:29:22 ◼   ► like Instagram ads, I'm just totally unfamiliar

00:29:25 ◼   ► with that world, but on the long journey of Cortex brand, like one of the things that

00:29:31 ◼   ► we talked about at the beginning, and I'm not sure how much we've mentioned in the past

00:29:35 ◼   ► years, but it has always been an important thing that ultimately these should be products

00:29:40 ◼   ► that people who don't know anything about us can find and use.

00:29:45 ◼   ► And this feels like, wow, we're finally at the first step of being able to actually achieve

00:29:52 ◼   ► that with having this brand new website. You know, the barrier isn't, "Oh, go listen to this

00:29:58 ◼   ► two-hour podcast where two people you don't know about talk about their themes, which you've also

00:30:03 ◼   ► never heard about before." The barrier is, "Look at this website and does this idea seem intriguing

00:30:10 ◼   ► to you?" And that's why the design process for this, I have loved every update that's come in

00:30:16 ◼   ► because I just think it's really beautiful. And in designing something like this, I think it's

00:30:21 ◼   ► important when you're thinking about how to get people's attention.

00:30:26 ◼   ► The thing that's nice about the Cortex stuff is okay, these are things that we

00:30:30 ◼   ► would use and so I can look at this webpage and go, oh wow, I know younger

00:30:37 ◼   ► me would totally be caught by this and be very interested, like, oh, what is

00:30:42 ◼   ► this journal, what is this system?

00:30:43 ◼   ► You know, so it's just been very interesting to measure the design

00:30:49 ◼   ► against my own internal response and we'll see how advertising goes and if that's effective

00:30:55 ◼   ► but I feel like if we can find people like ourselves through advertising

00:31:00 ◼   ► I would be shocked if it didn't work because I can feel the pull of this on me as well.

00:31:07 ◼   ► Yeah I feel like we can, right, because so the main place that I'm expecting we will begin

00:31:14 ◼   ► is Instagram because Instagram's advertising is very effective, is very effective on me.

00:31:20 ◼   ► But I also know we can find people because I get advertised different journal products all the time.

00:31:24 ◼   ► So like I, something about Instagram like in their advertising tools, they can find people like me,

00:31:30 ◼   ► I suppose, and so like that's who we would be looking for. People like me and you. And it must

00:31:36 ◼   ► be true because these, the journal products have already found me, so there must be a way

00:31:41 ◼   ► to get this in front of those people that are interested in that kind of product?

00:31:43 ◼   ► Well, my understanding is that Facebook, who runs the ads, they explicitly have a tool which is called Lookalike.

00:31:49 ◼   ► What is that?

00:31:50 ◼   ► I could be wrong, because again, I don't have any first-hand contact with this.

00:31:54 ◼   ► But my understanding from talking to some people who do do this advertising is that there is a Facebook tool called Lookalike.

00:32:00 ◼   ► Wow, yeah. A Lookalike audience is a group who are determined to share in characteristics of another group.

00:32:06 ◼   ► Yeah, so you can basically say, "Here's me, and here's a couple of people that I think are like me.

00:32:12 ◼   ► Find the lookalikes for this group of people."

00:32:15 ◼   ► Like, and whatever that means to Facebook.

00:32:17 ◼   ► That seems like a very easy way to get started.

00:32:20 ◼   ► Since Facebook looks directly into your soul by tracking you everywhere,

00:32:25 ◼   ► I suspect that that might be a place to start.

00:32:31 ◼   ► To be like, "Okay, here's the..."

00:32:33 ◼   ► I don't even know, do we have a Cortex Facebook page?

00:32:35 ◼   ► I don't think we do, but we could figure out like who's a group of people that are like

00:32:40 ◼   ► Cortex people, then find a lookalike audience to try to advertise the existence of this notebook to.

00:32:47 ◼   ► I mean, I am going to look into it more anyway, but this is now a great place to start.

00:32:52 ◼   ► Yeah, I mean, all of this, I just, I don't know, I feel like I just keep needing to

00:32:57 ◼   ► reemphasize this because I sometimes run across, sometimes people talk to me about

00:33:01 ◼   ► their product ideas.

00:33:02 ◼   ► It is very important that you make a product that you would want to use.

00:33:08 ◼   ► And this sounds like the dumbest advice in the world, but I definitely come across

00:33:12 ◼   ► people who are trying to make products for other people who aren't them.

00:33:18 ◼   ► And it's like, no, that's so much harder and it's so much

00:33:22 ◼   ► harder on every possible level.

00:33:25 ◼   ► And this right here, I feel like is another great example of why do you want to make

00:33:29 ◼   ► a product that you yourself would use?

00:33:31 ◼   ► because it's easy to make it in ways that you know is good,

00:33:36 ◼   ► and then it's also way easier to try to figure out

00:33:39 ◼   ► where are people like me going to be

00:33:41 ◼   ► to find out about this product?

00:33:43 ◼   ► Or how do I respond to this ad?

00:33:47 ◼   ► Not how does this theoretical audience that isn't like me,

00:33:51 ◼   ► how will they respond to this ad?

00:33:53 ◼   ► And then you have to do like testing

00:33:55 ◼   ► because you don't know?

00:33:57 ◼   ► For anybody who's working on their side products,

00:34:00 ◼   ► make sure, especially if it's your first one,

00:34:02 ◼   ► that it's a thing that you would use.

00:34:04 ◼   ► I think it just makes it so much easier.

00:34:07 ◼   ► - Yeah, I will say there was a funny part

00:34:09 ◼   ► which is somewhat akin to it, but also not.

00:34:13 ◼   ► Like, I know that I needed someone that wasn't me

00:34:17 ◼   ► to help me put this website together,

00:34:19 ◼   ► 'cause I'm far too close to the system, right?

00:34:22 ◼   ► - Yeah. - I'm too close to it.

00:34:24 ◼   ► So like, I needed someone outside of me and you

00:34:28 ◼   ► to help with explaining this to other people.

00:34:32 ◼   ► Everything I was doing was just like,

00:34:34 ◼   ► it was too much information constantly.

00:34:36 ◼   ► It needed a fresh set of eyes to help me

00:34:40 ◼   ► kind of put together better explanations

00:34:43 ◼   ► of how all this stuff is meant to be used.

00:34:45 ◼   ► But in the same vein, I could then look at that website

00:34:49 ◼   ► and knew where it was working and where it wasn't.

00:34:52 ◼   ► You know what I mean?

00:34:53 ◼   ► Like it kind of needed to go through someone else,

00:34:56 ◼   ► but then I could see like, "Oh no, that's not explaining it," or "I don't get that,"

00:35:00 ◼   ► because I know completely what the product is about, but it definitely needed an outside

00:35:05 ◼   ► set of eyes for me to be able to condense it down to what we have now.

00:35:09 ◼   ► Yeah, that's what I mean by the "you can judge it" thing.

00:35:13 ◼   ► I would not have been able to write copy as simply as the copy that is written on that

00:35:17 ◼   ► site, but I can read it and know, "Ah, this would catch my attention," but yeah, because

00:35:24 ◼   ► I would have the same problem that you would have of like,

00:35:26 ◼   ► how do I, how do you describe it?

00:35:27 ◼   ► Like it was just too much.

00:35:29 ◼   ► We've been talking about it for years.

00:35:31 ◼   ► It's useful to see what someone else thinks

00:35:33 ◼   ► are the key points.

00:35:34 ◼   ► It's a really exciting first step.

00:35:36 ◼   ► And I wasn't, I didn't quite realize until just now that,

00:35:38 ◼   ► oh, it's actually live on the internet.

00:35:40 ◼   ► It's not hidden now behind a password somewhere.

00:35:43 ◼   ► So it's up, people can go look at it

00:35:45 ◼   ► and tell us what they think about it.

00:35:46 ◼   ► - Theme system.com.

00:35:47 ◼   ► - Theme system.com.

00:35:50 ◼   ► How is the Obsidian beta for iOS serving you?

00:35:55 ◼   ► I just had this very long conversation

00:35:58 ◼   ► with Federico on "Connected",

00:36:00 ◼   ► one of my other shows about it.

00:36:01 ◼   ► He's effectively building his very own writing app

00:36:04 ◼   ► inside of Obsidian.

00:36:05 ◼   ► - Oh, he's getting into Obsidian, yeah.

00:36:07 ◼   ► - Oh, big time.

00:36:08 ◼   ► And he's found a way to embed Todoist inside of Obsidian.

00:36:11 ◼   ► - Yeah, 'cause it's just web views.

00:36:13 ◼   ► You can do any kind of web view stuff.

00:36:15 ◼   ► - Because of the plugin architecture of Obsidian,

00:36:17 ◼   ► He's really doing some just like very Federico wild things.

00:36:21 ◼   ► Like he's created this little thing where he can put a open bracket and closed

00:36:26 ◼   ► bracket and then a line of text.

00:36:28 ◼   ► And that's a to-do and he has a plugin that runs like through that document

00:36:33 ◼   ► and pulls all of those out and turns them into tasks in Todoist.

00:36:37 ◼   ► So he's doing all kinds of stuff right now.

00:36:40 ◼   ► Cause he's building up, like he's getting ready for his iOS review, right?

00:36:44 ◼   ► Cause that process starts, I guess in like a month for him.

00:36:47 ◼   ► - Oh, right.

00:36:48 ◼   ► - Right, so he's like setting on Obsidian

00:36:51 ◼   ► as maybe his app for right now.

00:36:53 ◼   ► - Well, I mean, it's a new year,

00:36:54 ◼   ► he needs a new app to write his review, right?

