Upgrade

00:00:00 ◼   ► [Music]

00:00:08 ◼   ► Hello and welcome to episode 12 of Upgrade from Relay FM. This episode of Upgrade is brought to

00:00:15 ◼   ► you by Hover, simplified domain management, MailRoute, a secure hosted email service for

00:00:20 ◼   ► protection from viruses and spam, and and also our friends, Jason loves these guys like all of

00:00:26 ◼   ► our friends at Dash where you can create beautiful dashboards in just a few clicks.

00:00:31 ◼   ► My name is Myke Hurley and I'm joined by Mr. Jason Snell.

00:00:35 ◼   ► Hi Myke, I love all those people they are our friends all of them.

00:00:39 ◼   ► That's starting to seep into everything though by the way.

00:00:43 ◼   ► It's funny how things that you don't

00:00:46 ◼   ► um that you do once and you're like oh that's just a stupid thing I said and

00:00:50 ◼   ► then it becomes a thing after that because it resonates with

00:00:53 ◼   ► people and and comes back like the verticals has come back a bunch of times

00:00:57 ◼   ► and and the enemy discount and yeah it's funny that's it's that's great it's one

00:01:02 ◼   ► of the delights of doing a podcast is that you say something once and think

00:01:06 ◼   ► well that was kind of stupid and then it becomes a thing because people remember

00:01:09 ◼   ► it and think it was funny it's very strange and it comes back to you in weird

00:01:13 ◼   ► ways.

00:01:14 ◼   ► It still upsets me greatly that nobody has taken advantage of the enemy

00:01:19 ◼   ► discount.

00:01:21 ◼   ► It'll happen one day.

00:01:23 ◼   ► One day.

00:01:24 ◼   ► It'll happen.

00:01:25 ◼   ► The relay ad sales are going pretty well though, so they're gonna have to find a spot where

00:01:29 ◼   ► they're gonna find like the enemy slot.

00:01:31 ◼   ► Yeah, I don't know where that will be.

00:01:32 ◼   ► If it's been running out of space.

00:01:34 ◼   ► Maybe there's like...

00:01:35 ◼   ► At the very end of the show, carry it under like 10 minutes of silence and then there's

00:01:39 ◼   ► an ad.

00:01:40 ◼   ► Something like that.

00:01:42 ◼   ► And it will be like in reverse, so you have to rewind the show to hear the ad.

00:01:46 ◼   ► Yeah, you have to turn the cassette tape that you're listening to the show on backward.

00:01:51 ◼   ► Yeah, yeah that could be, that could be. But anyway it's a lot of fun. I'm sure someday

00:01:57 ◼   ► we will get an enemy to sponsor us and that'll be interesting.

00:02:00 ◼   ► To say the least. Cross fingers.

00:02:04 ◼   ► Would you like to do your favorite segment?

00:02:06 ◼   ► Sure, I hope, again, yes, I would love to do some follow up. And the, what I wanted

00:02:16 ◼   ► to say is that we got a lot after last week's show, we got a lot of tweets from people,

00:02:22 ◼   ► especially, saying "I'm really enjoying the show." And I thought, "Wow, are people in

00:02:27 ◼   ► a good mood? Did we have a particularly good show?" I hope that's true. I do wonder, since

00:02:33 ◼   ► we did talk in last week's show about how, although we don't like comments generally,

00:02:39 ◼   ► we love interacting with people on social media, if this was everybody's message to

00:02:43 ◼   ► us of like, well, here I am interacting with you on social media. But I hope it's not just

00:02:49 ◼   ► that, and that they actually literally, you know, were enjoying the show and not just

00:02:55 ◼   ► using social media to say that. But there was a lot of that last week, so I thought

00:02:58 ◼   ► that was pretty funny. Did you get that? I got that.

00:03:00 ◼   ► Yeah, yeah, I do. It's this interesting thing that I was listening to old episodes of one

00:03:08 ◼   ► of my favorite podcasts called Hello Internet and I mentioned this show quite

00:03:12 ◼   ► a lot because I like it, I like it a lot. And they were talking about feedback and

00:03:18 ◼   ► there's just this one little sound bite that I quite like which was positive

00:03:25 ◼   ► feedback trends to zero in the idea that the more and more you get of it the

00:03:30 ◼   ► harder it is to remember specific parts. So it's like when you ask me that

00:03:36 ◼   ► question I know that I am very lucky and I'm very happy that I get lots of good

00:03:43 ◼   ► feedback about the shows every day so it makes it harder to remember specific

00:03:48 ◼   ► things but like if you would have said to me did you see that bad tweet last

00:03:53 ◼   ► week about oh yeah I would definitely remember it tell me the time stamp yeah

00:03:58 ◼   ► you know so it's just yeah I mean yes I do remember actually I do remember

00:04:03 ◼   ► people talking. I remember getting lots of like, you know, good on you kind of type things

00:04:09 ◼   ► from last week, you know, people that were, "Oh, I am involved in this and I've been doing

00:04:14 ◼   ► this and congratulations on, you know, continuing to work on your own." That kind of stuff,

00:04:20 ◼   ► you know, like a lot of like, "Support, we're in this together" type messages, because that

00:04:25 ◼   ► was slightly different to usual, but yeah, I remember getting those.

00:04:27 ◼   ► Yeah, I mean, I didn't... It's not in the notes, but I did get a note from one person

00:04:32 ◼   ► that said, "This episode was a little too navel-gazey." That's exactly what he said.

00:04:37 ◼   ► And I respond and I said, "Well, you know, we did both just leave our jobs and not every

00:04:42 ◼   ► episode is going to be about that." But his point... I think his point was, I keep hearing

00:04:47 ◼   ► podcasters talk about how they don't have J-O-B jobs. And I get how it's really samey

00:04:54 ◼   ► from that perspective. But I don't regret us talking about it because this one of the

00:04:59 ◼   ► things on this podcast is it's sort of the story of our lives. Now you've got more podcasts.

00:05:04 ◼   ► Well I don't know, do you have more podcasts than me? We could fight it out. But you have

00:05:07 ◼   ► more podcasts in which you have a platform to talk about your what you're doing with

00:05:11 ◼   ► your career, especially analog since so much of this is about sort of like the feelings

00:05:16 ◼   ► of you going through this process and talking to Casey about it and making Casey question

00:05:21 ◼   ► in his life.

00:05:22 ◼   ► And so I don't have any regrets about us talking about it

00:05:26 ◼   ► here 'cause we don't have that many platforms to talk about

00:05:28 ◼   ► stuff like this and we do have that in common.

00:05:31 ◼   ► But I totally get how the podcast sphere can lose

00:05:35 ◼   ► perspective on this because you've got a lot of people

00:05:37 ◼   ► who are like that.

00:05:38 ◼   ► And I always felt that when I was a guy who was commuting

00:05:40 ◼   ► every day and you might've thought that too.

00:05:42 ◼   ► That it's like, wow, there's a lot of people talking about

00:05:44 ◼   ► quitting their jobs and working out of their house

00:05:47 ◼   ► in their pajamas and now we're those people.

00:05:50 ◼   ► But, you know, but it is our story is, you know, that's one of the things that we're both going through.

00:05:54 ◼   ► So I think it's logical for us to talk about it every now and then.

00:05:57 ◼   ► - I think I host more podcasts than you, but I think you own more podcasts than I do.

00:06:04 ◼   ► - I'm on—I think I'm on four that are recorded weekly.

00:06:09 ◼   ► - Yeah, see, I have, uh, I have five weekly shows and one, like, monthly show.

00:06:15 ◼   ► - Yeah, right. If you can call that a show.

00:06:18 ◼   ► No, I have six weekly shows.

00:06:22 ◼   ► - Okay, you win, you win.

00:06:23 ◼   ► You have a bigger platform than I do

00:06:25 ◼   ► to talk about not having your job anymore.

00:06:29 ◼   ► - I have a show that's like dedicated to that.

00:06:31 ◼   ► - I know, I know, it's amazing.

00:06:33 ◼   ► So anyway, I don't mind that we talked about it,

00:06:35 ◼   ► but the point is that the guy who said

00:06:36 ◼   ► we were too navel-gazy totally remember

00:06:38 ◼   ► the exact words of that tweet.

00:06:40 ◼   ► But a lot of really nice feedback from everybody else.

00:06:44 ◼   ► So I don't know whether that was semi ironic

00:06:47 ◼   ► for like, oh, okay, you like social feedback?

00:06:50 ◼   ► You're gonna get social feedback guys, but it was great.

