Cortex

00:00:00 ◼   ► I come to the podcast today, Myke, a broken man.

00:00:04 ◼   ► Physically broken.

00:00:06 ◼   ► What'd you... you got a skiing accident or something?

00:00:10 ◼   ► How physically broken is this physically broken?

00:00:13 ◼   ► Is it like metaphorically physically broken?

00:00:16 ◼   ► Or did you actually break a bone?

00:00:18 ◼   ► I don't think so. I don't think... it can't be metaphorically physically broken.

00:00:22 ◼   ► Well, we're gonna find out, aren't we?

00:00:24 ◼   ► That's ridiculous.

00:00:26 ◼   ► That's ridiculous that you could even think that someone could start a story where they're going to be metaphorically, physically broken.

00:00:35 ◼   ► That's absurd.

00:00:36 ◼   ► Okay, so what did you break?

00:00:37 ◼   ► Okay, nothing's broken.

00:00:39 ◼   ► But I'm still broken.

00:00:44 ◼   ► I'm still a broken man.

00:00:46 ◼   ► Metaphorically.

00:00:47 ◼   ► Through entirely my own fault.

00:00:48 ◼   ► Okay.

00:00:49 ◼   ► And I feel like I want to impart a lesson for the listeners that I wish I myself had followed.

00:00:55 ◼   ► And it's, it's when you're in a good routine, don't, don't let that fall apart.

00:01:05 ◼   ► It's so easy.

00:01:06 ◼   ► It's so easy to let it fall apart and you will regret it.

00:01:11 ◼   ► And what, what happened to me was, I don't know, maybe like a year ago, I

00:01:18 ◼   ► I had this massage therapist/physiotherapist that I was working with for RSI issues.

00:01:26 ◼   ► And she was great.

00:01:28 ◼   ► And she helped keep away all of the various problems that we have discussed many times on the show.

00:01:34 ◼   ► And then she moved to the other side of the city and I was like, "That's too far. I'm not gonna do that."

00:01:42 ◼   ► So, what did I do?

00:01:44 ◼   ► What did I do, Myke?

00:01:45 ◼   ► Instead of immediately searching out a replacement

00:01:48 ◼   ► for this person I visited regularly every other week,

00:01:51 ◼   ► what did I do? Nothing.

00:01:54 ◼   ► I just was like, "Oh, I feel fine.

00:01:56 ◼   ► I don't need to find another person to work with

00:01:59 ◼   ► because I feel great."

00:02:01 ◼   ► Now, of course, the reason I felt great

00:02:05 ◼   ► is because I was working with someone.

00:02:06 ◼   ► (LAUGHS)

00:02:08 ◼   ► Right? But it's like, it's so easy to just let a thing slide.

00:02:13 ◼   ► Whoever needs to finish a course of antibiotics, am I right?

00:02:16 ◼   ► Yes, that's exactly it. Like, "Oh, I feel so good. I don't need these pills anymore."

00:02:22 ◼   ► It's like, "Oh, no, but you do. You do. And particularly with antibiotics, civilization needs you to finish those pills as well."

00:02:30 ◼   ► It's not just for you. It's for everyone.

00:02:33 ◼   ► No more plague, please. Thank you.

00:02:35 ◼   ► Thank you.

00:02:36 ◼   ► And so basically here begins the counter for when is the problem.

00:02:41 ◼   ► Like the universe begins a countdown timer for like, well, you're going to rue this day.

00:02:47 ◼   ► And sure enough, we eventually had the perfect storm of interactions, which was, I was working

00:02:55 ◼   ► a lot over the two weeks where I was at home, working on the videos that just came out.

00:03:02 ◼   ► And the perfect storm was, "Oh, hey, you know what I'm gonna do?

00:03:06 ◼   ► You know what's a great idea, Myke?

00:03:08 ◼   ► Why don't I animate one of these videos myself?

00:03:11 ◼   ► I haven't done any hands-on animation in a long time.

00:03:15 ◼   ► I feel like, you know, ooh, let me just crack my bones here.

00:03:19 ◼   ► Let me get into this a little bit."

00:03:21 ◼   ► "Time to get back to the craft.

00:03:22 ◼   ► I've been away from my roots."

00:03:24 ◼   ► "Yeah, I've been away from my roots for so long.

00:03:27 ◼   ► Why have I been away?

00:03:28 ◼   ► Oh, that's right, because crippling pain drove me away.

00:03:31 ◼   ► like that is long forgotten now.

00:03:34 ◼   ► And I thought like, oh, this is a great idea.

00:03:36 ◼   ► Oh, you know what's an even better idea?

00:03:38 ◼   ► Let me not use the tools that I am familiar with

00:03:43 ◼   ► for producing animation.

00:03:44 ◼   ► I'm going to start from scratch.

00:03:47 ◼   ► And this is a great time at the 11th freaking hour

00:03:52 ◼   ► to learn Motion 5, just like a whole new animation paradigm

00:03:57 ◼   ► that I basically have no real experience with.

00:03:59 ◼   ► - What is, who are you?

00:03:59 ◼   ► Who are you? - Let me use this

00:04:00 ◼   ► to produce a video.

00:04:01 ◼   ► - What is this person that you're describing?

00:04:03 ◼   ► Are we talking about the metaphorical person again?

00:04:06 ◼   ► - No, this-- - What happened to you?

00:04:08 ◼   ► I feel like you need to listen to our show more.

00:04:11 ◼   ► - Well, this is why I'm telling this story, right?

00:04:14 ◼   ► Because-- - Oh, this is just for you.

00:04:16 ◼   ► (laughs)

00:04:17 ◼   ► - Like, this is for me to listen to

00:04:20 ◼   ► when I'm going over your edit of the show.

00:04:22 ◼   ► And I do think,

00:04:24 ◼   ► I do think it's an amazing example of how,

00:04:29 ◼   ► I don't know, like I say this all the time

00:04:30 ◼   ► in various different ways, but like,

00:04:31 ◼   ► you can't trust yourself and your own brain.

00:04:34 ◼   ► Like your own brain is both like a cunning adversary

00:04:39 ◼   ► at times, and also just the dumbest idiot

00:04:43 ◼   ► you have to live with.

00:04:44 ◼   ► And this is one of these cases where it's like,

00:04:48 ◼   ► I think because I had been, now at this point,

00:04:51 ◼   ► close to three weeks of like totally isolated,

00:04:55 ◼   ► hadn't left my house just working 100% on this project.

00:04:59 ◼   ► And I think I just like lost all perspective.

00:05:03 ◼   ► And yeah, so like this is a perfect storm for thinking,

00:05:07 ◼   ► what a great idea.

00:05:09 ◼   ► I'm gonna learn a brand new animation tool

00:05:11 ◼   ► to use to animate the footnote to the main video,

00:05:15 ◼   ► because I didn't want to bother the animator

00:05:18 ◼   ► with having to do this thing.

00:05:19 ◼   ► And it's like, okay, well, we can work in parallel

00:05:21 ◼   ► and this will be great.

00:05:22 ◼   ► I'll have like, you know, one and a half kind of videos out on the day because it was more

00:05:27 ◼   ► than just like a normal little footnote that just adds some point.

00:05:31 ◼   ► And so then then it was like, oh, this this is like three years ago, Gray, where I'm staying

00:05:38 ◼   ► up late at night and rushing in the morning to try to finish up the the we can describe

00:05:44 ◼   ► them as barely competent animations for the footnote video that I put up.

00:05:48 ◼   ► And it's like, oh, you know what happens when you're rushing?

00:05:51 ◼   ► When you're rushing, you don't want to swap hands like you would do if you were producing

00:05:56 ◼   ► a piece of work over a long period of time so that you can maintain yourself.

00:06:00 ◼   ► No!

00:06:01 ◼   ► I'm gonna use my right hand entirely.

00:06:03 ◼   ► Oh, and of course, I don't want to switch to the pen either from my mouse because the

00:06:07 ◼   ► pen's a little bit slower and I'm under the gun for producing this.

00:06:11 ◼   ► So I was a man filled with regrets.

00:06:16 ◼   ► with like all of the musculature problems in my arms that I had had like ages ago that

00:06:21 ◼   ► I'd mostly gone away from. And then of course, didn't seek out help immediately. And then

00:06:26 ◼   ► it starts to grow. You know, it's the thing where you're shifting your weight, you're

00:06:30 ◼   ► moving a little strangely because one side of you is broken. And it all culminated this

00:06:37 ◼   ► morning with my wife looking at the twisted creature that I had become and decided, she's

00:06:44 ◼   ► like, I'm just sending you, I'm sending you to a place.

00:06:47 ◼   ► And she sent me off and I had an encounter with a sturdy middle-aged Eastern

00:06:57 ◼   ► European woman named Olga, who took one look at me and she said, not good.

00:07:05 ◼   ► This is not good.

00:07:07 ◼   ► And sorted me out in an incredibly painful way.

00:07:12 ◼   ► But it was what I deserved after just an incredible series of dumb decisions.

00:07:19 ◼   ► Do these things help you, these types of massages?

00:07:22 ◼   ► Like, I feel like they've never helped me, like, for my RSI problems.

00:07:25 ◼   ► Is there a specific type of, like, therapy that you're looking for?

00:07:31 ◼   ► Okay, yeah.

00:07:31 ◼   ► So this is the thing, like, to anybody out there, like, there's a couple of different

00:07:36 ◼   ► things that you're trying to look for, right?

00:07:39 ◼   ► And so there's RSI problems that are like nerve problems,

00:07:43 ◼   ► which are the most terrifying kind of problem to have.

00:07:46 ◼   ► And that's the kind that can manifest where like,

00:07:49 ◼   ► you just like touching a surface can cause pain in your hand

00:07:53 ◼   ► or like moving your arm in a certain way

00:07:56 ◼   ► causes like nerve problems.

00:07:58 ◼   ► And that's like a real pure RSI problem.

00:08:01 ◼   ► And I, in my experience, and I think in your experience,

00:08:07 ◼   ► There's basically nothing that you can do to mitigate that except just to wait.

00:08:12 ◼   ► Like to just wait.

00:08:13 ◼   ► Yeah, it's wait, right?

00:08:15 ◼   ► Like I hurt myself in November for a similar reason of like, I knew that holding the Switch

00:08:20 ◼   ► and playing it over long periods of time was a problem, but like, I really want to play

00:08:25 ◼   ► Pokémon this way instead of using the other controller.

00:08:28 ◼   ► So like, I'm just, if I just support it on my leg at the same time, it'd be fine.

00:08:33 ◼   ► Wait, what is the position you were trying to do with the Switch?

00:08:36 ◼   ► I don't understand.

00:08:37 ◼   ► of support the weight a little bit, like in handheld mode.

00:08:40 ◼   ► This is stupid.

00:08:42 ◼   ► It was handheld mode.

00:08:43 ◼   ► Handheld mode was the problem, right?

00:08:45 ◼   ► I can play any other way except holding the console.

00:08:48 ◼   ► Yeah, it's just too heavy.

00:08:49 ◼   ► You can't do that for any period of time.

00:08:52 ◼   ► Well, at least some people can, but my weak wrists cannot.

00:08:56 ◼   ► [Laughter]

00:08:57 ◼   ► So that one incident, that was like four or five months.

00:09:02 ◼   ► It took me to get back to a normal level of uncomfortableness.

00:09:08 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:09:09 ◼   ► And that, like, this is the, this is like the top tier scary kind of RSI that we've talked about on the show.

00:09:16 ◼   ► Because it is like, it's very, very frightening.

00:09:20 ◼   ► So what I'm talking about here would not help that very much at all.

00:09:26 ◼   ► But what I sometimes get is these like, musculature problems that are like precursors

00:09:32 ◼   ► to the next level of it's gonna be really scary.

00:09:35 ◼   ► - Right, okay, so you notice some trends that,

00:09:38 ◼   ► like because I haven't been dealing with this for very long,

00:09:40 ◼   ► that maybe I could find, but haven't got to yet.

00:09:45 ◼   ► - I think if you listen really closely

00:09:48 ◼   ► to the way your body is under certain circumstances,

00:09:50 ◼   ► you can start to notice this kind of stuff.

00:09:54 ◼   ► And it is useful, but this musculature problem

00:09:58 ◼   ► is like a precursor for me,

00:10:00 ◼   ► and is something that I weirdly almost always

00:10:04 ◼   ► like dumbly try to push through.

00:10:07 ◼   ► Like, ah, no, it's fine, I'm gonna keep going

00:10:09 ◼   ► because it doesn't start painful like RSI does.

00:10:13 ◼   ► It just grows to be like crippling.

00:10:15 ◼   ► But so that kind of thing, like what you're looking for

00:10:20 ◼   ► is it's very hard to find, but you're looking for someone

00:10:24 ◼   ► who's not like giving a massage like you see

00:10:27 ◼   ► in an advertisement for a vacation in Hawaii, right, where there's like, "Oh, it's a beautiful

00:10:32 ◼   ► setting and there's someone on the beach."

00:10:34 ◼   ► Like, that's not what you're looking for and that's totally unhelpful.

00:10:36 ◼   ► So this is the type of massage that would never be preceded by the word "couples."

00:10:41 ◼   ► Yes, correct.

00:10:42 ◼   ► It would never be preceded by the words "couples."

00:10:45 ◼   ► Because nobody needs to see their partner in these types of situations.

00:10:50 ◼   ► Yeah, yeah.

00:10:52 ◼   ► It's the kind of massage where you're thinking like, "Would it be inappropriate for me to

00:10:56 ◼   ► to cry in front of this woman, right?

00:10:58 ◼   ► Like it's, right?

00:11:00 ◼   ► It's half physiotherapy and half like deep tissue

00:11:05 ◼   ► pushing around, but yeah.

00:11:08 ◼   ► Anyway, I got like, this morning,

00:11:11 ◼   ► I got this incredibly disapproving breakdown

00:11:15 ◼   ► from this woman who was just like,

00:11:17 ◼   ► "Your back is terrible."

00:11:19 ◼   ► This was a really bad situation.

00:11:22 ◼   ► And she's straight upset.

00:11:24 ◼   ► She's like, "Tomorrow you will have a difficult time

00:11:26 ◼   ► moving and you should see me again next week." And I'm like, "Okay, I think I need to."

00:11:29 ◼   ► It's good to know all of that in advance. Because sometimes I've left these situations

00:11:35 ◼   ► and they're like, "All right, great. So see you next week." And it's like, "Oh, but I

00:11:38 ◼   ► can't move until then, right? That's the thought you didn't tell me."