00:36:56 ◼   ► Isn't this what happens every year,

00:36:58 ◼   ► is that he goes to something different?

00:36:59 ◼   ► - He said on the show, like last year he didn't,

00:37:02 ◼   ► and so he feels like he has to now.

00:37:04 ◼   ► 'Cause like last year was the first time

00:37:06 ◼   ► where he hadn't changed that.

00:37:07 ◼   ► - Oh wow, two in a row. - So like now he needed

00:37:08 ◼   ► to change it all up again.

00:37:09 ◼   ► I know, imagine that.

00:37:11 ◼   ► But how are you getting on with it?

00:37:14 ◼   ► - I'm really liking it.

00:37:15 ◼   ► I think the beta is, I mean,

00:37:16 ◼   ► I'll just say way better than I would have any reasonable expectation of a beta being

00:37:22 ◼   ► at this point in time.

00:37:23 ◼   ► I'm still running into some minor bugs because I use emoji file names.

00:37:28 ◼   ► Again, this is even 100% my own dumb fault and I've sent them in sometimes on the test

00:37:33 ◼   ► flight but aside from that, it's very smooth, it's very solid, and I'm really happy to have

00:37:39 ◼   ► it on the iPad as an option.

00:37:41 ◼   ► And this sort of lines up with what it sounds like Federico is doing.

00:37:45 ◼   ► It only dawned on me in the past couple of weeks that one of the reasons that I really

00:37:51 ◼   ► like Obsidian is it feels like going home again to what's called Org Mode on Emacs,

00:38:02 ◼   ► which is like I don't even know how like where to begin trying to describe what that means.

00:38:06 ◼   ► Every time we talk about Obsidian you find a new way to convince me never to go there.

00:38:11 ◼   ► And you're like, "Ferrago tells me this stuff."

00:38:14 ◼   ► I'm like, "Oh, that sounds interesting."

00:38:16 ◼   ► And then you're like, "It reminds me of Emacs."

00:38:18 ◼   ► And I'm like, "Yeah, I'm good."

00:38:19 ◼   ► (both laughing)

00:38:22 ◼   ► - Yeah, I mean, this is one of those things,

00:38:23 ◼   ► like there will be 100% comments this time

00:38:27 ◼   ► about org mode and Emacs,

00:38:28 ◼   ► because people who use it love it.

00:38:30 ◼   ► But Emacs is like Obsidian times 100.

00:38:35 ◼   ► I mean, I don't know, Emacs is a Linux text editor.

00:38:39 ◼   ► It's gotta be, I don't know, 40 years old at this point

00:38:42 ◼   ► in the way that some, you know,

00:38:44 ◼   ► open source Linux stuff is.

00:38:46 ◼   ► But the joke with Emacs is,

00:38:47 ◼   ► oh, it's not a text editor.

00:38:48 ◼   ► It's an operating system all unto itself,

00:38:51 ◼   ► which it totally was.

00:38:52 ◼   ► Like, you could do literally anything

00:38:54 ◼   ► you can conceive of with text in Emacs.

00:38:56 ◼   ► And then I think it's just a one-person project,

00:39:00 ◼   ► but there's a plugin for Emacs called Org Mode,

00:39:05 ◼   ► which is an entirely text-based to-do system.

00:39:10 ◼   ► And when I found this in college,

00:39:12 ◼   ► like this was how before I had a real system

00:39:16 ◼   ► got through writing papers and stuff,

00:39:19 ◼   ► because the bottom line was it allowed you

00:39:21 ◼   ► to really easily kind of mix and match,

00:39:25 ◼   ► oh, I'm working on a document,

00:39:28 ◼   ► but also I can just throw in a to-do item right here

00:39:31 ◼   ► and then just keep writing.

00:39:33 ◼   ► And later in this system, I can have it just show me,

00:39:37 ◼   ► oh, here are all the to-dos that happen to be scattered

00:39:39 ◼   ► randomly through all of your text documents.

00:39:42 ◼   ► You don't care about where exactly those to-dos are

00:39:44 ◼   ► right now because you're just trying to get

00:39:46 ◼   ► a high level overview of it.

00:39:47 ◼   ► And it also had a lot of the features

00:39:48 ◼   ► of the kind of outlining and little bits of text and stuff.

00:39:51 ◼   ► Anyway, it just crossed my mind like,

00:39:54 ◼   ► oh, that's what this is.

00:39:56 ◼   ► Obsidian is a modern iOS and Mac version of Emacs

00:40:02 ◼   ► and org mode, and this is why I feel really at home with this program.

00:40:07 ◼   ► And it's also why you should not use it, Myke.

00:40:10 ◼   ► This is not the tool for you.

00:40:12 ◼   ► But part of why I imagine Federico is using it,

00:40:15 ◼   ► and like I haven't delved into this too much,

00:40:17 ◼   ► but it is, I only just realized, oh, even in the beta,

00:40:22 ◼   ► they're already allowing their whole plugin architecture

00:40:25 ◼   ► to work, and then that does make it basically

00:40:27 ◼   ► infinitely customizable for anything that you want to do.

00:40:31 ◼   ► I was like, oh wow, this is way more powerful on iOS than I had originally thought.

00:40:36 ◼   ► So yeah, I'm still loving it, it's going really well, very solid for the test flight.

00:40:41 ◼   ► Maybe I'll force my assistants and fact checker to use it a little bit with some of my notes

00:40:47 ◼   ► when I split my database.

00:40:48 ◼   ► You know, we'll see, maybe that'll happen, maybe that won't, but I recommend Obsidian

00:40:52 ◼   ► very highly to everyone who isn't Myke.

00:40:56 ◼   ► This episode of Cortex is brought to you by Fitbot, the fitness app that provides a personalized

00:41:00 ◼   ► exercise plan, a fitness plan that actually fits you. When it comes to fitness, Fitbod

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00:42:08 ◼   ► It doesn't matter what you have, they've got what you're going to need. Fitbod is there

00:42:12 ◼   ► to help you with any exercise routine. I really appreciate how Fitbod does the mixing up of

00:42:17 ◼   ► muscle groups. It means that I'm not going to be causing pain to myself multiple days

00:42:22 ◼   ► in a row. I really like as well that every time you do a workout it can show you what

00:42:26 ◼   ► parts of your body were worked out by that. So I guess you can match it up with how your

00:42:30 ◼   ► body is feeling at that time. Something that I just truly value about the app is the little

00:42:34 ◼   ► videos that they put with every exercise to make sure that you're doing things correctly.

00:42:38 ◼   ► I always want to know. I can read the instructions and get an idea but having the videos too

00:42:42 ◼   ► it really just helps crystallise it for me. Fitbod is available on iOS and Android and

00:42:47 ◼   ► can get started right now by going to fitbod.me/cortex. If you do, you'll also get 25% off your membership.

00:42:55 ◼   ► That's fitbod.me/cortex to try it out for free and get 25% off your Fitbod membership.

00:43:01 ◼   ► Our thanks to Fitbod for their support of Cortex and Relay FM.

00:43:05 ◼   ► It is that time again, but that time again is earlier.

00:43:09 ◼   ► It's that time of year, but it's not.

00:43:12 ◼   ► It's the time of year, but that time of year has changed. So for the last few years in

00:43:16 ◼   ► August we do a bonus episode for relay FM members where we have played text

00:43:23 ◼   ► adventures with Jason Snell of the upgrade podcast, we do like a crossover.

00:43:26 ◼   ► And we are teaming up with Jason again, but with a bit of a twist this time.

00:43:31 ◼   ► And we're doing them earlier in the year because of stuff like the podcast

00:43:35 ◼   ► athon for St.

00:43:36 ◼   ► Jude every year, which happens in September.

00:43:38 ◼   ► We needed to start splitting these things apart.

00:43:41 ◼   ► We used to do these in August every year and really those two big projects

00:43:45 ◼   ► starting to collide with each other. So we are from now going to be doing our annual member

00:43:49 ◼   ► specials in kind of May/June time so it gives us space in the summer. Can I just interject here

00:43:55 ◼   ► and say I am so glad that you did this. Like watching you go through, oh it's Podcastathon,

00:44:00 ◼   ► oh it's also WWDC, oh it's also all of the membership specials for all of my shows within a

00:44:09 ◼   ► short month period was brutal so I'm so glad that that that was that you moved this and yes we we

00:44:15 ◼   ► recorded this a while ago now and I was I was so happy to be like oh thank god we're getting this

00:44:20 ◼   ► off Myke's plate. Yeah it was much better this time we have a bit of a twist so we're not doing

00:44:25 ◼   ► a text adventure this time for a couple of reasons the main one is that Jason felt like we had

00:44:30 ◼   ► outgrown text adventures because we have a text adventure the way that you're supposed to play

00:44:36 ◼   ► them the text adventure parser which was Jason would say hey you can go left or right and

00:44:42 ◼   ► then me and you would want to explore the space and just like rip the pictures off the

00:44:46 ◼   ► walls and this is like stuff that is not in the text adventure so every year Jason's having

00:44:51 ◼   ► to basically augment the text adventure to deal with us kind of wanting to rip up the

00:44:56 ◼   ► floorboards and see what was around. This style of play is actually better suited to

00:45:01 ◼   ► a more RPG adventure. People will have heard of Dungeons and Dragons, that is a form of

00:45:07 ◼   ► a role playing game, and so this year we are playing a role playing game adventure instead.

00:45:14 ◼   ► So we have way more flexibility within the world to do whatever we want rather than the

00:45:19 ◼   ► limited options that a text adventure will provide for us. Now I always wanted these

00:45:24 ◼   ► to be RPGs but figured it was too hard of a sell on Gray so we started with text adventure

00:45:28 ◼   ► and then have now gotten to the RPG that I always wanted.