00:06:53 ◼   ► So thank you everybody.

00:06:55 ◼   ► Listener Sam in particular,

00:06:57 ◼   ► a tweet that I wanted to mention said he loved last episode.

00:07:00 ◼   ► He said, and then he trained his magnifying glass on us.

00:07:04 ◼   ► He said, I study independent workers.

00:07:07 ◼   ► So everything you talked about is stuff I obsess over

00:07:09 ◼   ► at theworkologist.com, which is I believe

00:07:12 ◼   ► listener Sam's website.

00:07:13 ◼   ► I'm getting my PhD in positive organizational psychology

00:07:16 ◼   ► with a focus on indie work and how to best support

00:07:19 ◼   ► that style of work.

00:07:21 ◼   ► So listener Sam will be paying attention to our podcast

00:07:26 ◼   ► and noting our responses to stimuli, I think.

00:07:29 ◼   ► - Listener Sam, if you ever notice anything

00:07:32 ◼   ► that me and Jason do that are like warning signs,

00:07:35 ◼   ► please let us know.

00:07:36 ◼   ► - Let us know.

00:07:37 ◼   ► Let us know when-- - Any triggers, please.

00:07:39 ◼   ► Please make sure you're watching the triggers.

00:07:41 ◼   ► - Bad news.

00:07:42 ◼   ► Listener Sebastian wrote in, long time follower,

00:07:47 ◼   ► first time feedbacker, he said,

00:07:48 ◼   ► listening to last week's episode,

00:07:49 ◼   ► I was compelled to write you guys

00:07:51 ◼   ► on the subject of remembering to leave the house,

00:07:53 ◼   ► shower, et cetera.

00:07:55 ◼   ► I've been working at home for two years now

00:07:56 ◼   ► and admit to having practiced all of the embarrassing acts

00:07:59 ◼   ► you sheepishly discussed.

00:08:00 ◼   ► For me, getting a dog halfway through this period

00:08:02 ◼   ► has made the single biggest positive difference.

00:08:04 ◼   ► And he goes on to talk about how now he has to walk the dog,

00:08:07 ◼   ► he has to get out.

00:08:08 ◼   ► The dog provides some companionship and, you know,

00:08:11 ◼   ► Just, and I have this, we only have a cat here now,

00:08:13 ◼   ► but just having a pet in the house

00:08:15 ◼   ► and wondering what's the pet doing

00:08:17 ◼   ► and do I need to feed it and whatever,

00:08:19 ◼   ► that can be good.

00:08:20 ◼   ► And then with a dog, you gotta get out and walk the dog.

00:08:23 ◼   ► So I thought that was interesting.

00:08:24 ◼   ► I don't have a dog right now, but I do have kids.

00:08:26 ◼   ► So I have reasons to get in and out of the house

00:08:29 ◼   ► because I've got to take the kids places

00:08:30 ◼   ► and walk my son to school or pick him up.

00:08:32 ◼   ► And there's a lot going on there.

00:08:34 ◼   ► As for you, Myke, I don't know.

00:08:37 ◼   ► Maybe, is there a dog in your future?

00:08:39 ◼   ► I'm not a big animal person.

00:08:41 ◼   ► Alright.

00:08:42 ◼   ► Unfortunately.

00:08:43 ◼   ► Maybe a telepresence robot.

00:08:45 ◼   ► I would definitely have a telepresence robot.

00:08:48 ◼   ► Maybe I should get one of those dogs.

00:08:49 ◼   ► You can pay somebody to come once a day and just be in the robot for an hour or something.

00:08:56 ◼   ► Like a little robot pal.

00:08:58 ◼   ► That could work for me.

00:09:00 ◼   ► It's just an idea.

00:09:02 ◼   ► Or you could just get out and see people and all that.

00:09:05 ◼   ► That works too.

00:09:06 ◼   ► I was going swimming and forgot my swimming shorts. At least I got out of the house, Jason.

00:09:13 ◼   ► Yeah, yeah. That's true. Did you just come home or did you go buy some swimming shorts?

00:09:19 ◼   ► No, no, I just came home. I think the previous me would have bought swimming shorts, but

00:09:25 ◼   ► this is also me trying to be responsible with my finances.

00:09:28 ◼   ► Right. And they don't let you go naked in the Olympic pool.

00:09:32 ◼   ► They don't actually. I asked, but then I had to leave.

00:09:37 ◼   ► Isn't there a naked lane? Just like the far lane. We're not going to judge you. Just go

00:09:43 ◼   ► to the far lane.

00:09:44 ◼   ► The very far lane.

00:09:46 ◼   ► Yeah. I suppose you could go, maybe you could go in your pants.

00:09:50 ◼   ► Oh.

00:09:53 ◼   ► But then how would you get home?

00:09:55 ◼   ► Exactly. I don't think they're suitable for exercise.

00:10:00 ◼   ► not. Anyway, that was an interesting vertical, the naked swimming issues vertical. Listener

00:10:09 ◼   ► Joseph said something I don't think, something I think wasn't touched on that I think I'd

00:10:15 ◼   ► be interested in hearing about, especially from Myke, is this. What if Relay, or for

00:10:21 ◼   ► me, Six Colors, became enormously successful and necessitated a much larger staff or office

00:10:26 ◼   ► presence or business? Myke has said he doesn't see how he could ever possibly go back to

00:10:30 ◼   ► a corporate environment, but what if Relay became corporate? Would you work in an office?

00:10:35 ◼   ► Could you work in an office even if it was your place? What do you think about that?

00:10:42 ◼   ► I think that what I think about as corporate would maybe be different. I come from a world

00:10:51 ◼   ► of companies with like tens of thousands of employees you know. So I mean I hope

00:11:00 ◼   ► actually that one day I do have like a little team of people, a couple of people

00:11:05 ◼   ► that I work with and I would very much like to have an office space for Relay

00:11:11 ◼   ► based in London or wherever I live. I think that would be really cool but I think I

00:11:16 ◼   ► think there's a difference between like working with a few people and being

00:11:21 ◼   ► corporate. I mean, because currently I already work for a few people.

00:11:24 ◼   ► Right, right. And it's a smaller business and it's virtual, which is fine. I liked going

00:11:32 ◼   ► to an office. I didn't like the big commute, but I think you're right. I think there's

00:11:35 ◼   ► a bigger distinction here, which is that working for a company with hundreds or thousands of

00:11:39 ◼   ► people versus working for a company with eight. You know, there's that video, The Verge posted

00:11:44 ◼   ► a video today about sandwich video and they've got like eight people in their office in LA.

00:11:52 ◼   ► That's a really different kind of feeling from being this branch of this giant company

00:11:57 ◼   ► and you're in one division and all of that, which is what both of us went through.

00:12:04 ◼   ► I thought about that, that if my business got up and running and was really successful

00:12:09 ◼   ► to the point where I could see value in having outside office, someplace I could go to work

00:12:16 ◼   ► instead of working in my house. I wouldn't be against that if it made sense, but I would

00:12:24 ◼   ► want it to be close. I wouldn't want to drive across the bridge every day like I did for

00:12:29 ◼   ► 15 years because that was a lot of time that I would really rather reclaim. But listener

00:12:36 ◼   ► Mr. Joseph actually says that he went back after not really liking his job and feeling

00:12:41 ◼   ► like he was becoming a hermit and how his dog wasn't sufficient social contact, take

00:12:45 ◼   ► that Sebastian, that he's back to an eight to five job, but he's moving, so he'll be

00:12:51 ◼   ► within five minutes of the office.

00:12:53 ◼   ► So he gets the no commute thing.

00:12:55 ◼   ► But I'm not opposed to it.

00:12:56 ◼   ► I had a friend who found an office in like a law firm that had an extra office and it

00:13:03 ◼   ► was like five minutes away from his house.

00:13:04 ◼   ► And it was just a little office, but he took it

00:13:08 ◼   ► and he's got that.

00:13:08 ◼   ► And actually, Greg, I think,

00:13:10 ◼   ► did Greg Noss mention this last week?

00:13:12 ◼   ► Maybe not, but I know Greg and his wife, who's a lawyer,

00:13:15 ◼   ► they have office space so they can get out of the house

00:13:18 ◼   ► and go to work.

00:13:19 ◼   ► - Yeah, he did mention it, I'm sure.

00:13:21 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah.

00:13:22 ◼   ► So anyway, that was really interesting to listen to Joseph

00:13:25 ◼   ► and I think it's an interesting point

00:13:27 ◼   ► of how we view corporate versus not.