00:11:43 ◼   ► But yeah, so even if you run a podcast where you talk about RSI and have routine discussions

00:11:51 ◼   ► about trying to be intentional with your decisions and thoughtful about what you do and maintain

00:11:56 ◼   ► a career over a long period of time and how to manage and delegate work, under the right

00:12:02 ◼   ► circumstances you too can do the dumbest thing imaginable and pay severely for it.

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00:14:26 ◼   ► I would like to return to reviewing app icons as it seems to have been a weekly segment

00:14:32 ◼   ► currently.

00:14:33 ◼   ► Oh, okay. Who is in the target today, Myke?

00:14:34 ◼   ► I didn't particularly want to have to keep coming back to this well, but...

00:14:39 ◼   ► Okay.

00:14:40 ◼   ► Microsoft gave me an opportunity here which I feel like I just couldn't pass up.

00:14:47 ◼   ► So as you know I have been using Outlook recently to manage the Cortex brand email that people

00:14:52 ◼   ► have been sending in.

00:14:54 ◼   ► So Microsoft decided to change Outlook's icon.

00:14:58 ◼   ► So I want to provide to you a before and after just so you can, because I know you won't

00:15:03 ◼   ► use an Outlook, and I just want you to get the full glory of what they've done here.

00:15:07 ◼   ► So I've given you some links here,

00:15:09 ◼   ► so these will also be in our show notes.

00:15:11 ◼   ► Click the before and you take a look.

00:15:13 ◼   ► - All right, so I've clicked the before.

00:15:14 ◼   ► - It has all the hallmarks of an email app.

00:15:16 ◼   ► It's blue and there's an envelope.

00:15:17 ◼   ► - Right, yes, I was gonna say, as we discussed previously,

00:15:20 ◼   ► for big corporations, you have two options,

00:15:22 ◼   ► which is the white and primary colors, or all blue,

00:15:27 ◼   ► and Microsoft has gone for all blue with Outlook.

00:15:31 ◼   ► - And then they have that weird door-looking shape

00:15:35 ◼   ► with the letter O on it, but that's very normal

00:15:37 ◼   ► for Microsoft Design Language

00:15:39 ◼   ► across their Office 365 suite of products.

00:15:42 ◼   ► - I was gonna say, is that a piece of paper?

00:15:43 ◼   ► Is that what that's supposed to be?

00:15:44 ◼   ► Is that a piece of paper you're gonna put in the envelope?

00:15:46 ◼   ► - I don't know what they're supposed to be, honestly,

00:15:49 ◼   ► but that is the kind of design aesthetic

00:15:54 ◼   ► that Microsoft's been going for for a while

00:15:56 ◼   ► with their icons on all platforms.

00:15:58 ◼   ► - Do they have one of those with an E for Excel?

00:16:01 ◼   ► - Yeah. - Okay.

00:16:02 ◼   ► - Yeah, they do.

00:16:03 ◼   ► - I guess it's a spreadsheet then.

00:16:04 ◼   ► What are the four? It's Word, Excel, PowerPoint.

00:16:07 ◼   ► What's the other one? Access? Is that what the other one is?

00:16:10 ◼   ► Like, do they all have the little rectangle like this with a letter on it?

00:16:14 ◼   ► - Wait, isn't it Outlook? Isn't Outlook the fourth one?

00:16:17 ◼   ► Yeah, Outlook, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and then you're right, Access.

00:16:21 ◼   ► But I don't know what that is. Access!

00:16:23 ◼   ► - It's a database program. - OK.

00:16:24 ◼   ► - Which Excel completely isn't. Nobody uses Excel like a database.

00:16:29 ◼   ► - The icon should have told me it was a database because it's a stack of circles.

00:16:34 ◼   ► which denotes database.

00:16:36 ◼   ► But they all have this, right?

00:16:37 ◼   ► They have like this letter on like a door kind of thing.

00:16:42 ◼   ► It's like opening to Outlook's an envelope,

00:16:45 ◼   ► Word is a piece of paper with some lines on it,

00:16:48 ◼   ► PowerPoint is a pie chart, that kind of thing, right?

00:16:51 ◼   ► - Oh, I see.

00:16:52 ◼   ► Okay, it's a door revealing the app.

00:16:54 ◼   ► Very clever Microsoft. - That's what I think it is.

00:16:56 ◼   ► - Very clever.

00:16:57 ◼   ► I thought it was a letter being stuffed in that envelope,

00:16:59 ◼   ► but obviously not.

00:17:00 ◼   ► Okay, got it.

00:17:00 ◼   ► Outlook, blue, it's very blue.

00:17:03 ◼   ► - All right, so now I want you to click on the after.

00:17:08 ◼   ► - Okay.

00:17:09 ◼   ► Oh, wow, Microsoft, I'm gonna say it, Myke.

00:17:12 ◼   ► Microsoft has forged a new path in corporate design language

00:17:17 ◼   ► by combining the two aesthetics.

00:17:22 ◼   ► It's blue on a white background.

00:17:25 ◼   ► - But now the envelope's blue, which doesn't make any sense.

00:17:28 ◼   ► Why is the envelope blue?

00:17:30 ◼   ► I want to read to you the way that Microsoft described this.

00:17:34 ◼   ► - Okay. - All right?

00:17:36 ◼   ► We've updated our icon to reflect how we bring email

00:17:39 ◼   ► and calendar together with carefully crafted experiences.

00:17:43 ◼   ► Yeah, apparently that honor our office heritage

00:17:47 ◼   ► and welcome the future.

00:17:48 ◼   ► - Whoa.

00:17:49 ◼   ► - So it is an envelope of which a pentone color sheet

00:17:53 ◼   ► is coming out of, but which is apparently supposed

00:17:55 ◼   ► to be a calendar.

00:17:57 ◼   ► - That is totally a pentone color sheet.

00:17:59 ◼   ► Yeah, that's not a calendar.

00:18:00 ◼   ► not a calendar, with now a smaller O in a traditional app icon shape, which is now flat,

00:18:08 ◼   ► it's not a door, sitting on top of it. So there's a couple of things happening here.

00:18:13 ◼   ► One, just massively different. Two, none of the other Microsoft apps have updated. So

00:18:19 ◼   ► have the Outlook team gone rogue? What is happening over here? All the old apps look

00:18:25 ◼   ► the same, right? They have the doors.

00:18:28 ◼   ► Well, I mean, they must be following Slack's new design principle, which is that our app

00:18:35 ◼   ► icons in unifying them will now look different on each platform that you use them. So it's

00:18:42 ◼   ► like our office suite looks the same everywhere except for Apple.

00:18:45 ◼   ► As an update, like just as a continuing update in the Slack saga, the Mac app still purple.

00:18:51 ◼   ► Yeah, I think that's not changing. I think it's just going to stay purple forever.

00:18:54 ◼   ► But you know, #consistencyinicondesign, as Slack were looking for.

00:19:00 ◼   ► So yeah, this Outlook logo, it's like, I don't have a particular issue with this

00:19:06 ◼   ► logo.

00:19:07 ◼   ► I think it's fine.

00:19:08 ◼   ► What I think what I find weird about it is they made such a huge change, and then also

00:19:14 ◼   ► the way they described it.

00:19:15 ◼   ► It's just like, that's not a calendar.

00:19:19 ◼   ► And also, again, why is the calendar coming out of the envelope?

00:19:23 ◼   ► Why?

00:19:24 ◼   ► Because the thing is, is like, alright, so you're trying to say we're combining these

00:19:29 ◼   ► two things.

00:19:30 ◼   ► Alright, let's go down that line of thinking for a moment, that you're combining calendar

00:19:33 ◼   ► and email.

00:19:34 ◼   ► Right.

00:19:35 ◼   ► Visually, what you were showing me is that the calendar doesn't fit inside of the envelope,

00:19:40 ◼   ► which by the extension of your own metaphor, proves the point that your email and your

00:19:44 ◼   ► calendar probably shouldn't be in the same app.

00:19:47 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:19:48 ◼   ► Because it doesn't fit, is what you're showing me.

00:19:51 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:19:52 ◼   ► - Yeah, it's like the image should be, you know,

00:19:57 ◼   ► an envelope lying on top of a calendar,

00:20:00 ◼   ► like lying on top of a grid or something.

00:20:02 ◼   ► - Sure. - Yeah, and--

00:20:04 ◼   ► - I mean, what it should be is none of those things,

00:20:07 ◼   ► and you should actually try and come up with a logo for it

00:20:10 ◼   ► that doesn't have an envelope.

00:20:11 ◼   ► - Myke, I don't know if you can expect corporate America

00:20:15 ◼   ► to find their email if you don't have an envelope

00:20:18 ◼   ► on their icon, that's outrageous.

00:20:21 ◼   ► I just wished that like we could define email to be its own thing rather than letters when

00:20:32 ◼   ► that just doesn't make sense anymore.

00:20:34 ◼   ► I'm gonna I'm gonna disagree with you here.

00:20:36 ◼   ► I'm gonna disagree with you here because letters are I mean they're verging on so

00:20:41 ◼   ► anachronistic that it it is email right when was the last time you sent a letter?

00:20:48 ◼   ► You're asking the wrong guy.

00:20:49 ◼   ► Why?

00:20:50 ◼   ► Well I've got my pen and paper guy. Like, letters come by my way. Right? Like, this

00:20:56 ◼   ► is a thing. Like, I still receive handwritten letters from people.

00:21:00 ◼   ► Really?

00:21:01 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:21:02 ◼   ► Wow. Okay.

00:21:03 ◼   ► Right? So like, you just... I'm a different beast.

00:21:06 ◼   ► I'm gonna send you a handwritten letter.

00:21:08 ◼   ► Please do. I would genuinely love to attempt to decipher your handwriting, which I've never

00:21:12 ◼   ► seen but can only assume is just a nightmare.

00:21:15 ◼   ► You must have seen my handwriting. My handwriting is great.

00:21:18 ◼   ► Alright, send me a letter then.

00:21:20 ◼   ► Please, I would love that. I'll attempt to read it live on the show, that'd be great.

00:21:25 ◼   ► I get your point, right? Like it's the idea of like cut and copy and paste and all that

00:21:29 ◼   ► kind of stuff, right? Or like the save icon being a floppy disk. I understand all of that.

00:21:34 ◼   ► I would just like to see a new interpretation. Like I would just like to see what somebody

00:21:39 ◼   ► could actually do if they weren't attempted to be bound by this, right? Because email

00:21:48 ◼   ► a particular look to it, right? We all know what an email is. Email apps all have a particular

00:21:56 ◼   ► look to them of these lists of little rectangles. I just think that no large email app uses

00:22:08 ◼   ► actual envelopes in the UI. It's just the logo. So give me something else that represents

00:22:14 ◼   ► what an email is. I would like to see that.

00:22:16 ◼   ► Yeah, the problem, like, don't get me wrong, I'd be very interested to see what people could come up with as the idea for an abstract representation of email.

00:22:30 ◼   ► But I think your idea that email looks like anything is misguided,

00:22:37 ◼   ► because we're really just looking at all of the...

00:22:41 ◼   ► We're looking at the way information is displayed on modern computers,

00:22:49 ◼   ► which follows these same kind of table layouts and view columns.

00:22:54 ◼   ► There's not actually a lot to work with.

00:22:56 ◼   ► I guess the problem would be that it would also look like all messaging apps.

00:22:59 ◼   ► Yeah, it looks like almost anything that's a table view of information, right?

00:23:03 ◼   ► It's like, it doesn't look that different from iMessage.

00:23:06 ◼   ► It doesn't look that different from a whole bunch of other stuff.

00:23:08 ◼   ► So, like, email feels a certain way in your head, but that's different from email having a genuinely distinctive visual look that separates it from other things.

00:23:21 ◼   ► Anyway, I give Microsoft real points here for this bold combination of the giant corporate

00:23:30 ◼   ► aesthetic looks of blue on a white background.

00:23:34 ◼   ► I predict that this is going to be a trendsetter.

00:23:39 ◼   ► I predict that we will see companies that have been just all blue thinking we're going

00:23:47 ◼   ► to mix it up and we're going to do blue on white.

00:23:50 ◼   ► I think Microsoft is starting a trend here.

00:23:52 ◼   ► That's definitely what we wanted.

00:23:54 ◼   ► Talking about things we wanted.

00:23:56 ◼   ► The iPad Mini now supports the Apple Pencil.

00:24:00 ◼   ► I'm not quite sure they were things that we wanted, but...

00:24:04 ◼   ► The royal we.

00:24:05 ◼   ► Right, within the grey household, there were literal yelps of excitement

00:24:10 ◼   ► upon the announcement of an iPad Mini with Pencil support.

00:24:15 ◼   ► Great, that's good news. I'm pleased that that has remained

00:24:18 ◼   ► because in the Hurley household,

00:24:20 ◼   ► the iPad mini has been cast aside for the 10.5 inch iPad Pro

00:24:25 ◼   ► so the previous iPad Pro to the current ones,

00:24:28 ◼   ► but when it looked like the iPad mini

00:24:31 ◼   ► was maybe never gonna come,

00:24:33 ◼   ► I was just like, look, I have bought a new 11 inch iPad,

00:24:37 ◼   ► this 10.5 inch iPad is brilliant, just take this,

00:24:42 ◼   ► try this, see if it works for you, ended up working.

00:24:46 ◼   ► I told it to her about the new iPad mini.

00:24:48 ◼   ► She was like, "I like this one now."

00:24:50 ◼   ► - Oh, interesting. - Yeah, yeah.

00:24:52 ◼   ► - Interesting.

00:24:53 ◼   ► We've got one ordered.

00:24:53 ◼   ► I'm very happy about that because for what,

00:24:57 ◼   ► four years?

00:24:59 ◼   ► I've been hearing nothing but grumbles about,

00:25:01 ◼   ► "When are they gonna update this thing?"

00:25:02 ◼   ► And I want it with a pencil.

00:25:03 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:25:04 ◼   ► - And I've been playing the role of,

00:25:07 ◼   ► "You're never gonna get what you want."

00:25:10 ◼   ► We all have to move on sometimes in life.

00:25:14 ◼   ► But luckily this time I was wrong.

00:25:16 ◼   ► So I'm really thrilled that they've made it.

00:25:18 ◼   ► I still think iPad mini is a great little size.

