Cortex

00:00:00 ◼   ► So in the current trend of grey productivity, you put out like another video. Like what has happened?

00:00:06 ◼   ► No, we can't start here. We can't start here, Myke.

00:00:08 ◼   ► We have to start with how ungodly hot it is right now so that the people understand what we're doing for them.

00:00:17 ◼   ► Okay. Put this into context for people.

00:00:20 ◼   ► [laughs]

00:00:22 ◼   ► Yeah, because you want to just start out the nice show, but all I can think about is how uncomfortable and sweaty I am right now.

00:00:29 ◼   ► Yeah, it's pretty bad, right?

00:00:31 ◼   ► I don't. I don't think the people understand how much podcasting work is hot, sweaty work under the best of circumstances.

00:00:46 ◼   ► Usually you're recording in a room and you're trying to isolate that room from sound.

00:00:50 ◼   ► So you've insulated it so it becomes very warm anyway.

00:00:54 ◼   ► Under normal circumstances, I always take a shower after I finish podcasting because I just feel gross and exhausted and sweaty.

00:01:03 ◼   ► But today is... it's a record high in London temperature.

00:01:08 ◼   ► My watch says it's 92 degrees right now where I am.

00:01:13 ◼   ► Where are you?

00:01:15 ◼   ► Well, I'm at 93.

00:01:19 ◼   ► Which is, you know, I don't usually deal in that temperature, so it's like 33 degrees

00:01:24 ◼   ► Celsius.

00:01:25 ◼   ► But it sounds more impressive when you say it's 93 than 33.

00:01:30 ◼   ► Yes, this is one of the very many reasons why the Fahrenheit scale is obviously superior.

00:01:34 ◼   ► But yes, it is way too hot.

00:01:37 ◼   ► It is way too hot.

00:01:39 ◼   ► And we are recording this podcast anyway for the people.

00:01:44 ◼   ► it might be shorter than normal because I don't know how long we're going we're going to last.

00:01:49 ◼   ► You at least have air conditioning.

00:01:51 ◼   ► I'm sitting here in a room of all the windows closed, the doors closed, and I have no fan or air conditioning.

00:01:58 ◼   ► Mm-hmm.

00:01:58 ◼   ► So if there is if at any point I start to hallucinate during the episode,

00:02:03 ◼   ► I just need you to just bring me back from that.

00:02:06 ◼   ► Yeah, well, I'll do that.

00:02:07 ◼   ► Thank you.

00:02:08 ◼   ► I do however just want to say that when Americans will hear air conditioning,

00:02:13 ◼   ► They will imagine a nice scenario, but that is not at all, that is not at all what I have right now.

00:02:20 ◼   ► I have one of those wheelie around rollie portable air conditioners that I have put in the main room of my house and

00:02:26 ◼   ► that is attempting to cool down the house, but it really hasn't. I was trying to find a thermometer

00:02:32 ◼   ► but I'm willing to bet that even with the air conditioner, it has to be

00:02:36 ◼   ► 85 degrees or warmer in the house, which is

00:02:42 ◼   ► Just not not good. It's not good at all

00:02:45 ◼   ► English English homes are just not built to deal with with warm temperatures

00:02:52 ◼   ► No, it's well, it wouldn't make any sense cuz like yeah, I've seen we it hasn't been this hot here in like eight years

00:02:58 ◼   ► It was the last time we had this English people always talk about how it doesn't make any sense

00:03:03 ◼   ► but it does make sense because the summers are always awful every year, but

00:03:08 ◼   ► everywhere everywhere in England just is like oh we'll just we'll just get right we'll just get right through this and

00:03:14 ◼   ► Pretend like each summer is some unique experience, but it's always like this. It's always-

00:03:19 ◼   ► -Stiff upper lip gray come on.

00:03:20 ◼   ► No, no

00:03:22 ◼   ► My my house set up

00:03:25 ◼   ► I'm just gonna complain a little bit more because hot temperatures are particularly thing that just I can't stand my

00:03:30 ◼   ► house set up I live on the top floor and

00:03:33 ◼   ► on where my office is

00:03:37 ◼   ► The ceiling is slanted and it has nice big

00:03:40 ◼   ► slanted windows that the sun pours

00:03:43 ◼   ► Directly into and my office and my bedroom are on the same side of the house so even on

00:03:50 ◼   ► Mildly sunny days the one half of my house is

00:03:54 ◼   ► Just way hotter than it can possibly be

00:03:58 ◼   ► My apartment then is

00:04:01 ◼   ► Divided into those those two rooms on one side and then the main room is like down a little hallway on the other side

00:04:06 ◼   ► And I just feel like I have abandoned that section of the house, right?

00:04:11 ◼   ► That's just a lost cause of not going in there.

00:04:14 ◼   ► I've just brought everything that I need into the main room of my house. I have my podcasting gear here.

00:04:19 ◼   ► I have my laptop here.

00:04:21 ◼   ► Everything, everything that I thought, oh that I could possibly need from the bedroom or from the office,

00:04:25 ◼   ► I brought it out in the morning. It's like we're just leaving that. That's just gone.

00:04:30 ◼   ► It's just, it's a lost cause. If I can make a really nerdy analogy,

00:04:36 ◼   ► My office is Osgiliath, which has fallen to the enemy of heat, and I have retreated to Minas Tirith in my main room and barricaded everything against the door to just try to keep the heat out.

00:04:50 ◼   ► But it is not working. So that's where I am right now.

00:04:53 ◼   ► I came upstairs, I've been working downstairs, and it's been fine. I didn't even need any windows open.

00:04:59 ◼   ► Like it's for some reason, the downstairs of my house is always the perfect temperature.

00:05:04 ◼   ► It's perfectly warm in the winter and perfectly cool in the summer.

00:05:08 ◼   ► I will never understand why my front room is the way that it is, but it's perfect.

00:05:12 ◼   ► So I came upstairs to record thinking it would be okay.

00:05:16 ◼   ► I closed the window here because I don't want any street noise to come in and sat down and

00:05:21 ◼   ► within five minutes I have been reduced to a big puddly mess.

00:05:26 ◼   ► I don't really know why my house is built the way that it is, but there is some extreme

00:05:32 ◼   ► temperature issue here.

00:05:34 ◼   ► Yeah, so that's where we are.

00:05:37 ◼   ► Now that we've complained about the heat, now we can try to pretend like it's a normal

00:05:41 ◼   ► show.

00:05:42 ◼   ► A normal, though probably much shorter than normal show.

00:05:45 ◼   ► Can we talk about then the last YouTube video you'll ever make?

00:05:49 ◼   ► Because this is the end, great.

00:05:51 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:05:52 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:05:53 ◼   ► So you did put a video, another one out.

00:05:55 ◼   ► You know, we were talking about you posting videos and then you ended up just posting

00:05:59 ◼   ► another video like the day that the episode came out last week.

00:06:03 ◼   ► Yeah, that happened to work out quite nicely that our last episode ended up being called

00:06:08 ◼   ► Posting Day in which I talked about what I do when I post a video and I had a video to

00:06:13 ◼   ► post on that day.

00:06:14 ◼   ► It was entirely coincidental, that was not planned.

00:06:18 ◼   ► It just worked out that way.

00:06:19 ◼   ► But it was kind of nice.

00:06:20 ◼   ► So you weren't doing one of your "I'm gonna be secret" scenarios?

00:06:23 ◼   ► No, no. We recorded on Wednesday, or right, I think?

00:06:29 ◼   ► Yeah, Wednesday.

00:06:30 ◼   ► Yes. And that video was a shockingly fast turnaround because I didn't start it until Thursday night.

00:06:38 ◼   ► So I didn't even know when we were recording our podcast that I was going to put up a video.

00:06:43 ◼   ► But that's what ended up happening.

00:06:46 ◼   ► And this one has now taken the record for the fastest I have ever made a video.

00:06:50 ◼   ► video displacing the previous record holder which was the net neutrality video which I

00:06:57 ◼   ► think I did from start to finish it was two and a half days maybe three days yeah I think

00:07:03 ◼   ► maybe I started on a on a Friday evening and had it up on a Monday that was my previous

00:07:08 ◼   ► record.

00:07:09 ◼   ► Did this one feel like like six weeks of work in two days or was it relatively easier to

00:07:13 ◼   ► produce compared to other stuff do you do?

00:07:16 ◼   ► I don't know how to say what I'm what I'm about to say without sounding kind of like

00:07:18 ◼   ► an idiot or or like an airy fairy person but I'm not an airy fairy person just

00:07:24 ◼   ► look at that let's get that straight I wouldn't have messed that about you

00:07:28 ◼   ► that's my that's my preface to now possibly sounding like I believe in

00:07:33 ◼   ► magic I if if you talk to anybody who makes their living in a creative field

00:07:46 ◼   ► And I mean creative in the broadest of all possible ways.

00:07:50 ◼   ► That you are making a thing that hasn't been made before and you're going to share it with

00:07:55 ◼   ► an audience.

00:07:56 ◼   ► Very often people in creative fields, particularly writing, will talk about being visited by

00:08:02 ◼   ► the muse where it feels like there is an additional thing that is just helping you along to make

00:08:09 ◼   ► this thing that you're making.

00:08:11 ◼   ► Now obviously there isn't any actual additional force that's helping you with the video, but

00:08:17 ◼   ► it is a useful way to think about it on occasion.

00:08:23 ◼   ► And this was one of those cases where I started writing the video on Thursday night, and it

00:08:29 ◼   ► was a total being visited by the muse moment, where the writing just went extraordinarily

00:08:37 ◼   ► well the first time and then on the when I went over it you know an hour later I

00:08:44 ◼   ► was able to edit it really well and then pull it all together and there were a

00:08:48 ◼   ► couple of little places where the story was working out very nicely all of this

00:08:54 ◼   ► just fell into place and why that happens sometimes and not other times is

00:09:01 ◼   ► this is this unknowable thing but when it works it really feels like oh wow

00:09:05 ◼   ► there's a little creative muse on my shoulder which is just whispering into

00:09:09 ◼   ► my ear all of these great things to do and so that that is entirely the reason

00:09:14 ◼   ► why I was able to turn that around so quickly it's just everything went

00:09:19 ◼   ► extraordinarily smoothly which is not normally the case. I understand that like

00:09:26 ◼   ► there are times where I'm working on something and like for some reason I

00:09:32 ◼   ► have received this flash of inspiration that I can't quite explain and it's different to normal.

00:09:38 ◼   ► Yeah, or it's not even necessarily inspiration. There's a friend of mine who also works in the

00:09:45 ◼   ► writing field who I've spoken to about this and he writes short passages in the same way that I do.

00:09:52 ◼   ► And he has said the same thing that I do, that you can spend two or three weeks writing and

00:10:00 ◼   ► and rewriting something, but that it is very strange how some writing sessions are just

00:10:09 ◼   ► golden and you can have an hour or two hours that is clearly worth two or three weeks of

00:10:18 ◼   ► normal work.

00:10:19 ◼   ► That it's just worth this multiple of what you normally do.

00:10:24 ◼   ► And you want every time you sit down to write to be like that, but for whatever reason it

00:10:30 ◼   ► just that does not always happen.

00:10:35 ◼   ► Because I'm interested in being really efficient with my writing, boy I would love to have

00:10:39 ◼   ► that be every single time, but I've never been able to figure out why that happens.

00:10:44 ◼   ► But yeah, so with this one I just got extraordinarily lucky and over the years I've gotten a little

00:10:51 ◼   ► bit better about knowing how to cheat with the animation if I'm really in a hurry to

00:10:58 ◼   ► make it look okay even by doing way less than I normally would.

00:11:04 ◼   ► And so it was those two things combined that allowed me to get it out so fast.

00:11:08 ◼   ► The little tricks that you've learned.

00:11:11 ◼   ► Yeah, it's just from paying attention to feedback that people have about the videos and seeing

00:11:19 ◼   ► what things people notice or learning ways to make it, to squeeze some animation out

00:11:25 ◼   ► of simpler stuff. I don't always do it, but when I'm in a rush there's some shortcuts

00:11:30 ◼   ► that I can take where I think, "Oh, I would animate this more if I had more time, but

00:11:35 ◼   ► I can get it looking fine pretty fast if I absolutely need to." But again, this is also

00:11:41 ◼   ► the case of sometimes I run into a real problem with the animations and that can derail stuff.

00:11:46 ◼   ► And so this is, I just lucked out that I didn't run into any of those kinds of problems.

00:11:51 ◼   ► There was, one of the little things I knew that I wanted in the video is at the very

00:11:55 ◼   ► end there's a scene where the Confederacy surrenders and the flag falls to pieces and

00:12:01 ◼   ► it just leaves the white surrender flag on the screen.