00:13:32 ◼   ► that yeah, it would be fun.

00:13:33 ◼   ► I've said this a bunch of times that the thing I miss most

00:13:36 ◼   ► after two months of doing this is the team.

00:13:39 ◼   ► We had a great team at IDG.

00:13:42 ◼   ► I had a really great team that I had built at Macworld.

00:13:46 ◼   ► And I miss that.

00:13:47 ◼   ► I miss having even two or three people

00:13:51 ◼   ► who were planning what we're doing

00:13:54 ◼   ► and helping each other out.

00:13:56 ◼   ► And I get a little of that,

00:13:57 ◼   ► like we've got the Slack chat room for Relay that I'm in,

00:14:00 ◼   ► and we've got one for the incomparable,

00:14:02 ◼   ► and Dan Morin is writing some stuff for Six Colors,

00:14:04 ◼   ► so he and I are chatting a lot,

00:14:06 ◼   ► but it's not quite the same as, you know,

00:14:09 ◼   ► back when I had that team thing.

00:14:11 ◼   ► So I totally miss that.

00:14:12 ◼   ► I don't think I need that to necessarily be in person,

00:14:15 ◼   ► but I do miss it, and that doesn't feel like an evil to me.

00:14:18 ◼   ► That's a good, I wish I still had something like that.

00:14:22 ◼   ► - Yeah, I mean, it's interesting to think how it might go.

00:14:26 ◼   ► Like I have put thought into, could I have a team one day?

00:14:30 ◼   ► And I would like that, I think I would like that,

00:14:32 ◼   ► people working with me.

00:14:33 ◼   ► 'Cause I don't want to have to do everything

00:14:36 ◼   ► for myself forever.

00:14:37 ◼   ► I think it would be nice to,

00:14:41 ◼   ► I mean, 'cause even though I've obviously got

00:14:44 ◼   ► a lot more time to focus on Relay now,

00:14:49 ◼   ► I'm still focusing on kind of the whole stack, as it were.

00:14:54 ◼   ► Maybe even more so, because I now have more time

00:14:58 ◼   ► than Steven to look at these things.

00:15:00 ◼   ► So I wouldn't be surprised if,

00:15:03 ◼   ► and I would be happy to in the future,

00:15:05 ◼   ► just to, as the company grows,

00:15:07 ◼   ► to take on more responsibility.

00:15:09 ◼   ► But it's just interesting.

00:15:11 ◼   ► And to think maybe one day I could have somebody

00:15:15 ◼   ► who looks after ad sales for us.

00:15:16 ◼   ► I could have somebody who, I don't know,

00:15:19 ◼   ► does some production work for me,

00:15:20 ◼   ► actually does some show prep,

00:15:22 ◼   ► and without me need to do it.

00:15:24 ◼   ► Or maybe somebody books guests for me or something.

00:15:28 ◼   ► all of these things are very exciting to me.

00:15:30 ◼   ► - Yeah, I had this yesterday.

00:15:33 ◼   ► I was editing, I spent like two hours in the morning

00:15:36 ◼   ► rather than writing stories for six colors

00:15:37 ◼   ► or a couple freelance stories that I'm working on.

00:15:41 ◼   ► I was fixing the embedded audio player on the incomparable

00:15:46 ◼   ► because I got tired of looking at the relay pages

00:15:51 ◼   ► with your really nice embedded audio player

00:15:53 ◼   ► and then looking at our default QuickTime audio player

00:15:56 ◼   ► that Safari sticks in to the incomparable pages.

00:15:59 ◼   ► And so I had to figure out what your player was.

00:16:01 ◼   ► - Yep, 'cause we were 100% zero help with that.

00:16:05 ◼   ► - Yes, 'cause I asked, "Hey, how do you do that?"

00:16:07 ◼   ► And you guys are like, "Oh, I don't know.

00:16:08 ◼   ► I think it's in the CMS."

00:16:09 ◼   ► Yeah, thanks.

00:16:10 ◼   ► So I figured out what that was,

00:16:12 ◼   ► and it doesn't look as good now,

00:16:13 ◼   ► but then I looked up and it was 11 o'clock

00:16:16 ◼   ► and I'd spent two hours doing that.

00:16:18 ◼   ► And so that was not necessarily procrastinating or anything.

00:16:23 ◼   ► I wasn't really goofing off.

00:16:25 ◼   ► I was doing something to advance the quality of one of the things that I'm doing, but it

00:16:30 ◼   ► did strike me that you're wearing a lot of hats when it's just you or just a couple of

00:16:37 ◼   ► people and it's not a bad thing to grow to the point where you can say, "Here's somebody

00:16:43 ◼   ► who can focus on this," or, "Here's somebody who can focus on that." Not necessarily even

00:16:46 ◼   ► full time, maybe it's even part time, but being able to say, "Can I get five hours a

00:16:51 ◼   ► week from you to fix this stuff on our website. Maybe someday.

00:16:57 ◼   ► Should we take a quick break and then we still have a little bit more follow up?

00:17:02 ◼   ► I need a friend. I need to hear from a friend, Myke. Tell me about a friend.

00:17:06 ◼   ► Hover is a friend and they are supporting this week's episode of Upgrade. Hover is the

00:17:11 ◼   ► best place on the internet to buy and manage domain names. It's been my choice for years,

00:17:17 ◼   ► Jason's choice too. I think that when you look at this industry of people selling

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00:17:27 ◼   ► everything that you want them to do and they do it in a way that you're going to

00:17:30 ◼   ► be happy with. They don't make you run a gauntlet of add-on screens to buy extra

00:17:38 ◼   ► special DNS protection for the gold plan. They don't do any of that

00:17:42 ◼   ► stuff. You go to hover.com, you type in either the domain that you're looking

00:17:46 ◼   ► for or you type in some keywords and they'll show you what's available.

00:17:49 ◼   ► They'll show you what's available from their list of over 200 TLD options. They

00:17:54 ◼   ► have everything you'd expect .co, .com, .fm, .me, .tv as well you know maybe

00:18:00 ◼   ► here in the entertainment business but they also have all the crazy ones like I

00:18:04 ◼   ► don't know .diamonds is probably one I'm making them up now maybe .bears I

00:18:08 ◼   ► don't know if there's a .bears yet but if there ever is hover will have it.

00:18:11 ◼   ► Oh my god, I'm so on that. That would be great.

00:18:15 ◼   ► Jason.bear. They have .coffee, .plumbing, .academy, and so on and so on. Basically,

00:18:24 ◼   ► they can give you all of the serious domains you need to run your businesses and to have your

00:18:28 ◼   ► websites. They can also give you all the joke domains that you need to set up pranks for your

00:18:32 ◼   ► friends. And whilst I'm talking about these options, they have great prices on them all.

00:18:37 ◼   ► their .com domains for example they start at $12.99. All of Hover's domains include

00:18:43 ◼   ► Whois privacy for free, they keep your private information private. Hover have great stuff like

00:18:47 ◼   ► volume discounts if you're renewing multiple domains at once, they can help you out with

00:18:52 ◼   ► email addresses, storage and forwarding of that too. They have their valet service where they take

00:18:57 ◼   ► all of the hassle out of switching from your current provider, they just take the information

00:19:01 ◼   ► that you need for that they need for your previous provider's DNS stuff and they'll just move it all

00:19:07 ◼   ► over for you for free. You don't have to worry about it. You have 200 domains with a competitor,

00:19:12 ◼   ► they'll just take them and move them into Hover. I love Hover and I think you will too.

00:19:17 ◼   ► And they're a great supporter of this show and many podcasts. So you should be going

00:19:21 ◼   ► to Hover.com right now and trying them out. And you want to use the code "brainball" all

00:19:26 ◼   ► one word at checkout. And you'll get 10% off your first purchase at Hover.com and show

00:19:34 ◼   ► your support for Upgrade and all of Real AFM. That's Brainball at checkout. Thank you to

00:19:39 ◼   ► Hover for sponsoring this episode.

00:19:42 ◼   ► And please visit my new website, brainball.bears.

00:19:48 ◼   ► I now need to know dot bears TLD. Is it happening or is there one?

00:19:55 ◼   ► Seems unlikely. Although, it's just start plumbing. Once bears get on the internet,

00:20:01 ◼   ► the jig is up. It's over.

00:20:03 ◼   ► It's incredible that .app hasn't gone through yet. It's like it's ready for pre-registration,

00:20:09 ◼   ► but like you think about some of the ones that have got through, like .diamonds.