00:25:22 ◼   ► I think it's really interesting that it's,

00:25:26 ◼   ► they're keeping pencil generation one support for it.

00:25:29 ◼   ► So it doesn't work with the new generation two pencil.

00:25:33 ◼   ► - Well, yes.

00:25:34 ◼   ► - I think it's interesting because it's Apple,

00:25:36 ◼   ► my interpretation anyways, it's Apple wanting to maintain,

00:25:40 ◼   ► we didn't have to change the case of the iPad mini.

00:25:43 ◼   ► So they keep the costs down and all that kind of stuff.

00:25:46 ◼   ► I mean, it's also a separation between the Pro and the other line, because they also

00:25:50 ◼   ► bought in an iPad Air, which replaced the old iPad Pro.

00:25:54 ◼   ► They kept the old iPad Pro around for a while, and now they've replaced it with a product

00:25:58 ◼   ► called the iPad Air, which is better in some ways, worse in others.

00:26:01 ◼   ► But now there is an iPad that isn't Pro that has a smart keyboard and a pencil.

00:26:07 ◼   ► But they're not the new versions of those things.

00:26:09 ◼   ► Oh, the... okay, so I paid exactly zero attention to the other iPad.

00:26:14 ◼   ► So that one also uses the Generation 1 pencil?

00:26:16 ◼   ► It also uses the Generation 1 pencil, yeah.

00:26:18 ◼   ► Hmm, okay, that makes more sense then.

00:26:20 ◼   ► That makes more sense.

00:26:21 ◼   ► So I think what...

00:26:22 ◼   ► So there's a couple of things.

00:26:24 ◼   ► One, they want to keep those cases as they are so they don't need to change them.

00:26:28 ◼   ► Keeps the cost down.

00:26:29 ◼   ► Two, the new iPad Pro with its induction charging and stuff like that,

00:26:35 ◼   ► that is like a special thing to the expensive products.

00:26:38 ◼   ► Right, right.

00:26:39 ◼   ► If you're already giving the other products things that the pros used to have, now you

00:26:43 ◼   ► need to define more about what the iPad Pro is.

00:26:46 ◼   ► So currently that is USB-C, induction charging, super thin, sleek design, you know, like that

00:26:52 ◼   ► kind of stuff.

00:26:53 ◼   ► So they've definitely brought these products into the modern, which I think is fantastic.

00:26:58 ◼   ► Like they're also super powerful.

00:27:00 ◼   ► They have the same chips that the iPhones currently do in them, which that says very

00:27:06 ◼   ► good things for the iPad this June. They felt the need to bump all of the current products

00:27:12 ◼   ► to much more powerful CPUs, except the low end iPad has remained unchanged, but it was

00:27:17 ◼   ► still pretty fine. So yeah, I'm excited about that. But yeah, I think that that little iPad

00:27:23 ◼   ► Mini of an Apple Pencil could be really cool. I have not ordered one, but I do want to try

00:27:29 ◼   ► it out because I'm very intrigued about a device as small as that which can do full

00:27:36 ◼   ► multitasking, it has the same multitasking, you can have two apps open and a slide over

00:27:41 ◼   ► app because it's got the RAM, it's got the CPU for it. And also it can fit basically

00:27:46 ◼   ► in my hand to a degree and I can make notes on it and stuff like that. I am intrigued

00:27:53 ◼   ► by this device. I did kind of spec one up price-wise and to get it with the larger storage

00:28:00 ◼   ► and with LTE and to get a smart cover and if I don't think I have a spare Apple Pencil

00:28:05 ◼   ► anymore we're looking at £900. So I was like I need to go and try this thing out first

00:28:11 ◼   ► because that seems like too much.

00:28:13 ◼   ► That's a little pricey to just play around with.

00:28:15 ◼   ► Yeah so I want to kind of get a feel for it like what does it feel like because it might

00:28:20 ◼   ► just be for me it's like this combination doesn't work because I think that that Apple

00:28:24 ◼   ► Pencil is too physically large to use on a device so small but we'll say. I think that

00:28:30 ◼   ► the Apple Pencil could always have done with being a bit smaller, the original one, and

00:28:35 ◼   ► I think that the balance might be really weird, like, because the Apple Pencil will be like,

00:28:41 ◼   ► as big as the iPad, and I'm wondering if that's gonna feel strange, considering like, you

00:28:46 ◼   ► probably can't really rest your hand on it to write, so I'm just intrigued as to how

00:28:51 ◼   ► that actually feels to use, but I think it's great to have... I'm pleased the iPad Mini's

00:28:57 ◼   ► not gone. And I hope that this means that in a couple of years they'll make it look

00:29:02 ◼   ► more modern. So here's something funny about this I saw in a review today. The home button,

00:29:08 ◼   ► that is a physically moving button.

00:29:10 ◼   ► Oh wow, okay.

00:29:12 ◼   ► Because they didn't change it. It's not the button that pretends to move, it actually

00:29:18 ◼   ► physically moves. I was like, wow, that's wild. It's been a long time since I've had

00:29:25 ◼   ► a device that did that.

00:29:26 ◼   ► Yeah, it has been a long time. I'm actually glad to hear it because I never warmed to those fake

00:29:32 ◼   ► buttons on the phone. I just never... Like it was 80% of the way there, but not enough. So I was

00:29:39 ◼   ► happy when we moved to no button. But no, I'm really thrilled that the Mini is still around.

00:29:44 ◼   ► I think it's a great little size to act much more like a little notebook to carry with you.

00:29:53 ◼   ► And so when my wife gets hers,

00:29:55 ◼   ► I'll be very interested to play around with it.

00:29:58 ◼   ► I cannot foresee getting one for me

00:30:03 ◼   ► because I think I would again go crazy

00:30:06 ◼   ► on the difference between the two different pencils.

00:30:09 ◼   ► And I've also gotten so used to Face ID

00:30:12 ◼   ► that its absence is abhorrent to me.

00:30:15 ◼   ► I'm still annoyed at my computers all the time.

00:30:17 ◼   ► Like you're looking right at me computer.

00:30:19 ◼   ► And so in my heart of hearts,

00:30:21 ◼   ► I will still be holding out for pencil support on the phone at some point for what could

00:30:27 ◼   ► be a tiny little notebook that I carry with me.

00:30:29 ◼   ► But I'm really glad that they haven't abandoned the mini form factor.

00:30:33 ◼   ► I know a lot of people who were really heartbroken that it hadn't been updated and I think this

00:30:39 ◼   ► is great and I'll be very curious to see one when it arrives in the grey household.

00:30:46 ◼   ► I want to tell you a little story.

00:30:49 ◼   ► this this iPad mini was released as part of like a week-long super wild set of circumstances

00:30:57 ◼   ► from Apple. I should note that we are recording this episode before Apple has a big event

00:31:04 ◼   ► because this episode will come out after that so it's just worth mentioning that kind of

00:31:08 ◼   ► timeline wise. Yeah you say big event but I hadn't heard about it until you mentioned

00:31:12 ◼   ► it. Because you don't go on the internet like you don't... I had to tell you about the iPad

00:31:18 ◼   ► Mini being released. You don't know anything. You don't ever go online.

00:31:21 ◼   ► Okay, that is also true. You did have to tell me about the iPad Mini.

00:31:24 ◼   ► And WWDC tickets being announced.

00:31:26 ◼   ► And yeah, that is true. You also did tell me about WWDC tickets.

00:31:30 ◼   ► Anyway, I think Apple needs to do more promo. That's all I'm saying.

00:31:33 ◼   ► Direct one on one.

00:31:34 ◼   ► This episode of Cortex is brought to you by a new sponsor, Luna Display.

00:31:40 ◼   ► They're the makers of the only hardware solution that turns your iPad

00:31:45 ◼   ► into a wireless display for your Mac.

00:31:48 ◼   ► Now, what does that mean? Luna sent me a copy of their little Luna display kit to try out.

00:31:53 ◼   ► And what it is is just a little dongle that I can plug into my laptop

00:31:56 ◼   ► that then communicates wirelessly with my iPad

00:32:00 ◼   ► and gives me a whole second display on my iPad for my Mac.

00:32:04 ◼   ► Now, you may be thinking, "I'm sure I've heard that you can do this kind of stuff before."

00:32:09 ◼   ► And I have tried it in the past.

00:32:11 ◼   ► But it's never really been great.

00:32:15 ◼   ► And I don't know what Luna has put in their little dongle that I connect to my Mac,

00:32:19 ◼   ► but it must be magic.

00:32:21 ◼   ► Because this is the first product like this that I actually really like,

00:32:26 ◼   ► works fantastically, just is lagless,

00:32:29 ◼   ► and you can genuinely use as a secondary monitor for your laptop.

00:32:34 ◼   ► I already am dreadfully building up towards some big summer trips,

00:32:38 ◼   ► and on those I always bring my Mac and I bring my iPad,

00:32:42 ◼   ► And sometimes it feels kind of dumb and redundant to have both of these things.

00:32:45 ◼   ► But having the Luna Display with me now is going to mean that I can genuinely

00:32:50 ◼   ► have a little mini two-screen computer setup everywhere during the trip.

00:32:55 ◼   ► And it's going to be really great for when I'm in one place for a while

00:32:58 ◼   ► and can really set up like a little remote mobile office.

00:33:01 ◼   ► So I really like it. And if you've ever wanted to try out an iPad

00:33:05 ◼   ► as a second display for your laptop or your computer,

00:33:09 ◼   ► either because you don't want to buy a really expensive display when you already have an iPad,

00:33:13 ◼   ► or if it, like me, is something you want to do while you're traveling,

00:33:16 ◼   ► totally get Luna Display.

00:33:18 ◼   ► As a Cortex-in, you can get an exclusive 10% discount on Luna Display.

00:33:23 ◼   ► Just go to lunadisplay.com and enter the promo code "CORTEX" at checkout.

00:33:27 ◼   ► Before you ask, it supports all the things you might expect.

00:33:30 ◼   ► It means you can use an external keyboard.

00:33:32 ◼   ► It also means you can use the Apple Pencil on your iPad

00:33:36 ◼   ► as part of your laptop or Mac and all of the regular touch interactions.

00:33:40 ◼   ► So this actually also turns your Mac into a kind of touchscreen device.

00:33:45 ◼   ► It's really fantastic. I highly recommend it if you want to do this kind of thing.

00:33:48 ◼   ► So again, go there now to lunadisplay.com and upgrade your setup.

00:33:55 ◼   ► You're going to love it. Just use the promo code "CORTEX" to get 10% off at checkout.

00:34:01 ◼   ► That's lunadisplay.com promo code "CORTEX".

00:34:05 ◼   ► Thanks to Luna Display for their support of this show and all of Relay FM.

00:34:09 ◼   ► [BEEP]

00:34:10 ◼   ► It was also part of the week of product releases.

00:34:14 ◼   ► There was some updates to the iMac.

00:34:17 ◼   ► And as part of the press related to the iMac,

00:34:22 ◼   ► on another show that I do called Upgrade,

00:34:24 ◼   ► we were granted an exclusive interview with the iMac product

00:34:28 ◼   ► manager at Apple, which was a very exciting thing for me

00:34:33 ◼   ► and Jason.

00:34:34 ◼   ► This is with a woman whose name is Colleen Novielli,

00:34:37 ◼   ► and she runs the iMac team.

00:34:39 ◼   ► That's very exciting. That's a good get.

00:34:41 ◼   ► It was a very good get. We were very excited about it.

00:34:43 ◼   ► So this was, Jason got to interview in person with her.

00:34:48 ◼   ► So they had a good chat and it was as part of an overall episode that we did,

00:34:52 ◼   ► which also included a draft, which we do drafts as predictions.

00:34:56 ◼   ► It's like a different way of doing predictions for the events.

00:35:00 ◼   ► And they're always fun to do.

00:35:01 ◼   ► There is an interesting Cortex story here, which is

00:35:06 ◼   ► working to the craziest kind of deadline that I can possibly have, which is an embargo time from Apple.

00:35:13 ◼   ► Oh, okay.

00:35:15 ◼   ► There is no bigger deadline that could occur in my life than that one.

00:35:21 ◼   ► And if you don't know what that means...

00:35:22 ◼   ► Yeah, I was gonna say, explain to the listeners what the Apple embargo deadlines are.

00:35:26 ◼   ► Basically, this interview was done before the world knew that the iMac was being updated.

00:35:34 ◼   ► So we were given a time that we could publish our episode at.

00:35:39 ◼   ► Because we couldn't talk about it beforehand, because then we would be breaking the news

00:35:45 ◼   ► and Apple like to at least be with the first round.

00:35:49 ◼   ► So they had a time in the morning that they were publishing their press release

00:35:53 ◼   ► and we could publish at that time though earlier.

00:35:55 ◼   ► But what that also means for us is no later.

00:36:03 ◼   ► If you have an embargo, you want to be first.

00:36:07 ◼   ► You want to be out first,

00:36:09 ◼   ► or basically as soon as possible.

00:36:13 ◼   ► You may be second, but it's all at the exact same time,

00:36:15 ◼   ► so it's first, right?

00:36:16 ◼   ► - Yeah, and if Apple has given you access like that,

00:36:20 ◼   ► you don't want to publish the next day.

00:36:23 ◼   ► - No, no.

00:36:24 ◼   ► - You want to publish it the moment you possibly can,

00:36:28 ◼   ► so that you're part of the wave

00:36:31 ◼   ► of this product exists in the world.

00:36:33 ◼   ► Yeah, and this was the first time that we got to do that,

00:36:35 ◼   ► that we got to actually have a representative

00:36:38 ◼   ► from Apple Inc. on our show.

00:36:41 ◼   ► So I wanted to do it properly.

00:36:43 ◼   ► But there were a lot of interesting wrinkles

00:36:47 ◼   ► in this situation.

00:36:49 ◼   ► One of them was that I was in Romania.

00:36:51 ◼   ► - Oh no.

00:36:52 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:36:54 ◼   ► - And, so not only is that two hours away from London,

00:37:01 ◼   ► The US has undergone the switch to Daylight Savings Time.

00:37:04 ◼   ► Yes.

00:37:05 ◼   ► So I was three hours further away than usual.

00:37:10 ◼   ► And Jason was given a specific time to perform this interview.

00:37:17 ◼   ► So what it meant was I needed to be ready to be recording

00:37:23 ◼   ► sometime between 1 and 4 a.m.

00:37:28 ◼   ► because I had to record with him after the interview.

00:37:33 ◼   ► - Right.