00:45:32 ◼   ► We're also changing how we're playing in that this year,

00:45:36 ◼   ► Jason is joining our team as the people playing the game.

00:45:40 ◼   ► And we have brought in an experienced game master

00:45:43 ◼   ► slash dungeon master, they're called game masters.

00:45:45 ◼   ► We're not playing Dungeons and Dragons,

00:45:47 ◼   ► it's a different RPG adventure.

00:45:48 ◼   ► - I was like, why aren't you calling him a dungeon master?

00:45:50 ◼   ► He's the dungeon master.

00:45:52 ◼   ► - It's a dungeon master if we were in dungeons,

00:45:54 ◼   ► we're not in a dungeon.

00:45:55 ◼   ► - No, it's always the dungeon master,

00:45:56 ◼   ► - Unless Dungeons and Dragons has trademarked that.

00:45:59 ◼   ► - So it is Game Master outside of Dungeons and Dragons.

00:46:03 ◼   ► So our friend Tony Sindala, he is the Dungeon Master

00:46:06 ◼   ► on the Total Party Kill podcast,

00:46:08 ◼   ► which is a Dungeons and Dragons podcast,

00:46:10 ◼   ► but we are not playing Dungeons and Dragons.

00:46:13 ◼   ► So it's an RPG adventure.

00:46:15 ◼   ► This is gonna be available on May 21st

00:46:18 ◼   ► for Relay FM members in our crossover feed that we have.

00:46:22 ◼   ► So this is where you'll also get

00:46:23 ◼   ► all of the annual bonus specials from this year

00:46:26 ◼   ► and

00:46:45 ◼   ► you will get this and also more text now that's the real winner right there so

00:46:51 ◼   ► not only will you get the RPG special episode you also get access to the more

00:46:55 ◼   ► text feed which has longer episodes of cortex every single month with no ads if

00:47:00 ◼   ► you've been wondering maybe I should try more text always talking about it seems

00:47:03 ◼   ► like fun this is the perfect time to try it you can sign up you will get our

00:47:08 ◼   ► membership special you also get access to the more text feed and you can go and

00:47:11 ◼   ► listen to previous episodes of more text see what the kind of content is as well

00:47:15 ◼   ► well as getting the special.

00:47:16 ◼   ► Then if you say subscribed, you will get more text forever.

00:47:19 ◼   ► If you don't want it, that's fine.

00:47:20 ◼   ► You won't get more texts anymore.

00:47:21 ◼   ► We changed that.

00:47:23 ◼   ► Just so you know, people would sign up once

00:47:25 ◼   ► and they'd subscribe forever.

00:47:26 ◼   ► Not anymore.

00:47:27 ◼   ► If you stop paying, you stop getting the extras.

00:47:30 ◼   ► That's a change for our new system.

00:47:33 ◼   ► But I really enjoyed this special.

00:47:35 ◼   ► It's very different, but I had such a good time with it.

00:47:39 ◼   ► It's also, I think, way longer than any

00:47:42 ◼   ► that we've done before.

00:47:42 ◼   ► It's two and a half hours long, I think.

00:47:45 ◼   ► is the final runtime of the special.

00:47:47 ◼   ► - Like you said, the world of the RPG

00:47:49 ◼   ► is functionally infinite in every direction

00:47:52 ◼   ► as opposed to the text game

00:47:54 ◼   ► where it's a small constrained environment.

00:47:57 ◼   ► So yeah, when we were recording on the night too,

00:47:59 ◼   ► I think we were recording for like three hours.

00:48:01 ◼   ► It was forever long, yeah.

00:48:03 ◼   ► - It was over that.

00:48:04 ◼   ► It was like three and a half hours was the recording

00:48:06 ◼   ► and the edited episode is down to about two and a half.

00:48:09 ◼   ► - Yeah, it's a big, big members episode.

00:48:11 ◼   ► So you can't say no to get more text.com right now.

00:48:14 ◼   ► Exactly. Imagine all of this incredible content available to you at getmoretext.com.

00:48:19 ◼   ► All of this content and literally more text.

00:48:21 ◼   ► Yeah. Oh wow. Why have we never thought of that before?

00:48:24 ◼   ► I don't know. I don't know why.

00:48:26 ◼   ► All of this content and more text. Oh man, I love it. There you go. That's a new tagline.

00:48:31 ◼   ► This is, this is how the magic happens.

00:48:32 ◼   ► That's how we end the show, Myke. That's how we end it every time now as we go all of this and more.

00:48:37 ◼   ► So at the beginning we say hello and welcome to Cortex now.

00:48:39 ◼   ► Right.

00:48:40 ◼   ► And then at the end we say you can get all of this and more text at getmoretext.com.

00:48:44 ◼   ► That's very good. That's how that works. It's kind of funny like with our last episode we were talking about how we edit this show, right?

00:48:50 ◼   ► And with this project being so much larger than stuff we've done in the past

00:48:55 ◼   ► I actually ended up getting some outside editing help for this project. It was one of those things where we did it

00:49:02 ◼   ► and then we had done another episode of our show and I was editing that and then we were getting ready for this episode

00:49:10 ◼   ► and then realized, "Oh, s**t, I have to do the member bonus special in between these two periods of time."

00:49:17 ◼   ► Right.

00:49:17 ◼   ► And I knew how long it was, and I knew it was going to be more work than normal,

00:49:22 ◼   ► and I had not accurately budgeted my time effectively.

00:49:26 ◼   ► Yeah, and we're also recording Cortex's closer together.

00:49:29 ◼   ► Everything was going against you in this scenario.

00:49:31 ◼   ► You know, usually it was like three or four weeks in between.

00:49:33 ◼   ► We had like two weeks in between.

00:49:36 ◼   ► And so I was like, "Oh man, this is bad."

00:49:39 ◼   ► So I very talented editing friend of mine, Brian, I got him to come in and he did like a first pass.

00:49:45 ◼   ► And what he was doing was just cleaning it up.

00:49:48 ◼   ► So all I had to go in and do afterwards is add in the sound clips that I wanted, remove things that didn't work.

00:49:55 ◼   ► Like he didn't do a content pass.

00:49:57 ◼   ► He did like a, I'm going to clean up some ums and ums and tighten the whole thing up.

00:50:01 ◼   ► It was kind of funny to me.

00:50:03 ◼   ► I almost couldn't believe it, that he cut an hour out of the audio, which I don't, I don't know how that's possible.

00:50:09 ◼   ► Like I've never really paid attention to how much of a runtime I cut down from what we have recorded

00:50:16 ◼   ► and what ends up being the final episode.

00:50:19 ◼   ► But for this specifically, there was a lot of thinking time and stuff.

00:50:24 ◼   ► Like Tony would give us something to do and we'd have to try and work out what we wanted to do with it.

00:50:29 ◼   ► So there's like a lot of gaps that I guess you could cut out.

00:50:32 ◼   ► But I'm so pleased. I mean it took Brian 14 hours to do his part.

00:50:38 ◼   ► And then mine...

00:50:41 ◼   ► Well, let me try and count it up real quick.

00:50:43 ◼   ► Let's just say you didn't have a spare 14 hours in this Fortnite to put into the members episode, right?

00:50:50 ◼   ► That was time that was just not possible for you to find.

00:50:53 ◼   ► So it's fantastic he was able to do it.

00:50:56 ◼   ► I mean, it took me about the same from my side.

00:50:59 ◼   ► So you didn't have 30 hours.

00:51:02 ◼   ► And also it was just much more pleasant for me to be doing the part that I truly enjoy,

00:51:08 ◼   ► which is adding in the sound clips and building the sound space of the member special.

00:51:14 ◼   ► That's the thing I really enjoy about these, is taking what is just our conversational audio and...

00:51:22 ◼   ► I mean, this sounds so terrible, but I have no other way of saying it.

00:51:26 ◼   ► Like, creating a world out of it.

00:51:27 ◼   ► Like, actually creating an atmosphere.

00:51:29 ◼   ► Yeah, that doesn't sound terrible at all.

00:51:31 ◼   ► That's literally what you're doing.

00:51:33 ◼   ► And again, I always think of the old, I haven't mentioned before, but like the radio plays that I used to listen to as a kid.

00:51:38 ◼   ► A big part of that is when it's not an audio book, when it is, "Oh, this is an environment that these people are moving through."

00:51:45 ◼   ► It really matters to have that Foley work in the background.

00:51:50 ◼   ► It really changes the listening experience.

00:51:52 ◼   ► And when I listen to it, I'm always really impressed by how much effort you do in creating.

00:51:59 ◼   ► It's like you're vivifying the experience with the sound effects.

00:52:05 ◼   ► And I also know that this was a particularly big project and was also, because now there's four people, it's also more complicated.

00:52:12 ◼   ► I enjoyed how you let me know very directly and very clearly that I was not going to be able to look at the Logic Project for this one.

00:52:20 ◼   ► Oh yeah, there's not happening.

00:52:21 ◼   ► In the past, I have listened to the Logic Project, but you were very "great, you are not allowed to touch this!"

00:52:29 ◼   ► No, no, no.

00:52:29 ◼   ► So I actually had to do the thing we discussed last time of, oh, if I had notes, I could

00:52:34 ◼   ► just text them to you, but I couldn't.

00:52:36 ◼   ► Yeah, that was as much as you were doing.

00:52:38 ◼   ► I'm going to open the Logic project and I'm going to tell you the cuts, right?

00:52:42 ◼   ► Oh God.