00:20:13 ◼   ► .xyz, .diamonds.

00:20:14 ◼   ► .xyz is just like a whatever kind of domain, you know? But like things like .diamonds,

00:20:21 ◼   ► why does that exist? Why is that here?

00:20:24 ◼   ► I had this thought, which is at some point shouldn't big internet companies just get

00:20:28 ◼   ► their own TLDs. And I realize that on one level that way lies madness, but on another

00:20:33 ◼   ► level is it, if everybody is whatever.tumblr.com, at some point isn't it better if there's just

00:20:39 ◼   ► dot Tumblr? Or isn't it better if there's dot Google?

00:20:43 ◼   ► That makes a lot of sense, like dot Facebook.

00:20:46 ◼   ► Yeah, I mean maybe at some point that's worth it. Or if there's no dot FB country, maybe

00:20:51 ◼   ► Facebook should just be dot FB and they could, I don't know. I mean, at this point the domain

00:20:56 ◼   ► system is so ridiculous that why not? Why not let, and like I said Tumblr was my example,

00:21:02 ◼   ► why not let Tumblr just own control dot Tumblr and everybody who uses it can just say you

00:21:08 ◼   ► can find me at brainball dot tumblr.

00:21:11 ◼   ► I think that that is genius. Like I don't know why that hasn't been done before the

00:21:16 ◼   ► madness that we currently have because clearly there's no restrictions anymore. Like okay

00:21:20 ◼   ► there is like a council but...

00:21:22 ◼   ► Well, and somebody's got to pay to administer that TLD and that there is cost there because

00:21:26 ◼   ► they have to have the servers that are looking up all of the domains in that TLD, but a big

00:21:32 ◼   ► company can afford that.

00:21:34 ◼   ► Yes, definitely. I mean, especially when there are special deals that happen, right? So like

00:21:39 ◼   ► T.co, that was arranged before the .co domains went on sale, the Twitter links. So they were

00:21:46 ◼   ► able to get that. And also, you know, like single letter domain names, I don't really

00:21:50 ◼   ► think they exist, right? Like te.co. I don't know any other websites that have just like

00:21:56 ◼   ► a single letter.

00:21:58 ◼   ► I think you can do that. I think that's like essentially up to the government of Columbia

00:22:02 ◼   ► wants to allow a single letter domain, they can do that.

00:22:06 ◼   ► Yeah, my understanding is that was arranged before the sale.

00:22:09 ◼   ► The fix was in.

00:22:11 ◼   ► So you can, there's some interesting stuff that could be done and I think that's a smart

00:22:17 ◼   ► We should write to ICANN immediately.

00:22:20 ◼   ► -Yes. Our friends. -At ICANN.

00:22:24 ◼   ► -Yeah. Not sponsoring the show.

00:22:26 ◼   ► I have 16 domains at Hover, by the way.

00:22:28 ◼   ► -It's quite a lot. -16 at Hover.

00:22:30 ◼   ► -How many of them are, like, sensible domains that are in use?

00:22:35 ◼   ► -Uh...

00:22:37 ◼   ► Fewer than that. -Yeah.

00:22:39 ◼   ► -I don't -- I don't have the list in front of me.

00:22:44 ◼   ► Many of them were from my six-color speculation period,

00:22:47 ◼   ► So I have, you know, bleed6.com and I have jsnell.net.

00:22:52 ◼   ► I have, you know, six-colors.com and six-colors.me

00:22:57 ◼   ► and six-colors.org and, you know.

00:23:00 ◼   ► - I have 25 domains with Hover.

00:23:03 ◼   ► I have some interesting ones in here.

00:23:05 ◼   ► Would you like to know any of them?

00:23:08 ◼   ► - Sure.

00:23:11 ◼   ► - I have apppreviews.net.

00:23:13 ◼   ► I got one and I got that.

00:23:16 ◼   ► That's a lot of Ps. It is, yeah. It's app with three Ps and then reviews, which doesn't

00:23:22 ◼   ► scan very well. I have internationalexports.co, which is a James Bond joke. I have podcasts.expert.

00:23:31 ◼   ► Ooh. Yep. I have podcasts.wtf. That just redirects to Bonanza, right? Well, I mean, I could sell

00:23:41 ◼   ► that to Mark Maron. That's true. I think those two, I think Marco sent me

00:23:47 ◼   ► iMessages one day and was like "you should buy these!" So I was like "okay" so I did.

00:23:50 ◼   ► Yes Marco. I have thecircuitry.com because I think that was an idea

00:23:57 ◼   ► for a show name that I had. I also have varietyhour.net which I quite like.

00:24:02 ◼   ► One day I will make a podcast called The Variety Hour and that will

00:24:07 ◼   ► take that domain. So there you go, that's a small selection of the weird and

00:24:10 ◼   ► wonderful domains that I have that none of them are used.

00:24:13 ◼   ► - I have two domains that are for novels that I've written

00:24:15 ◼   ► but haven't published.

00:24:16 ◼   ► Just parked.

00:24:18 ◼   ► - Dot com. - So yeah.

00:24:21 ◼   ► - Just parked dot com.

00:24:22 ◼   ► - No, that's not it.

00:24:23 ◼   ► One of them is a dot US, but that's for specific reasons.

00:24:30 ◼   ► - USA, USA.

00:24:31 ◼   ► - USA, all right, more feedback.

00:24:35 ◼   ► Listener Myke talking about commenting,

00:24:38 ◼   ► He said, "Comment systems are like sports talk radio

00:24:42 ◼   ► and sites without comments are like NPR radio."

00:24:44 ◼   ► So that's just a shot at comments basically,

00:24:47 ◼   ► but I thought it was funny because of this.

00:24:49 ◼   ► Some people really like listening to Colin radio shows

00:24:54 ◼   ► and I don't.

00:24:57 ◼   ► And anytime I'm watching a TV show

00:24:59 ◼   ► and I don't watch as much TV as I used to,

00:25:01 ◼   ► but when I would watch flip around the dial

00:25:04 ◼   ► and then you watch a show and there'd be

00:25:05 ◼   ► an interesting interview and then the host would say,

00:25:07 ◼   ► "All right, we're gonna take some calls now."

00:25:09 ◼   ► I'd be like, "Okay, moving on, not gonna watch.

00:25:12 ◼   ► I don't wanna hear your calls.

00:25:13 ◼   ► I just, I don't wanna hear your calls."

00:25:15 ◼   ► It's just something about it.

00:25:16 ◼   ► It's like, that's not why I tuned into that show.

00:25:18 ◼   ► I tuned into that show for a professional interviewer

00:25:21 ◼   ► to have an interesting conversation with somebody,

00:25:22 ◼   ► and now we're gonna have the calls.

00:25:25 ◼   ► And I guess that you could say that

00:25:27 ◼   ► that makes me an awful elitist person

00:25:29 ◼   ► because I don't wanna hear from the people.

00:25:31 ◼   ► But the fact is with social media,

00:25:32 ◼   ► we can hear from the people.

00:25:33 ◼   ► It's just, my point is that I think

00:25:35 ◼   ► the professional interviewer probably has,

00:25:37 ◼   ► understands the technology of his show

00:25:40 ◼   ► and what questions have already been asked

00:25:42 ◼   ► and what questions the guest is not gonna answer

00:25:44 ◼   ► and maybe do a better job of interviewing that person

00:25:47 ◼   ► than the people on the phone.

00:25:48 ◼   ► And so I'd rather keep that job be that person's job

00:25:53 ◼   ► and then let people have their opinions over

00:25:55 ◼   ► in another place.

00:25:56 ◼   ► But some people love it.

00:25:57 ◼   ► Some people love sports talk radio.

00:25:58 ◼   ► It just drives me crazy.

00:25:59 ◼   ► I can't listen to it.

00:26:01 ◼   ► - Well, we have Dave from Cincinnati on the line, Jason.

00:26:04 ◼   ► He's gonna let you know what he thinks.

00:26:06 ◼   ► - Dave, is the collar there?

00:26:08 ◼   ► You're on the air.

00:26:09 ◼   ► - Oh, he's dropped off.

00:26:10 ◼   ► - And we dropped the line.

00:26:11 ◼   ► - You dropped the line unfortunately.

00:26:12 ◼   ► - Sir, turn your podcast radio down.

00:26:16 ◼   ► We can't, the feedback is awful.

00:26:17 ◼   ► Turn the live stream down before you, anyway.