00:37:34 ◼   ► - Because neither of us knew

00:37:35 ◼   ► what was gonna be happening, right?

00:37:38 ◼   ► So.

00:37:40 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:37:42 ◼   ► - Okay.

00:37:44 ◼   ► - So right, so this was the situation.

00:37:45 ◼   ► So Jason was given the information

00:37:48 ◼   ► and then we could record our part of the episode.

00:37:51 ◼   ► So it was, but it was also one of these things of like,

00:37:53 ◼   ► we didn't really know when he was gonna be available.

00:37:56 ◼   ► We didn't know how long the interview was gonna take.

00:37:58 ◼   ► were kind of just waiting. We started at like 3.20, I think, until 4. And then I had to

00:38:06 ◼   ► wake up the next morning to edit it all to get it ready to be published. Now we did actually

00:38:14 ◼   ► work a little bit in our favor. We recorded the episode of a multiple days.

00:38:19 ◼   ► Okay. All right. So the other, you broke up the other parts of the show so that you weren't

00:38:23 ◼   ► doing it all at four in the morning.

00:38:25 ◼   ► The other sections were all done at different times.

00:38:28 ◼   ► So this was like the pre-planning, because we were given some notice, like this wasn't

00:38:32 ◼   ► completely sprung enough.

00:38:34 ◼   ► We had some time to plan, so we sat down and we planned it out, right?

00:38:39 ◼   ► We know it's going to be difficult, anything that we need to record as part of the announcement,

00:38:43 ◼   ► because it's going to be a time that nobody knows when it's going to be.

00:38:46 ◼   ► So what parts can we record in advance?

00:38:49 ◼   ► So we did that, and then we recorded the other part afterwards, and then it was a case of

00:38:53 ◼   ► me waking up and getting everything ready and I've never checked a file more than that one.

00:38:58 ◼   ► And also as well, I had a kind of just a wild recording setup whilst in the hotel room in

00:39:08 ◼   ► Romania. Let me see if I can send you a picture of it. I think I have a picture here.

00:39:12 ◼   ► I was gonna say, please tell me that you knew this was going to happen before

00:39:16 ◼   ► you went off to Romania. So you were at least prepared with gear.

00:39:19 ◼   ► that is that's not a problem that was never going to be a problem because i was always recording

00:39:24 ◼   ► something there right like i was taking my gear because i did two shows there anyway i knew i was

00:39:29 ◼   ► going to be doing two shows there i didn't know when we originally planned it of course that this

00:39:34 ◼   ► was going to be what the show was going to be about but oh that that is a sad podcasting setup

00:39:39 ◼   ► yeah we we didn't necessarily consider that we would need a room of a desk in it right because

00:39:47 ◼   ► because most hotels do.

00:39:50 ◼   ► So I was able to pull this little table

00:39:52 ◼   ► and sit on a couple of cushions,

00:39:54 ◼   ► but I had to cross my legs in underneath the table

00:39:58 ◼   ► to get the microphone close enough to me,

00:40:00 ◼   ► which was on a stand on the table.

00:40:02 ◼   ► So yeah, it was just one of those things where it's like,

00:40:07 ◼   ► I have a very interesting job

00:40:08 ◼   ► that's considered glamorous, I think, by some people,

00:40:13 ◼   ► 'cause I make entertainment.

00:40:15 ◼   ► Sometimes it's not glamorous.

00:40:16 ◼   ► And like this reminds me, there was an,

00:40:18 ◼   ► I can't remember who it was, but like a,

00:40:20 ◼   ► an author, like a guy who writes for TV

00:40:24 ◼   ► that I saw tweeting about, oh this was Stephen Merchant.

00:40:27 ◼   ► I saw him, he posted this on Instagram a while ago.

00:40:31 ◼   ► I'll find it for the show notes,

00:40:32 ◼   ► but like it was a little video that he made

00:40:35 ◼   ► of writing a movie script in hotel rooms.

00:40:38 ◼   ► Because he's a super tall guy,

00:40:39 ◼   ► so he can never fit under any desks.

00:40:41 ◼   ► So he's like turning over trash cans

00:40:44 ◼   ► and propping them up on like beds or like room service trays.

00:40:48 ◼   ► And it's just like, it is funny where it's like

00:40:50 ◼   ► the perception that sometimes you have

00:40:52 ◼   ► of the way that people make a thing is so different

00:40:56 ◼   ► to the realities of traveling while working.

00:41:01 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:41:02 ◼   ► - Here, everything is set up perfectly

00:41:04 ◼   ► and it looks probably how you would imagine it.

00:41:06 ◼   ► There's all these blinking lights and boxes that I've got.

00:41:09 ◼   ► And I got like a boom arm and my microphone's hanging off

00:41:12 ◼   ► and I've got this big corner desk

00:41:13 ◼   ► and everything I could need is around me.

00:41:15 ◼   ► But when you travel and work,

00:41:18 ◼   ► you are at the whims of whatever the room you've got.

00:41:21 ◼   ► Because everyone's gone through this,

00:41:24 ◼   ► the pictures on the website, that's not what you're getting.

00:41:28 ◼   ► Right, so this was just the situation.

00:41:32 ◼   ► I just don't think we really thought about a desk

00:41:35 ◼   ► for this trip, but future trips we will do that

00:41:39 ◼   ► because if I'm gonna be working.

00:41:41 ◼   ► But yeah, this was just a wild setup for me.

00:41:43 ◼   ► That does not look like a comfortable position to be in for recording for a long time.

00:41:48 ◼   ► I did one stint of one hour and then another stint of two hours.

00:41:54 ◼   ► I'm not exactly sure if the audience thinks of podcasting as a glamorous profession in

00:42:03 ◼   ► the way that say script writing for Hollywood is romanticized.

00:42:07 ◼   ► I'm not comparing them or at least I should say like cushy, right?

00:42:11 ◼   ► that you're not particularly working in very strenuous conditions.

00:42:15 ◼   ► The thing that this is making me think of is also like every time there's a YouTuber

00:42:21 ◼   ► conference, but people still want to make videos while they're on the road. And I have

00:42:25 ◼   ► seen many a hilarious photo of people basically taking the blankets from the bed and building

00:42:35 ◼   ► a little fort in the middle of the room like you would as a child to try to get a space

00:42:42 ◼   ► in which you can record audio for like the voiceover for video.

00:42:47 ◼   ► And it is hilarious to me sometimes like I know videos that have millions of views on

00:42:52 ◼   ► them where it's like oh and they recorded it like in a little in a little child's bedsheet

00:42:57 ◼   ► fort in their hotel room during VidCon right just to try to get something up it's like

00:43:03 ◼   ► know, like, oh, these major productions is like, yes, but in hotel rooms, it's often

00:43:08 ◼   ► very improvised.

00:43:11 ◼   ► But it was a great thing to be able to do. I just hope that if it ever happens again,

00:43:16 ◼   ► I can at least be in my home office and studio. You take these things where you can get them.

00:43:22 ◼   ► Sometimes they're on the floors of Romanian hotel rooms.

00:43:24 ◼   ► Yeah, but that's exciting. Like it's a really big landmark for Relay to have this. How do

00:43:29 ◼   ► you feel to be involved in the breaking of news?

00:43:33 ◼   ► But the breaking of news is different. So like there's been times in the past where Jason has

00:43:37 ◼   ► had review units and stuff like that, but this was like straight up.

00:43:41 ◼   ► Yeah, that's different though.

00:43:42 ◼   ► Nobody knows about this thing, but they're going to find out about it from the show.

00:43:46 ◼   ► It was actually very fun. I liked the thing that I hoped would happen,

00:43:51 ◼   ► which is I heard from many upgradeans, which is like Cortexens, as in the name for the listeners.

00:43:58 ◼   ► Right.

00:43:59 ◼   ► where many Upgradients were tweeting at me and saying, "I heard about this news from the show!

00:44:06 ◼   ► I had no idea it was gonna-" Oh, that's fun. That's really fun.

00:44:08 ◼   ► So they saw the episode because the episode was a day late, so people were waiting for it.

00:44:13 ◼   ► And so they pressed play and within 30 seconds we're mentioning this news, right? And so that

00:44:20 ◼   ► was fun for me and I guess for other people where it's like this is how they found out about it.

00:44:24 ◼   ► So yeah, it was it was really great.

00:44:27 ◼   ► I was very pleased that we got to do it.

00:44:28 ◼   ► I hope that we get to do things like this again in the future.

00:44:31 ◼   ► Who knows? I hope so.

00:44:34 ◼   ► But it was cool for me and for us especially, because

00:44:38 ◼   ► the the woman that we had on, Colleen, this was her first public appearance.

00:44:43 ◼   ► So she had never done anything before where people would know about her.

00:44:48 ◼   ► Right. So that was really great for us.

00:44:52 ◼   ► I was actually very excited when I found this out,

00:44:57 ◼   ► like when we found out that it's like,

00:44:59 ◼   ► "Okay, this is gonna be somebody

00:45:00 ◼   ► "who people haven't heard from before."

00:45:03 ◼   ► Because that was like,

00:45:04 ◼   ► "Okay, so we're not gonna have Tim Cook on the show."

00:45:08 ◼   ► Right?

00:45:08 ◼   ► Like that's not gonna happen.

00:45:10 ◼   ► And maybe there are other executives that could be,

00:45:12 ◼   ► but it's like, I think I kinda like the idea

00:45:15 ◼   ► of somebody that is new,

00:45:18 ◼   ► rather than someone that you've heard from a bunch of times.

00:45:21 ◼   ► - Yeah, it's nice being the introduction platform

00:45:23 ◼   ► for someone who's new.

00:45:24 ◼   ► That's a nice thing to be able to do.

00:45:26 ◼   ► - Yeah, so that was also just like a nice little

00:45:28 ◼   ► silver lining to the whole thing, really.

00:45:31 ◼   ► The interview went really well, Jason did a great job.

00:45:34 ◼   ► I'm very pleased with how it all turned out

00:45:36 ◼   ► and people seem to be really excited about it,

00:45:38 ◼   ► which I like a lot.

00:45:39 ◼   ► I like that it makes our existing listeners

00:45:41 ◼   ► really excited too.

00:45:43 ◼   ► They come along on the ride with us, so it was fun.

00:45:45 ◼   ► - Oh, that's great, that's super exciting, Myke.

00:45:48 ◼   ► Yeah, but yeah, crazy deadline. That is the biggest, that is one of the most important deadlines I've ever been a part of, personally.

00:45:55 ◼   ► Nice and low stress, huh?

00:45:57 ◼   ► I cannot tell you how scared I was working in our publishing system.

00:46:01 ◼   ► Oh man, yeah. This is especially not a time to play around with the scheduled release of episodes.

00:46:08 ◼   ► Oh, no way. No way.

00:46:10 ◼   ► But just in like the file naming, right, to make sure that it wasn't completely obvious

00:46:16 ◼   ► in case someone was looking for it and then like just working in the system to get like

00:46:22 ◼   ► everything needed so I could press the publish button without pressing the publish button.

00:46:26 ◼   ► Oh boy.

00:46:27 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:46:28 ◼   ► Oh boy.

00:46:29 ◼   ► For people who've never done this kind of web publishing either like with podcasts or

00:46:32 ◼   ► with videos, it is always terrifying when you have something ready in advance but you

00:46:38 ◼   ► want it to go out at a particular moment.

00:46:40 ◼   ► Cause it just, it always feels like, I don't know, like these buttons are there.

00:46:46 ◼   ► Just, just waiting for you to accidentally hit them and really screw yourself up.

00:46:51 ◼   ► Or it's just like, it's so easy to not notice that a thing is, is set to go out.

00:46:57 ◼   ► Uh, without your intervention or like, or like, uh, what you just said there.

00:47:01 ◼   ► Oh, the it's not published, but the totally obvious URL is open to the

00:47:06 ◼   ► public if anyone was just to type it in.

00:47:08 ◼   ► Like there's so many ways it can go wrong

00:47:11 ◼   ► that I do not envy your position there of like,

00:47:16 ◼   ► please don't let me be the show

00:47:18 ◼   ► that messes up Apple's embargo deadline.

00:47:21 ◼   ► - Yes. (laughs)

00:47:22 ◼   ► We're gonna give you a try on this one.

00:47:24 ◼   ► Oh, you've ruined it.

00:47:26 ◼   ► - Yeah, especially for your first one out the gate.

00:47:31 ◼   ► Like I don't think Apple

00:47:31 ◼   ► would be calling you back anytime soon.

00:47:34 ◼   ► - It was one personal victory I had in all of this.

00:47:37 ◼   ► I was the first tweet in my own public timeline.

00:47:42 ◼   ► Oh, okay.

00:47:44 ◼   ► Right, like I did it at the right time, but like for me, I was first.

00:47:48 ◼   ► And as you can imagine, I follow a lot of technology people and publications,

00:47:51 ◼   ► but like our one, the Relay FM tweet was like the first tweet.

00:47:54 ◼   ► I was like, I had the iPhone in front of me and I was watching the clock icon.

00:47:58 ◼   ► And as soon as it got there, hit it.

00:48:01 ◼   ► While sitting in a hotel room somewhere in Romania.

00:48:04 ◼   ► #first.

00:48:06 ◼   ► (chime)

00:48:06 ◼   ► - Cortex merch.

00:48:07 ◼   ► - Cortexmerch.com.

00:48:10 ◼   ► - Dot com.

00:48:11 ◼   ► The subtlety is back by popular demand.

00:48:13 ◼   ► We're doing another run of the subtlety.

00:48:16 ◼   ► We've been, this was one of those products

00:48:18 ◼   ► that seemed to get more popular after the first sale,

00:48:21 ◼   ► which was fun, and I think that was because

00:48:22 ◼   ► it is an amazing t-shirt, and when the people received it,

00:48:26 ◼   ► when the cortex owners received it,

00:48:27 ◼   ► they all spoke very highly of it,

00:48:29 ◼   ► so it is now available again.

00:48:31 ◼   ► So you can go and get that at cortexmerch.com,

00:48:34 ◼   ► and it is being joined by the brand new subtle sweater.

00:48:38 ◼   ► This is the first product of the subtle line,

00:48:41 ◼   ► which will hopefully be rolling out in the future.

00:48:43 ◼   ► Gonna see how this goes, you know,

00:48:44 ◼   ► and if the subtle sweater sells well,

00:48:47 ◼   ► maybe there'll be other subtle products in the future,

00:48:49 ◼   ► which is a very gentle blackmail

00:48:51 ◼   ► that if you want there to be other subtle products

00:48:54 ◼   ► in the future, buy the subtle sweater.