00:52:43 ◼   ► So like a typical episode of Cortex is, what did we say?

00:52:48 ◼   ► It sounds like 1500 cuts.

00:52:49 ◼   ► Yeah, 1500.

00:52:50 ◼   ► We put the image in the show notes last time so people could see what that looked like.

00:52:55 ◼   ► And this one takes a little while for the project to open.

00:53:00 ◼   ► Right, because it's so small.

00:53:02 ◼   ► This has...

00:53:03 ◼   ► It's still opening.

00:53:05 ◼   ► I'm beach balling right now.

00:53:09 ◼   ► Logic is now beach balling my Mac Mini here.

00:53:11 ◼   ► I hope you have a backup recorder going.

00:53:13 ◼   ► This is a funny thing where I couldn't edit this project on my iMac Pro.

00:53:16 ◼   ► I had to edit on my M1 MacBook Pro because my iMac Pro could not handle it.

00:53:21 ◼   ► I was trying to move things around, like I was trying to move literal thousands of cuts

00:53:27 ◼   ► around and it could not handle it.

00:53:30 ◼   ► I think that is one of the most interesting real world test cases for Apple doing something

00:53:36 ◼   ► quite interesting and different with those M1s, where on flat out certain kinds of tasks,

00:53:43 ◼   ► different chips can beat those M1 laptops, but on Apple optimized stuff, like nothing

00:53:49 ◼   ► can.

00:53:50 ◼   ► We've got logic, it's running on the right operating system, we know exactly what the chip is,

00:53:55 ◼   ► and Apple's really able to squeeze out a ton of, I don't know how to put these, but I think of them

00:54:01 ◼   ► as very low latency optimizations with that M1 chip. Like I'm just very aware of it when I'm

00:54:07 ◼   ► working in Final Cut as well, that the difference between my M1 computer and my iMac Pro is the iMac

00:54:13 ◼   ► Pro still wins on export speed, but just actually working in Final Cut, it's surprising how fast and

00:54:20 ◼   ► instant everything is. Yeah like the iMac Pro is faster exporting these projects

00:54:24 ◼   ► and my MacBook Pro can handle zooming around and moving stuff

00:54:29 ◼   ► around like better than any machine that I've ever used before. Yeah. And I think

00:54:33 ◼   ► it is because we are using the tools that Apple makes for its platforms. They

00:54:38 ◼   ► have teams of people where their jobs are to make sure they are refining the

00:54:42 ◼   ► experience of these applications on these machines directly. So one of the

00:54:48 ◼   ► issues that I was having about opening this project is I use Dropbox's like

00:54:53 ◼   ► feature where some things are not saved to the computer this stuff wasn't

00:54:56 ◼   ► downloaded on this machine so I am currently now downloading the logic

00:55:00 ◼   ► project so I can give you the answer of that. I have to do that because I mean honestly

00:55:06 ◼   ► partly the reason I have to do that is because of our show we save everything

00:55:09 ◼   ► every episode of Cortex is saved in Dropbox which I always thought was a

00:55:14 ◼   ► a silly thing to do until more text came around that's why I told you like don't

00:55:19 ◼   ► get rid of those you were right what you were right what it was I was so pleased

00:55:23 ◼   ► we did it because when it came to remastering the audio files and pulling

00:55:26 ◼   ► out the ads and stuff I had all the original logic project that was how I

00:55:30 ◼   ► was able to encode the old episodes in the more text feed a higher bit rate

00:55:35 ◼   ► they sound better because I now just since have just started doing that like

00:55:40 ◼   ► I encode audio at a higher bitrate than we used to.

00:55:44 ◼   ► So the Mortex episodes are actually what I refer to as remastered.

00:55:48 ◼   ► And there's some slight, very, very slight tweaks that I made to some of the timing as

00:55:51 ◼   ► I was zooming around the files, which was funny to me.

00:55:53 ◼   ► I was like, oh, I wouldn't accept that now.

00:55:55 ◼   ► Now it's fine.

00:55:57 ◼   ► So I was very pleased I had it.

00:55:58 ◼   ► But because of that, all the stuff that I have in Dropbox is larger than any SSD that

00:56:04 ◼   ► I have.

00:56:05 ◼   ► Right.

00:56:06 ◼   ► I have more than a terabyte of stuff in Dropbox.

00:56:10 ◼   ► So I can't have everything downloaded, so I use Dropbox's system where you can have

00:56:15 ◼   ► some files saved locally and some files saved in the cloud.

00:56:20 ◼   ► You can set it so some folders are just automatically synced, but I had not done that for this one.

00:56:26 ◼   ► So we're currently still downloading, so I will be able to give you that answer in a

00:56:29 ◼   ► minute.

00:56:30 ◼   ► I'm very familiar with that feature, Myke, because I just quickly double-checked.

00:56:34 ◼   ► I currently have 24.63 terabytes of data in Dropbox.

00:56:41 ◼   ► Oh, wow.

00:56:43 ◼   ► So I assume you're saving Final Cut stuff in there, right?

00:56:45 ◼   ► You must be saving video.

00:56:46 ◼   ► That's surely video.

00:56:47 ◼   ► It is video.

00:56:49 ◼   ► A lot of it is video, but the raw files to generate the animations are bigger than you

00:56:54 ◼   ► might expect that they are, even though everything is vector-based, they're still quite complicated

00:56:58 ◼   ► projects.

00:56:59 ◼   ► Yes, a lot of that is video, but this is also a side effect of, just like with Cortex,

00:57:05 ◼   ► I keep all of the raw stuff to produce as many of the videos as I can.

00:57:09 ◼   ► Some of the much older stuff, I have lost the original files somewhere along the way,

00:57:14 ◼   ► which is a little sad, but yeah, my Dropbox is huge, and there's only one machine where I can

00:57:20 ◼   ► have it all downloaded, and I have one of those giant, like, Pegasus 50 terabyte drive things to

00:57:26 ◼   ► to be able to keep it all locally in one computer.

00:57:28 ◼   ► But yeah, everywhere else when I installed Dropbox,

00:57:30 ◼   ► it gives me this warning of like,

00:57:32 ◼   ► you have 20 million files in your thing.

00:57:34 ◼   ► You cannot sync all of this.

00:57:36 ◼   ► It will not be fast.

00:57:37 ◼   ► Please select just the things you want on this computer.

00:57:40 ◼   ► I'm very glad Dropbox added that feature.

00:57:44 ◼   ► - Do you back that up as well somewhere?

00:57:46 ◼   ► Or is like the backup, the hard drive

00:57:49 ◼   ► and the source of files is Dropbox?

00:57:51 ◼   ► - The source of files is Dropbox.

00:57:53 ◼   ► It's all locally stored.

00:57:54 ◼   ► I do also have a copy of it stored in Backblaze online.

00:57:59 ◼   ► I have, like, these giant storage things are so expensive, I haven't quite pulled the trigger

00:58:04 ◼   ► on it, but I have been thinking I probably should get a second local physical copy of

00:58:12 ◼   ► all of this data.

00:58:13 ◼   ► So I think that is on my shopping list at some point to do, to have a second local physical

00:58:18 ◼   ► backup, but currently I have two online backups and the actual physical files here, so that's

00:58:24 ◼   ► the way it works.

00:58:25 ◼   ► Yeah, I have Dropbox and then I have Time Machine and then everything's in backblaze

00:58:30 ◼   ► somehow.

00:58:31 ◼   ► I just know that somehow it's there, right?

00:58:34 ◼   ► Like most of the time I'm not entirely sure how it's there, but I know it's all there,

00:58:38 ◼   ► right?

00:58:39 ◼   ► Like it gets complicated with the Dropbox stuff.

00:58:42 ◼   ► It does, and again it's very easy to like lose data and things, but I'm very vigilant

00:58:47 ◼   ► about how all of the computers in the house have Time Machine drives that they connect

00:58:51 ◼   ► to and they all are keeping a local copy of whatever the current active projects are.

00:58:58 ◼   ► So in the house I've got like six, seven time machine drives connected to various computers

00:59:03 ◼   ► that are always just running so I can make sure that whatever I happen to be working

00:59:07 ◼   ► on I always have the local copies.

00:59:09 ◼   ► So that stuff is the most important to make sure it's backed up.

00:59:13 ◼   ► But it's a delicate line with computer files of when have you crossed the line into paranoia

00:59:19 ◼   ► and when you just have a good system.

00:59:22 ◼   ► But actually do you think that for the value

00:59:24 ◼   ► of all of those raw files,

00:59:26 ◼   ► I am probably slightly under backed up

00:59:29 ◼   ► from what I should be.

00:59:30 ◼   ► I just haven't been willing to drop a huge amount of money

00:59:33 ◼   ► on another giant local storage system yet.

00:59:36 ◼   ► But I should really bite the bullet on that.

00:59:38 ◼   ► - This has been a bit of a funny episode so far

00:59:40 ◼   ► where like we're in lots of like brackets.

00:59:43 ◼   ► We keep doing this. - Yes,

00:59:44 ◼   ► I keep thinking the same thing.

00:59:45 ◼   ► - We're still talking about like the membership here,

00:59:47 ◼   ► But now somehow we've ended up in online backup as the conversation.

00:59:51 ◼   ► So coming back out a few steps.

00:59:53 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:59:53 ◼   ► I was like, have you opened your logic file yet?

00:59:55 ◼   ► It's now downloaded.

00:59:56 ◼   ► 4,218 is the number of events that we have.

01:00:01 ◼   ► That is about two to three times the size of a regular Cortex episode.

01:00:05 ◼   ► So hence why I won't let Grey or anybody near this logic project, because one

01:00:11 ◼   ► false move and everything's ruined.