00:26:21 ◼   ► Lister Pascal, I believe his name was,

00:26:25 ◼   ► had lots of Apple logos in it, but I think it's Pascal,

00:26:28 ◼   ► said in Canada, as soon as Halloween is over,

00:26:32 ◼   ► you get Christmas ads and stores start selling Christmas stuff.

00:26:35 ◼   ► And I just wanted to mention this,

00:26:36 ◼   ► is this furthers my theory of the Thanksgiving firewall.

00:26:40 ◼   ► Because in Canada, Thanksgiving happens before Halloween.

00:26:43 ◼   ► So Halloween is the last holiday before Christmas.

00:26:46 ◼   ► And once Halloween is done, in comes the Christmas stuff.

00:26:49 ◼   ► Whereas in the US, it really is--

00:26:51 ◼   ► I mean, it's not.

00:26:52 ◼   ► There are people doing it who jump the gun.

00:26:54 ◼   ► But there's-- generally, I think it's accepted.

00:26:56 ◼   ► Everybody on my block put up their holiday lights

00:27:00 ◼   ► on Thanksgiving night or the day after.

00:27:02 ◼   ► That was the official start of it.

00:27:04 ◼   ► So in Canada, you get a longer Christmas season

00:27:06 ◼   ► because your Thanksgiving is in the middle of like May.

00:27:10 ◼   ► So yeah, I know it's in October.

00:27:12 ◼   ► I was there, I was there.

00:27:13 ◼   ► I was in Canada for Canadian Thanksgiving.

00:27:15 ◼   ► I got two Thanksgivings this year.

00:27:17 ◼   ► Although one of them wasn't that exciting

00:27:18 ◼   ► 'cause I just went to the airport and flew home.

00:27:21 ◼   ► - Oh. - Yeah.

00:27:22 ◼   ► - That's not exciting at all, is it?

00:27:24 ◼   ► - No, I should have had turkey somewhere if I had known.

00:27:26 ◼   ► If I had known that I was gonna be in Canada

00:27:28 ◼   ► on Canadian Thanksgiving,

00:27:29 ◼   ► I would have stayed an extra day and had a Canadian Thanksgiving feast because that would

00:27:33 ◼   ► be how cool would it be to have two Thanksgivings? You had none. I would have had two.

00:27:37 ◼   ► Oh, I had one. Did I tell you about this?

00:27:40 ◼   ► Oh, I saw it. So yes. Oh, now I'm way too excited for this. But yes, you went, you tweeted

00:27:46 ◼   ► like a picture of a drink that was served in a cup that looked like a turkey leg.

00:27:49 ◼   ► Uh huh. I did. I sure did. So this is very peculiar. So I met some friends. We went and

00:27:56 ◼   ► had our beards groomed before a weekend away.

00:28:01 ◼   ► Beards.groom.

00:28:03 ◼   ► That could be a domain.

00:28:04 ◼   ► I just came back--

00:28:05 ◼   ► Grooming.beard?

00:28:07 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:28:07 ◼   ► I just came back from a grooming.bear.

00:28:10 ◼   ► I just came back from a stag weekend, like a bachelor party

00:28:14 ◼   ► for a weekend.

00:28:15 ◼   ► And a few of us went to have our beards groomed prior.

00:28:20 ◼   ► So I had a Thanksgiving dinner at a American restaurant,

00:28:25 ◼   ► which we didn't know was happening.

00:28:29 ◼   ► We were going to this place,

00:28:29 ◼   ► it sold like ribs and stuff like that.

00:28:31 ◼   ► So we're gonna go there, we arrived,

00:28:32 ◼   ► and so we got a set menu today, and it's Thanksgiving.

00:28:36 ◼   ► So basically, would you like to know what I had?

00:28:41 ◼   ► 'Cause I took a photo of the menu.

00:28:44 ◼   ► I had pumpkin and squash soup to start.

00:28:48 ◼   ► - Valid.

00:28:49 ◼   ► I had farm pit smoked turkey.

00:28:53 ◼   ► - Okay, smoked turkey.

00:28:56 ◼   ► - Which is great.

00:28:57 ◼   ► - That is absolutely legitimate.

00:28:59 ◼   ► - Brown sugar and bourbon candied sweet potatoes.

00:29:03 ◼   ► - All right, that's what we said.

00:29:04 ◼   ► That's your sweet potato dish, absolutely.

00:29:09 ◼   ► - Amazing.

00:29:10 ◼   ► Loved it.

00:29:12 ◼   ► Creamed spinach.

00:29:12 ◼   ► Roast garlic, dirty mash.

00:29:16 ◼   ► I don't know why it's called dirty mash.

00:29:18 ◼   ► homemade cranberry sauce, and a fresh baked pumpkin pie for dessert, and it was one of

00:29:25 ◼   ► the greatest meals I've ever had. I can see why everyone is so excited about Thanksgiving.

00:29:32 ◼   ► And I will put a couple of photos of my Thanksgiving meal into the show notes for people, including

00:29:38 ◼   ► the turkey leg cocktail drink.

00:29:40 ◼   ► I'm so proud of you. You did it. You did it. You had American Thanksgiving. No, we were

00:29:46 ◼   ► I was looking at those pictures actually, I think, as I was making the Thanksgiving

00:29:51 ◼   ► dinner here. And you know, we were working the night before we cooked some stuff. I had

00:29:56 ◼   ► to brine the turkey, so I did all that the night before, and the turkey sits in a five-gallon

00:30:00 ◼   ► bucket in the corner of my garage for overnight, soaking in this giant, you know, vat of brine.

00:30:07 ◼   ► And then, you know, on the day, I mean, we made, we had cranberry sauce, we made, we

00:30:11 ◼   ► roasted the turkey, we had a cornbread, cornbread dressing, which is sort of like a stuffing

00:30:16 ◼   ► but you don't put it in the bird, you cook it separately in a cast iron skillet.

00:30:20 ◼   ► We had the mashed potatoes, we had brussels sprouts, this really great balsamic roasted

00:30:28 ◼   ► brussels sprouts dish that was, they were gone, they were completely gone, they were

00:30:34 ◼   ► demolished.

00:30:35 ◼   ► Some rolls, because my son demanded rolls, a sweet potato and cranberry casserole that

00:30:44 ◼   ► was really popular.

00:30:45 ◼   ► Yeah, it was great, but that's the kind of stuff.

00:30:47 ◼   ► So, and it's fun to do that.

00:30:49 ◼   ► We don't, you know, we don't have a feast like that that often.

00:30:52 ◼   ► That's the sort of thing, unless you have servants who are making something for you.

00:30:56 ◼   ► It's quite a thing.

00:30:57 ◼   ► It's quite a treat to have something with that many dishes and we have like 11 people.

00:31:01 ◼   ► So I'm glad you got to experience it a little bit.

00:31:04 ◼   ► I might try and do it next year because I enjoyed it immensely.

00:31:08 ◼   ► That's good.

00:31:09 ◼   ► Now you described the place you went as an American restaurant.

00:31:13 ◼   ► Is that a thing?

00:31:14 ◼   ► Yes.

00:31:15 ◼   ► What's it called?

00:31:19 ◼   ► This place was I think was called the Big Easy.

00:31:21 ◼   ► All right.

00:31:22 ◼   ► Yep, the Big Easy.

00:31:25 ◼   ► And there are other places.

00:31:26 ◼   ► I mean, yeah, we have chain restaurants, right?

00:31:28 ◼   ► So we have like TGI Fridays, which is considered to be a American restaurant, right?

00:31:35 ◼   ► Because for you guys, it's just like, whatever, but...

00:31:38 ◼   ► It's right.

00:31:39 ◼   ► Yeah, that's true.

00:31:40 ◼   ► No, you're right.

00:31:41 ◼   ► to have that idea that somebody is in another country is eating a, you know, a menu from

00:31:48 ◼   ► a menu that is supposedly representative of your country's food. It's just kind of funny.

00:31:54 ◼   ► I, you know, the Chinese feel this way all the time. So I now know how they feel. That's

00:32:02 ◼   ► just fascinating. That's fascinating. I should go to an American restaurant sometime. You should.

00:32:06 ◼   ► I recommend them, especially at Thanksgiving.

00:32:09 ◼   ► Okay, good to know.

00:32:11 ◼   ► Were there Americans there?

00:32:13 ◼   ► Were there Americans participating

00:32:16 ◼   ► in a far off Thanksgiving?

00:32:18 ◼   ► Yeah, there were lots of Americans there.