00:48:56 ◼   ► - I think there was nothing subtle

00:48:58 ◼   ► about that implication, Myke.

00:49:00 ◼   ► - Well, let's say it's,

00:49:02 ◼   ► It's not subtle blackmail, it was light blackmail,

00:49:04 ◼   ► which is the touch of blackmail.

00:49:06 ◼   ► So yeah, I'm very excited about this.

00:49:09 ◼   ► I personally wanted a sweater,

00:49:11 ◼   ► so that's why sweater's the first.

00:49:13 ◼   ► So we're gonna see how it goes.

00:49:14 ◼   ► These are only available until April 16th.

00:49:16 ◼   ► This is gonna be your only warning on these.

00:49:18 ◼   ► So if you're hearing this right now and you want them,

00:49:22 ◼   ► go to cortexmerch.com, or just make a mental note

00:49:26 ◼   ► to go there later on.

00:49:28 ◼   ► Cortexmerch.com, you'll be able to get the subtlety

00:49:30 ◼   ► and the subtle sweater just for a short time only.

00:49:34 ◼   ► And of course, there are still some other products

00:49:36 ◼   ► in the store, all of our original lines,

00:49:38 ◼   ► so the hat, the hoodie, the tee, and the pins,

00:49:40 ◼   ► you can get those still.

00:49:42 ◼   ► But the subtle products, they are only available

00:49:44 ◼   ► for a limited time only, just a few weeks.

00:49:46 ◼   ► So, cortexmerch.com for the subtle tee

00:49:50 ◼   ► and the subtle sweater.

00:49:51 ◼   ► They look amazing.

00:49:52 ◼   ► You're gonna look super cool and super subtle

00:49:55 ◼   ► as a cortexen wearing them.

00:49:57 ◼   ► So, other cortexens will know.

00:49:59 ◼   ► - Right.

00:50:00 ◼   ► else, you're just wearing something cool.

00:50:02 ◼   ► Right. But you have that little wink as you pull down your hat to be like, "We know. We

00:50:08 ◼   ► know."

00:50:09 ◼   ► Howdy partner. Cortexmerch.com.

00:50:14 ◼   ► All right, let's talk about Seven Days Out 11 Madison Park. This is Cortex Movie Club.

00:50:22 ◼   ► This is an episode of a Netflix documentary series.

00:50:26 ◼   ► This wasn't a movie.

00:50:27 ◼   ► "Well, what do we want? A Cortex Netflix documentary club? How many clubs do you want?"

00:50:32 ◼   ► Right? Like, there's two clubs. There's a book club and there's a movie club. This is a movie club.

00:50:37 ◼   ► I guess, yeah, I mean, I guess because if I expand it out so that it includes everything,

00:50:41 ◼   ► it just sounds boring. Like, Cortex Media viewing club.

00:50:44 ◼   ► Exactly. And plus, you know, it's a documentary. It was like an hour long. It's a short movie.

00:50:52 ◼   ► I have a I have so much to say about this documentary, but I guess I want to know just

00:50:58 ◼   ► so I know how much I need to say.

00:51:01 ◼   ► I just want to know right off the top.

00:51:03 ◼   ► Like what did you think of it?

00:51:04 ◼   ► What were your kind of like did rather than the content itself like breaking down.

00:51:08 ◼   ► Did you enjoy the show?

00:51:11 ◼   ► Okay, well now now you've picked.

00:51:14 ◼   ► You picked an interesting question to start with Myke.

00:51:17 ◼   ► Okay.

00:51:18 ◼   ► Did I enjoy it?

00:51:19 ◼   ► So I watched a few of the episodes in the series.

00:51:22 ◼   ► I did watch the video gaming one, which was very interesting.

00:51:26 ◼   ► I can see why you're like, oh, it's not really homework for the show because it was like

00:51:30 ◼   ► a personal drama, basically, like it didn't really have anything to do with work.

00:51:33 ◼   ► - But do you see my point about how they clearly thought that was gonna be one of the weaker

00:51:37 ◼   ► episodes?

00:51:38 ◼   ► Turns out to be an incredibly dramatic thing that occurs during the episode, so we're just

00:51:44 ◼   ► gonna roll with that this one as being like the crescendo of the entire thing because

00:51:49 ◼   ► somebody goes through like a horrific family thing yeah so yeah yeah it was it was interesting

00:51:54 ◼   ► i'm not so sure that they thought it was going to be less interesting in the beginning but

00:51:59 ◼   ► i like i saw it i watched it i liked it i watched the dog show one which i mentioned

00:52:04 ◼   ► last time my favorite thing about the dog show episode um so it's like a it's the west

00:52:11 ◼   ► - Westminster Dog Show, yeah.

00:52:12 ◼   ► - Yeah, but it's like, what is it?

00:52:13 ◼   ► Like a beauty pageant for dogs, I guess,

00:52:15 ◼   ► is like if you don't know what a dog show is.

00:52:16 ◼   ► - I was gonna be like, listen to the dismissive way

00:52:19 ◼   ► you're talking about dog shows.

00:52:21 ◼   ► A beauty pageant for dogs, that's outrageous.

00:52:22 ◼   ► - I'm trying to break it down into other terms

00:52:25 ◼   ► that if you don't know what the Westminster Dog Show is,

00:52:28 ◼   ► then that's what it is, right?

00:52:31 ◼   ► It's the only way I can think to describe it.

00:52:33 ◼   ► But they picked a bunch of people to follow,

00:52:35 ◼   ► like hoping that one of them would win, right?

00:52:37 ◼   ► Nobody wins.

00:52:39 ◼   ► So I just thought that was, that's just kind of funny to me in that episode.

00:52:42 ◼   ► Spoilers.

00:52:43 ◼   ► Also with the dog show episode, they totally overhype it.

00:52:46 ◼   ► They're like, oh, this is full of, full of drama.

00:52:49 ◼   ► And, and like these people are really cutthroat and actually they're, they're

00:52:53 ◼   ► following a bunch of dog people and they're all really nice.

00:52:55 ◼   ► Like they're all helping each other out.

00:52:57 ◼   ► They're all like, oh, everybody's dog is great.

00:52:59 ◼   ► Like who doesn't love doggos?

00:53:00 ◼   ► Um, and the thing that made me smile about that is there's, there's also a documentary

00:53:05 ◼   ► on Netflix, which follows the Westminster cat show.

00:53:09 ◼   ► And let me tell you, the Cat Show people are literally,

00:53:14 ◼   ► literally wishing injury upon their competitors in front of the camera.

00:53:19 ◼   ► It's like, at least the way it was edited, it confirmed every one of your thoughts about dog people versus cat people, right?

00:53:28 ◼   ► That like, the dog people were all just happy to be a part of this thing,

00:53:31 ◼   ► and the cat people were out for blood and hissing at their competitors. It was hilarious.

00:53:37 ◼   ► But yeah, I saw that one and I saw one more

00:53:40 ◼   ► that I can't quite remember right now, but--

00:53:41 ◼   ► - Did you watch the Cassini one?

00:53:42 ◼   ► - I started to watch the Cassini one.

00:53:44 ◼   ► I didn't quite make it all the way through.

00:53:47 ◼   ► I started to watch the Cassini one, but.

00:53:50 ◼   ► So there's one about the restaurant.

00:53:52 ◼   ► Here's the thing, I found this,

00:53:57 ◼   ► I found this like stressful viewing

00:54:00 ◼   ► because they're under this pressure to open it.

00:54:06 ◼   ► And it was a good episode, but I had this feeling like,

00:54:10 ◼   ► I don't know, a little bit like when you're in school

00:54:14 ◼   ► and there's a whole bunch of stuff to do,

00:54:16 ◼   ► a kind of low-grade nausea,

00:54:19 ◼   ► and that's what I felt while I was watching this episode,

00:54:22 ◼   ► is like, they have so many things to do,

00:54:24 ◼   ► and they have so many deadlines

00:54:27 ◼   ► and things that are out of their control

00:54:29 ◼   ► that while it was a great episode of TV,

00:54:32 ◼   ► I genuinely felt low-grade nausea

00:54:34 ◼   ► throughout the entire viewing experience.

00:54:36 ◼   ► - That was why I asked you this first,

00:54:38 ◼   ► 'cause I assumed that that could be

00:54:40 ◼   ► a very possible likelihood of like,

00:54:42 ◼   ► but that's fine for me, right?

00:54:43 ◼   ► Like you could see it was good,

00:54:45 ◼   ► but it made you feel anxious, it's like fine.

00:54:47 ◼   ► 'Cause that is part of the thing about this show,

00:54:50 ◼   ► is like some of them, a couple of the episodes,

00:54:53 ◼   ► it's following one inciting event,

00:54:56 ◼   ► like that is actually going to affect

00:54:59 ◼   ► the people you're watching.

00:55:01 ◼   ► Some of them are just like, there's a thing happening.

00:55:03 ◼   ► So there's also like the Kentucky Derby, right?

00:55:07 ◼   ► - Yes, yeah.

00:55:07 ◼   ► - Well, the Kentucky Derby is just like,

00:55:09 ◼   ► it affects a lot of people, but like the restaurant one,

00:55:12 ◼   ► the esports one, and the Cassini mission,

00:55:15 ◼   ► it's like you're following the only people

00:55:18 ◼   ► that care about this.

00:55:19 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:55:20 ◼   ► - And like that's like a big difference between the show,

00:55:22 ◼   ► and they actually kind of do a good job of like

00:55:24 ◼   ► flip flopping from episode to episode,

00:55:26 ◼   ► if you watch them all in a row.

00:55:28 ◼   ► The one about the fashion show, it is Chanel, I think,

00:55:32 ◼   ► That's just another excellent episode.

00:55:35 ◼   ► But I think this whole series is very good.

00:55:38 ◼   ► But this one episode, I enjoyed it the first time.

00:55:42 ◼   ► I loved it the second time.

00:55:44 ◼   ► I wanna know if you can guess

00:55:47 ◼   ► why specifically I liked this episode.

00:55:49 ◼   ► - Yeah, so it's interesting

00:55:52 ◼   ► that you feel so strongly about this

00:55:53 ◼   ► because I watched it and I really liked it.

00:55:56 ◼   ► And I think there are some things to discuss,

00:55:58 ◼   ► But it was not obvious in the viewing to me

00:56:03 ◼   ► why you would feel so strongly about this episode.

00:56:08 ◼   ► If I had to guess, I would guess that you love the,

00:56:13 ◼   ► I don't know his name,

00:56:16 ◼   ► but the guy who is the front of house guy.

00:56:17 ◼   ► - Ha ha, yes.

00:56:19 ◼   ► - Okay, is that like-- - Will Ghidara.

00:56:21 ◼   ► Will Ghidara. - Okay.

00:56:22 ◼   ► - I love this man.

00:56:24 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:56:27 ◼   ► He, I am like obsessed with him now.

00:56:31 ◼   ► Like I can't stop thinking about him.

00:56:32 ◼   ► - Are you following him on Instagram yet or?

00:56:34 ◼   ► - Yes, yes.

00:56:35 ◼   ► That was the first thing I did after I watched the episode.

00:56:38 ◼   ► - That was a joke that is now real, okay.

00:56:40 ◼   ► - Why would I not do that?

00:56:41 ◼   ► - I don't know.

00:56:42 ◼   ► - This is how people tend to work in like social media.

00:56:46 ◼   ► If you think someone's cool,

00:56:48 ◼   ► you follow them on social media.

00:56:49 ◼   ► Like that's typically what people do great.

00:56:51 ◼   ► Like I know that's not how you operate in social media,

00:56:55 ◼   ► but like this is how most regular people operate

00:56:59 ◼   ► in social media, right?

00:57:00 ◼   ► - Thank you for that low key slight.

00:57:02 ◼   ► - No worries.

00:57:03 ◼   ► So, if you haven't watched the show, you should,

00:57:07 ◼   ► but if you haven't watched it,

00:57:09 ◼   ► basically why they are following the reopening

00:57:13 ◼   ► of this restaurant, it's called Eleven Madison Park,

00:57:16 ◼   ► it's in New York.

00:57:17 ◼   ► This restaurant was awarded the best restaurant in the world

00:57:20 ◼   ► in April of 2017 in a thing called the 50 best awards.

00:57:25 ◼   ► They closed for renovation that year.

00:57:27 ◼   ► And this is the story of them

00:57:30 ◼   ► seven days before their reopening.

00:57:32 ◼   ► - If I remember correctly, they closed for three months.

00:57:35 ◼   ► - Yes.

00:57:36 ◼   ► - And that is, this is also part of the stress

00:57:40 ◼   ► of watching it, that is a shockingly short amount of time

00:57:44 ◼   ► to try to renovate a whole restaurant.

00:57:47 ◼   ► Like all I kept thinking of when I was watching this is,

00:57:50 ◼   ► must have been about a month and a half ago,

00:57:53 ◼   ► the boiler in my apartment broke

00:57:57 ◼   ► and it needed to be replaced. - The reason I laughed,

00:57:58 ◼   ► I wondered if you were ever gonna mention this,

00:58:00 ◼   ► because boiler replacement is like a,

00:58:04 ◼   ► it's like a long-standing theme of this show.

00:58:07 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:58:08 ◼   ► - Cortexmerch.com. (laughs)

00:58:11 ◼   ► - Yeah, I believe that was the initial impetus

00:58:15 ◼   ► for doing merch was--

00:58:16 ◼   ► - I don't know, it was the second t-shirt we ever did.

00:58:18 ◼   ► - Oh, it was the second one, okay.

00:58:18 ◼   ► - It was the second run of the "Monkey Brain" show.

00:58:20 ◼   ► - It was the second "Monkey Brain" show.

00:58:21 ◼   ► my boiler basically needed an entire replacement.

00:58:24 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:58:25 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:58:25 ◼   ► So like, you know, like I wasn't really directly involved in this, but it's like still the

00:58:33 ◼   ► boiler needed to be replaced in my apartment.

00:58:35 ◼   ► And it was, it was a two week process that tore the whole apartment apart in ways that

00:58:43 ◼   ► was inconceivable to me before it began.

00:58:45 ◼   ► Right.

00:58:46 ◼   ► Where if, if someone had told me ahead of time, like, Oh yeah, the, you know, they're

00:58:50 ◼   ► They're going to get some guy to come in here to replace the boiler and they're going to

00:58:53 ◼   ► be pulling piping out of the wall in the bedroom.