00:12:06 ◼   ► And that was the only part I was a little bit worried about how to try to make that

00:12:09 ◼   ► look okay and make that look good.

00:12:11 ◼   ► But it worked out just fine and so yeah, I got a video out very quickly.

00:12:15 ◼   ► is the end of that story. My favorite part of the video is when you're showing the part about the

00:12:22 ◼   ► was it the nation of Florida or something what is it called? Oh the Republic of West Florida.

00:12:26 ◼   ► That's it and then you say like the and but the U.S. put an end to that like the the stick figure

00:12:32 ◼   ► just like slides in from the side of a gun. I just thought it was really funny I just really

00:12:36 ◼   ► like that bit. Yeah yeah the that was one of the other things when I'm doing these projects I

00:12:43 ◼   ► Sometimes I'm looking for facts that let me make a video and

00:12:48 ◼   ► The Republic of West Florida was one of those details I found very quickly on Thursday night

00:12:55 ◼   ► That really felt like yes, this is an excellent thing to have in a video without the Republic of West Florida

00:13:02 ◼   ► This is a much less interesting

00:13:04 ◼   ► Video and so I just had like those things all came up in the in the right way

00:13:09 ◼   ► And so when I came across this okay great. I have this I know the animation that I want at the end with the surrender flag

00:13:16 ◼   ► I was able to work in this little pattern of

00:13:19 ◼   ► 78 days later and then 36 days later so the beginning and the end are somewhat similar

00:13:25 ◼   ► I was able to allude to the surrender in the middle that happens at the end

00:13:28 ◼   ► So just everything just went really great and normally that takes weeks and weeks and weeks for me to make something that that I think

00:13:35 ◼   ► Is is that good so I was quite happy with this video actually I'm very pleased with the way it came out

00:13:39 ◼   ► Let's let's let's actually address some follow-up from the from last week's episode

00:13:44 ◼   ► The great perspective zoom debate I think has maybe been put to sleep now

00:13:50 ◼   ► I think we have the result after basically for the entire week receiving contrasting feedback from people

00:13:56 ◼   ► You know some people would say something one thing one person will say another thing

00:14:01 ◼   ► I just want to interject Myke before you give the correct answer I

00:14:04 ◼   ► I want to thank the audience for sending all of this feedback to you.

00:14:08 ◼   ► Yep.

00:14:09 ◼   ► Because they didn't send it to me and I really appreciated that.

00:14:12 ◼   ► I asked on the last episode, please don't send me on Twitter all of your screenshots that look nearly identical.

00:14:17 ◼   ► It all went to Myke.

00:14:18 ◼   ► Yep, I got a lot of it.

00:14:19 ◼   ► That is great.

00:14:20 ◼   ► Mm-hmm.

00:14:21 ◼   ► [Laughter]

00:14:21 ◼   ► A lot of real details to look into of people's home screens.

00:14:25 ◼   ► So thank you audience, I appreciate that.

00:14:27 ◼   ► I also appreciate it.

00:14:29 ◼   ► There we go.

00:14:30 ◼   ► I like to hear from the Cortex people.

00:14:32 ◼   ► But a friend of the show, Mr. Underscore David Smith,

00:14:35 ◼   ► he's a great guy, he's a very smart guy, he's a developer,

00:14:38 ◼   ► and he looked into this for me.

00:14:39 ◼   ► And he basically posted in the Reddit

00:14:42 ◼   ► what I consider to be the categorical proof

00:14:44 ◼   ► of how this stuff works.

00:14:46 ◼   ► And he even made this diagram of some description

00:14:49 ◼   ► that I don't fully understand,

00:14:51 ◼   ► but it looks complicated enough that it makes sense.

00:14:54 ◼   ► And basically, he settled it as this, right?

00:14:58 ◼   ► If you have reduced motion as off,

00:15:02 ◼   ► things will move around,

00:15:04 ◼   ► no matter what you do with perspective zoom.

00:15:07 ◼   ► So basically the only way to stop things from moving

00:15:10 ◼   ► is to have reduce motion on and,

00:15:14 ◼   ► but then perspective zoom, it doesn't even matter.

00:15:16 ◼   ► Perspective zoom does nothing.

00:15:17 ◼   ► To turn and reduce motion on, wallpaper doesn't move,

00:15:20 ◼   ► icons won't move, you can align perfectly.

00:15:23 ◼   ► But if you have reduced motion turned off,

00:15:25 ◼   ► no matter what you do, stuff will move around.

00:15:28 ◼   ► whoever the wallpaper will move or the icons will move,

00:15:30 ◼   ► something will move.

00:15:32 ◼   ► So the only way you can stop everything from moving

00:15:34 ◼   ► is by turning reduced motion on.

00:15:36 ◼   ► - So what you're saying is I was right.

00:15:39 ◼   ► That's what this sounds like,

00:15:40 ◼   ► because I had reduced motion on

00:15:43 ◼   ► and I was convinced that my icons were not moving.

00:15:46 ◼   ► Is that what you're saying here?

00:15:48 ◼   ► - I thought you said you had it off.

00:15:50 ◼   ► - No, I had it on.

00:15:51 ◼   ► - Oh.

00:15:53 ◼   ► - I think I did.

00:15:54 ◼   ► Now I don't remember.

00:15:55 ◼   ► When you open apps and close folders, do they zoom away or is there like a swipe on the screen?

00:16:01 ◼   ► Oh no, you're right, you're right. It does the animations, which means reduced motion is off. Is that right?

00:16:08 ◼   ► Yeah. Which means I was right. That your icons are moving, you just can't see them moving.

00:16:14 ◼   ► Because you have a black background or a dark background or whatever, but they are moving around there.

00:16:19 ◼   ► Okay, so then the problem is really with my eyes.

00:16:22 ◼   ► That's what you're saying. My eyes are not sharp enough to register the motion, but the motion is happening.

00:16:27 ◼   ► Yeah, unfortunately your eyes don't register motion. You're kind of like the T-Rex in Jurassic Park, like...

00:16:32 ◼   ► I thought the T-Rex only sees motion.

00:16:34 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:16:35 ◼   ► Yeah, but then that analogy makes no sense. Then I should only see the icons when they do move.

00:16:39 ◼   ► You're like, okay, you're like the opposite of the Tyrannosaurus Rex.

00:16:43 ◼   ► [laughs]

00:16:44 ◼   ► This is going very well.

00:16:47 ◼   ► It's really hot here, okay? All I can think about is dinosaurs.

00:16:51 ◼   ► But yes, I can see _DavidSmith's comment on the Reddit, which goes through all the options of what's going to happen.

00:16:57 ◼   ► He is a very knowledgeable guy, and he has a thousand apps, so I will trust him.

00:17:03 ◼   ► He has so many apps, I actually even used one of his apps in one of my videos, just without even knowing it was his.

00:17:09 ◼   ► It was that took a screenshot of the weather app when I was in Las Vegas

00:17:11 ◼   ► Intending to use it in my Las Vegas video and I didn't even know that that was an underscore David Smith app

00:17:17 ◼   ► Who knows I could have 20 apps on my phone that are underscore David Smith's he makes so many anyway

00:17:23 ◼   ► Thanks underscore David Smith average Batman

00:17:25 ◼   ► Along with many people on the reddit

00:17:28 ◼   ► Question to you in regards to your clothing requirements as to why don't you just go to a tailor like because there are many

00:17:35 ◼   ► tailors in London like in Savile Row and you can just get a custom shirt made and

00:17:39 ◼   ► then you could just get a bunch more made if you wanted. Why don't why don't

00:17:43 ◼   ► you go ahead and do something like that? Have you thought had you thought of

00:17:47 ◼   ► doing that? To go to a tailor and tell them your requirements and have them

00:17:49 ◼   ► make it rather than trying to build an entire industrial factory.

00:17:53 ◼   ► Yeah so this never occurred to me as a solution to think of "oh tailors they

00:18:00 ◼   ► exist. I think in my mind I imagined tailors as an 18th century thing of

00:18:07 ◼   ► before we had factories we used to have to have people hand making the clothes

00:18:13 ◼   ► in every major city in the world and you would you would go to them to make the

00:18:19 ◼   ► clothes and that's where the clothes came from. And so it just it did not

00:18:24 ◼   ► occur to me that tailors were something that really existed but when they

00:18:29 ◼   ► pointed out that this is on Savile Row, I also realized that I have walked down that

00:18:33 ◼   ► street many a time and looked right at the tailors. And I think it's like my brain was

00:18:40 ◼   ► photoshopping it all away. Like, oh, this, they can't be really making clothes in there.

00:18:47 ◼   ► They're just clothing stores that are trying to give the impression that they're old fashionedy

00:18:50 ◼   ► as a branding maneuver. I think that's what my brain was thinking. So I thought this was

00:18:58 ◼   ► an interesting suggestion. I've never been to a tailor. I have no idea how much it would

00:19:03 ◼   ► cost, but I bet it would probably cost less than trying to build a factory.

00:19:08 ◼   ► Yes. Yes. However, however much it costs, it will be cheaper than building a factory,

00:19:16 ◼   ► buying machinery and employing people to make 25 shirts.

00:19:20 ◼   ► Yeah, 20, 25 shirts.

00:19:24 ◼   ► That is, I feel like that would not sit very well in the grey spreadsheet system for ROI

00:19:29 ◼   ► there.

00:19:30 ◼   ► That would be terrible ROI.

00:19:33 ◼   ► So maybe I will try this.

00:19:34 ◼   ► The thing is I have also received very many links from people who have sent me various

00:19:40 ◼   ► t-shirts or sorry, various collared shirts that seem to match the description that I

00:19:44 ◼   ► gave last time.

00:19:45 ◼   ► I've collected all of those links in a note and I'm going to go through them at some point

00:19:49 ◼   ► and see what those shirts look like and possibly place some orders, but if that doesn't work,

00:19:54 ◼   ► tailors! They are an excellent option, maybe. So, feedback in the future. My quest to find

00:20:01 ◼   ► an acceptable black collared shirt. Thank you everyone.

00:20:05 ◼   ► Maybe we can do it in conjunction with London Fashion Week or something.

00:20:08 ◼   ► Does London have a fashion week?

00:20:09 ◼   ► Yeah, yes, of course it does.

00:20:12 ◼   ► What do you mean of course it does? Why of course?

00:20:16 ◼   ► Because it's one of the fashion centres of the world.

00:20:18 ◼   ► fashion week? I don't know anything about this. Is fashion week a thing? Is it a thing

00:20:23 ◼   ► that happens in cities?

00:20:24 ◼   ► Yeah, it's a big thing.

00:20:26 ◼   ► It's not big enough? I haven't heard of this.

00:20:31 ◼   ► Other than trying to start your own brand, I don't think you're very clued into the fashion

00:20:35 ◼   ► world in general.

00:20:36 ◼   ► Yeah, but you know, when people say "Oh, it's very big!" Is it? I don't know what this thing

00:20:40 ◼   ► is. That's all I'm saying. Is there a New York fashion week?

00:20:44 ◼   ► Yes.

00:20:45 ◼   ► Is there a Hong Kong fashion week?

00:20:46 ◼   ► I think so, yes.

00:20:48 ◼   ► What's it, is there a Dayton, Ohio Fashion Week?

00:20:52 ◼   ► Probably but nobody knows about it unless they live in Dayton, Ohio.

00:20:56 ◼   ► Hmm.

00:20:57 ◼   ► Okay.

00:20:58 ◼   ► Daniel via Twitter also sent in a link to this website, I think it's a German website,

00:21:04 ◼   ► where you can customize and create your own shirt from a selection of options.

00:21:10 ◼   ► Ooh.

00:21:12 ◼   ► Custom shirt configurator.

00:21:13 ◼   ► I feel like the configurator should have a K.

00:21:16 ◼   ► It should.

00:21:17 ◼   ► Like Conqueror.

00:21:18 ◼   ► Have you ever used Conqueror back in the day?

00:21:20 ◼   ► Was that the games thing?

00:21:23 ◼   ► I'm thinking of Linux.

00:21:25 ◼   ► Conqueror was one of the interfaces.

00:21:27 ◼   ► I was not a Conqueror person, I was a Gnome person.

00:21:31 ◼   ► These are, as always on the internet, you have these arguments between computer people.

00:21:35 ◼   ► Just so you have Apple versus Windows.

00:21:36 ◼   ► It's like, oh, but even the people who use Linux, they have their own little holy wars

00:21:40 ◼   ► that they have to fight.

00:21:41 ◼   ► And Conqueror versus Gnome was one of those things.

00:21:44 ◼   ► but everything in Conqueror was with a K,

00:21:46 ◼   ► which I thought was kdum.

00:21:47 ◼   ► - I've never seriously used Linux.