01:00:14 ◼   ► Now look, Myke, I just want to badly crossfade one section.

01:00:16 ◼   ► Why won't you let me monkey around?

01:00:19 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:00:20 ◼   ► - Come on, come on, let me crossfade it, come on.

01:00:23 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:00:24 ◼   ► No, it's not happening.

01:00:26 ◼   ► So anyway, I think that this special is super fun.

01:00:28 ◼   ► I think you're gonna love it.

01:00:29 ◼   ► Go to getmoretext.com.

01:00:31 ◼   ► You can sign up right now.

01:00:32 ◼   ► Not only will you get more text,

01:00:34 ◼   ► you'll also get our wonderful special.

01:00:36 ◼   ► We will have a trailer at the end of the episode as well,

01:00:38 ◼   ► so you'll get an idea for what you'll be hearing.

01:00:40 ◼   ► - Getmoretext.com.

01:00:43 ◼   ► do some #AskCortex questions. I think I mentioned this on our last episode, but I wanted, we're

01:00:50 ◼   ► trying to do more of these. I actually would like to do Ask Cortex on pretty much every episode now,

01:00:55 ◼   ► even if we just do a couple. I always enjoy doing it and I feel like we don't do it enough

01:00:59 ◼   ► and they kind of just build up. I agree. I think we need to touch on it more as a regular segment.

01:01:04 ◼   ► It's always fun and you never know what people are going to ask, so #AskCortex. Yeah, so I also

01:01:09 ◼   ► I also just wanted to say in the show, if you want to submit a question for a future episode, you can tweet with the hashtag #AskCortex

01:01:16 ◼   ► or if you are in the Relay FM members Discord, which you also get access to by signing up at GetMoreText.com

01:01:22 ◼   ► you can use question mark ask cortex anywhere in the Discord and it will submit to the same place

01:01:27 ◼   ► One spreadsheet of truth that I have to draw from

01:01:30 ◼   ► Nice system you have there

01:01:31 ◼   ► I like it a lot

01:01:32 ◼   ► So let's do some questions, Grey

01:01:34 ◼   ► What do you like to look of here?

01:01:35 ◼   ► I like this one from Steven there that catches my attention straight away

01:01:38 ◼   ► straight away.

01:01:39 ◼   ► Ooh, interesting.

01:01:40 ◼   ► I thought I was gonna have to twist your arm for this question.

01:01:42 ◼   ► Oh yeah?

01:01:43 ◼   ► Why?

01:01:44 ◼   ► I don't know, it just feels…

01:01:45 ◼   ► Well let me ask the question and then maybe we'll find out.

01:01:47 ◼   ► You both make art that is in many elements timeless.

01:01:50 ◼   ► How much does the idea of legacy factor into the choices that you make?

01:01:55 ◼   ► So why do you…

01:01:56 ◼   ► It just felt like a very big topic.

01:01:59 ◼   ► I wasn't sure if you were interested in talking about something like this, but I'm

01:02:03 ◼   ► pleased that you are, because I think about this kind of stuff a lot.

01:02:06 ◼   ► Okay, so tell me what you think about it.

01:02:09 ◼   ► I mean...

01:02:11 ◼   ► What's your legacy, Myke?

01:02:13 ◼   ► It's difficult to talk about this kind of stuff and not seem egotistical, but I think

01:02:18 ◼   ► a lot of people like to wonder what their mark on the world is.

01:02:24 ◼   ► And I think if you make content for people, it only shines more of a spotlight on them.

01:02:31 ◼   ► So you know, stuff that we make is enjoyed by people around the world that we've never

01:02:37 ◼   ► met and will never meet.

01:02:39 ◼   ► And so you have an effect on those people.

01:02:43 ◼   ► And I often wonder if my effect will outlast me, and if it's going to, have I done enough

01:02:54 ◼   ► stuff that is good enough to warrant that?

01:02:57 ◼   ► if it does outlast me that the effect could continue. I feel like the type of

01:03:02 ◼   ► stuff that I make there is less of a chance of that than some of the content

01:03:06 ◼   ► that you make just from like a what is the content and how consumable is it

01:03:11 ◼   ► into the future. You know like the videos that you make by and large have a

01:03:16 ◼   ► more of a timelessness than most of the stuff that I make. Conversations even if

01:03:22 ◼   ► you're thinking about them being timeless, which we both do even when we're just recording

01:03:29 ◼   ► this podcast, conversations are intrinsically more linked to a moment in time than many

01:03:37 ◼   ► other media.

01:03:38 ◼   ► But I think about it.

01:03:40 ◼   ► And sometimes I think about like what my future as a person who makes things will be, and

01:03:48 ◼   ► I want to consider legacy as more of a part of that as well. Do I want to have an impact

01:03:54 ◼   ► on the world and what do I want that impact to be?

01:03:58 ◼   ► You want to lean into the legacy.

01:04:00 ◼   ► I don't know if I want to lean into it but I think about it. You know, at least I fancy

01:04:08 ◼   ► the idea of leaning into it but I don't know if I would ever actually do it. Does that

01:04:13 ◼   ► sense? So like legacy for me, creating something which has more legacy to me, I think is easier to do

01:04:21 ◼   ► as a creator if you are creating something that is fiction. I think it's easier to leave a lasting

01:04:31 ◼   ► impact in something that is not you, like you're creating something that can live on its own without

01:04:37 ◼   ► the creator ever being questioned or thought about, right? That like you know you can read a book, watch

01:04:42 ◼   ► movie and you enjoy it for what it is you don't necessarily think about the

01:04:46 ◼   ► person who came up with the idea neither in most instances do you actually really

01:04:51 ◼   ► need to you just enjoy the content for what it is hmm I think it's easier to

01:04:55 ◼   ► leave a lasting impact if you are a creator if you what you create is

01:05:00 ◼   ► fiction as a person to leave a lasting impact otherwise you would do things in

01:05:07 ◼   ► politics or in altruism or something like that right like they would be your

01:05:12 ◼   ► or paths I think to leave longer lasting impacts.

01:05:15 ◼   ► But if I'm thinking about what I can do as a creative person,

01:05:19 ◼   ► I don't know if the type of stuff that I do right now

01:05:23 ◼   ► is enough to leave an impact into the future.

01:05:27 ◼   ► But of course I would like to, right?

01:05:29 ◼   ► Okay, I think a lot of people given the opportunity,

01:05:33 ◼   ► like, "Hey, do you wanna leave a lasting impact on the world?"

01:05:36 ◼   ► And they're like, "Yeah, I would actually,

01:05:37 ◼   ► "'cause that sounds kinda nice,

01:05:39 ◼   ► "and I have enough of an ego

01:05:41 ◼   ► that I think I would enjoy that. But I think the things that I assume of like ways that I could,

01:05:45 ◼   ► I just don't know if I have it in me to make something like that, you know?

01:05:50 ◼   ► Hm. I mean, this is also the problem of if you want to try to do something like this,

01:05:58 ◼   ► you have to realize the half-life of anything that outlasts you is, right,

01:06:05 ◼   ► So when you say, "Oh, leave an impact on the world, but only for so long."

01:06:10 ◼   ► It's always interesting to play the game of how many people can you name in the

01:06:15 ◼   ► current century? Quite a lot. The last century. One one hundredth as many?

01:06:20 ◼   ► Two centuries ago. One ten thousandth as many, right? Like it's, it drops off real

01:06:26 ◼   ► fast about how many people are remembered or their works still enjoyed is a very

01:06:33 ◼   ► sharp drop off. So I think that that's also part of the like, oh, do you want to leave a legacy?

01:06:39 ◼   ► But like, what are you thinking is your timeframe here? Because ultimately, everyone is forgotten.

01:06:44 ◼   ► Well, I don't know, man. I have no idea. Right? I maybe half an hour would be fine. Like,

01:06:53 ◼   ► I really have no idea. Right? Like, I've never thought about it in those terms. You know, like,

01:06:58 ◼   ► what have you got like from somebody who made a hit song that lives for 20 years to William

01:07:04 ◼   ► Shakespeare right you've got you know what I mean you have like such a huge I don't know I've never

01:07:10 ◼   ► thought about that honestly like I've never thought about what it would be how long would

01:07:13 ◼   ► I like to leave a mark on the world yeah but just that like I mean honestly there is even just this

01:07:19 ◼   ► element of in my lifetime I'm fine right to feel like I've done something that has made enough of

01:07:26 ◼   ► of an impact that people care for as long as I'm alive.

01:07:30 ◼   ► Right.

01:07:30 ◼   ► So, so this, this is where I actually kind of wanted to direct you because I think

01:07:33 ◼   ► this is the better way to think about it.

01:07:36 ◼   ► Not thinking about legacy, but thinking about impact currently.

01:07:42 ◼   ► And I think thinking about legacy is a sort of fool's errand that you

01:07:48 ◼   ► can't really aim for directly.

01:07:51 ◼   ► And also by definition, you will never know if you were successful.

01:07:55 ◼   ► Right?

01:07:56 ◼   ► Like it is the ultimate unachievable goal because you will never know if you have achieved it.

01:08:02 ◼   ► There's no way to learn or try to adjust.

01:08:06 ◼   ► But if you do make things that impact people now in their current lives, whatever

01:08:13 ◼   ► those things are, have some kind of chance of outlasting you almost by definition.

01:08:21 ◼   ► So I think like don't think about legacy.

01:08:23 ◼   ► I feel like that's a really bad way to think about something and it puts your brain totally in the wrong way.