00:58:56 ◼   ► Right?

00:58:57 ◼   ► Like I would not have expected that.

00:58:59 ◼   ► So anyway, like I just, I just kept thinking like, oh, it took two weeks to do what seemed

00:59:03 ◼   ► like should have been a relatively straightforward thing in a tiny London apartment.

00:59:08 ◼   ► And I'm looking at their gigantic restaurant space in the middle of New York where we're

00:59:16 ◼   ► like the demand for construction labor

00:59:19 ◼   ► must just be incredibly high.

00:59:22 ◼   ► And I was like, you guys are gonna redo this whole place

00:59:25 ◼   ► in three months?

00:59:26 ◼   ► It seemed like an insane, insane deadline

00:59:30 ◼   ► to redo the restaurant.

00:59:32 ◼   ► And as Myke likes, the chief guy is Will,

00:59:36 ◼   ► is that his name?

00:59:37 ◼   ► - Mm-hmm, Will.

00:59:38 ◼   ► - I like him too,

00:59:38 ◼   ► because he does have this surprisingly rare quality

00:59:43 ◼   ► of someone who is really detail oriented. And it's like this man is thinking of every

00:59:52 ◼   ► single detail that he wants just so in the front of the house. And I would think this

00:59:59 ◼   ► would need a year to produce this whole thing the way that he wanted.

01:00:03 ◼   ► There's a great quote from the architect, because they're doing it in three months in

01:00:07 ◼   ► New York City, where he says, where it's at least twice as hard as anywhere else in the

01:00:11 ◼   ► US. Right, right. Because New York has a lot of union rules. Plus, it is like a very dense

01:00:20 ◼   ► city, so like moving and doing deliveries and stuff like that is also, I'm assuming,

01:00:24 ◼   ► incredibly difficult. But they do this refit in this incredibly short period of time. And

01:00:28 ◼   ► it's not a small one, either. They gutted the entire place. They didn't just redecorate,

01:00:34 ◼   ► right? Like it's a brand new restaurant. It is owned by Will and the chef, whose name

01:00:40 ◼   ► is Daniel Hoom. So Daniel Hoom is the chef, runs the back of house. Will Guidara is the

01:00:44 ◼   ► restauranteur front of house man. They bought the restaurant after they'd worked in the restaurant.

01:00:50 ◼   ► And there's like, there's an interesting theme in here as well of these two people being what

01:00:58 ◼   ► most people would think of as winners. Like they are two individuals who their stories are like,

01:01:05 ◼   ► OK, they are the type of people that put their mind to something and they succeed.

01:01:10 ◼   ► Like when they bought the restaurant, there's a there's like an interview

01:01:13 ◼   ► with the guy they bought the restaurant from who was their boss before.

01:01:16 ◼   ► And he asked them when they bought it, where do you go from here?

01:01:19 ◼   ► And they said, number one in the world. Right.

01:01:22 ◼   ► And at this point, that restaurant was nowhere near that.

01:01:26 ◼   ► Like it was a good restaurant in New York, but it was not like a

01:01:30 ◼   ► even in top 50, right?

01:01:32 ◼   ► Like it was in the top 50 contention.

01:01:34 ◼   ► And then they went and they did it.

01:01:36 ◼   ► They became the best, considered the best restaurant

01:01:38 ◼   ► in the world, which is quite a thing to do.

01:01:42 ◼   ► - Yeah, it really is quite a thing to do.

01:01:44 ◼   ► And I was looking at both of them and thinking this thing,

01:01:47 ◼   ► which I don't know, it's always like,

01:01:51 ◼   ► it's just this thing that if you're looking at people

01:01:56 ◼   ► who are really successful, you know,

01:01:58 ◼   ► say number one restaurant in the world,

01:02:01 ◼   ► in the restaurant field, which is pretty competitive.

01:02:05 ◼   ► You should not expect the people who do that

01:02:08 ◼   ► to be normal people.

01:02:11 ◼   ► And it's like, yeah, that's why Will is like 99th percentile

01:02:16 ◼   ► of humans detail focused on everything

01:02:19 ◼   ► that's in the whole dining area, right?

01:02:21 ◼   ► Like he's not just like,

01:02:23 ◼   ► "Oh, we need someone to run the front of house."

01:02:25 ◼   ► He's like, "No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no."

01:02:28 ◼   ► He's upset that the cushions aren't soft enough

01:02:31 ◼   ► that they've just installed.

01:02:32 ◼   ► - We can't talk about the cushions yet.

01:02:34 ◼   ► We can't talk about the cushions yet.

01:02:36 ◼   ► - We'll talk about them, right?

01:02:37 ◼   ► - That's why I have a whole thing about the cushions.

01:02:38 ◼   ► - Okay, yeah, but he's obsessed with all of this stuff

01:02:41 ◼   ► for the lighting and every detail of this whole place.

01:02:46 ◼   ► And then they run through his history

01:02:47 ◼   ► and then he's like, "Well, I sat down with my dad

01:02:51 ◼   ► "when I was 12 and made a list of all the things

01:02:53 ◼   ► "that I wanted to do and I just did them."

01:02:55 ◼   ► It's like, yeah.

01:02:56 ◼   ► - The way this comes about, right?

01:02:57 ◼   ► His dad was a restaurateur and this is like wild, this story to me.

01:03:02 ◼   ► One day his dad gives him a paperweight when he's 12 years old that says,

01:03:07 ◼   ► what would you attempt to do if you could not fail? Then said,

01:03:10 ◼   ► write a list of things you want to do in your life.

01:03:13 ◼   ► And on that list was open a restaurant in New York city.

01:03:17 ◼   ► Right.

01:03:18 ◼   ► It's just like, at 12 years, why does his dad do this? I mean, clearly it worked,

01:03:23 ◼   ► but that is like, again, so like you start to think like,

01:03:26 ◼   ► Why is he maybe this way?

01:03:27 ◼   ► Well, maybe it's because when he was 12 years old,

01:03:29 ◼   ► his dad made him plan out his life.

01:03:31 ◼   ► Well, yeah.

01:03:32 ◼   ► I mean, this is--

01:03:33 ◼   ► This isn't a criticism as such.

01:03:35 ◼   ► That is a harsh thing to do, but it's an interesting thing

01:03:40 ◼   ► to be asked at an age and then plan it.

01:03:42 ◼   ► And as well, just because this happened

01:03:44 ◼   ► didn't mean he had to continue down this path.

01:03:47 ◼   ► People diverge from what they want to do when they're kids.

01:03:50 ◼   ► This was something he really wanted to do.

01:03:51 ◼   ► And then you would assume the more he went down

01:03:53 ◼   ► this route in his life, the more he realized

01:03:55 ◼   ► he wanted to do it, but it is just kind of like a funny,

01:03:58 ◼   ► inciting event.

01:04:00 ◼   ► - Yeah, well, and also like that to me is the view of like,

01:04:03 ◼   ► children are much more like their parents than the children

01:04:08 ◼   ► or even the parents sometimes recognize.

01:04:10 ◼   ► It's just like, oh, right.

01:04:12 ◼   ► It is pretty common to have

01:04:14 ◼   ► Uber successful competitive people,

01:04:16 ◼   ► they produce Uber competitive successful children,

01:04:18 ◼   ► like at a higher than average rate

01:04:21 ◼   ► compared to the general population.

01:04:23 ◼   ► But I think like, he's an interesting comparison

01:04:25 ◼   ► to the chef who sort of like mentioned it offhandedly,

01:04:30 ◼   ► but he's like, "Oh yeah, I used to be a professional athlete

01:04:34 ◼   ► "in bike racing, and then one day I decided,

01:04:37 ◼   ► "hmm, maybe I could be competitive in the world of cooking."

01:04:40 ◼   ► And so I became an amazing chef, right?

01:04:42 ◼   ► And it's like, okay.

01:04:44 ◼   ► You're just, you're not a normal person.

01:04:47 ◼   ► - He was 21 years old when he made that decision.

01:04:51 ◼   ► And is now like one of the best chefs in the world,

01:04:54 ◼   ► but just decided he would do it

01:04:56 ◼   ► when other people at his level have been doing it

01:04:59 ◼   ► since they were like nine.

01:05:01 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah, and just like,

01:05:02 ◼   ► "Oh, I'm gonna do a career change

01:05:05 ◼   ► "and just take this competitiveness in me

01:05:08 ◼   ► "and point it at something else and just go."

01:05:12 ◼   ► And that is a thing that I find interesting in,

01:05:15 ◼   ► I don't know,

01:05:17 ◼   ► I think in humans,

01:05:21 ◼   ► if you think of all of their various characteristics,

01:05:23 ◼   ► you have a bunch of sliders. And I have a hard time relating to people who have the

01:05:27 ◼   ► competitiveness slider set really high. But it's also interesting, like those people,

01:05:33 ◼   ► not surprisingly, tend to be really successful. But I think he's a good example of a thing

01:05:37 ◼   ► I've noticed where, like, for people who competitiveness is set really high, they don't, it almost

01:05:44 ◼   ► doesn't matter what the domain is. It's just like, oh, I just want a domain in which to

01:05:50 ◼   ► And I've been a professional athlete,

01:05:54 ◼   ► and now it's time to just do something else.

01:05:56 ◼   ► And boom, cooking, whatever.

01:05:58 ◼   ► The way he describes it, it almost feels like

01:06:01 ◼   ► it could have been anything.

01:06:04 ◼   ► He could have become a professional painter just as easily.

01:06:07 ◼   ► It's interesting the way he describes it.

01:06:12 ◼   ► As just like, oh, I just shifted this field of attention

01:06:15 ◼   ► to this different domain,

01:06:16 ◼   ► and now I run the number one restaurant in the world.

01:06:19 ◼   ► (laughing)

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01:07:48 ◼   ► FM. Squarespace, make your next move, make your next website. So there's like a thing going on for

01:07:53 ◼   ► me here which I think is running in parallel to one of the reasons that I was particularly like

01:08:00 ◼   ► taken aback or like this specific episode has been like rattling around in my brain a lot recently

01:08:08 ◼   ► is that I am becoming, I'm finding myself becoming more and more in awe at what chefs do,

01:08:14 ◼   ► the idea of being a chef, because it's like this very very intense way of living. You seem to need

01:08:24 ◼   ► to dedicate your life to it, not just in time, like in history, but also time in every day.

01:08:33 ◼   ► It seems like being a chef consists of a lifetime of training and learning,

01:08:39 ◼   ► incredibly long hours, like all hours, and I'm also becoming more and more interested in the

01:08:47 ◼   ► fact that it seemingly comes from nowhere for some people. So, Qum is a good example of this.

01:08:53 ◼   ► We also just finished watching a competition show called The Final Table on Netflix,

01:08:57 ◼   ► which is like a cooking competition show, which is pretty good that we liked.

01:09:01 ◼   ► But a lot of the people, there's like something like 20 chefs or something like that on this show in total.

01:09:06 ◼   ► So many of them, their story was just they changed careers to become chefs.

01:09:12 ◼   ► Or there's a couple of them that are like completely self-taught, but they are cooking at this incredible degree.

01:09:19 ◼   ► But they never were trained. They just do it.

01:09:23 ◼   ► And I find it to be not just impressive in that way, but one of the most creative things

01:09:32 ◼   ► a human can do is to cook at this high level, right?

01:09:37 ◼   ► Like this Michelin star level, right?

01:09:40 ◼   ► Which all these restaurateurs on this show that we just competition show that we're watching,

01:09:44 ◼   ► they all have Michelin stars or they're considered the best in their country at this or that.

01:09:49 ◼   ► They show all of the stuff that they do.

01:09:51 ◼   ► The ability to be able to create this incredible looking food, and I'm sure incredible tasting

01:09:58 ◼   ► food, right?

01:09:59 ◼   ► Just seems like such a thing which is almost unparalleled in creativity.

01:10:03 ◼   ► It's like art, it's like music, right?

01:10:06 ◼   ► They feel like these things that are pretty similar to me, where it's creating something

01:10:09 ◼   ► out of nothing from components that already exist, right?

01:10:15 ◼   ► All of these ingredients exist, or all of these words exist in the language, but you

01:10:20 ◼   ► have been able to put them together in such a way to create this thing that nobody's experienced

01:10:25 ◼   ► before. I find that very interesting.

01:10:27 ◼   ► I'm wondering here if I'm eventually going to lose my podcast co-host to the world of

01:10:31 ◼   ► cooking. Because I've been hearing you increasingly over the years be interested in cooking, so

01:10:39 ◼   ► far like expanding your own palates and cooking yourself.

01:10:42 ◼   ► This also comes with the fact that over the last few years I've been able to get over

01:10:51 ◼   ► and get better at some health stuff, which has meant that I have been able to eat better

01:10:57 ◼   ► and more rounded than I ever have before.

01:11:00 ◼   ► So that has been another reason why I have become more interested in food as a person,

01:11:05 ◼   ► because I am able to eat more interesting things.

01:11:09 ◼   ► So I am just becoming more intrigued about flavors, because I am able to have more of

01:11:17 ◼   ► them, which is wonderful.

01:11:19 ◼   ► So looking into what it takes to make food has become really interesting to me.

01:11:25 ◼   ► And it's not just Michelin star food, because I don't eat Michelin star food.

01:11:32 ◼   ► This isn't a thing that occurs to me on a daily basis.

01:11:35 ◼   ► I eat at regular restaurants, I eat at nice restaurants where I can, but they're all

01:11:40 ◼   ► like incredibly different and the food is always so interesting to me. Like why can

01:11:49 ◼   ► a cheeseburger taste so differently in all these different places? You know, like what

01:11:54 ◼   ► goes into this? And like that has just become something I've been a little bit more interested

01:11:57 ◼   ► in. I also love and find very intriguing the respect that you see in kitchen environments.

01:12:07 ◼   ► And this respect is also dealt in such a way that is also aggressive and horrible, but

01:12:13 ◼   ► is this hierarchy so interesting to me?

01:12:16 ◼   ► Yeah, kitchens always seem kind of military almost.