00:32:19 ◼   ► I think that's the reason that most of these places do that,

00:32:23 ◼   ► is to cater for Americans in London

00:32:25 ◼   ► who would like a Thanksgiving meal,

00:32:28 ◼   ► who don't want to kind of cook for themselves or whatever,

00:32:35 ◼   ► 'cause it might just be for two people or something.

00:32:38 ◼   ► - All right, that's good to know.

00:32:41 ◼   ► Thank you for that Thanksgiving update.

00:32:43 ◼   ► That was our Thanksgiving vertical.

00:32:44 ◼   ► We'll retire it for a year, but it'll be back.

00:32:47 ◼   ► Canadians, it'll be back even sooner than you expect.

00:32:50 ◼   ► One last, as we're still in the follow-up,

00:32:52 ◼   ► one last piece of follow-up, this is worse than ATP now.

00:32:55 ◼   ► Lister Gary, this is just a quick one I made in a site

00:32:57 ◼   ► about the Farmcast podcast about farming.

00:33:00 ◼   ► He said, "I worked for a web host in the early '90s

00:33:02 ◼   ► that contracted for Meredith Publishing.

00:33:06 ◼   ► They did market research at the time

00:33:08 ◼   ► to choose which of their magazines to put on the web first

00:33:10 ◼   ► and agriculture.com won out.

00:33:13 ◼   ► I've got friends that write APIs for tractors.

00:33:16 ◼   ► So a farm cast could get a lot more nerdy than you think.

00:33:19 ◼   ► Imagine plant and analyze,

00:33:21 ◼   ► and you're right in the ballpark.

00:33:22 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:33:25 ◼   ► So there's a farm cast update from listener Gary.

00:33:28 ◼   ► Plant and analyze.

00:33:29 ◼   ► - Plant and analyze.

00:33:31 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah.

00:33:32 ◼   ► New podcast, niche podcast networks,

00:33:35 ◼   ► farming vertical, I'm telling you.

00:33:37 ◼   ► There's something, and if, I wasn't dissing the Farmcast.

00:33:40 ◼   ► I, like I said, I grew up on 50 acres

00:33:43 ◼   ► and we had cows and horses and a pig at one point

00:33:47 ◼   ► and chickens and I am from the rural parts.

00:33:52 ◼   ► So I am not dissing the Farmcast.

00:33:55 ◼   ► I just think, thought that was a funny combination

00:33:58 ◼   ► of farming and podcasts.

00:34:00 ◼   ► 'cause I wasn't thinking about that before.

00:34:03 ◼   ► That's it, that's the followup, we're done.

00:34:05 ◼   ► Should we sign off now, Myke?

00:34:06 ◼   ► - Yep, see you later.

00:34:07 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:34:10 ◼   ► - What else should we talk about?

00:34:13 ◼   ► - So, I apologize to the person

00:34:18 ◼   ► who said we were navel-gazy

00:34:20 ◼   ► because we're gonna talk about podcasts again.

00:34:22 ◼   ► - Just a little bit.

00:34:24 ◼   ► - This is something that is becoming,

00:34:27 ◼   ► Okay, so the joke at the moment is podcasts are alive,

00:34:32 ◼   ► having been dead, right?

00:34:33 ◼   ► That's the current joke.

00:34:34 ◼   ► And I can see why this joke is happening,

00:34:40 ◼   ► because there are lots of articles being written,

00:34:45 ◼   ► and new podcasts occurring,

00:34:48 ◼   ► and it's popping up all over the place in mainstream media

00:34:51 ◼   ► and that kind of thing, right?

00:34:52 ◼   ► But it is very interesting right now

00:34:54 ◼   ► to look at what's going on.

00:34:56 ◼   ► and I'm reminded of when Twitter was becoming popular.

00:35:00 ◼   ► And all of the tech podcasts that I listened to

00:35:03 ◼   ► only spoke about Twitter,

00:35:04 ◼   ► it was all there was to talk about.

00:35:06 ◼   ► It was just a hot button topic at the moment.

00:35:10 ◼   ► Unfortunately, to everybody listening to podcasts,

00:35:14 ◼   ► the current hot topic is podcasting.

00:35:16 ◼   ► - Podcasts.

00:35:17 ◼   ► - And the thing is,

00:35:19 ◼   ► and the problem is for the majority of our listeners

00:35:21 ◼   ► and for us, the people making them,

00:35:24 ◼   ► We've been doing it for years

00:35:26 ◼   ► and now the conversation is happening.

00:35:28 ◼   ► But there are things to say, we have things to say.

00:35:32 ◼   ► There is a conversation which I think requires,

00:35:36 ◼   ► not requires, but cause for some intervention,

00:35:39 ◼   ► especially from people that are making them,

00:35:42 ◼   ► you know, like myself and Jason.

00:35:44 ◼   ► So we're gonna talk about it again

00:35:46 ◼   ► and I'm sure we'll talk about it again

00:35:47 ◼   ► on a future episode.

00:35:49 ◼   ► - Yeah, but I would say,

00:35:50 ◼   ► and we may get to some other stuff later,

00:35:53 ◼   ► I would say we're well aware of the fact that this is podcasters talking about podcasting

00:35:56 ◼   ► and we'll try to keep it as light as possible.

00:36:01 ◼   ► Also keeping in mind kind of a slow news period other than unless we wanted to do a whole

00:36:06 ◼   ► podcast about what sales are out there right now.

00:36:09 ◼   ► And this is a thing that people were talking about way more than I expected.

00:36:15 ◼   ► And so I think we should talk about it at least a little bit.

00:36:17 ◼   ► There's a great summation that we'll put in the show notes that's by Alvaro Serrano.

00:36:22 ◼   ► I'm sorry if I mispronounced your name there,

00:36:24 ◼   ► but analogsenses.com,

00:36:26 ◼   ► that he wrote the ultimate guide to podcasting guides,

00:36:29 ◼   ► where he links to all of the different articles

00:36:31 ◼   ► that have been written on this subject.

00:36:32 ◼   ► - That's perfect.

00:36:33 ◼   ► - That was a very helpful thing.

00:36:35 ◼   ► So I feel like I definitely had a part in starting this

00:36:40 ◼   ► because what happened was on Thanksgiving,

00:36:42 ◼   ► Amazon did a gold box deal.

00:36:44 ◼   ► So a limited time deal on the Yeti,

00:36:48 ◼   ► which is the microphone I've been using

00:36:49 ◼   ► for about two years now to do all of my podcasting.

00:36:52 ◼   ► And it was 79 bucks.

00:36:53 ◼   ► And for a long time, I've just said,

00:36:55 ◼   ► "Look, I think this is a really great combination

00:36:59 ◼   ► "of quality for value."

00:37:00 ◼   ► That it's not as cheap as some other microphones,

00:37:03 ◼   ► but it has some advantages.

00:37:04 ◼   ► It sounds better than like the blue snowball.

00:37:06 ◼   ► It's got a hardware mute button.

00:37:09 ◼   ► It's got a hardware volume button,

00:37:10 ◼   ► and it's got a headphone jack.

00:37:12 ◼   ► And that is a big deal because then you can hear yourself

00:37:15 ◼   ► and you know when you sound bad,

00:37:17 ◼   ► which I think actually is a huge contributor

00:37:19 ◼   ► to people making better sounding podcasts,

00:37:22 ◼   ► is hearing their own voice while they're recording

00:37:25 ◼   ► and realize, oh, I'm not facing toward the microphone

00:37:27 ◼   ► or there's a terrible sound behind me

00:37:29 ◼   ► that I need to shut down in some way

00:37:31 ◼   ► so that people can't hear that

00:37:33 ◼   ► or I need to reposition my microphone.

00:37:35 ◼   ► And the Yeti has all of those things.

00:37:36 ◼   ► - The Yeti has these other settings

00:37:38 ◼   ► in which you can record in multiple different environments.

00:37:42 ◼   ► - Right, it's got a two across

00:37:44 ◼   ► so that you can have two people

00:37:45 ◼   ► on either side of the microphone

00:37:46 ◼   ► and record a conversation.

00:37:47 ◼   ► It's got a omni-directional.

00:37:50 ◼   ► Yeah, it's, again, it's not the best microphone

00:37:54 ◼   ► that's out there by a long shot, but it's not bad.

00:37:57 ◼   ► And certainly two years ago,

00:38:01 ◼   ► when I was shopping for microphones,

00:38:02 ◼   ► I thought it was the best combination I've had since,

00:38:05 ◼   ► and this was part of the conversation.