00:21:50 ◼   ► - You're not missing much.

00:21:52 ◼   ► - Uh-oh.

00:21:53 ◼   ► - It's not for normal people, that's all I mean.

00:21:58 ◼   ► If you're the kind of person who's using Linux,

00:22:01 ◼   ► you already know that you're that person.

00:22:04 ◼   ► But I see Linux people sometimes saying,

00:22:06 ◼   ► "Oh, I'm gonna set up my mom with Linux."

00:22:08 ◼   ► No, don't set up your mom with Linux, it's a terrible idea.

00:22:10 ◼   ► If someone doesn't already know that they need Linux,

00:22:12 ◼   ► they shouldn't be using Linux.

00:22:13 ◼   ► That's why I say you're not missing anything.

00:22:15 ◼   ► - After talking about regit apps,

00:22:18 ◼   ► a selection of people suggested that I try out

00:22:21 ◼   ► an app called Narwhal,

00:22:22 ◼   ► which is a very simple Reddit app and I love it.

00:22:27 ◼   ► And it's now the app that I'm using.

00:22:30 ◼   ► It has, like, I really like the UI,

00:22:32 ◼   ► there's lots of swiping and stuff,

00:22:34 ◼   ► and it's set up in such a way that it's really,

00:22:36 ◼   ► really easy for me to get to your subreddit,

00:22:39 ◼   ► which is like the only thing that I have in Reddit.

00:22:41 ◼   ► I have unsubscribed from all subreddits,

00:22:43 ◼   ► except for CGP Grey so far.

00:22:45 ◼   ► I tried-- - That's the way to do it.

00:22:46 ◼   ► That's the way to do it.

00:22:47 ◼   ► - I've added a couple and then had to remove them

00:22:49 ◼   ► like basically within five minutes

00:22:51 ◼   ► 'cause it's just too much for me right now.

00:22:53 ◼   ► But it does some really cool stuff.

00:22:55 ◼   ► Like when you click on the little thread,

00:22:59 ◼   ► the comments are like below and you can swipe up

00:23:01 ◼   ► and the webpage sits behind it.

00:23:03 ◼   ► It's quite nice.

00:23:03 ◼   ► So you can swipe down and see the webpage

00:23:05 ◼   ► that it's linked to and then swipe up to see the comments.

00:23:08 ◼   ► I really like it.

00:23:08 ◼   ► But it is iPhone only.

00:23:09 ◼   ► That's the only problem that I have.

00:23:11 ◼   ► - Oh, I get it. - Yeah, yeah.

00:23:13 ◼   ► - Yeah, so I'm using, I'm still using iAlien on the iPad,

00:23:18 ◼   ► but I'm now using Narwhal on the iPhone

00:23:20 ◼   ► and I like it very much.

00:23:22 ◼   ► I have spoken to the developers of the app

00:23:26 ◼   ► and they tell me that iPad is coming at some point,

00:23:29 ◼   ► but that could be seven years away for all I know.

00:23:33 ◼   ► - Yeah, you can never trust developers when they say,

00:23:35 ◼   ► "Oh, it's coming at some point."

00:23:36 ◼   ► - Or just in general, really.

00:23:38 ◼   ► (both laughing)

00:23:40 ◼   ► - Yeah, all it means when they say it's coming

00:23:42 ◼   ► is they have a text file somewhere

00:23:44 ◼   ► where they've written iPad app in that text file

00:23:46 ◼   ► as one of a thousand potential things to do.

00:23:49 ◼   ► That's all that means.

00:23:50 ◼   ► - It's on a whiteboard.

00:23:52 ◼   ► - Yeah, that's right.

00:23:53 ◼   ► - KD131313 on Reddit wanted to know something

00:23:58 ◼   ► in regards to the way that you post videos to social media.

00:24:02 ◼   ► Like, do you use anything like IFTTT to do that

00:24:05 ◼   ► or do you, I don't know, like buffer or anything

00:24:07 ◼   ► or do you just post them all manually?

00:24:09 ◼   ► - Okay, first of all, just so people know--

00:24:11 ◼   ► - That's how I say it.

00:24:12 ◼   ► - No, what the heck you're talking about.

00:24:15 ◼   ► They're asking about If This Then That,

00:24:18 ◼   ► which is an automating web service.

00:24:22 ◼   ► That might be the best way to describe it.

00:24:23 ◼   ► I mean, it exists on iPhone and iPad as well,

00:24:26 ◼   ► but it is a service that is designed to,

00:24:29 ◼   ► if something happens, do something else.

00:24:33 ◼   ► So I do use If This Then That for a couple of things.

00:24:37 ◼   ► One of which is I have a Twitter account,

00:24:41 ◼   ► which automatically tweets anything that I post to my website.

00:24:46 ◼   ► And it's the CGP Grey blog, I think, is the name of that Twitter account.

00:24:50 ◼   ► I'm not exactly sure what it is.

00:24:52 ◼   ► But that I set up automatically so that when I post something on my website,

00:24:56 ◼   ► a minute or two later, that Twitter account automatically fires off a tweet.

00:25:01 ◼   ► And I do the same thing with the Hello Internet Twitter account,

00:25:04 ◼   ► so that when we post a new show,

00:25:06 ◼   ► the Hello Internet Twitter account will automatically post as well,

00:25:09 ◼   ► saying that there is a new show.

00:25:11 ◼   ► But I don't do that with the videos because it's just not really saving me much because the video posting doesn't happen all that often.

00:25:22 ◼   ► And that is the kind of thing that I want to have more fine-grained control over.

00:25:28 ◼   ► I don't always feel like I want to post on Twitter straight away that the video is up.

00:25:32 ◼   ► In no small part because Twitter is not the best place to get feedback.

00:25:37 ◼   ► It just tends to be a wall of people talking.

00:25:41 ◼   ► So I sometimes wait until a little later in the day to actually post on Twitter when I

00:25:45 ◼   ► can then pay a bit more attention to what is happening on Twitter as opposed to focusing

00:25:50 ◼   ► on Reddit, which is my main focus when the video first goes up.

00:25:53 ◼   ► Can I complain about If This And That for a minute?

00:25:55 ◼   ► Yes.

00:25:56 ◼   ► I hope there's a developer at If This And That listening right now.

00:26:01 ◼   ► I don't understand why they don't yet have additional logic operators as part of If This

00:26:11 ◼   ► Then That.

00:26:12 ◼   ► Do you know logic, Myke?

00:26:16 ◼   ► No more than what we use to edit our podcasts with.

00:26:18 ◼   ► Okay, not that logic.

00:26:20 ◼   ► This is the good kind of logic.

00:26:23 ◼   ► Logic is the simplest kind of programming that can exist.

00:26:28 ◼   ► So right now, if this then that, all it can do is exactly what the title is.

00:26:33 ◼   ► If a new episode of Hello Internet goes up, then post on this Twitter account that it's

00:26:39 ◼   ► gone up.

00:26:41 ◼   ► That's useful, but it would be infinitely more useful if they added logic operators,

00:26:48 ◼   ► which are things like AND or OR.

00:26:52 ◼   ► So you could do something, I mean one of the things that they have, they try to sell you

00:26:56 ◼   ► on is like weather notifications or something. But you want to be able to say if a certain

00:27:04 ◼   ► weather condition is the case and it is a particular time, then send me a notification.

00:27:13 ◼   ► You want to be able to combine stuff into a bit more of a sentence. And if they programmed

00:27:20 ◼   ► to be able to do if and then adding and or adding or does not seem like it's a big deal and I keep

00:27:30 ◼   ► waiting for this to appear because it would vastly vastly increase the utility of if this than that

00:27:37 ◼   ► because it would turn it into a very very simple programmable thing where you could have people

00:27:45 ◼   ► adding blocks of AND or OR or NOT so that you could make more complicated conditions

00:27:51 ◼   ► for when things are going to happen. And it just, speaking of developers and when features

00:27:55 ◼   ► are coming, I find it mind-blowing that this, that if-this-then-that has been around for

00:27:59 ◼   ► as long as it has and it hasn't added what is the most obvious, most useful next feature.

00:28:06 ◼   ► So I'm really, I keep my fingers crossed for logical operators in if-this-then-that. But

00:28:12 ◼   ► I feel like maybe they're never going to come.

00:28:15 ◼   ► It's just strange.

00:28:16 ◼   ► I find it very strange.

00:28:18 ◼   ► This week's episode of Cortex is brought to you very kindly by the lovely people over

00:28:22 ◼   ► at Hover.

00:28:23 ◼   ► Hover is the best way to buy and manage domain names.

00:28:26 ◼   ► It has been my place of choice for as long as I can remember needing to register domain

00:28:31 ◼   ► names in a way that didn't make me want to tear my hair out because I have used people

00:28:35 ◼   ► in the past and have not been happy.

00:28:38 ◼   ► And Hover.com, they give me everything that I need.

00:28:41 ◼   ► They allow me to very quickly go in and search for a domain name, maybe I have an idea for

00:28:45 ◼   ► something funny or I have an idea for a project or something serious that I want to be working

00:28:49 ◼   ► on.

00:28:50 ◼   ► They have a very simple, fast and hassle free method of searching and buying domains and

00:28:55 ◼   ► this is why I love them.

00:28:56 ◼   ► They don't let you look through a thousand screens.

00:29:00 ◼   ► With a ton of add-ons thrown up at you at every hurdle with super high prices.

00:29:04 ◼   ► They don't have any of that at hover.com.

00:29:06 ◼   ► They just let you get in, select what you need, buy it and get on with building your

00:29:10 ◼   ► ideas.

00:29:11 ◼   ► registered hover.com domains in like 30 seconds it's just insane how quickly you can get in and

00:29:15 ◼   ► they have all you want as well they have all the TLDs you'd expect like .com, .co, .net, .me, .all

00:29:21 ◼   ► of them they have every single one that you could ever wish for they have over 200 options

00:29:26 ◼   ► at hover.com and their .com domains start at $12.99 they also include whois privacy for free

00:29:32 ◼   ► with all of hover's domains wherever it's applicable to the TLD they will just put it on

00:29:37 ◼   ► for free for you. They don't believe that you should have to pay to keep your private

00:29:41 ◼   ► information private unlike some other companies. Hover have fantastic support. They have a no hold,

00:29:46 ◼   ► no wait, no transfer telephone support policy. They're super famous for this and that's a great

00:29:50 ◼   ► reason why. When you call Hover you'll be talking to an actual human being. You don't have to talk

00:29:55 ◼   ► to a robot. But if you do prefer robots like Gray does, they also have great email support as well,

00:30:00 ◼   ► along with some great documentation and guides in case you need anything. And don't forget,

00:30:04 ◼   ► get

00:30:23 ◼   ► you want, go to hover.com right now and try them out.

00:30:26 ◼   ► You want to use the code brains, B R A I N S at checkout,

00:30:32 ◼   ► and you will get yourself 10% off your first purchase over at hover.com.

00:30:38 ◼   ► And you'll also be showing your support for this show and Relay FM.

00:30:41 ◼   ► Thank you so much to Hover for their help today.

00:30:44 ◼   ► Table Lamp Ottoman on the Reddit would like to know what you do

00:30:49 ◼   ► during video rendering time and like when you're uploading stuff

00:30:52 ◼   ► Like what's happening in these long periods of time where you're rendering a video or uploading it or processing it?

00:30:58 ◼   ► Like what sort of tasks do you undertake? Are you working during those times? Do you take breaks during those times?

00:31:04 ◼   ► I'm trying to see if I can say some of the exact things that I do

00:31:10 ◼   ► this is this is one of the one of the ways in which I

00:31:13 ◼   ► Like to play around with the checklists because yes when I'm done animating a video and I've I've

00:31:22 ◼   ► I've synchronized all the animations to the audio and I'm going to export it.

00:31:25 ◼   ► It takes a little while, it doesn't take too long because my videos are relatively short.

00:31:31 ◼   ► But I don't know, maybe it takes 10 or 20 minutes because I also now render the videos at 4K and 60 frames per second.

00:31:40 ◼   ► Which people sometimes think is a bit excessive.

00:31:43 ◼   ► But I like doing it that way because why not? It doesn't cost me anything to do it.

00:31:48 ◼   ► I've played around with the checklist to move different things to different times.

00:31:52 ◼   ► And the thing that I normally do while I'm waiting for it to export is I am creating the video thumbnail,

00:31:59 ◼   ► which I usually leave until the end because very often I'm just modifying one particular frame of the video to be the actual thumbnail.

00:32:07 ◼   ► And then I am also getting the email list ready during that time.

00:32:15 ◼   ► So I do think that when you are grinding through options, it is very useful to think about things that you can do while something else is happening.