01:08:29 ◼   ► And instead you should think about, "Oh, have I done things that have an impact on people now that I can see and that I can measure and that I can think about and adjust?"

01:08:40 ◼   ► I think that's a much better way to frame this question.

01:08:43 ◼   ► Well, what do you think about with this stuff? Do you?

01:08:46 ◼   ► So what I think about for myself is actually going back to the product conversation before.

01:08:52 ◼   ► I think of a lot of the stuff that I make that are like the videos or the conversations that are designed to be more impactful.

01:09:02 ◼   ► I am always thinking about a younger version of myself coming across that same information.

01:09:09 ◼   ► And that is another way where you can kind of know that maybe you have an impact on someone.

01:09:17 ◼   ► a very different information landscape now than say when I was in high school praying

01:09:24 ◼   ► with all my heart for snow days. Like I just I very much remember having this strong feeling

01:09:31 ◼   ► often of "oh the world is filled with a whole bunch of bullshit and nonsensical advice

01:09:39 ◼   ► and kind of looking and trying to find information that resonated with me or trying to find people

01:09:47 ◼   ► people who thought like I did. And it was like a long period in the wilderness of not

01:09:54 ◼   ► being successful with that just because of the technology at the time. But there is a

01:09:58 ◼   ► way in which I make many of my things as something that I think, "Oh, that younger version

01:10:04 ◼   ► of me would have been really happy to find this thing." Even in the still year videos,

01:10:09 ◼   ► it's like still trying to hit a certain kind of chord, but then with the ones that

01:10:13 ◼   ► are more designed directly to try to help people, like the videos about happiness or

01:10:18 ◼   ► the videos about how not to ruin your brain with bad memes or the video about themes.

01:10:25 ◼   ► Those are designed to be for that sort of person to find and say, "Oh, I know that

01:10:30 ◼   ► this would work for you because this is the kind of thing that I know I was looking for

01:10:35 ◼   ► as well." And so I think you can have an impact on people in that way. And I also like

01:10:40 ◼   ► this question because as anyone who has watched through the streams has known, I've made a

01:10:45 ◼   ► couple of offhanded remarks about how just the past couple months have been hard for

01:10:50 ◼   ► me in a bunch of different ways. Like, the videos have stalled out and videos have been

01:10:56 ◼   ► very frustrating to try to complete, and also like the end of the pandemic and the creeping

01:11:03 ◼   ► speed of vaccines is very difficult and so it's like a bunch of things were kind of coming

01:11:07 ◼   ► together of like, "Oh, these are just a couple of frustrating months here."

01:11:11 ◼   ► But it just so happened that during this period of time, an unusually

01:11:15 ◼   ► large number of people happened to just send positive messages about,

01:11:20 ◼   ► "Oh, hey, your videos or your conversations had a big impact on my life.

01:11:24 ◼   ► And like, here's decisions that I've made based on that."

01:11:27 ◼   ► Or, you know, "Oh, I really turned around something after hearing you phrase an idea

01:11:32 ◼   ► this way and it really stuck with me."

01:11:34 ◼   ► And it's really nice to get those kinds of messages.

01:11:36 ◼   ► And I especially appreciated that the coincidences of the universe happened to line up that when I was having a rougher time

01:11:43 ◼   ► It's like, "Oh, I happened to get more of these messages."

01:11:45 ◼   ► And it was really nice just to see that and go, "Oh, okay, cool."

01:11:48 ◼   ► I'm glad to know that some of this stuff has resonated with people in a positive way.

01:11:53 ◼   ► So I don't think about it in terms of legacy after I'm gone.

01:11:58 ◼   ► I think that's pointless and doesn't make any sense.

01:12:01 ◼   ► But what I like here is the first part of the question

01:12:05 ◼   ► captures a specific thing that I do think about a lot, which is making media timeless.

01:12:14 ◼   ► And I am very convinced that it is quite hard to make media timeless.

01:12:20 ◼   ► Like, it's easier to write or create things that are in reaction to something that is happening right now.

01:12:28 ◼   ► And it's harder to try to rewrite it or talk about it in a general way.

01:12:33 ◼   ► way. But the big advantage of doing things in the general way is that it can last for

01:12:39 ◼   ► a long time. Even the dumbest example, like that snow video thing that I just made, the

01:12:45 ◼   ► very first drafts of it were contextualized of like, "Oh, my home state, like I'm

01:12:52 ◼   ► connected to this, New York, they've done this thing." And it's much harder to rewrite

01:12:58 ◼   ► it in a more general way. But also, I think it's better to do it that way if you can,

01:13:05 ◼   ► because now this is applicable to anyone who's trying to thieve snow days away from children.

01:13:11 ◼   ► Like it's not a reaction to the specific thing. I'm always really aware—I have

01:13:15 ◼   ► this pet peeve whenever I'm watching movies with my wife that I try not to mention, but

01:13:20 ◼   ► I can never help myself—which is movies that pointlessly put themselves in an exact

01:13:26 ◼   ► place on the timeline. Someone will make a reference and they'll say, "Oh, it's 2008."

01:13:31 ◼   ► I think my favorite and worst example of this that exists in any movie ever is Love Actually,

01:13:37 ◼   ► where you go through the whole movie, it doesn't matter what time it is, it's like a charming

01:13:43 ◼   ► little movie. Yes, you vaguely know it's a time before cell phones, but who cares? And then,

01:13:49 ◼   ► like, three minutes before the movie is gonna end, someone mentions that it's 2003. And I'm like,

01:13:54 ◼   ► God damn it! Like, why? Why did you do that? That is without a doubt one of the worst examples I

01:14:02 ◼   ► could think of in a movie, but so many movies do this. I just happen to watch Crazy Rich Asians,

01:14:08 ◼   ► and they do the same thing. It's like the very beginning of the movie really pointlessly

01:14:13 ◼   ► establishes exactly what year it is, and then it never comes up again in the movie. Like,

01:14:19 ◼   ► Why? It's a great movie! This is totally like a timeless fun movie, but nope!

01:14:24 ◼   ► Like, it happens in 2009 and we all know that now.

01:14:28 ◼   ► - Like, there are reasons to do it, but you have to have that reason.

01:14:32 ◼   ► - Yes, exactly. And the, like, in "Love Actually," the 2003 is just mentioned to make a joke sort of

01:14:38 ◼   ► more specifically funny. Like, there's a way that humor is funnier when it's more specific,

01:14:43 ◼   ► but it's just—it's the worst. It's the worst one, but...

01:14:46 ◼   ► So anyway, I just—I mention that because I'm just really sensitive to this in media.

01:14:50 ◼   ► When I'm watching something that I think, "Oh, this has a nice timeless quality,"

01:14:55 ◼   ► and then suddenly, k'klunk, they place it. And I feel like you do your media a disservice

01:15:02 ◼   ► when that happens, but I also totally get why it happens, because it's very easy to do,

01:15:09 ◼   ► it's very easy to not think about, and there is a way when you just say what year it is sometimes,

01:15:15 ◼   ► you can make things easier, or if you're having a conversation, if you are just

01:15:19 ◼   ► reacting to the specific thing that is happening, that's way easier, but

01:15:26 ◼   ► it's also less applicable to anyone listening in the future, which means it has less of a chance

01:15:34 ◼   ► of being able to make an impact in the future, which then gets to the answer to this question,

01:15:39 ◼   ► which is there's less of a chance that it can have any legacy at all.

01:15:42 ◼   ► I will say I do like this idea of legacy in my lifetime. That is much more

01:15:49 ◼   ► achievable to me I think with the things that I feel like I'm able to do.

01:15:54 ◼   ► And that's with like everything with the podcast, with stuff like the theme system.

01:15:57 ◼   ► Like I feel like these are things where I know I can have effect in my lifetime.

01:16:00 ◼   ► And like you, like every time I read somebody send me a message saying about

01:16:04 ◼   ► how something that I've made has affected them positively or sometimes

01:16:09 ◼   ► you'll see people on the Quotex subreddit saying things like this, right?

01:16:12 ◼   ► That like, we help them focus and they're able to get their degree or whatever and

01:16:17 ◼   ► it's always like a really heartwarming and unbelievable in all senses of the

01:16:23 ◼   ► word type of thing. It doesn't really feel possible sometimes, it's very, it's

01:16:28 ◼   ► like really interesting, like it's a very interesting feeling and I guess really

01:16:33 ◼   ► if I think about it, just having legacy in my lifetime is already like so much

01:16:38 ◼   ► of a gift anyway like what does it matter if it continues afterwards

01:16:41 ◼   ► literally stop the day I die like whatever unless I want to go and make my

01:16:46 ◼   ► you know like write a play or something but I don't really think I have that in me

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01:18:21 ◼   ► I just used Squarespace recently to create a kind of new landing page for all my different

01:18:25 ◼   ► projects.

01:18:26 ◼   ► I have had Myke Hurley.net as a website for a while and it was a blog that was just not

01:18:31 ◼   ► update very much so I just decided to turn that website into a landing page.

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01:19:00 ◼   ► Our thanks to Squarespace for their support of Cortex and Relay FM.

01:19:03 ◼   ► Lachlan asks, what devices is Myke currently commuting to the studio with?

01:19:09 ◼   ► And what bag do I carry daily?

01:19:12 ◼   ► So this is kind of interesting actually, because when we were packing up to leave

01:19:19 ◼   ► the studio yesterday, and Adina said to me, what are you taking your laptop for?

01:19:23 ◼   ► And I said, I bring it to and from the studio every single day.

01:19:29 ◼   ► And she said, "Why do you do that?"