00:38:07 ◼   ► A couple of people point out that there are,

00:38:09 ◼   ► in particular, there was a dynamic microphone,

00:38:12 ◼   ► which is the kind that I think the pros generally prefer

00:38:14 ◼   ► because dynamic microphones pick up less background noise.

00:38:18 ◼   ► There's a dynamic microphone from Audio Technica, I think,

00:38:21 ◼   ► that's like 59 bucks and it's a USB microphone

00:38:24 ◼   ► and it's got a headphone jack and I haven't tried it,

00:38:29 ◼   ► but it comes recommended by some really smart people

00:38:34 ◼   ► and that might be a perfectly,

00:38:36 ◼   ► that might be the best entry-level high quality microphone

00:38:39 ◼   ► now and not the Yeti.

00:38:41 ◼   ► But the reason that I kind of got mad on Thanksgiving night,

00:38:45 ◼   ► I posted this deal and then I had a bunch of people say,

00:38:49 ◼   ► I don't consider that an acceptable microphone.

00:38:52 ◼   ► (laughs)

00:38:53 ◼   ► And some of it was,

00:38:55 ◼   ► I don't consider that a microphone for professionals,

00:38:58 ◼   ► which bugged me because what they're really saying there is,

00:39:02 ◼   ► well, first off, I didn't say it was for professionals.

00:39:04 ◼   ► In fact, recommending a $79 microphone is perhaps in itself,

00:39:09 ◼   ► not a recommendation for professionals.

00:39:12 ◼   ► I was really thinking of people who want to get a better microphone than they've got,

00:39:16 ◼   ► but are never going to spend more than $100.

00:39:18 ◼   ► So it kind of bugged me that people come out of the woodwork to point out, "Well, that

00:39:22 ◼   ► microphone's fine, but it's not a professional microphone.

00:39:25 ◼   ► You shouldn't really use it for that."

00:39:26 ◼   ► And two, it bugs me because I've used this microphone for two years.

00:39:31 ◼   ► I take pride in the sound quality of my podcast.

00:39:35 ◼   ► It is absolutely good enough to be used professionally.

00:39:39 ◼   ► Now it may not be the best microphone for a professional, and I could certainly upgrade

00:39:43 ◼   ► my podcast gear, and I may in fact do that soon, but to say that it's not possible to

00:39:48 ◼   ► use it and that somebody who's doing even professional level stuff just shouldn't ever

00:39:52 ◼   ► bother is, I mean, it's provably wrong.

00:39:54 ◼   ► I'm doing professional podcasting with it.

00:39:56 ◼   ► So that set me on my rant that I've had, I've done that rant before.

00:40:02 ◼   ► There was a time, and he doesn't say this anymore, but there was a time when anytime

00:40:05 ◼   ► people talked about microphones, Dan Benjamin would say, "You can't do a podcast without

00:40:08 ◼   ► dynamic mic and at the time that meant spending $250 and that always bugged the

00:40:12 ◼   ► crap out of me because that you know I was speaking at a sci-fi convention a

00:40:18 ◼   ► couple years ago and I mentioned the Blue Snowball for $50 and people were

00:40:22 ◼   ► horrified. I was like oh my god these people don't even want to spend $50 on a

00:40:26 ◼   ► microphone they want to use their earbuds or they want to use turns out

00:40:30 ◼   ► this is actually a really good tip they want to plug in their rock band

00:40:33 ◼   ► microphone that's actually not a bad idea that it would be better than

00:40:37 ◼   ► nothing. And I had a couple people say, "You know, I do a podcast with a rock band microphone

00:40:43 ◼   ► that sounds okay." I'm like, "All right, that's interesting." Or a headset mic. And that was

00:40:48 ◼   ► -- my point was, I feel like audio is so intimidating already. And having people in -- who are already

00:40:55 ◼   ► doing podcasting say, you know, really, unless you're willing to spend a lot of money on

00:41:00 ◼   ► all of this fiddly hardware stuff that you don't even understand right now, you shouldn't

00:41:04 ◼   ► even bother. It's just erecting more barriers to people coming into the medium, and I'm

00:41:08 ◼   ► sensitive to that, because I feel like this is a medium that's really young, that it needs

00:41:11 ◼   ► more voices, and that I think it's a danger when we start talking about all the podcasts

00:41:16 ◼   ► end up being from people who are professional stand-up comedians or NPR personalities, or

00:41:21 ◼   ► other broadcast personalities, and not interesting people from other places. And as somebody

00:41:27 ◼   ► who started doing podcasting regularly four years ago, I don't want to be one of those

00:41:31 ◼   ► people who says, "Well, now that I'm here, let's shut the door and not let anyone else

00:41:35 ◼   ► in." I love the fact that this is a really democratic medium and that somebody who's

00:41:40 ◼   ► got something interesting to say should be able to say it. Now, there were a lot of posts

00:41:44 ◼   ► about this. I don't want to be misunderstood as saying, "It doesn't matter if your podcast

00:41:48 ◼   ► sounds crappy." It totally matters. I've turned off podcasts from really good professional

00:41:53 ◼   ► people in their line of work because the sound was awful. There was one in particular that

00:41:57 ◼   ► it was like a guy in an echoey room, like in an echo chamber, talking on a speakerphone

00:42:03 ◼   ► to somebody somewhere else on a really bad telephone line.

00:42:06 ◼   ► It's like, I can't listen to this.

00:42:08 ◼   ► It's terrible.

00:42:09 ◼   ► But what I am saying is, I don't want the insistence on audio quality to be such a barrier

00:42:15 ◼   ► that people just say, "Look, I'm not going to bother.

00:42:17 ◼   ► I'm too intimidated by all the technical things that go into a podcast."

00:42:21 ◼   ► I figure if you dive in, you'll learn and as you go, you will be, if you truly love

00:42:27 ◼   ► it and want to do it. You will be dissatisfied if it doesn't sound good and you will work

00:42:30 ◼   ► to make it sound better and you'll learn. And that the net effect of people saying,

00:42:35 ◼   ► you know, don't, you know, don't do a podcast unless you've got hundreds of dollars worth

00:42:41 ◼   ► of equipment is to turn people off from starting. And I don't like that because this is the

00:42:47 ◼   ► kind of medium that we should be letting it be, letting people get in fairly easily. And

00:42:52 ◼   ► then, yeah, some of them it'll sound bad or they won't really be committed and they'll

00:42:55 ◼   ► give up but what I don't want is somebody who's really got something great to say, to

00:42:59 ◼   ► say I'm not going to bother saying it because I'm not going to spend hours and hours and

00:43:03 ◼   ► hundreds of dollars making this setup.

00:43:06 ◼   ► Because then you fall into that audio file trap where you're like, you've spent a lot

00:43:09 ◼   ► of money, or a computer person can do this too, spend a lot of money on equipment and

00:43:12 ◼   ► then don't have anything to say.

00:43:14 ◼   ► I think that's backward.

00:43:15 ◼   ► Do it the other way.

00:43:16 ◼   ► I might use the Yeti for years.

00:43:19 ◼   ► And I recommend it, not because it's the best microphone, but I think that it gives you

00:43:24 ◼   ► more than anything else does at that price range. And I recommend it because

00:43:30 ◼   ► it's one that I've used. I've not used all of the others. I mean I'm the same

00:43:34 ◼   ► as you. Whenever I see that Amazon flash sale for 70 bucks, which they do

00:43:38 ◼   ► every few months for the Yeti, I always make sure that I tell people about it.

00:43:44 ◼   ► Because if you're even mildly interested you should just drop those $70 and keep

00:43:48 ◼   ► it and then use it for another day you know like I have a bunch of people like

00:43:55 ◼   ► that friends like bloggers and stuff who I've recommended to buy it because if

00:43:58 ◼   ► you ever get invited onto a show it's really great to have it rather than like

00:44:04 ◼   ► using the Apple earpods or something which right exactly which I you know if

00:44:10 ◼   ► I call someone on inquisitive and they don't have a mic then I tell them to just

00:44:14 ◼   ► plug that in because I mean you know and there are many people that will tell you

00:44:17 ◼   ► that you should write ahead and you should ask them to get it. I don't do that because

00:44:22 ◼   ► I don't think that's fair to say. Would you like to take an hour out of your day for free

00:44:27 ◼   ► to be on my show? Oh, and by the way, could you spend $150 on a microphone?