00:32:28 ◼   ► That always feels doubly productive to me, to be able to do something while something else is happening.

00:32:35 ◼   ► Which I will mention one of the dumbest psychological tricks that I use on myself, but that is totally effective.

00:32:42 ◼   ► When I'm not feeling really productive, I like to run the dishwasher or run a load of laundry.

00:32:50 ◼   ► Because then I feel like I'm getting twice as much done if I'm working right now.

00:32:56 ◼   ► Because I'm doing something and my washing machine robot is also cleaning the clothes.

00:33:02 ◼   ► And somehow it feels like the work counts twice as much when I'm doing it this way.

00:33:06 ◼   ► this way. It's one of the weirdest little tricks, but it is definitely effective to

00:33:11 ◼   ► get myself started sometimes when I don't feel like doing something in the afternoon.

00:33:15 ◼   ► You just say, "You can run a load of laundry, right?" And you go, "Okay, I can put some

00:33:20 ◼   ► laundry in," and then I start it. And then I feel like, "Well, while I'm doing the laundry,

00:33:24 ◼   ► I might as well do this other stuff." And it just, yeah, it feels like it's a 2X modifier

00:33:28 ◼   ► in a video game to do work while also doing the laundry or the dishes.

00:33:33 ◼   ► I'm very confused. So you have work to do and you procrastinate from the work by doing

00:33:40 ◼   ► some housework.

00:33:41 ◼   ► No, no, no, no, no, no.

00:33:42 ◼   ► And then you procrastinate from the housework by doing more work.

00:33:44 ◼   ► No, that's not exactly it. The situation that I'm talking about is usually an afternoon

00:33:53 ◼   ► and what this is is like a starter motor problem. Afternoons are not very good working time

00:33:58 ◼   ► for me, but very often I have things that I want to grind through anyway.

00:34:03 ◼   ► And the laundry is this little trick to get things moving.

00:34:08 ◼   ► I'm not, right?

00:34:10 ◼   ► It's that I don't really want to get started, but the laundry is a very simple task to just

00:34:15 ◼   ► start.

00:34:16 ◼   ► It is totally mindless and I just do it.

00:34:18 ◼   ► And then it feels like it counts more when I am doing other work.

00:34:26 ◼   ► It's a bit like, I like to work really early in the mornings, and I think there's something

00:34:31 ◼   ► really nice about getting up early and doing work.

00:34:34 ◼   ► And somehow if I'm writing a script before other people are awake, it's that same feeling

00:34:43 ◼   ► of "I don't know why, but it feels like it counts for more doing it while other people

00:34:48 ◼   ► are asleep.

00:34:49 ◼   ► Like this work counts twice as much."

00:34:50 ◼   ► It obviously doesn't.

00:34:51 ◼   ► It's not actually getting twice as much done, but it just feels like there's a 2x modifier

00:34:59 ◼   ► on top of my activity when this is happening.

00:35:01 ◼   ► There's just this idea in my mind that you set the washing machine on, or the dishwasher

00:35:07 ◼   ► on, and then you're like, "Well, other robots are working.

00:35:09 ◼   ► I guess I should be too."

00:35:11 ◼   ► Honest to god, that is probably a good way to summarize it.

00:35:16 ◼   ► That is exactly right.

00:35:17 ◼   ► If I had a Roomba, I would set that going as well.

00:35:20 ◼   ► The more robots that could be doing work around the house, the more likely I am to be doing

00:35:24 ◼   ► work around the house.

00:35:26 ◼   ► So today I want to talk a little bit about taking time off.

00:35:28 ◼   ► Oh, do we have a topic today?

00:35:30 ◼   ► Is that what we're doing?

00:35:31 ◼   ► This is the topic today.

00:35:32 ◼   ► Okay.

00:35:34 ◼   ► And I want to talk about kind of like entertainment as well in part of that.

00:35:37 ◼   ► So because we've spoken about putting out videos and you mentioned that like once you

00:35:40 ◼   ► do that you take a little time.

00:35:43 ◼   ► Like you take like your video weekend, right, where you just veg out and just do whatever.

00:35:48 ◼   ► So is this the only time that you carve out for relaxation during like a regular schedule?

00:35:54 ◼   ► What I currently have is Saturdays, I'm not perfect about this, but this year I have been

00:36:04 ◼   ► trying to reserve Saturdays as a work doesn't need to happen today day off.

00:36:14 ◼   ► And usually that means hanging out with my wife on Saturdays.

00:36:18 ◼   ► But I have been far from perfect with that because work still often intrudes and because

00:36:25 ◼   ► I usually upload the videos on Monday, Tuesdays, or Wednesdays, it's very easy for work to

00:36:33 ◼   ► bleed over into the weekend.

00:36:36 ◼   ► I have definitely gotten better over time at actually reserving Saturdays as a day off.

00:36:43 ◼   ► Now on my layout of the week, I do have the other six days blocked out that work occurs

00:36:50 ◼   ► on those days.

00:36:51 ◼   ► Different kinds of work at different times, there's a whole cycle to it, but yes, the

00:36:56 ◼   ► other six days of the week are blocked out as work days to some extent.

00:37:03 ◼   ► On Sunday it's a bit flexible, but the mornings at the very least are blocked out.

00:37:10 ◼   ► So I guess to answer your question, aside from the Saturdays, yes, the time after the

00:37:16 ◼   ► video is the time that I really take as downtime.

00:37:22 ◼   ► And that is officially worked into the schedule in the sense that I just blow off whatever

00:37:27 ◼   ► is on my calendar for the next few days after a video goes up.

00:37:30 ◼   ► I just say, "Okay, as long as I don't have appointments with anyone in person, I'm going

00:37:37 ◼   ► to ignore what else is on the calendar here, or what else I would normally be doing on

00:37:40 ◼   ► on a Tuesday morning.

00:37:42 ◼   ► - I think that, well, we definitely have very,

00:37:44 ◼   ► very different ways of approaching this.

00:37:46 ◼   ► So on an average day, I work very late into the evenings.

00:37:53 ◼   ► - Well, your whole schedule is weirdly shifted

00:37:56 ◼   ► into the evening because most of the people you work with

00:38:01 ◼   ► are not only Americans like myself,

00:38:03 ◼   ► but Americans in America.

00:38:05 ◼   ► So you have to live halfway on an American schedule.

00:38:09 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:38:10 ◼   ► Because you record, like with Jason Snell, you record, he's on the West Coast.

00:38:13 ◼   ► I mean, what on earth time do you guys record together?

00:38:16 ◼   ► Oh, he records, luckily, quite early.

00:38:19 ◼   ► We record at like 7pm or something.

00:38:23 ◼   ► So that must be morning time for him?

00:38:25 ◼   ► The West Coast is the worst to try to coordinate with London.

00:38:29 ◼   ► That is the worst mismatch.

00:38:30 ◼   ► Yeah, I'm very lucky that one, Jason works for himself so he can pick his hours.

00:38:35 ◼   ► if he worked at a job we wouldn't be able to do it because he would get home at

00:38:39 ◼   ► like 5 6 p.m. and then I you know it's basically the next day and and so and he

00:38:46 ◼   ► you know gracious he recalls quite early in the day which makes it doable I mean

00:38:51 ◼   ► I have some shows where the recording begins at 11 p.m. oh my god so quite

00:38:58 ◼   ► frequently I am awake working maybe until like 1 a.m. 2 a.m. sometimes 3 or

00:39:05 ◼   ► depending on what's happening.

00:39:07 ◼   ► So I work quite weird hours,

00:39:09 ◼   ► but I wake up most days relatively early,

00:39:12 ◼   ► like between 8.30 and nine.

00:39:14 ◼   ► And that's mainly just to see my girlfriend in the morning

00:39:18 ◼   ► and to let her out of the house.

00:39:19 ◼   ► Like it's just something that I like to be able to do.

00:39:22 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:39:23 ◼   ► - To let her out of the house?

00:39:26 ◼   ► It just.

00:39:27 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:39:28 ◼   ► - Yeah, she has, it's not like I keep the keys from her.

00:39:31 ◼   ► - You phrased that in a very cat-like way.

00:39:33 ◼   ► "Oh, she's at the back door meowing

00:39:36 ◼   ► "and you're going to let her out of the house."

00:39:38 ◼   ► - If I don't prepare her meals for her in the morning,

00:39:40 ◼   ► I'd open the door, she'd just get stuck in the house.

00:39:42 ◼   ► No, oh God.

00:39:44 ◼   ► I basically just wake up

00:39:45 ◼   ► and then I see her off in the morning, you know?

00:39:48 ◼   ► - Okay, yeah. - It's just something

00:39:49 ◼   ► that I like to do because I'm able to do that.

00:39:51 ◼   ► Which means that typically I'm awake then,

00:39:54 ◼   ► so effectively the first couple of hours of the day,

00:39:58 ◼   ► in most days, I don't really do anything.

00:40:02 ◼   ► I maybe watch some TV or I, well I have my breakfast

00:40:07 ◼   ► and I read Twitter and I maybe play a video game.

00:40:10 ◼   ► I tend to just tool around until it gets close to lunchtime.

00:40:15 ◼   ► So usually like 11 a.m. is when, from then on,

00:40:18 ◼   ► is when I actually start to do any real work most days.

00:40:21 ◼   ► And I'm pretty good at giving myself breaks

00:40:26 ◼   ► where I need to in the day if I want to.

00:40:28 ◼   ► I feel, and I say pretty good at that

00:40:31 ◼   ► it means I don't work constantly cuz I work really really weird hours.

00:40:35 ◼   ► Well how many if I have scheduled six days a week of work happens at some point on those

00:40:43 ◼   ► days, how many days a week do you have that work occurs on?

00:40:46 ◼   ► Five.

00:40:47 ◼   ► Five.

00:40:48 ◼   ► Typically.

00:40:49 ◼   ► You take the weekends off is that the way that works?

00:40:50 ◼   ► Typically yes.

00:40:51 ◼   ► So I always do a little bit of work on Sunday evening.

00:40:56 ◼   ► I have a show that I edit on Sunday evening.

00:41:01 ◼   ► And sometimes I work on the weekends

00:41:03 ◼   ► if my girlfriend needs to work, mostly.

00:41:06 ◼   ► Unless something crazy is happening

00:41:10 ◼   ► and I ask her if she's okay with it,

00:41:11 ◼   ► then I will do some work on the weekends.

00:41:14 ◼   ► Because that time is carved out to spend with her.

00:41:19 ◼   ► And that is very important to us.

00:41:22 ◼   ► So I basically turn over my whole weekends mostly

00:41:27 ◼   ► for us to spend time together.

00:41:28 ◼   ► And I do that happily 'cause it's also what I would want

00:41:31 ◼   ► to do, I would go crazy I think otherwise.

00:41:33 ◼   ► Because of the weird hours that I work,

00:41:37 ◼   ► we never really get to see each other, you know?

00:41:40 ◼   ► Because I'm like locked away recording and she comes home

00:41:43 ◼   ► and then it's like 11 p.m.

00:41:44 ◼   ► and then I sneak out for like five minutes

00:41:47 ◼   ► and then I'm back to work again.

00:41:49 ◼   ► So the weekends are very important to us

00:41:51 ◼   ► that I get those. So that's kind of the way that I work. So I tend to do five and a bit

00:41:57 ◼   ► days of work, but my hours are all kinds of crazy. But I make sure that I take time in

00:42:04 ◼   ► there to chill a bit, you know, and to relax because otherwise I think I'll go mad.

00:42:08 ◼   ► Yeah, you go crazy if you don't take some time off.

00:42:12 ◼   ► What kinds of activities do you tend to partake in in your relaxation time?

00:42:17 ◼   ► It depends a bit on what's happening, but in terms of hours spent in non-work relaxation

00:42:28 ◼   ► mode, it's got to be gaming by far, just playing various video games.

00:42:34 ◼   ► That is my big downtime activity.

00:42:40 ◼   ► I have always, I've always enjoyed video games ever since I was a kid.

00:42:44 ◼   ► But the thing that I find really useful about them,

00:42:51 ◼   ► now as an adult, is that they occupy the work part of my brain.

00:42:59 ◼   ► They keep it busy, and so I feel like I can actually...

00:43:04 ◼   ► I can actually genuinely relax.

00:43:09 ◼   ► because... how to put this...

00:43:12 ◼   ► So when I was younger I would also read a lot for relaxation.

00:43:19 ◼   ► But now I'm aware that because I mostly read non-fiction,

00:43:24 ◼   ► that activity is also still partly work.

00:43:29 ◼   ► Like I don't read as much as I did when I was younger, although I still read.

00:43:34 ◼   ► But I'm aware of how that is not a 100% downtime activity.