01:19:30 ◼   ► And I said, "Well, the last year and a half

01:19:33 ◼   ► has shown me that I need to be ready

01:19:35 ◼   ► to not leave the house at any moment."

01:19:38 ◼   ► So I don't want to be bringing a computer

01:19:42 ◼   ► backwards and forwards every day,

01:19:43 ◼   ► but I consider my MacBook Pro

01:19:45 ◼   ► to be my main computer right now.

01:19:47 ◼   ► And if I need to be at home for a week,

01:19:50 ◼   ► just all of a sudden,

01:19:51 ◼   ► I want to have access to that computer.

01:19:53 ◼   ► So that's what I bring.

01:19:55 ◼   ► My laptop, my MacBook Pro, it comes with me every day.

01:19:58 ◼   ► and when I get to the studio, I plug it into the dock,

01:20:00 ◼   ► which powers the monitor that I use, and that's great.

01:20:03 ◼   ► And when I'm at home, I pretty much never use it.

01:20:05 ◼   ► Also a piece of follow-up, couch pad.

01:20:07 ◼   ► Man, that's a great idea, Gray.

01:20:09 ◼   ► I have been using my 11-inch iPad Pro now,

01:20:13 ◼   ► is again, when I'm at home,

01:20:15 ◼   ► it's pretty much the only device that I use now.

01:20:18 ◼   ► - It still horrifies me to think

01:20:19 ◼   ► that you were sitting on the couch with your phone.

01:20:21 ◼   ► So I'm glad-- - Not anymore.

01:20:22 ◼   ► - Yeah, couch pad, best pad.

01:20:24 ◼   ► I'm glad you've done this.

01:20:25 ◼   ► - So you know, I'm reading news on it,

01:20:27 ◼   ► I'm watching videos on it, I'm social media and messaging

01:20:30 ◼   ► and I'm doing some very light work tasks and stuff,

01:20:34 ◼   ► but I'm doing those with the 11 inch iPad Pro now

01:20:37 ◼   ► instead of the phone because I'm a fool for some reason.

01:20:40 ◼   ► I don't think I broke out of the,

01:20:41 ◼   ► like this is my work device mode.

01:20:44 ◼   ► I'm just always thinking about it as the work device,

01:20:46 ◼   ► but yeah, it can be my everything computer at home

01:20:49 ◼   ► rather than my iPhone, which is what I was using.

01:20:52 ◼   ► So when I'm at home, I never really use the laptop,

01:20:54 ◼   ► but I feel like I have to bring it home

01:20:57 ◼   ► in case I can't come to the studio

01:20:59 ◼   ► for a few days or whatever.

01:21:01 ◼   ► And so that's just like become an important thing for me.

01:21:04 ◼   ► Eventually my plan is to not do that,

01:21:06 ◼   ► but I'm not there yet, right?

01:21:08 ◼   ► But I am still using, I mentioned this bag a long time ago.

01:21:12 ◼   ► It's a Tokyo tote pack from Bellroy.

01:21:15 ◼   ► I love this bag.

01:21:16 ◼   ► - Looks very nice.

01:21:17 ◼   ► - What I love about this bag is that it's got just enough

01:21:21 ◼   ► like organizational stuff in it.

01:21:23 ◼   ► But my main thing that I love about it is it is both a backpack and a tote bag.

01:21:28 ◼   ► Which I just find really comfortable because sometimes I don't have a lot in there and I can just carry it like a tote bag.

01:21:34 ◼   ► But then sometimes I put it on my back.

01:21:36 ◼   ► You know, I like to walk into the studio and it's warm and I don't want my backpack on my back because it's warm.

01:21:41 ◼   ► Yeah, your back gets all sweaty and gross.

01:21:42 ◼   ► So I just take it off my back.

01:21:43 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:21:43 ◼   ► And just carry it like a tote bag.

01:21:45 ◼   ► I really love this bag.

01:21:48 ◼   ► I'm very pleased that I found it.

01:21:50 ◼   ► And also, the other thing that I bring to and from the studio every day,

01:21:55 ◼   ► I have a pen case, a NotCo Sinclair pen case with a few pens in it,

01:22:00 ◼   ► and I put my journal and a subtle notebook.

01:22:03 ◼   ► They're in my bag all the time.

01:22:04 ◼   ► And similarly, they always go to and from,

01:22:07 ◼   ► because if I have to be at home for a bit,

01:22:09 ◼   ► I want to have access to the notebook and journal that I'm using right now.

01:22:12 ◼   ► But if I'm at the studio, then I use them while I'm here.

01:22:15 ◼   ► So they're the things I have every day.

01:22:17 ◼   ► And then depending on what I'm doing,

01:22:19 ◼   ► you know, like I might bring something to the studio or take something home.

01:22:23 ◼   ► Like I actually imagine that even at the time when I'm leaving my computer here,

01:22:27 ◼   ► I will still bring my bag to and from work every day.

01:22:30 ◼   ► Cause sometimes I'm bringing like lunch or whatever, you know,

01:22:33 ◼   ► like that kind of stuff from home.

01:22:35 ◼   ► But I would prefer to not be carrying a computer backwards and forwards every

01:22:39 ◼   ► day, but I'm not yet at the phase where I'm comfortable with that.

01:22:44 ◼   ► It does look, it does look very nice.

01:22:47 ◼   ► I just try to think of a way to describe it.

01:22:49 ◼   ► It's a bit like we talk about the wheel of email always turns and there's

01:22:54 ◼   ► something like this with backpacks.

01:22:55 ◼   ► It's it's finding the best backpack is an eternal experience that never ends

01:23:01 ◼   ► because as you're always trying to balance all of these different aspects

01:23:05 ◼   ► of how much stuff that you always want to overstuff the backpack or it's too

01:23:10 ◼   ► heavy or it's, you know, it's too light, but then it doesn't carry enough stuff.

01:23:13 ◼   ► It's, I'm never fully happy with any of the backpacks that I have, but it's because it's a situation where you as a human irrationally want everything.

01:23:24 ◼   ► Well, here's what helped me. I decided I wasn't going to have just one bag.

01:23:28 ◼   ► This is my commuting to and from the studio bag.

01:23:33 ◼   ► Yeah, I can see that it really makes sense for that.

01:23:35 ◼   ► When I travel, I'm not going to use this bag. I will go back to probably the Peak Design backpack, just the last one that I used.

01:23:42 ◼   ► because that's when I do want to fit loads of stuff in a bag

01:23:46 ◼   ► because I'm going to be away for a bit.

01:23:47 ◼   ► But this, I wouldn't be able to get everything

01:23:50 ◼   ► I would want in here if I was traveling internationally.

01:23:53 ◼   ► It's just not going to work for me.

01:23:55 ◼   ► It's not big enough.

01:23:56 ◼   ► But for commuting on the train every day,

01:23:58 ◼   ► I don't want a big bag

01:23:59 ◼   ► because I will put too much stuff in it

01:24:01 ◼   ► and it will be too heavy.

01:24:02 ◼   ► But this isn't.

01:24:03 ◼   ► It's like it's got two water bottle pockets in it.

01:24:05 ◼   ► You know, I put an umbrella in one

01:24:06 ◼   ► because I live in London, right?

01:24:08 ◼   ► Like so, it's like all these little things like perfect.

01:24:10 ◼   ► This is exactly what I need it to be.

01:24:12 ◼   ► I've got an AirTag on it now, because that's a thing.

01:24:14 ◼   ► - Oh, right, yes.

01:24:15 ◼   ► - AirTags is just like a funny little product.

01:24:17 ◼   ► 'Cause it's like, I don't know if I've ever bought

01:24:19 ◼   ► like a piece of technology where,

01:24:21 ◼   ► I hope to never actually use it

01:24:23 ◼   ► the way it's supposed to be, like what it's for.

01:24:25 ◼   ► Because to really get the impact out of that product,

01:24:27 ◼   ► I have had to have lost something.

01:24:29 ◼   ► - Yeah, I don't know, our AirTags just arrived today,

01:24:31 ◼   ► so I haven't had a chance to play around with it.

01:24:33 ◼   ► But I've used the tile tracker on my keys,

01:24:36 ◼   ► and that is one of those things that I thought,

01:24:39 ◼   ► I put it on as a lark,

01:24:41 ◼   ► and then immediately realized,

01:24:42 ◼   ► oh, this is a totally necessary part of my life.

01:24:45 ◼   ► In the same way that once you have an Apple Watch

01:24:46 ◼   ► that can ping your phone, your brain goes,

01:24:49 ◼   ► oh great, I never need to remember where my phone is anymore

01:24:51 ◼   ► and you just ping it.

01:24:52 ◼   ► - So I never have this, I know where my keys are, right?

01:24:54 ◼   ► They're either in my pocket or they're in the dish at home.

01:24:56 ◼   ► Like I have no problem with this.

01:24:58 ◼   ► But if you have got value out,

01:25:00 ◼   ► you wait until you try this thing,

01:25:02 ◼   ► because with your iPhone and with the AirTag,

01:25:06 ◼   ► it uses the U1 chip, so it finally has a use.

01:25:09 ◼   ► and you can hold your phone up and it points with an arrow

01:25:13 ◼   ► where your keys are.

01:25:15 ◼   ► It has an arrow like turn by turn directions

01:25:17 ◼   ► and it's live updating.

01:25:19 ◼   ► And so you can play hot and cold with your keys.

01:25:21 ◼   ► You're gonna have a great time.

01:25:22 ◼   ► - Here's the thing.

01:25:23 ◼   ► Yes, I have a place where the keys go.