01:12:19 ◼   ► Yes, and that is fascinating. Like, and you see it in this show a lot. One of the other

01:12:23 ◼   ► main character of the show is a guy called Dimitri who is the chef de cuisine which sounds

01:12:29 ◼   ► like he's in charge of the food but actually he's the middle manager. He is in charge of

01:12:33 ◼   ► all the people and he has to work so hard to effectively run things for him on a daily

01:12:42 ◼   ► basis but there seems to be a drive for him because he wants to impress the chef. Like

01:12:49 ◼   ► He wants to make it the way it should be because he believes in the chef's vision. And that

01:12:57 ◼   ► kind of... The way in which a kitchen seems to be stacked is so interesting to me. The

01:13:04 ◼   ► way that people... The words they use, you know, like everything is "yes chef". You

01:13:10 ◼   ► know, like there is a really interesting moment when the restaurant, the opening night of

01:13:14 ◼   ► restaurant where the chef whom hugs Dimitri tells him that he loves him and Dimitri says

01:13:22 ◼   ► yes chef. Now that is so interesting to me in that moment because Hume is having an emotional

01:13:32 ◼   ► reaction but Dimitri is still upholding the typical level of respect that he must show

01:13:39 ◼   ► the chef. And it's just this the way that again I really appreciate that like these

01:13:46 ◼   ► environments can be rewarding but also like soul breaking for people because as you mentioned

01:13:51 ◼   ► it is like the military but it is the fact that it has remained is so intriguing to me.

01:13:58 ◼   ► There are not I can't think of another professional endeavor outside of the military and outside

01:14:06 ◼   ► of cooking where this institutional respect is maintained and that is just so fascinating

01:14:13 ◼   ► to me as to why this occurred. Like there is another moment where they're doing the

01:14:18 ◼   ► tasting, you see over the day before, I think it's the day before they're doing like the

01:14:22 ◼   ► friends and family thing, and something's cooked badly and the duck is raw inside of

01:14:28 ◼   ► this apple, right?

01:14:29 ◼   ► Oh god, yeah.

01:14:31 ◼   ► I love is the words that Hume uses. He says, "Why does this happen?" And I love that phrasing,

01:14:39 ◼   ► just like as a thing, like when you think about like language and stuff, like the way

01:14:44 ◼   ► he asks that question, like, "Why does this happen?" It's such an interesting way of asking

01:14:50 ◼   ► the question of like, he didn't say "how", he said "why". And like that's so interesting

01:14:57 ◼   ► to me is like how he thinks. It's like, "Why would you do this to me?" is kind of what

01:15:02 ◼   ► he's actually saying. But the way that then the cook involved in that process is talking

01:15:10 ◼   ► to the people and the way that people are talking to him, it's like such an interesting

01:15:14 ◼   ► dynamic. So these are some of the reasons why I'm finding this stuff particularly interesting

01:15:20 ◼   ► right now. And I don't really know where this is coming from, watching lots of cooking related

01:15:26 ◼   ► shows. Another incredible Netflix series is called Somebody Feed Phil, where the creator

01:15:30 ◼   ► of Everybody Feeds Love is Raymond, goes around the world eating food. It is one of the most

01:15:35 ◼   ► wonderful, wholesome and enjoyable things I've seen in years. It's two seasons. Everyone

01:15:41 ◼   ► should watch this show because it is wonderful. And then, Netflix has a ton of cooking content.

01:15:48 ◼   ► If you are interested in food in any way, oh boy, Netflix has got you covered. So I've

01:15:53 ◼   ► I've been watching more of this stuff and just becoming increasingly interested in food

01:16:00 ◼   ► because what I have also noticed about myself is you can go to a nice restaurant and eat

01:16:05 ◼   ► things that typically you do not enjoy and they're good and I'm also really intrigued

01:16:09 ◼   ► about that as like a thing.

01:16:11 ◼   ► I don't really like fish, right?

01:16:13 ◼   ► I'm not really a big seafood guy but I've been taken to some nice restaurants and have

01:16:20 ◼   ► eaten fish because it's like all they do is like oh this is good but I know I

01:16:24 ◼   ► don't like this in other places and so like just and I know it's like it's the

01:16:27 ◼   ► way it's cooked and it's the ingredients and blah blah blah but it's like I'm intrigued

01:16:31 ◼   ► about like the why to some of that so mm-hmm this is part of the reason as

01:16:36 ◼   ► well as my ridiculous man crush on the front of house guy as to why this

01:16:41 ◼   ► episode is so interesting to me do you want to tell people about the pillows

01:16:45 ◼   ► So there's a couple of parts that I need to tell to lead up to this story.

01:16:53 ◼   ► One thing is talking about a lady called Natasha McGovern.

01:16:58 ◼   ► Oh my god, the secret hero of this episode.

01:17:02 ◼   ► I was looking at Natasha the whole time and I was like, you are the woman making all of

01:17:06 ◼   ► this come together.

01:17:08 ◼   ► Her role is director of creative projects.

01:17:12 ◼   ► She is the person responsible for managing the renovation.

01:17:15 ◼   ► She is also the person between Will and everyone else.

01:17:20 ◼   ► So she takes his demands and softens them and makes things happen.

01:17:26 ◼   ► Right?

01:17:29 ◼   ► That is kind of like her role.

01:17:31 ◼   ► Yeah, that's a good way to put it with the softening

01:17:35 ◼   ► as a key component of this kind of in-between role.

01:17:41 ◼   ► So it's important to know who she is for me to tell you about a few instances of Will and why I

01:17:49 ◼   ► have an interesting like respect for this guy. The reason for this by the way is I see some of

01:17:55 ◼   ► my own sensibilities in this guy like I'm not as intense as him but I definitely feel

01:18:01 ◼   ► that way sometimes and as I am getting older more frequently. So the mohair benches.

01:18:09 ◼   ► So there are benches that are put in which is half of the scene. You've got benches, you'll see these

01:18:17 ◼   ► right? They're like the little booth type situations in a restaurant. So this is a perfect

01:18:22 ◼   ► example of how he intensely cares about everything. He describes himself as a reasonably particular

01:18:28 ◼   ► person. So they sit down in these benches and he says "I'm really nervous, it's terrible to sit

01:18:39 ◼   ► There is words when he sits down in them the first time.

01:18:43 ◼   ► Because he found them too prickly and they need breaking in, right?

01:18:46 ◼   ► Like they've just been made, it's like that kind of like a bristly feeling.

01:18:50 ◼   ► Yeah, like I think people will know this, you'll feel this sometimes if you're sitting up against a cushion that has been stuffed with hairs that have...

01:19:00 ◼   ► Like hairs that have substance to them so they can sometimes poke through the actual fabric that contains them.

01:19:08 ◼   ► Like that's the impression that I get of what's going on when he's talking about

01:19:12 ◼   ► this.

01:19:13 ◼   ► It's like he's sitting up against these things and they feel a bit prickly.

01:19:16 ◼   ► Yeah, so because they're new, they are prickly and over time they will soften but they don't

01:19:21 ◼   ► have time and so they're talking about it.

01:19:24 ◼   ► This is like day five.

01:19:25 ◼   ► Yeah, they're talking about it and there is a line that he says, "I am preceded by

01:19:33 ◼   ► somebody saying," he's like talking with people and we don't hear what comes before

01:19:36 ◼   ► But my perception is like somebody says like, oh, you know,

01:19:39 ◼   ► this could be a problem.

01:19:43 ◼   ► The line he says is it's not a question of whether it's a problem.

01:19:46 ◼   ► It is a problem.

01:19:49 ◼   ► And when I heard this on my first viewing, I think I exclaimed that I love him

01:19:54 ◼   ► because what I like about him and whilst he is obviously incredibly demanding,

01:20:00 ◼   ► he is very clear

01:20:03 ◼   ► about cutting through the type of corporate language that you typically hear.

01:20:08 ◼   ► He does not accept the way that people typically talk in business environments if he is unhappy

01:20:18 ◼   ► about something. And there is another example of that that I want to get to in a minute,

01:20:21 ◼   ► but there's still way more about the mohat situation. It ends up being that it becomes

01:20:30 ◼   ► an absolute code red situation for everybody else around him and you see it play out throughout the

01:20:36 ◼   ► rest of the episode because clearly like there was like phone calls being made and you're hearing

01:20:42 ◼   ► phone calls and people making jokes about it or whatever but i think what has clearly been

01:20:48 ◼   ► established by the people around him is it doesn't matter what anybody else says this needs to be

01:20:54 ◼   ► fixed. It doesn't matter if this is or isn't a thing. It doesn't matter if it can or can't

01:21:02 ◼   ► be fixed. It must be because Will is upset about it.

01:21:05 ◼   ► Yeah, I think also with what's important to understand for the setting of this, which

01:21:10 ◼   ► makes it 10,000 times better, is the restaurant is is still in total disarray around them.

01:21:18 ◼   ► There are a million things that need to be done.

01:21:20 ◼   ► At this point, they don't even have gas turned on.

01:21:23 ◼   ► - Yeah, that's exactly it.

01:21:23 ◼   ► Like the kitchen is completely non-functional.

01:21:26 ◼   ► You can just see in the background of shots.

01:21:29 ◼   ► Like there's guys everywhere,

01:21:31 ◼   ► there's stuff all over the place.

01:21:33 ◼   ► Natasha, my favorite person in the episode by far,

01:21:36 ◼   ► has this punch list that she shows the camera.

01:21:39 ◼   ► - I was waiting for you to mention this list.

01:21:41 ◼   ► - Oh my God.

01:21:42 ◼   ► Well, first of all, her handwriting is amazing.

01:21:44 ◼   ► - Unbelievable.

01:21:45 ◼   ► - It's like unbelievable handwriting,

01:21:47 ◼   ► but it's like she has just this incredible list of things.

01:21:51 ◼   ► - It's thousands probably.

01:21:52 ◼   ► Like it's just she has multiple lists of hundreds and hundreds of items that need to be that are like absolute must be fixed things

01:22:00 ◼   ► Right all of them all of them are and like, you know, she's running through this list and you know

01:22:06 ◼   ► All I can think of is how many man-hours each of these little items represents

01:22:11 ◼   ► Or or like how many of these things that they're dealing with

01:22:17 ◼   ► only one or two people can possibly solve.

01:22:20 ◼   ► So it was like getting the inspectors in for the gas, right?

01:22:23 ◼   ► Or the guy who's doing the gold foil on the ceiling, right?

01:22:26 ◼   ► It's like, there's a craftsman who can handle this gold foil

01:22:30 ◼   ► that they need over the whole ceiling.

01:22:32 ◼   ► Like, and you know, that's just, that's all they've got there.

01:22:34 ◼   ► So this is what makes him being particular about the seats even more striking

01:22:42 ◼   ► Because it's like, hey, these seats compared to almost everything else on this list, a

01:22:49 ◼   ► normal person could say it's done, right?

01:22:51 ◼   ► It's done.

01:22:52 ◼   ► We've got a million things to do.

01:22:54 ◼   ► Maybe this isn't the thing that we need to focus on.

01:22:57 ◼   ► But that's why like his, his line of like, no, no, no, I'm not, I'm not discussing this

01:23:00 ◼   ► with you.

01:23:01 ◼   ► This is a problem is even more striking because it's not like, it's not like they have a bunch

01:23:07 ◼   ► of free time and he's looking to cause problems.

01:23:10 ◼   ► You know, it's like, they've got so much to do and this thing that is done, he's like,

01:23:14 ◼   ► no, no, no, it's not done.

01:23:15 ◼   ► It's not remotely done.

01:23:17 ◼   ► It's like ultimately they're able to soften it, but like steam it and they get it to a

01:23:21 ◼   ► point where he finds it acceptable.

01:23:24 ◼   ► But this scenario, right, like the one that you mentioned, like if there are so many things

01:23:29 ◼   ► going on, but he seems to intensely care about this and everybody pays attention to it.

01:23:34 ◼   ► It all plays into like a theory that I have, that I've kind of been developing over the

01:23:38 ◼   ► time of working on things creatively. My theory is that all things that are great are great

01:23:46 ◼   ► because somebody worried intensely about all of the things you would never notice. And

01:23:52 ◼   ► because somebody can care about something so small that it has to be fixed, it ensures

01:23:57 ◼   ► that it will ultimately be seen as good by everybody else. Because probably nobody would

01:24:02 ◼   ► have noticed the prickliness of the mohair but the fact that he cared so much about that

01:24:09 ◼   ► thing which is probably an unimportant thing means that no important thing was left unfixed.

01:24:17 ◼   ► So like that it's just like a thing that I think of when I sometimes find myself intensely

01:24:22 ◼   ► stressing over minutely unimportant things that are massively important to me but probably

01:24:30 ◼   ► nobody else cares about. I make myself feel better but I just thought that the fact that

01:24:34 ◼   ► I care and will fix this thing which is unimportant probably means that my attention to detail

01:24:40 ◼   ► is such that the overall product will be good, hopefully. But like that is like my theory

01:24:45 ◼   ► of like why is this the best restaurant in the world? Probably partly because he cares

01:24:50 ◼   ► so much about the prickliness of the benches.

01:24:53 ◼   ► Yeah and I like I think of just the media that I consume. I know this is this is a common

01:24:58 ◼   ► thread that like I love watching and consuming like movies and TV shows and YouTube videos where

01:25:02 ◼   ► it's clear that someone has sweated a thousand little details of like what's going on in the

01:25:07 ◼   ► background or how this is shot and it's like yeah the the you'll never notice all of the things that

01:25:13 ◼   ► the director or the creator of that thing was worried about but I just I don't know it's it's

01:25:20 ◼   ► always a thing that like even when watching movies with my wife we're always discussing like oh this

01:25:24 ◼   ► this is clearly a movie that somebody cared about

01:25:27 ◼   ► and you tune into that when you notice some detail

01:25:31 ◼   ► that's like, oh, you didn't need to do that movie,

01:25:34 ◼   ► but somebody cared enough to make this scene transition

01:25:38 ◼   ► a little better or like, oh, there's a nice continuity here

01:25:41 ◼   ► that nobody who doesn't pay attention

01:25:44 ◼   ► to how movies are made would ever notice.

01:25:46 ◼   ► And those things are nice and you tune into them,

01:25:48 ◼   ► but it does mean that there's a million things in the movie

01:25:50 ◼   ► that you're not thinking about that also just help it

01:25:53 ◼   ► go along more smoothly.

01:25:55 ◼   ► - Yeah, I think this for me started

01:25:57 ◼   ► in media studies class.

01:25:59 ◼   ► So I took, in the UK, when I was 16,

01:26:04 ◼   ► you would go on to do A levels

01:26:05 ◼   ► and they were just different things

01:26:07 ◼   ► that you could choose to do

01:26:08 ◼   ► and you have to have A levels to go to university,

01:26:11 ◼   ► by and large.