00:43:41 ◼   ► I schedule reading into my day because it's important, but it's also partly a work activity if I'm reading nonfiction.

00:43:51 ◼   ► Because I'm reading a book that's about a topic, and I'm always making highlights and notes and saving things for the future.

00:43:59 ◼   ► Or I'm reading a book that's maybe about business and so now this is very directly related to work.

00:44:06 ◼   ► So that's why reading has...

00:44:10 ◼   ► While it used to be a big amount of just relaxation time, it's now become work in a way.

00:44:21 ◼   ► Whereas video games, there's no way to pretend like that's work.

00:44:27 ◼   ► It's just not going to happen.

00:44:29 ◼   ► And I find them engaging and enjoyable and it's just like, yes, this is 100% downtime.

00:44:37 ◼   ► You can't fool yourself like you're working when you're doing this so you really need to actually just be able to be in a situation where you can just relax.

00:44:47 ◼   ► And unlike reading a book, I don't have this thing in the back of my mind of like, "Oh, this is 20% work?"

00:44:54 ◼   ► So that's one of the reasons why I tend to play them as my main relaxation time.

00:45:02 ◼   ► I totally get that about occupying the work part.

00:45:05 ◼   ► Because you're working on a new thing, but the thing exists in the video game world.

00:45:11 ◼   ► But I'm the same. What it does is during that period of time, my brain is satisfied that it's accomplishing something.

00:45:17 ◼   ► But I'm not thinking about or stressing about the jobs that I actually have to do.

00:45:22 ◼   ► Yes, that that is a perfect description of what it is and I

00:45:25 ◼   ► Mean this is this is going to for people who don't play games

00:45:30 ◼   ► It's always a bit hard to hard to describe this but I can say that when I'm playing a game. I am actually

00:45:36 ◼   ► Doing the exact same thing that I'm doing when I'm working on a video in a way

00:45:42 ◼   ► So if you think about the high level of making a video

00:45:47 ◼   ► the the big task that I'm accomplishing is that I'm trying to figure something out and

00:45:52 ◼   ► then be able to explain it to somebody else and

00:45:57 ◼   ► I I pick games the kinds of games that I play are almost

00:46:03 ◼   ► Exclusively what what could be described as I sometimes joke that they're work simulators, but they are system games

00:46:11 ◼   ► Where there's very little instruction

00:46:14 ◼   ► You have a bunch of tools you have to put them together and you need to figure out how to make this whole thing work

00:46:21 ◼   ► and so one of the games I was playing for a long time was called prison architect and

00:46:25 ◼   ► That that it was the same this idea of you have to figure out how to make this prison run

00:46:30 ◼   ► without a descending into into a riot, but it occupies

00:46:34 ◼   ► It like it makes that some part of my work brain feel good because it's like okay. We're still doing the same thing

00:46:41 ◼   ► We're figuring out something.

00:46:43 ◼   ► We're figuring out how this works in the same way that we figured out how does the pope get elected.

00:46:48 ◼   ► Like that part of my brain feels like it needs to be always engaged.

00:46:55 ◼   ► And it's very hard to have that be engaged and also feel like I'm relaxing at the same time.

00:47:01 ◼   ► So that's why they're useful.

00:47:03 ◼   ► And that's also why I play a very particular genre of game.

00:47:11 ◼   ► And I'm always aware of how, as soon as I have the game figured out, I go through the same pattern every single time.

00:47:18 ◼   ► I know I'm nearing the end of my lifetime with this game, because I start thinking, "I should put together a tutorial series on this game!"

00:47:26 ◼   ► I've never actually done this right I've yet to do this for any game

00:47:31 ◼   ► But I've done this with every single one I go I should put together a tutorial and I'll start making some notes about like oh

00:47:38 ◼   ► Yeah, let me put together a tutorial on this. Oh, okay. Yeah, here's here's the Quick Start guide

00:47:42 ◼   ► here's what you need to do, and I'm making notes and

00:47:45 ◼   ► almost always

00:47:48 ◼   ► Halfway through that process I all of a sudden

00:47:51 ◼   ► I just lose total interest in the game and then my brain switches and I go back to the

00:47:55 ◼   ► next video because my brain goes, "Wait a minute!

00:47:58 ◼   ► It doesn't make any sense to spend time on this tutorial series for this game because

00:48:04 ◼   ► I lose interest the instant I figured it out."

00:48:08 ◼   ► I drop games right away when I figure them out to their full extent.

00:48:15 ◼   ► And I shouldn't spend time making a tutorial series for a game that I'm no longer interested

00:48:20 ◼   ► in now it's time to make a real video.

00:48:23 ◼   ► So this is the cycle that occurs.

00:48:27 ◼   ► Is it because the challenge is lost?

00:48:32 ◼   ► Why do you lose interest?

00:48:35 ◼   ► It's not the challenge.

00:48:39 ◼   ► For me I am playing the games in a meta way.

00:48:42 ◼   ► I'm playing it to figure out what the thing is.

00:48:50 ◼   ► And it's very hard to explain.

00:48:52 ◼   ► Okay, I'll use the example of the game I've been playing the past few days.

00:48:55 ◼   ► This has been my game this time around, after the Confederate video.

00:49:00 ◼   ► I've been staying away from it because I thought it looked like a terribly ugly game.

00:49:05 ◼   ► I've said as much in the Reddit, but I have been playing a game called Factorio, which I have ended up quite liking, even though it is hideous to look at.

00:49:14 ◼   ► But Factorio is a game where you are basically building factories.

00:49:21 ◼   ► The whole-

00:49:22 ◼   ► Oh, this does not look good.

00:49:23 ◼   ► It is very ugly.

00:49:25 ◼   ► I have stayed away from it because of its hideousness for a while.

00:49:31 ◼   ► I thought, "Oh, I'll never play that."

00:49:32 ◼   ► But I gave in and I thought, "Oh, you know what? I'll actually- I'll give it a try."

00:49:35 ◼   ► Because I wasn't quite finding anything that I liked.

00:49:39 ◼   ► The whole game is just figuring out how to connect these various factories and assembly lines together to build other things and use the things that you've just built to build more complex things.

00:49:51 ◼   ► And while the game in theory has its own purpose that the players might want, my feeling of playing the game is always,

00:50:02 ◼   ► I don't really like to look at instructions very much. I don't really like to look at tutorials.

00:50:06 ◼   ► I want to figure out how to make this thing go and that's that's one of the ways that I really like video games.

00:50:13 ◼   ► It's it's totally unlike the only comparison I can think of here or the the best contrast I can think of is

00:50:20 ◼   ► You couldn't sit down

00:50:23 ◼   ► With a board game on your own without looking at the instruction manual and just figure out how it works

00:50:31 ◼   ► That's an impossible task. But a video game is an interesting system because you can just mess around with it and it pushes back against you.

00:50:41 ◼   ► It lets you know when you're doing things wrong or when you're doing things right.

00:50:44 ◼   ► And that is the thing that I find engaging about it. It's not the game, it's pushing up against the boundaries of like, "Okay, if I do that I die and this is obviously the wrong thing to do."

00:50:57 ◼   ► thing to do or like, oh, I made this new thing here.

00:50:59 ◼   ► OK, great. What can this plug into?

00:51:01 ◼   ► So it's all about figuring the thing out.

00:51:04 ◼   ► And so a video game for me is

00:51:07 ◼   ► it's like a really complicated Rubik's Cube.

00:51:09 ◼   ► Like you can figure out the pieces and how they work.

00:51:12 ◼   ► And that that's what I find enjoyable.

00:51:15 ◼   ► But as soon as I have it all figured out, it's always,

00:51:18 ◼   ► oh, well, I don't want to actually play this game right now that I know

00:51:22 ◼   ► how everything works.

00:51:23 ◼   ► I have no more interest in this thing.

00:51:25 ◼   ► And that's, and again, that's the same thing that happens with my videos.

00:51:29 ◼   ► It's a bit weird when people want to talk to me about the videos later on,

00:51:32 ◼   ► because very often I remember so little about the videos I put together years ago,

00:51:38 ◼   ► because I was trying to figure out what the thing was.

00:51:42 ◼   ► And they're like "Oh, I figured that out!" and now that's done.

00:51:45 ◼   ► But at least with the videos I actually do produce a thing that people can look at.

00:51:48 ◼   ► Unlike my video game tutorials, which I always think I'm going to make, but I never do.

00:51:54 ◼   ► I want to come back to video games and I want to like talk to you about some of the other stuff that you play and recommend.

00:51:59 ◼   ► There was one other thing that I wanted to talk about in regards to taking time off and that's vacations.

00:52:04 ◼   ► I know that you take vacations because you told me you were on one when you went to Las Vegas.

00:52:13 ◼   ► Yes.

00:52:14 ◼   ► How often do you take vacations?

00:52:18 ◼   ► My wife and I went to Vegas in April and that was the first

00:52:24 ◼   ► actual

00:52:27 ◼   ► genuine this is

00:52:29 ◼   ► 100% of vacation it's not partly work or it's not partly family vacation that we had taken in years and

00:52:35 ◼   ► that was

00:52:38 ◼   ► Again, this was this is part of the changes that I'm trying to make in my life

00:52:42 ◼   ► now is this moving much more towards a life that I want to live and my wife and I hadn't traveled in

00:52:48 ◼   ► a long time just to travel and finally this year we felt like it was a more of a possibility. So I

00:52:56 ◼   ► can't say that we have an answer to how often do we take vacations because we're just now in a

00:53:04 ◼   ► position where it's something that we can actually start thinking about in a much more deliberate

00:53:09 ◼   ► way, whereas in the past few years it was always.

00:53:13 ◼   ► It was always going to see family and then we're sort of half

00:53:20 ◼   ► doing a vacation then, but you're half seeing family,

00:53:22 ◼   ► which is just a different experience or is something

00:53:25 ◼   ► related to work.

00:53:27 ◼   ► So I don't know how often we're going to do something like that.

00:53:30 ◼   ► That's something we still have to figure out.

00:53:34 ◼   ► I tried to take as many as possible.

00:53:36 ◼   ► I left college, what we call college here is 18.

00:53:41 ◼   ► So whatever that is in America, I don't know.

00:53:44 ◼   ► - Sixth form college.

00:53:45 ◼   ► - Yeah, I didn't go to university.

00:53:47 ◼   ► So I kinda got a job because I was gonna take a break

00:53:53 ◼   ► from university and then just liked getting money.

00:53:56 ◼   ► So I've been like in, I was in full time employment

00:53:59 ◼   ► from the time that I was like 18 to 26, 27,

00:54:03 ◼   ► something like that.

00:54:05 ◼   ► So I didn't really get the chance to do much traveling.

00:54:09 ◼   ► I just went on some holidays here and there,

00:54:12 ◼   ► but I never took the time that many people take

00:54:14 ◼   ► before they get a real job to go and do any traveling.

00:54:17 ◼   ► So now I'm in the position where I can kind of

00:54:21 ◼   ► set my own schedule a bit more.

00:54:23 ◼   ► I'm traveling to more places.

00:54:26 ◼   ► Because luckily, right now,

00:54:29 ◼   ► I have the means to do that as well.

00:54:30 ◼   ► So I'm making sure that I do that,

00:54:33 ◼   ► I like to take vacations and breaks but the problem is that what comes along with this is the fact that I can now never ever for the rest of my life take a proper vacation ever again.

00:54:44 ◼   ► Because I am self-employed.

00:54:46 ◼   ► Yes.

00:54:47 ◼   ► You in particular have the schedule.

00:54:51 ◼   ► You have shows that you're supposed to be recording, there are people who are waiting on you for things.

00:54:58 ◼   ► this is the real trouble with being self-employed.

00:55:03 ◼   ► And so yes, you have more control over your day-to-day time,

00:55:09 ◼   ► but it definitely comes with this trade-off that...

00:55:13 ◼   ► I mean, if you want to go to...

00:55:16 ◼   ► If you went to WWDC, which is half a work thing, that's not really a vacation anyway,

00:55:21 ◼   ► but you had to plan the week ahead, I'm presuming you were double recording shows,

00:55:26 ◼   ► It was like you have to do way more work before and after

00:55:29 ◼   ► when you take a vacation as a self-employed person.

00:55:32 ◼   ► - Yep, and sometimes during,

00:55:33 ◼   ► like we were recording shows whilst there.

00:55:35 ◼   ► But then also the other part of it is,

00:55:39 ◼   ► when I used to work in my bank marketing job,

00:55:43 ◼   ► there were a couple of things that could happen.

00:55:44 ◼   ► When I went away, I was able to hand over my work

00:55:47 ◼   ► to somebody else to look after while I was gone.

00:55:50 ◼   ► And also, as soon as I left that building,

00:55:53 ◼   ► I could just stop thinking about it and it was fine.