01:25:25 ◼   ► Like there's, everyone should have this of,

01:25:27 ◼   ► when you come inside, there's a place that the keys go

01:25:29 ◼   ► and they always go there and just make your life simple

01:25:31 ◼   ► and just make a decision about whatever that is.

01:25:34 ◼   ► And my keys are always there,

01:25:37 ◼   ► But there's just the way the universe works is somehow whenever I'm really in a hurry,

01:25:46 ◼   ► that's when the keys are not there and like, oh, they did get left in my jeans pockets,

01:25:51 ◼   ► which then went into the laundry pile and I just couldn't find them, right?

01:25:54 ◼   ► There's a way in which the universe has, you know, like, it's like a trickster God, right?

01:26:00 ◼   ► He's just waiting.

01:26:02 ◼   ► Low key.

01:26:03 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:26:04 ◼   ► Low key, it's the keys.

01:26:05 ◼   ► That's exactly right.

01:26:06 ◼   ► That's what it means.

01:26:07 ◼   ► like "oh I know tomorrow he's really gonna need those keys let me just take them off the hook and

01:26:11 ◼   ► put them in his pocket and put it in the laundry"

01:26:13 ◼   ► Did you get them engraved the air tags?

01:26:15 ◼   ► Yeah I figured that that was a necessary feature to get them engraved

01:26:18 ◼   ► Good it really is they look terrible without the engraving I think it's so plain I like it

01:26:23 ◼   ► I got one with my initials on it I got the nice little brown key ring I think it's like a very

01:26:27 ◼   ► handsome key ring and also do you remember how the iPod Nanos used to get all beat up like all

01:26:33 ◼   ► all scuffed. That's what happens to these and I actually really like that look.

01:26:37 ◼   ► Because it's just polished aluminium right on the back so it just gets scratched up to high heaven.

01:26:44 ◼   ► And I just think it looks very nice like I actually kind of like the aesthetic. It feels nostalgic for me.

01:26:49 ◼   ► I literally haven't even touched them. My wife just happened to be opening the box as I was coming in to record the Cortex podcast so I saw them briefly.

01:26:55 ◼   ► But I did think they seem bigger. This is one of the rare times where I thought I wish Apple didn't go with a replaceable battery and had some

01:27:03 ◼   ► weird wireless charging thing like please. They just seem like they're a little too

01:27:08 ◼   ► big and annoying but I don't know. Do you disagree with me on that? Why are you saying

01:27:13 ◼   ► oh my god?

01:27:14 ◼   ► Because if they didn't do the replaceable battery it was gonna cost like $30 a year

01:27:20 ◼   ► or whatever for these things. I'll say as well I wondered if they were maybe a bit too

01:27:24 ◼   ► big but I actually really like the size on my key ring. It's just nice and easy to

01:27:29 ◼   ► grab. I'm sending you an iMessage picture now so you can see just how dinged up mine

01:27:33 ◼   ► is already. I think it looks fantastic. I love the look of it.

01:27:37 ◼   ► But that is very dinged up. But how long have you had this? Like a week?

01:27:40 ◼   ► A couple of weeks. I mean, my keys are constantly smashing into

01:27:45 ◼   ► this thing, right? Like that's why this is happening. Because the thing that is touching

01:27:49 ◼   ► them is sharp pieces of metal. Right, of course. Okay.

01:27:53 ◼   ► But I just think it looks really cool. Okay, alright. Well, I'll see. Let's close

01:27:57 ◼   ► this bracket and get back to one last Ask Cortex.

01:28:01 ◼   ► Which one?

01:28:02 ◼   ► I'll just do a quick update here. Michael has asked about how I gave up breakfast and

01:28:08 ◼   ► then noted that many episodes ago I mentioned that I was also conducting a war on lunch

01:28:13 ◼   ► and hey, how's that going? The answer is I completely lost the war on lunch and totally

01:28:19 ◼   ► failed at the time that I was trying to do it, but I am once again taking on the war

01:28:25 ◼   ► on lunch like I have not I have not completely given up this project I put it aside for several

01:28:31 ◼   ► months and it has been reinvigorated in the last week to make an attempt to get rid of

01:28:38 ◼   ► lunch so so far it's going better than last time I suspect this might be like how it went

01:28:44 ◼   ► with the war on breakfast where it took me a couple of goes to really make it work and

01:28:49 ◼   ► so now I'm trying take two on the war on lunch so I'll keep you posted.

01:28:54 ◼   ► I actually just want to reference one last question before we finish today, which is

01:28:58 ◼   ► Quentin's question, which is, "Does it feel like it's been more than five years already?"

01:29:02 ◼   ► which is, I assume, in reference to how long we've been recording this show.

01:29:05 ◼   ► I merely want to mention this because between now and our next episode, we've been recording

01:29:09 ◼   ► this show for six years.

01:29:10 ◼   ► Don't tell me that, Myke.

01:29:11 ◼   ► Don't tell me that.

01:29:12 ◼   ► I just wanted to let you know.

01:29:15 ◼   ► Thanks.

01:29:16 ◼   ► Get more text dot com!

01:29:17 ◼   ► Oh yeah, don't forget!

01:29:20 ◼   ► What was the line?

01:29:21 ◼   ► I forgot.

01:29:22 ◼   ► All of this and more techs? Was that it?

01:29:24 ◼   ► All of this and more techs.

01:29:26 ◼   ► At get more techs dot com.

01:29:28 ◼   ► Play the trailer! Quite on set.

01:29:30 ◼   ► Our story begins with three mild-mannered podcasters heading out for a beverage at the local tavern.

01:29:41 ◼   ► Little do these three know that they are not about to enter the familiar doors of the old badger and thistle, but are about to be whisked across time and space.

01:29:49 ◼   ► and space.

01:29:50 ◼   ► Probably going to need to have some ID if you're looking to get far in this world.

01:29:56 ◼   ► Spit, my friends, they're without proper identification, you know.

01:30:01 ◼   ► Where can I help them get some ID?

01:30:03 ◼   ► Sounds like you need to go to the Department of Misplaced Persons.

01:30:09 ◼   ► So I'm going to apply the Newton effect, my special schtick, and I'm going to try to make

01:30:14 ◼   ► the infinity of this building drop away to something that would be actually in a building.

01:30:20 ◼   ► All right, suddenly it is like an earthquake, a great trembling, all the rats look up and

01:30:27 ◼   ► giant kind of steel girders erupt from the ground. The ceiling seems to kind of lower as the girders

01:30:34 ◼   ► rise to meet it. From the horizon, walls start to close in, but it's like a tsunami of architecture.

01:30:43 ◼   ► Wait a second everyone, Jason just changed the freaking world!

01:30:47 ◼   ► Like the whole world rotated around us.

01:30:51 ◼   ► Obviously this is some kind of simulation that we're living in and/or Jason is a god.

01:30:57 ◼   ► Look we're not getting anywhere without our phones so I'm gonna happily insert my phone

01:31:04 ◼   ► into the mysterious space lot.

01:31:06 ◼   ► You insert your phone into the mysterious space lot and it makes some sounds kind of

01:31:10 ◼   ► of like a 1960s computer and then a panel on the front of the dispensing

01:31:15 ◼   ► machine opens up and a little display prompts you to put your hand into that

01:31:20 ◼   ► slot. Sure, you know what, we're not getting anywhere without phones so yes I

01:31:25 ◼   ► will do whatever the machine wants. A little shield drops down with a little

01:31:29 ◼   ► circle kind of holding your wrist in place and then there's a sound kind of

01:31:33 ◼   ► like a giant stapler. Your hand is warm, your phone seems to be now somewhat

01:31:39 ◼   ► embedded in your hand. Can you just remind the listeners what the John Doe effect does?

01:31:47 ◼   ► It says that I have one of those faces where people constantly think they recognize me as

01:31:53 ◼   ► an old coworker or long lost cousin childhood friend etc. You may also be mistaken for someone

01:31:59 ◼   ► who owes money/is wanted dead or alive etc. Hey Calvin! It's me!

01:32:07 ◼   ► Oh, right, hi!

01:32:09 ◼   ► The large orangutan person kind of bolts up from the bench, sending the bench kind of

01:32:13 ◼   ► shifting back. A large orangutan person has grabbed both of your arms and is attempting to

01:32:20 ◼   ► pull them off of your body. Let's just make a quick strength check here.

01:32:24 ◼   ► I rolled a six, so six plus four is ten, which is not enough.

01:32:28 ◼   ► I am going to tell you that you are going to take three points of damage. Your arm is

01:32:33 ◼   ► really badly hurt and you are not feeling great. The horrible orangutan thing is kind of growling in your face.

01:32:41 ◼   ► You are drawing the attention of several rats when the seam on your voluminous pocket gives out and cheese

01:32:50 ◼   ► starts pouring out of the hole in your jumpsuit onto the floor of the office.

01:32:55 ◼   ► Several rats are giving you scandalous looks, Jason.

01:32:59 ◼   ► I pretend like nothing has happened and continue moving toward the mailroom, wheeling my bucket.

01:33:06 ◼   ► Will our heroes ever get the documents they need to return to their normal lives?

01:33:11 ◼   ► Will Jason stop tormenting space rats?

01:33:13 ◼   ► Will Grey's arm heal?

01:33:15 ◼   ► Or do worse things lie ahead for him?

01:33:17 ◼   ► Find out by going to getmortax.com and sign up today.

01:33:20 ◼   ► [MUSIC PLAYING]

01:33:24 ◼   ► [MUSIC PLAYING]

01:33:27 ◼   ► [MUSIC PLAYING]

01:33:30 ◼   ► (upbeat music)

01:33:33 ◼   ► [BLANK_AUDIO]