01:26:12 ◼   ► And one of the classes that I picked was media studies

01:26:16 ◼   ► and in media studies class,

01:26:19 ◼   ► you're looking at all different types of media

01:26:21 ◼   ► but one of them being film.

01:26:22 ◼   ► And I think it was during the course of this two year class

01:26:27 ◼   ► where I was being shown things in movies,

01:26:32 ◼   ► was like, "Oh, pay attention to this very specific thing

01:26:36 ◼   ► "that's going on here.

01:26:37 ◼   ► "The reason the director did this

01:26:39 ◼   ► "is because of this symbolism of this and this and this."

01:26:42 ◼   ► Stuff that you won't notice,

01:26:44 ◼   ► but they took the time to very particularly do it.

01:26:47 ◼   ► Like, it's stuff like that I think was what started

01:26:50 ◼   ► my kind of like obsession of these like doing these things that nobody else may even notice

01:26:56 ◼   ► because they're important to you and I think that kind of like set this off for me like

01:27:01 ◼   ► a thing in my brain of like why did you even do that like why was that important does that

01:27:06 ◼   ► add to the overall feeling of a thing so that's kind of like what I think one of the reasons

01:27:11 ◼   ► why I liked both of them I think they're both like this to a degree but Will is more he

01:27:17 ◼   ► is more like that. My favorite though, just as a very quick aside, is this thing about

01:27:25 ◼   ► the lights in the restaurant. He's having a conversation with a guy who is part of a

01:27:31 ◼   ► lighting company who's renovated the lights. And Will is unhappy because he says that you

01:27:36 ◼   ► used to be able to turn some of the lights on and some of the lights off independently

01:27:40 ◼   ► and the new lighting cannot be done. And the lighting guy says that this is how it always

01:27:45 ◼   ► And Will says, "I have spent thousands of hours under these lights and I am telling

01:27:50 ◼   ► you we used to be able to do this."

01:27:52 ◼   ► And the guy's like, "Well, we didn't change anything.

01:27:54 ◼   ► We just changed the way the lights work.

01:27:56 ◼   ► We didn't actually change the underpinnings.

01:27:58 ◼   ► This is how it was."

01:28:00 ◼   ► And then it's going back and forth and Will's saying, "No, it used to be able to be done."

01:28:05 ◼   ► And the lighting guy's saying, "I understand."

01:28:07 ◼   ► Which is a very normal thing that you find whenever you're making a complaint to someone,

01:28:11 ◼   ► whenever you're working in any kind of company, when you're upset about something, people

01:28:16 ◼   ► say to you, "I understand." But what I like about this is Will's saying, "What are you

01:28:21 ◼   ► saying you understand?" Like he's asking him to his face, like, "What are you saying you

01:28:26 ◼   ► understand?" Now they didn't show the resolution to this, ultimately, but I think I know how

01:28:32 ◼   ► it went. But I just really love the way that he won't accept what normal people accept,

01:28:41 ◼   ► Which is when somebody tells you they understand, you back away because they're attempting to

01:28:46 ◼   ► empathise with me fakely.

01:28:49 ◼   ► They have false empathy is being shown to me now, so I will back off because this person

01:28:53 ◼   ► is trying.

01:28:54 ◼   ► He's like "no no no!"

01:28:55 ◼   ► He's like "I won't accept this!"

01:28:57 ◼   ► And I just find it really interesting as a person whose soul was crushed in a company

01:29:02 ◼   ► listening to this type of language for so many years, that he just decides "I'm not

01:29:07 ◼   ► accepting this."

01:29:08 ◼   ► And again, it's also like, well, yeah,

01:29:10 ◼   ► 'cause he's paying for it.

01:29:11 ◼   ► - Yeah, I mean, there is a thing where

01:29:13 ◼   ► he sort of tries to break that conversation

01:29:15 ◼   ► by simply saying, well, you know, make it this way.

01:29:18 ◼   ► I do have to say that is the one part

01:29:20 ◼   ► in the episode though, where I'm not confident

01:29:25 ◼   ► that he's right.

01:29:27 ◼   ► I'm not saying that he's wrong,

01:29:29 ◼   ► but I do feel a bit like I'd love to know

01:29:33 ◼   ► who is actually correct here.

01:29:35 ◼   ► - Yeah, this isn't like, I felt the same.

01:29:37 ◼   ► I don't know that he's right, they don't resolve it.

01:29:41 ◼   ► He believes he is, but yeah.

01:29:43 ◼   ► - Yeah, but one of the things that's interesting is

01:29:45 ◼   ► whether or not he actually is correct.

01:29:48 ◼   ► And it is the moment where I doubt a little bit,

01:29:52 ◼   ► because it's like the electrician is talking about

01:29:53 ◼   ► some of the way it's wired in the walls,

01:29:56 ◼   ► and like, oh, it can't possibly be this way.

01:29:59 ◼   ► And that's what makes me doubt him a little bit,

01:30:02 ◼   ► like, I don't know, man.

01:30:05 ◼   ► Like just because you have been in this room for forever

01:30:06 ◼   ► doesn't mean that you do accurately remember

01:30:09 ◼   ► how the lights went.

01:30:11 ◼   ► But nonetheless, it is nice that it kind of cuts

01:30:14 ◼   ► to the point of, he says something like,

01:30:15 ◼   ► "Okay, well, let's make them this way."

01:30:18 ◼   ► Right, like he doesn't, he's like trying to move past

01:30:21 ◼   ► this as well, like even in the argument of like,

01:30:24 ◼   ► "Okay, whatever, like let's just do it like this."

01:30:27 ◼   ► And yes, and then the camera sort of cuts

01:30:31 ◼   ► and you have no idea how this resolved,

01:30:32 ◼   ► and I imagine not well is the answer.

01:30:34 ◼   ► [laughs]

01:30:35 ◼   ► There's one thing I also liked in this episode,

01:30:38 ◼   ► which I always think is a really important

01:30:40 ◼   ► and underrated skill, which is both of these guys,

01:30:45 ◼   ► like we've said, being very successful goal-oriented dudes,

01:30:51 ◼   ► but they both also recognize that the task

01:30:56 ◼   ► of doing the number one restaurant in the world

01:30:59 ◼   ► is not something that they could do on their own.

01:31:02 ◼   ► And I just think it's always,

01:31:05 ◼   ► I think it can be hard for people who are like that

01:31:10 ◼   ► to sometimes recognize where are the limits

01:31:12 ◼   ► of their own skills.

01:31:13 ◼   ► - Yeah, they know they need each other.

01:31:15 ◼   ► - Yeah, they know they need each other

01:31:16 ◼   ► and I think it's like the task of knowing oneself,

01:31:20 ◼   ► like what are you good at and what are you not good at?

01:31:23 ◼   ► Or if you want to achieve this thing,

01:31:26 ◼   ► where do you need help and where do you not need help?

01:31:28 ◼   ► Like that is an invisible meta skill

01:31:32 ◼   ► that it's really easy to get wrong.

01:31:34 ◼   ► And I think it's, I like how they both really acknowledge

01:31:39 ◼   ► that they need the other person.

01:31:42 ◼   ► And this discussion about how, you know,

01:31:45 ◼   ► in many restaurants, either like the kitchen

01:31:47 ◼   ► is running the restaurant or the front of house

01:31:49 ◼   ► is running the restaurant, but that's not what

01:31:51 ◼   ► they were gonna do in their restaurant,

01:31:52 ◼   ► that it's like, it's one unified experience.

01:31:56 ◼   ► And I think it's that recognition that like,

01:32:00 ◼   ► oh, we're both really good at what we do,

01:32:02 ◼   ► but the restaurant needs both of us,

01:32:05 ◼   ► is probably why it was able to achieve

01:32:08 ◼   ► being number one in the world.

01:32:09 ◼   ► Because it wasn't like, oh, my desire

01:32:13 ◼   ► to have these fancy meals overrides everything else.

01:32:17 ◼   ► It's actually even a little thing that I really liked

01:32:19 ◼   ► and I felt like I could really sympathize with

01:32:20 ◼   ► with the chef where he's talking about

01:32:23 ◼   ► how he has these various principles about making meals,

01:32:25 ◼   ► like a meal should have--

01:32:27 ◼   ► - I have the principles written down if you'd like them.

01:32:30 ◼   ► - Right, I was like, it should be delicious,

01:32:31 ◼   ► it should be creative, it should be beautiful,

01:32:35 ◼   ► and it should be what else?

01:32:37 ◼   ► - So I wanna read them to you,

01:32:38 ◼   ► 'cause they're so great when you just,

01:32:40 ◼   ► so the dish has to be delicious,

01:32:42 ◼   ► the dish has to be beautiful, it has to be creative.

01:32:45 ◼   ► Every dish should add something

01:32:47 ◼   ► to the dialogue of food today.

01:32:49 ◼   ► And number four is intention.

01:32:51 ◼   ► It needs to make sense that the dish exists.

01:32:55 ◼   ► I just love it, it's so beautiful.

01:32:57 ◼   ► And he says as well, these fundamentals

01:32:59 ◼   ► sometimes work against each other,

01:33:00 ◼   ► like creativity and deliciousness,

01:33:02 ◼   ► but they both have to be there.

01:33:04 ◼   ► - Yeah, and like, that's the part that I think is,

01:33:07 ◼   ► is again, a way of being self-aware,

01:33:10 ◼   ► that I think like a person who was really good,

01:33:15 ◼   ► but less self-aware could just leave it

01:33:18 ◼   ► at their four principles of the meal.

01:33:21 ◼   ► But it's an important recognition that creativity

01:33:24 ◼   ► can play off of these other things,

01:33:27 ◼   ► or like beauty, you know, it's very easy to imagine

01:33:30 ◼   ► a thing that is more beautiful and less delicious, right?

01:33:34 ◼   ► Or like, you know, it makes it feel like he's aware

01:33:37 ◼   ► much more that instead of thinking of a thing

01:33:40 ◼   ► where there's four vertical bars

01:33:42 ◼   ► and he wants to max out all of them,

01:33:44 ◼   ► that instead he's dealing with a surface

01:33:48 ◼   ► and a geometric shape that he's trying to spread

01:33:52 ◼   ► across a bunch of axes and he only has so much area

01:33:54 ◼   ► to work with.

01:33:55 ◼   ► And it's like, yes, that is a much better way

01:33:57 ◼   ► to think about that.

01:33:59 ◼   ► And this is a part of any creative process

01:34:02 ◼   ► is things can play off of each other.

01:34:05 ◼   ► And it just,

01:34:08 ◼   ► like it made me think of like my own comparison in this.

01:34:15 ◼   ► And it's a thing that I like I talk about

01:34:17 ◼   ► with other creators is like the trade off

01:34:20 ◼   ► between like clarity and complexity.

01:34:24 ◼   ► And it's good to have a topic that's complex,

01:34:28 ◼   ► but it also has to be clear,

01:34:30 ◼   ► and these two things are always pulling at each other.

01:34:33 ◼   ► That you want a topic to be complex and to be clear,

01:34:38 ◼   ► but you're always gonna maximize a different project

01:34:40 ◼   ► in a different way.

01:34:41 ◼   ► So again, I just thought that was a really interesting way

01:34:44 ◼   ► of being self-aware about the dishes,

01:34:46 ◼   ► instead of just yelling at a chef.

01:34:47 ◼   ► It's like, "Oh, it has to be more beautiful,

01:34:50 ◼   ► but I will sacrifice nothing to achieve that greater beauty."

01:34:53 ◼   ► Yeah. And you did mention about needing each other.

01:34:56 ◼   ► I think that's part of the reason that I like this too, is I work in a lot of one-on-one

01:35:00 ◼   ► collaborative environments, right? Like I have many creative partners, like people that rely on

01:35:05 ◼   ► me, I rely on them and we work together to create things and run things. And I think that's part of

01:35:11 ◼   ► what draws me to this is like the two of them have clearly a very strong bond. Like we've spoken

01:35:18 ◼   ► about this in the past about like working with friends and working with people that

01:35:23 ◼   ► you have a relationship with, like how it crushed me when I found out that the MythBusters

01:35:27 ◼   ► weren't friends. That experience is like, it hurt me so bad that like I think I am now

01:35:36 ◼   ► even more like drawn to when I see people that clearly have an emotional feeling for

01:35:42 ◼   ► each other working together and how they balance all of that.

01:35:47 ◼   ► And so it made it extra fascinating to me.

01:35:51 ◼   ► And then again, more so because I could see some of my own qualities in Will that it kind

01:35:58 ◼   ► of I think just really drew me to this.

01:36:00 ◼   ► Like I just think it's fantastic.

01:36:02 ◼   ► And I just like the way that they approach everything.

01:36:06 ◼   ► They talk about how they know the kind of world that they're playing in, that they know

01:36:10 ◼   ► that their food is expensive and they know that it's like a thing that means a lot to

01:36:15 ◼   ► people when they go to that restaurant because it's not something that they can do every

01:36:18 ◼   ► day, but they talk about how it's not about them. Everything that they do is in service

01:36:26 ◼   ► to giving somebody a good evening. And I like that. I like it because they're like trying

01:36:31 ◼   ► to whilst it being a pretentious activity, trying to make it less so because it's less

01:36:37 ◼   ► about them and more about the enjoyment of the person. There's just a lot of things I

01:36:43 ◼   ► think that just spoke to kind of my sensibilities in the way that these people approach what

01:36:48 ◼   ► is traditionally a very stuffy environment.

01:36:51 ◼   ► I'm glad that you recommended it, even though I did feel low-grade nausea throughout the

01:36:57 ◼   ► viewing process and also intense concern for Natasha and her punch list that seemed to

01:37:03 ◼   ► just grow.

01:37:04 ◼   ► never got finished. I don't know if it's ever been finished.

01:37:07 ◼   ► Yeah it's opening night and she's like "oh I still have all of these things that need

01:37:13 ◼   ► to get done" and it's like "oh god, you're the true hero here". But yeah I was really

01:37:19 ◼   ► glad to have watched it and I want to finish off the couple of other episodes that are

01:37:24 ◼   ► left. I'm particularly interested in the fashion show one. But yeah it was interesting and

01:37:29 ◼   ► And I think hearing you talk about it, I can see why, I can see now why more clearly this

01:37:33 ◼   ► episode spoke to you, Myke.