00:55:56 ◼   ► That does not happen now.

00:55:58 ◼   ► I mean, I can hand over some elements of my job to,

00:56:02 ◼   ► like to Steven, my co-founder,

00:56:03 ◼   ► or to other people within Relay

00:56:05 ◼   ► can look after some things for me,

00:56:07 ◼   ► maybe cover some shows for me or whatever.

00:56:09 ◼   ► But none of that takes away the fact

00:56:11 ◼   ► that I'm constantly thinking about it.

00:56:14 ◼   ► There's no way to fully relax in that regard.

00:56:18 ◼   ► 'Cause it's like, what if something terrible happens?

00:56:20 ◼   ► It's like, oh, you wanna go on a holiday?

00:56:21 ◼   ► you also have to take your laptop in case something breaks.

00:56:24 ◼   ► You just have to do that now.

00:56:26 ◼   ► Like I'm going away for a short break this weekend.

00:56:29 ◼   ► And it's like, well, I have to take a ton of stuff with me

00:56:32 ◼   ► in case something explodes and I need to fix it.

00:56:35 ◼   ► And it's like, you know, I will be sneaking time

00:56:40 ◼   ► where possible to check and respond to emails.

00:56:42 ◼   ► And you know, and it's not a great scenario.

00:56:47 ◼   ► Like look, it's not like a woe is me tale.

00:56:49 ◼   ► It's just because I'm very, you know, as I said,

00:56:51 ◼   ► I'm lucky that I'm able to do this stuff, but it is that

00:56:53 ◼   ► thing. It's like the trade off that you get from being able to

00:56:56 ◼   ► do this stuff and go on these trips and and kind of set your

00:57:00 ◼   ► own schedule. That way is that you can never truly take a real

00:57:03 ◼   ► vacation again. Yes. This this is the the big difference and.

00:57:11 ◼   ► It's the thing that I am most aware of being different in my

00:57:15 ◼   ► post-teacher self-employed life is this constant awareness that there is always more work that

00:57:25 ◼   ► can be done.

00:57:27 ◼   ► There's always more that you could do for the business and it's a hard thing to get

00:57:37 ◼   ► used to and especially when you're just 11 person and

00:57:45 ◼   ► there's there's nobody to hand stuff off to.

00:57:50 ◼   ► It's one reason why when I did take that Las Vegas vacation,

00:58:00 ◼   ► I was really clear with myself that there was going to be

00:58:06 ◼   ► Nothing that was work during that time. I didn't look at any emails. I didn't really look at

00:58:13 ◼   ► Twitter. I was just trying to stay off the internet as much as practical and

00:58:19 ◼   ► not do any work

00:58:22 ◼   ► to just try to disengage from that for the space of a week and

00:58:28 ◼   ► to not have my brain always thinking about what should be the next thing that happens.

00:58:34 ◼   ► There's people waiting for the next video.

00:58:36 ◼   ► You know, or what should the next video be?

00:58:39 ◼   ► And it's a hard thing to do, but I think it's really important to have times when you're not focusing on work at all.

00:58:49 ◼   ► But, and here's why it's hard to do.

00:58:53 ◼   ► When it's just you, completely ignoring work means there will be problems that will happen when you're not looking.

00:59:06 ◼   ► And if you're not, you have to learn to be able to accept that.

00:59:15 ◼   ► And it's very hard.

00:59:18 ◼   ► I have...

00:59:20 ◼   ► After the Confederate video came out, I was unusually exhausted because a bunch of things had all happened all at once.

00:59:30 ◼   ► And I decided to take a longer than usual break.

00:59:34 ◼   ► So today is really my first day back at work.

00:59:37 ◼   ► I took four days off.

00:59:39 ◼   ► And I was very conscious of I'm not even going to open my email during this time.

00:59:46 ◼   ► I'm really going to take time off from work.

00:59:49 ◼   ► But I guarantee you that there are problems waiting for me in that email when I get back.

00:59:55 ◼   ► And that is a hard balance to play because if you take off too much time, those problems

01:00:04 ◼   ► get big and then they can turn into costly problems.

01:00:07 ◼   ► And that actually happened on my trip to Las Vegas.

01:00:11 ◼   ► There was a thing that occurred that if I had been able to pay attention to it at the

01:00:15 ◼   ► time, I would have been able to fix.

01:00:18 ◼   ► But because I wasn't paying attention to the business, there was a...

01:00:21 ◼   ► I don't want to go into the details, but there was a business problem that cost a lot of

01:00:27 ◼   ► money.

01:00:30 ◼   ► And I'm okay with that because that is the price of taking time off sometimes when you're

01:00:40 ◼   ► self-employed and when there's nobody around to pass the work off to.

01:00:44 ◼   ► That has to be the price.

01:00:48 ◼   ► You can't assume that you're going to be on top of everything all the time.

01:00:55 ◼   ► And so you have to become comfortable with allowing problems to happen and learning what

01:01:04 ◼   ► kinds of problems are okay and learning what things are core to your business and that

01:01:10 ◼   ► you have to stay focused on.

01:01:12 ◼   ► That's like a really long rambly answer about why vacations are difficult when it's just

01:01:19 ◼   ► you and you're the only person in the business.

01:01:22 ◼   ► back to not working on the Vegas trip. Whether you think it or not, your brain was working

01:01:28 ◼   ► on that trip because you came home and made a video about Las Vegas.

01:01:31 ◼   ► Well yeah, that's why the Vegas trip is one of the worst examples I could ever do. Because

01:01:37 ◼   ► I literally made a video about Las Vegas. However, however, what I want to say in my

01:01:43 ◼   ► defense is that I had written almost all of the script before I went to Las Vegas, and

01:01:52 ◼   ► I did that so that I could have it off my mind.

01:01:54 ◼   ► I always knew that I was going to do a Las Vegas video at some point.

01:01:59 ◼   ► And I was in Las Vegas and just thinking ever so slightly, if I happen to come across anything

01:02:04 ◼   ► that's interesting here to add to the video, I will do that.

01:02:08 ◼   ► But I did that script as much as possible before Las Vegas because I knew otherwise

01:02:15 ◼   ► it'll be on my mind the whole time I'm here.

01:02:18 ◼   ► And I didn't want that to be the case.

01:02:21 ◼   ► But yes, I did snap a screenshot while I was in paradise to get it on the phone so that

01:02:26 ◼   ► you could see it.

01:02:27 ◼   ► There were one or two other little things that happened while I was there, but it really

01:02:30 ◼   ► wasn't very much.

01:02:31 ◼   ► I was pretty successful.

01:02:33 ◼   ► But that also goes to what I was saying before about the core thing.

01:02:36 ◼   ► The thing in my business that matters the most is getting videos out and anything that

01:02:43 ◼   ► is a problem that is not related to that is a problem I'd like to fix but it doesn't necessarily

01:02:50 ◼   ► take priority in what's going to happen.

01:02:53 ◼   ► Something like a vacation can take priority if I'm keeping focus on the most important

01:02:59 ◼   ► things are still moving forward like videos.

01:03:03 ◼   ► This week's episode of Cortex is also brought to you by Harry's.

01:03:08 ◼   ► For many of us shaving is a pain.

01:03:10 ◼   ► It's uncomfortable, it causes nicks and cuts and scrapes and razor burn and it's also

01:03:14 ◼   ► uncomfortable in the pocket as well because razor blades today are so expensive.

01:03:19 ◼   ► And this is why Harry's exists.

01:03:21 ◼   ► Harry's make their own blades.

01:03:22 ◼   ► They're high quality, high performing German blades that are crafted by shaving experts

01:03:27 ◼   ► and they love the blades so much that they found themselves in a position where they

01:03:30 ◼   ► just bought the whole factory that they've been using in Germany.

01:03:34 ◼   ► Harry's offers really high quality razors at about half of the price of other big brand

01:03:39 ◼   ► blades.

01:03:40 ◼   ► They ship for free to your doorstep and they have an amazing starter set which is just

01:03:43 ◼   ► $15.

01:03:44 ◼   ► It will get you a razor, moisturising shave cream or foaming shave gel and 3 razor blades.

01:03:49 ◼   ► On average an everyday shaver who uses Harry's will save $150 a year compared to other brands.

01:03:54 ◼   ► Now this is what's quite interesting because not only are they cheaper for you to buy,

01:03:58 ◼   ► But because they're cheaper then you'll change the blade over more often because that's what

01:04:01 ◼   ► you should be doing because the more frequently you change a razor blade the better it's going

01:04:06 ◼   ► to be on your skin.

01:04:07 ◼   ► So that's pretty interesting right?

01:04:08 ◼   ► So that's one of the ways that they help make your shaving experience better every single

01:04:12 ◼   ► day.

01:04:13 ◼   ► I love the way that Harry's products look.

01:04:15 ◼   ► Their razor blades look super cool.

01:04:16 ◼   ► They've got this really cool retro minimalist style that I very much like.

01:04:20 ◼   ► I love their aftershave moisturiser.

01:04:22 ◼   ► It smells really great.

01:04:23 ◼   ► It feels really great on the skin.

01:04:25 ◼   ► super important to keep your face moisturised and Harry's helps protect mine. I use their

01:04:29 ◼   ► blades and Harry's razors to keep myself looking sharp. I love their foaming shave gel as well.

01:04:34 ◼   ► It's kind of like this magical gel that turns into this huge foam. It's really, really cool.

01:04:38 ◼   ► You can experience a clean, close, comfortable shave yourself with Harry's. Go to harrys.com

01:04:43 ◼   ► right now. That's H A R R Y S dot com and use the code cortex and it will get you $5

01:04:49 ◼   ► off your first purchase at checkout. Thank you so much to Harry's for their support of

01:04:54 ◼   ► this show.

01:04:55 ◼   ► How you doing Myke?

01:04:56 ◼   ► I think the room's losing air now.

01:04:59 ◼   ► So we've spoken about like taking breaks and you know those breaks will tend to be filled

01:05:05 ◼   ► with entertainment types.

01:05:06 ◼   ► Talk about video games a little bit but what do you tend to choose to unwind with more

01:05:11 ◼   ► frequently other than video games especially for shared activities with Mrs Grey?

01:05:15 ◼   ► Like do you guys watch movies and TV together?

01:05:17 ◼   ► Like what do you do?

01:05:18 ◼   ► Yeah we tend to take little walks.

01:05:22 ◼   ► in an area of London that is very walkable. So that's a nice thing to do. I think like

01:05:28 ◼   ► many couples, we'll watch movies together or TV shows together. I feel like it's just

01:05:36 ◼   ► a very normal days on Saturdays because my wife has worked a full work week and she's

01:05:47 ◼   ► really exhausted when the weekend rolls around and so she also just wants to relax. And I

01:05:52 ◼   ► I feel the same way too, like "Oh, I want to relax as well!"

01:05:55 ◼   ► Like, "Oh boy, we have a very nice comfy couch, and we will take great advantage of that comfy couch."

01:06:01 ◼   ► And so there's a lot of hanging out.

01:06:04 ◼   ► Yeah, I would say that my girlfriend and I do a similar kind of thing.

01:06:08 ◼   ► We like to watch TV shows, like we like to pick a show that we haven't seen and like watch all of it.

01:06:13 ◼   ► Like recently we did All of Friends, which felt like a great achievement.

01:06:18 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:06:19 ◼   ► The entire thing.

01:06:20 ◼   ► And shows like we just have caught up with Brooklyn nine nine, which is a show that I very much enjoy

01:06:26 ◼   ► So we do that kind of stuff watch movies and TV and but we you know

01:06:30 ◼   ► We try and get out into London a bit as well and like go for walks places

01:06:35 ◼   ► My better half enjoys that kind of stuff like we were in Hampton Court last

01:06:42 ◼   ► Weekend, which is a nice part of London and when we try and do that kind of stuff

01:06:47 ◼   ► like we try and get out a little bit in there but mainly I think the majority of our time

01:06:51 ◼   ► is that kind of idea because she is also worth the full work week and is tired so we watch

01:06:56 ◼   ► like movies and TV shows and things like that together.

01:07:02 ◼   ► For you though, for your tastes, what types of movies do you tend to enjoy? Are you a

01:07:07 ◼   ► comedy man, an action man? Do you like documentaries?

01:07:10 ◼   ► very hard to find good movies and things worth watching. So I don't tend to, left to my own

01:07:23 ◼   ► devices, watch a lot of stuff. But if I... things that I like tend more towards dramas.

01:07:35 ◼   ► So I mean I've mentioned my favorite TV show ever, probably the best TV show, is The Wire,

01:07:40 ◼   ► which I really enjoyed.

01:07:42 ◼   ► But in a more modern show is something like,

01:07:45 ◼   ► I've been watching "The Walking Dead", which I like,

01:07:48 ◼   ► even though season two was terribly boring, it's picked up.

01:07:51 ◼   ► So that kind of show is the thing that I would tend towards.

01:07:56 ◼   ► But my wife does not like those kinds of shows.

01:08:02 ◼   ► So I tend to watch those on my own.

01:08:04 ◼   ► - That's great time.

01:08:05 ◼   ► - Yes, she watches more upbeat stuff.

01:08:08 ◼   ► So we just worked our way through Arrested Development.

01:08:10 ◼   ► So we watched the first three seasons of Arrested Development.

01:08:12 ◼   ► And...

01:08:14 ◼   ► Don't watch the Netflix one.

01:08:15 ◼   ► Yeah, I've not heard good things about it.

01:08:18 ◼   ► But, so she, yeah, she tends to like other stuff.

01:08:20 ◼   ► I know a few years ago we worked our way through all of Voyager,

01:08:24 ◼   ► which she really likes and which I think is fine,

01:08:27 ◼   ► but I get hugely frustrated with inconsistencies in the Star Trek universe.

01:08:31 ◼   ► Of course you do, Gray.

01:08:32 ◼   ► It is. It's hugely frustrating. It's hugely frustrating.

01:08:36 ◼   ► The worst thing is that I end up knowing all of the details about the Star Trek stuff because while we're watching it, I'll be on like the Star Trek, the memory alpha, their wiki looking up the details of this and be like, wait a minute.

01:08:47 ◼   ► It doesn't, the Star Trek universe has the same problems that comic book universes have. It's just too big over too many years. It can't possibly be consistent. But I can't stop myself from getting frustrated with it on occasion.

01:09:02 ◼   ► It's not that I don't. Yeah, I'm not saying that I don't like it, but I just there are many things I would change about Star Trek when I watch it.

01:09:10 ◼   ► I think I would change this. I would change that.

01:09:12 ◼   ► So yeah, that's when we're watching stuff together. It tends to be lighter stuff like that.

01:09:18 ◼   ► But when I'm watching stuff on my own, I tend more towards dramas.

01:09:23 ◼   ► I feel like we have been friends for long enough that it would not surprise you when I say that I am an emotional person.

01:09:29 ◼   ► Yeah, I'm not surprised by that.

01:09:32 ◼   ► So I tend to like upbeat things.

01:09:35 ◼   ► Like I like comedies and things that are simple.

01:09:38 ◼   ► Like if a movie is exceedingly good,

01:09:41 ◼   ► but I know it's gonna be sad,

01:09:43 ◼   ► but I know it's a good movie, then I will watch it, right?

01:09:47 ◼   ► And I like action movies as well.

01:09:49 ◼   ► But I tend to like lighthearted things

01:09:50 ◼   ► because stuff, movies, TV shows, books, music,

01:09:54 ◼   ► can have a lasting effect on me.

01:09:56 ◼   ► And I try to limit the effect that I allow things to have

01:10:01 ◼   ► if they're not good enough.

01:10:04 ◼   ► Right, so I tend not to be a big like,

01:10:08 ◼   ► drama guy, but I will watch something

01:10:10 ◼   ► if I know it's good enough, like The Wire for example.

01:10:13 ◼   ► And Adina, she introduced me to The Wire, and--

01:10:18 ◼   ► - Oh, a good girlfriend.

01:10:20 ◼   ► - Yeah, because I had done, what many people done,

01:10:23 ◼   ► I watched the first episode and then stopped.

01:10:26 ◼   ► So like my advice to anybody hearing this

01:10:28 ◼   ► who has not seen The Wire,

01:10:29 ◼   ► I heartily recommend The Wire except the last season of that as well.

01:10:34 ◼   ► And would say if you are interested, you have to commit to the first three episodes.

01:10:42 ◼   ► You can't just say like, I'll see what this is like and then stop.

01:10:45 ◼   ► If you want to start, you must commit to yourself to watch the first three.

01:10:49 ◼   ► Because that's in my opinion, once you get through that it clicks because The Wire starts

01:10:54 ◼   ► and you have no idea what's going on.

01:10:56 ◼   ► Because I think it's purposeful, they take no time in trying to introduce you to characters.

01:11:00 ◼   ► You have to learn the characters as it goes along and it takes a few episodes for that

01:11:04 ◼   ► to click in.

01:11:05 ◼   ► Yes.

01:11:06 ◼   ► Yes, that's definitely the case.

01:11:07 ◼   ► And I like The Wire for the same reason I like many other things.

01:11:10 ◼   ► It is a show that is much more about a system and I love how The Wire just makes no concession

01:11:18 ◼   ► to the audience of explaining anything.

01:11:20 ◼   ► They're just like, "You know what, buddy?

01:11:23 ◼   ► You're just going to figure it out.

01:11:25 ◼   ► going to explain none of the slang. None of it. Yes, oh I know right. It's like there

01:11:31 ◼   ► were lots of the show I had to watch with subtitles to just understand what was going

01:11:37 ◼   ► on but then a lot of time yeah you just kind of have to infer what is occurring by the

01:11:40 ◼   ► way that people are talking to each other rather than actually trying to understand

01:11:43 ◼   ► the words that they're saying. It's a very it's a fascinating show but you've really

01:11:47 ◼   ► got to commit to it but that's one of those things so I knew that was gonna be good I

01:11:51 ◼   ► heard always good things about it and she really really pushed it on me she's like you

01:11:55 ◼   ► should you will like this you have to watch this but i try and limit that kind of stuff

01:11:59 ◼   ► and i tend to like more light-hearted things because then it's it's you know it washes

01:12:02 ◼   ► over me and i enjoy it rather than needing to then think about it for six weeks um what

01:12:08 ◼   ► about music do you listen to a lot of music like i mean we spoke about all day right but

01:12:13 ◼   ► That is a functional thing.

01:12:15 ◼   ► That is not like music for enjoyment.

01:12:18 ◼   ► That is like a, this exists to help me do my work.

01:12:23 ◼   ► - You're not gonna like this,

01:12:26 ◼   ► but I have zero interest in music outside of its utility

01:12:31 ◼   ► as a tool to accomplish other things.

01:12:34 ◼   ► Just none.

01:12:38 ◼   ► - Has it always been this way?

01:12:43 ◼   ► I don't think, I mean I think as a kid I liked music more, but...

01:12:47 ◼   ► Yeah, I just have no interest in music other than a kind of audio version of brain doping.

01:12:55 ◼   ► Like, "Oh, this sequence of sounds can put my brain in a mood."

01:13:00 ◼   ► Or, "This sequence of sounds is associated with something."

01:13:03 ◼   ► Or, "This repetitive noise is useful in this moment."

01:13:07 ◼   ► I just...

01:13:07 ◼   ► I have no interest in music in and of itself.

01:13:12 ◼   ► as an art form. I don't have any appreciation for this.

01:13:15 ◼   ► Are you able to compute any music that you like?

01:13:19 ◼   ► What do you mean?

01:13:21 ◼   ► Like, is there anything that you can say "I like this album" or "I like this artist"?

01:13:29 ◼   ► Not really.

01:13:31 ◼   ► That's so interesting to me, Gray.

01:13:33 ◼   ► I mean, again, I like that Girl Talk album, but that exists to me in the world as a thing

01:13:40 ◼   ► that I listen to at a moment.

01:13:44 ◼   ► I mean the most music I ever listened to was, I've done a couple of, in my younger days, road trips across the United States.

01:13:53 ◼   ► And I had long lists of music that I listened to then.

01:13:57 ◼   ► But even then it was as a tool for, I can't listen to audiobooks for four hours a row, in a row, every day while I'm driving.

01:14:07 ◼   ► I need to break this up with something else. I'm not gonna break it up with silence because that will drive me even more crazy

01:14:12 ◼   ► So I need something else. I'm gonna break it up with music

01:14:15 ◼   ► But again, it was music as a as a tool if if I was able to listen to

01:14:20 ◼   ► audiobooks all day in the car or silence in the car I would have

01:14:25 ◼   ► But so yeah

01:14:26 ◼   ► I just had I had a lot of upbeat sing-along kind of songs that I listened to on on the road trips because of the

01:14:32 ◼   ► Of the function that they served not because I was like oh, I love this music

01:14:37 ◼   ► Sorry Myke, I know you have a whole podcast where you're interviewing people about music

01:14:43 ◼   ► and I don't listen to that one.

01:14:46 ◼   ► But in those scenarios you have to make a choice, right?

01:14:51 ◼   ► So when you need music even in those times like driving across the country, you must

01:14:58 ◼   ► choose something, right?

01:15:00 ◼   ► What do you choose?

01:15:02 ◼   ► Okay, here is the way that new music comes into my life right now.

01:15:07 ◼   ► Okay.

01:15:08 ◼   ► Because I haven't had new music come into my life for maybe 10 years.

01:15:12 ◼   ► What?

01:15:13 ◼   ► Because I just didn't listen to the radio or anything.

01:15:15 ◼   ► Like I had, I was aware that there was no way in which new music came into my life.

01:15:19 ◼   ► I just had a collection of songs that I've been carrying around since college and there

01:15:24 ◼   ► was no input into this system, which I recognized was not optimal, but I would never just listen

01:15:29 ◼   ► to the radio or anything.

01:15:32 ◼   ► So I signed up with Spotify so that there is a mechanism by which new music comes into

01:15:38 ◼   ► my system.

01:15:39 ◼   ► Or what I will often do is I will just go to the top charts on Spotify or something

01:15:44 ◼   ► and just play it randomly.

01:15:47 ◼   ► And this is when I'm working.

01:15:48 ◼   ► I don't know how, but very quickly some song will clearly become stuck in my brain and

01:15:56 ◼   ► then I'll just loop that one for an hour or two, just that same song while I'm doing work.

01:16:03 ◼   ► But again, it's a totally utilitarian thing.

01:16:08 ◼   ► It's like I'm using this music to stay focused.

01:16:14 ◼   ► I don't even know who the artists are.

01:16:15 ◼   ► I don't know what song I'm listening to.

01:16:18 ◼   ► I know that the kinds of things that tend to work for me are usually like, I would just

01:16:25 ◼   ► say just like pop kind of songs. There's something about

01:16:29 ◼   ► them that really clicks in my brain of just like listening to

01:16:34 ◼   ► it over and over again that there's like it has a catchy

01:16:36 ◼   ► hook and it has this little melody that goes along. So I

01:16:40 ◼   ► listen to that stuff, but yeah, it is I never I never think you

01:16:44 ◼   ► know what I want to do right now. I want to listen to some

01:16:46 ◼   ► music. I almost exclusively listen to music when I am doing

01:16:51 ◼   ► work and I'm doing work with words in particular. Otherwise,

01:16:56 ◼   ► I almost never listen to music. I didn't think I would ever

01:16:59 ◼   ► meet somebody that feels this way. It's so it's so interesting

01:17:05 ◼   ► to me. I think of all of the things I know about you. This

01:17:08 ◼   ► is the one that I am now the most fascinated about. It seems

01:17:11 ◼   ► just so strange that you don't seem to take enjoyment from

01:17:14 ◼   ► music like it. No, no, it's that that's that's the wrong

01:17:17 ◼   ► there it's not that I don't like music that's that's wrong but it's it's never

01:17:23 ◼   ► an activity that I would seek out or do in isolation I it's always accompanying

01:17:29 ◼   ► something else and it is a it's accompanying for okay like like the mood

01:17:34 ◼   ► modifier sure I mean but that's how I listen to music but I still have tastes

01:17:38 ◼   ► and choices and artists and albums that I enjoy you know yeah yeah I know I know

01:17:44 ◼   ► I know this is a thing that people do.

01:17:46 ◼   ► - I am a music fan and I like,

01:17:49 ◼   ► I have a very wide music taste

01:17:51 ◼   ► and I would suggest if anybody likes music like I do

01:17:55 ◼   ► and is not great, they should maybe try out

01:17:58 ◼   ► my favorite album run I'm doing on a show

01:18:00 ◼   ► that I have called "Inquisitive"

01:18:01 ◼   ► where I talk to people about their favorite albums.

01:18:03 ◼   ► I think people like that

01:18:04 ◼   ► and I'll put a link to that in the show notes.

01:18:06 ◼   ► - That's the one that I am not listening to.

01:18:08 ◼   ► - Yeah, well I'm not surprised now.

01:18:12 ◼   ► my tastes tend to skew towards alternative rock, but I like a wide range of stuff.

01:18:19 ◼   ► You know, I like rap and hip-hop and R&B and swing music and soul music, pop.

01:18:27 ◼   ► I have a very wide range of tastes, but I guess I kind of skew towards the independent

01:18:34 ◼   ► alternative rock more generally.

01:18:37 ◼   ► So let's talk about video games then so I can perceive you as human again.

01:18:45 ◼   ► What are some of your favorite video games?

01:18:47 ◼   ► What are some of the stuff that you've played recently that you really really enjoy and

01:18:51 ◼   ► kind of all time favorite stuff?

01:18:54 ◼   ► Or maybe just like you know I know that you tend to like simulation games.

01:18:58 ◼   ► Is that the only type of video game that you enjoy?

01:19:00 ◼   ► No there's um...

01:19:02 ◼   ► I try lots of stuff.

01:19:05 ◼   ► I just I'm very aware that I tend to focus on these work

01:19:09 ◼   ► simulator systems games right after I finish a video for a

01:19:13 ◼   ► while like that will hold my interest for a long time and

01:19:16 ◼   ► I'll play those but I play I play lots of different kinds of

01:19:20 ◼   ► games. I like to try out different stuff.

01:19:24 ◼   ► Do you tend to mainly play on PC? Do you have a console? I

01:19:29 ◼   ► don't I don't have a console. I haven't had a console since as

01:19:32 ◼   ► kid I had a Super Nintendo. Oh wow, so you are a strict PC gamer. Yes. I'm assuming

01:19:38 ◼   ► that you do all of this on your Mac though. Oh yeah, I was about to say I am

01:19:43 ◼   ► I'm a member of the PC Master Race but I also play lots of games on an iPad and

01:19:49 ◼   ► I'm also playing on a Mac so maybe I'm the worst member of the PC Master Race. I

01:19:53 ◼   ► don't have a console but that's mainly because I don't have a TV to hook the

01:19:57 ◼   ► console up to. I'm not opposed to consoles I just haven't I haven't played

01:20:00 ◼   ► them in years. But on the occasions when I have played modern games with consoles, I

01:20:09 ◼   ► find myself frustrated by the lack of precision input. I just want a keyboard and a mouse

01:20:17 ◼   ► to play games. Or I want the other extreme, which is games that are designed for touch

01:20:22 ◼   ► on the iPad. I find the console, my limited experience has not been great with modern

01:20:28 ◼   ► console games but that could just be lack of exposure and yeah I think it's

01:20:33 ◼   ► more the latter yeah but um but I feel like I didn't get a definitive answer

01:20:40 ◼   ► and not because you dodged it but I just think I may have missed it you do not

01:20:44 ◼   ► have a gaming PC do you or do you know I don't have a dedicated gaming PC right

01:20:50 ◼   ► so there is no Windows machine that you're using to play video games on in

01:20:54 ◼   ► your house no I have a Mac and that's what I play games on or do you steam a

01:20:58 ◼   ► lot then? I have just in the past year started to use Steam so I don't have a

01:21:05 ◼   ► bunch of stuff on Steam I only have a few items there but yes I am currently

01:21:09 ◼   ► using Steam for for a few things. The things worth noting on Steam that I have

01:21:15 ◼   ► I have City Skylines which I highly recommend as the SimCity game that

01:21:22 ◼   ► should always have been it's very excellent. Yeah I own that and I haven't

01:21:26 ◼   ► played it yet. I started it and then stopped. I don't know why, but I bought that because

01:21:32 ◼   ► I love SimCity and the last one was an abomination.

01:21:36 ◼   ► Well EA has been...

01:21:38 ◼   ► They've ruined it.

01:21:39 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:21:40 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:21:41 ◼   ► You bleep this out Myke. EA's been sh*tting all over SimCity, you know, for years in a

01:21:46 ◼   ► way that I have found hugely frustrating.

01:21:48 ◼   ► I want a new, modern, good SimCity for the iPad and they will not give that to me. The

01:21:53 ◼   ► The last one that they did, I can't remember what they called it, Build It or something,

01:21:58 ◼   ► was good except for the fact that you had to wait and buy and you know all the microtransaction

01:22:04 ◼   ► crap.

01:22:05 ◼   ► But the game itself was built well but then they just ruined it.

01:22:08 ◼   ► Ruined it.

01:22:09 ◼   ► Completely ruined it.

01:22:10 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:22:11 ◼   ► So I highly recommend City Skylines.

01:22:14 ◼   ► Very good.

01:22:15 ◼   ► It's everything SimCity should have been.

01:22:17 ◼   ► And what I think is the most delicious part of the story of that game is that it's made

01:22:21 ◼   ► by people who worked at EA on SimCity who got frustrated enough to leave and then made

01:22:26 ◼   ► just an amazing game.

01:22:28 ◼   ► That's awesome.

01:22:29 ◼   ► It's like, you know what, I would buy that game twice just to support them and to give

01:22:34 ◼   ► the middle finger to EA because it's a horrible company.

01:22:37 ◼   ► EA really is terrible.

01:22:38 ◼   ► They ruin everything.

01:22:39 ◼   ► Yeah, they're absolutely the worst.

01:22:41 ◼   ► I just, based on someone's recommendation on the Reddit, I got a game on Steam called

01:22:45 ◼   ► Mini Metro, which it's only an afternoon's worth of play, but it's a fun little game

01:22:51 ◼   ► It's like a metro simulator that was good.

01:22:55 ◼   ► It's beautiful.

01:22:56 ◼   ► Yeah, it's beautiful.

01:22:58 ◼   ► It has a night mode which is really nice.

01:23:00 ◼   ► Prison Architect which I mentioned before.

01:23:02 ◼   ► Okay, so now something that's a little bit different is and very good that I recommend

01:23:07 ◼   ► is XCOM which is a turn-based combat game.

01:23:17 ◼   ► are defending the earth against an alien invasion, but the aliens take turns and you take turns,

01:23:26 ◼   ► and you have to do it in a strategic manner of maneuvering around obstacles on the board,

01:23:31 ◼   ► and which order do you want to fire in, or you have a bunch of decisions to make, and

01:23:38 ◼   ► it's different from other games because it's a combat game.

01:23:42 ◼   ► And I really like that, that one is very good.

01:23:45 ◼   ► I'll go for another recommendation, which is a very different game.

01:23:48 ◼   ► And I wish there were more things like this,

01:23:51 ◼   ► but I'm going to highly, highly recommend a game called Year Walk,

01:23:56 ◼   ► which is for the iPad.

01:23:59 ◼   ► It may be on other platforms,

01:24:01 ◼   ► but I think you should play it on the iPad if it does exist elsewhere.

01:24:04 ◼   ► And here's my recommendation for Year Walk.

01:24:08 ◼   ► Don't don't read anything about it.

01:24:11 ◼   ► Don't even watch the trailer for the game.

01:24:15 ◼   ► This is like a like an experience that you're going to have.

01:24:21 ◼   ► It's not really a traditional game.

01:24:25 ◼   ► So I would say put on headphones.

01:24:28 ◼   ► Dedicate two hours by year walk and just play it.

01:24:34 ◼   ► And I found this amazing and I wish there were more games like this,

01:24:40 ◼   ► which were not necessarily games that you have to put in hundreds of hours for,

01:24:45 ◼   ► but carefully crafted experiences that you can have as a player.

01:24:53 ◼   ► I think it's very hard to do this right, but Year Walk really hits the mark dead on.

01:25:01 ◼   ► So I really recommend that one. That was a great experience.

01:25:07 ◼   ► On the other extreme, I do sometimes like really mindless stuff.

01:25:11 ◼   ► Like I am looking very forward to the new version of Doom which is coming out.

01:25:15 ◼   ► Because I used to play just many more just straight shoot 'em up games and I haven't seen one that I like in a while.

01:25:22 ◼   ► And so yeah, sometimes when I'm playing a game I just want something that is absolutely absolutely mindless.

01:25:28 ◼   ► And Doom looks like it. It fits that to a T.

01:25:31 ◼   ► I don't need to think about anything, I'm just going to run around and shoot a bunch of demons and

01:25:35 ◼   ► That can also be an enjoyable gaming experience. I play a lot of tower defense games on my iPad

01:25:41 ◼   ► Those are good Kingdom Rush is very good. This has turned into the video game episode Myke

01:25:45 ◼   ► I was not I was not prepared for this. I like to surprise you so I'm more of a console gaming person

01:25:51 ◼   ► I actually have all of the three. Oh, yeah, PlayStation and Wii U

01:25:56 ◼   ► You must have a lot of cables going to your television. Oh, yeah

01:26:00 ◼   ► Yeah, it's one of the reasons it gets so hot in here.

01:26:04 ◼   ► I tend to like a couple of different types of console game.

01:26:09 ◼   ► I tend to like all of the first part Nintendo stuff.

01:26:14 ◼   ► Always been a fan since I was a kid.

01:26:15 ◼   ► Yeah, Nintendo is always very good.

01:26:17 ◼   ► So I love, you know, all of the Mario games, the platformers, the 2D, the 3D, I love Mario

01:26:22 ◼   ► Kart.

01:26:24 ◼   ► That stuff for me is just always fantastic.

01:26:26 ◼   ► There is a new game that Nintendo have made called Splatoon, which is a first person shooter,

01:26:32 ◼   ► which is just a bunch of fun, because you just basically have to just spray the world

01:26:38 ◼   ► with ink.

01:26:39 ◼   ► Really fantastic.

01:26:40 ◼   ► Love that game.

01:26:42 ◼   ► And I also tend to like big open world games.

01:26:46 ◼   ► Like currently I'm playing Batman Arkham Knight, and I am loving that game.

01:26:51 ◼   ► That is my current game of choice, and I love that.

01:26:55 ◼   ► And I'm very excited for a game that's coming up on PlayStation called No Man's Sky.

01:26:59 ◼   ► It's also going to be on the PC.

01:27:01 ◼   ► Which is a space exploration game, procedural like Minecraft.

01:27:09 ◼   ► And it's basically, they have found a way to randomly generate planets.

01:27:17 ◼   ► And some of the planets are the same size scale as real planets.

01:27:23 ◼   ► And they have created universes and they're saying there's currently like quintillion

01:27:28 ◼   ► planets created.

01:27:31 ◼   ► And the idea is you just, there is, it's like Minecraft in the way that there is an end,

01:27:37 ◼   ► but you basically just go and explore and see what you end up coming up with.

01:27:42 ◼   ► It just looks incredible.

01:27:44 ◼   ► I think people in the gaming world are really down on procedural stuff, but I think that

01:27:50 ◼   ► is clearly the future of games and procedural is very... for those who are not gamers what

01:27:57 ◼   ► this means is instead of a game designer hand crafting a level of a game you set up rules

01:28:06 ◼   ► so that the computer can create its own areas and its own levels but because the computer

01:28:12 ◼   ► is doing it you can do it on an infinite scale.

01:28:15 ◼   ► You can never run out of levels or you can never run out of worlds and I've seen procedural

01:28:19 ◼   ► stuff done badly but I think as time goes on procedural gets better and better and it's

01:28:26 ◼   ► clearly the future of big games having enormous worlds that you can explore.

01:28:35 ◼   ► It's a very interesting development in the gaming world.

01:28:39 ◼   ► Yeah, I like it.

01:28:40 ◼   ► I like that kind of stuff because it creates completely different types of video game where

01:28:44 ◼   ► there's like there isn't even really the need for a story anymore because you make your

01:28:48 ◼   ► own.

01:28:49 ◼   ► Yeah, yeah, I think that was that was one of the big things

01:28:53 ◼   ► for for Minecraft is probably the biggest, most popular

01:28:56 ◼   ► procedural game of you can just keep walking forever and it's

01:29:00 ◼   ► going to keep creating more world around you and as you go

01:29:05 ◼   ► the areas will be different and it yeah this will just never

01:29:09 ◼   ► end. You can spend forever in this in this area. Saying about

01:29:13 ◼   ► that how popular is I saw a story today that Minecraft

01:29:17 ◼   ► sales have now reached 70 million copies with 20 million sold on the PC.

01:29:21 ◼   ► That's crazy. That is crazy.

01:29:24 ◼   ► So yeah it's kind of popular.

01:29:25 ◼   ► Yeah yeah. We would normally do some questions at this moment but I really I think it's it's

01:29:33 ◼   ► better for both of us if we stop right now and it's better for the audience if we stop right

01:29:37 ◼   ► now because if we keep going on we might actually die.

01:29:41 ◼   ► In a moment you're just gonna hear this sound and that's me passing out.

01:29:46 ◼   ► Yes. So listeners, thank you for the unexpected video game podcast.

01:29:51 ◼   ► I hope you made it to the end, but we're going to we're going to have to go.

01:29:55 ◼   ► If this episode was a little weird and a little different, you know, you know why.

01:30:00 ◼   ► We are both podcasting with half baked brains.

01:30:05 ◼   ► [BLANK_AUDIO]