00:44:34 ◼   ► Well, ideally you'd eventually have a budget where you'd have like a bunch of microphones

00:44:37 ◼   ► that would just be shipped in advance and then with return postage and they would take

00:44:41 ◼   ► it out of the box and plug it in and all that, but that's ridiculous and nobody's gonna do

00:44:45 ◼   ► that.

00:44:46 ◼   ► that but that I don't know even then that seems interesting. Over the course of time as we were

00:44:52 ◼   ► doing the incomparable we everybody started to upgrade their equipment a lot of people got yetis

00:44:58 ◼   ► but I've still got a couple panelists who use headset mics and they don't I can tell

00:45:02 ◼   ► but they sound okay and you know it's I don't know again if you're somebody who's doing this for a

00:45:10 ◼   ► living and you're concerned about audio quality yes you could probably invest in higher quality

00:45:16 ◼   ► gear. But, you know, I just my bigger my bigger point was just like it's so easy to mystify things

00:45:21 ◼   ► like tech people, right? We deal with people who are afraid of computer stuff, right? Our

00:45:27 ◼   ► relatives, our parents are like, Oh, I don't know how to get that to work. I don't know why the

00:45:31 ◼   ► printer is doing this. And you realize that, you know, we know all the secret stuff and it's super

00:45:35 ◼   ► intimidating to them. Anytime audio is a really weird technical area. And I mean, some of that

00:45:44 ◼   ► stuff really intimidates me. I'm still trying to get a lot better at it and learn a lot of stuff

00:45:48 ◼   ► about EQ and compression and stuff like that. But I just feel like to get a wider range of voices,

00:45:56 ◼   ► you want to encourage people to try and the technical jargon and barriers scares people.

00:46:04 ◼   ► And that was really my only point. I think you should take pride in what you create. And I think

00:46:08 ◼   ► think that if somebody gets into podcasting and really loves it and has no budget, then

00:46:14 ◼   ► when they started, then as they go, they're going to be like, "Oh, how do I make this

00:46:17 ◼   ► better?" and they're going to work on that.

00:46:19 ◼   ► But I don't think, you know, I think we need to be wary that we're creating a, you know,

00:46:26 ◼   ► a bunch of people in white lab coats who were saying, "Sorry, you don't pass the test.

00:46:30 ◼   ► You can't come in."

00:46:31 ◼   ► Because that's the part that concerns me.

00:46:33 ◼   ► And it's true.

00:46:34 ◼   ► It actually, one of the great things about this is like Dan Benjamin now recommends

00:46:38 ◼   ► an $80 microphone as a starter microphone.

00:46:41 ◼   ► And he recommends a different one from the Yeti

00:46:45 ◼   ► and a different one from the Condenser, or from the Dynamic. His is actually a

00:46:48 ◼   ► Condenser which is

00:46:49 ◼   ► a sign of change in Dan's view of this.

00:46:53 ◼   ► I would say, because he was always very negative about condensers when I would

00:46:56 ◼   ► talk to him about it.

00:46:57 ◼   ► But the fact that those microphones are down in price to like an $80 one and a

00:47:02 ◼   ► $50 one, that's great because that means that one of the barriers here, which was

00:47:07 ◼   ► you really can't buy a good microphone for less than 50 or $100, has changed. And

00:47:12 ◼   ► that's great because now, yes, now you can buy a good microphone. That

00:47:15 ◼   ► said, if you buy a good microphone and you don't have good microphone technique

00:47:18 ◼   ► and you're in an echoey room, it's gonna sound bad anyway. So there's so many

00:47:23 ◼   ► different things about making podcasts sound good. But my point is, if you really

00:47:27 ◼   ► love it and you care about it, you should do it. And then as you go, you will learn

00:47:31 ◼   ► and how to make it better.

00:47:33 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah.

00:47:35 ◼   ► - That's my thing.

00:47:37 ◼   ► And definitely the Analog Census post is worth looking at

00:47:40 ◼   ► if you're interested in this subject,

00:47:41 ◼   ► because it's got links to all of the stuff.

00:47:44 ◼   ► And I feel like sort of everybody was in violent agreement.

00:47:47 ◼   ► Everybody's got their own particular acts to grind here.

00:47:49 ◼   ► Like Marco Armenta is very much like,

00:47:52 ◼   ► look, you can do good sound quality.

00:47:54 ◼   ► You should do good sound quality.

00:47:55 ◼   ► Even on the cheap, you can make your podcast sound better.

00:47:58 ◼   ► And he's totally right.

00:47:59 ◼   ► I don't dispute that at all.

00:48:01 ◼   ► He's absolutely right.

00:48:03 ◼   ► So I think it was all okay in the end,

00:48:06 ◼   ► but that was the thing that set me off,

00:48:10 ◼   ► was I feel like you get professional podcasters

00:48:13 ◼   ► who are basically trying to close the doors

00:48:15 ◼   ► and say, "Don't come in, anybody else.

00:48:17 ◼   ► "You're not qualified to do this."

00:48:19 ◼   ► And that drives me crazy because it's a little,

00:48:23 ◼   ► we all started this recently too.

00:48:27 ◼   ► Even the people who've been doing podcasting the longest

00:48:29 ◼   ► haven't been doing it that long.

00:48:31 ◼   ► So maybe we should welcome other voices

00:48:33 ◼   ► and not try to close them off artificially.

00:48:36 ◼   ► So that was my point.

00:48:38 ◼   ► Ah, should we talk about a friend now?

00:48:45 ◼   ► - Yeah, let's do that.

00:48:46 ◼   ► - What friends should we talk about now, Myke?

00:48:48 ◼   ► - Jason, why don't you tell me a little bit about mail route?

00:48:51 ◼   ► - Mail route, all right.

00:48:53 ◼   ► I love these guys, they are a friend.

00:48:55 ◼   ► Mail route helps me with my mail every single day.

00:48:58 ◼   ► So Myke, I want you to picture,

00:49:00 ◼   ► We're gonna do some visualization exercises here.

00:49:02 ◼   ► I want you to picture a world without spam or viruses

00:49:07 ◼   ► or bounced email.

00:49:08 ◼   ► - How lovely it is.

00:49:09 ◼   ► - Is that nice?

00:49:10 ◼   ► Does that give you a warm feeling?

00:49:11 ◼   ► - This is such a nice place over here.

00:49:12 ◼   ► - Imagine opening your email and seeing only

00:49:15 ◼   ► the legitimate email that you want and need to receive

00:49:18 ◼   ► and not any other junk cluttering your inbox.

00:49:20 ◼   ► - Oh, hello legitimate email.

00:49:21 ◼   ► - Yes, exactly.

00:49:23 ◼   ► Ahoy email.

00:49:24 ◼   ► Well, mail route can make this a daily reality

00:49:28 ◼   ► and does for me, no more spam.

00:49:30 ◼   ► And the beauty of how MailRoute works is you don't have to install any hardware or software.

00:49:35 ◼   ► MailRoute does it all.

00:49:36 ◼   ► What it does is it sits between you and your email

00:49:39 ◼   ► and sorts it itself and delivers only clean email to your inbox.

00:49:45 ◼   ► Now it's easy to set up. I set it up in a matter of, I think, 10 minutes.

00:49:49 ◼   ► It's reliable. I've never had a problem with MailRoute in the year, year and a half I've been using it.

00:49:54 ◼   ► Maybe two years now. Wow.

00:49:56 ◼   ► And it is trusted by the largest universities and corporations.

00:49:59 ◼   ► If you're a regular old user,

00:50:02 ◼   ► you'll find that the interface is super simple and effective.

00:50:04 ◼   ► There's a great web interface.

00:50:05 ◼   ► There's an email that they can send you

00:50:07 ◼   ► with what got filtered out.

00:50:08 ◼   ► One click to whitelist it, one click to deliver it.

00:50:11 ◼   ► But I get so few false negatives

00:50:14 ◼   ► that that email is more of a formality now

00:50:16 ◼   ► than anything else.

00:50:18 ◼   ► If you are an administrator or an IT professional

00:50:20 ◼   ► thinking about using mail route for your organization,

00:50:24 ◼   ► they've got all the tools for you.

00:50:25 ◼   ► They've got an API for easy account management.

00:50:29 ◼   ► support LDAP, Active Directory, TLS, mail bagging. I don't even know what mail bagging is. It

00:50:33 ◼   ► terrifies me, but they support it. I'm so glad they do because I'm all about mail bagging.

00:50:38 ◼   ► And well, actually, this is the next thing they support is going to be one of your favorites.

00:50:41 ◼   ► They support outbound relay. That's a good word. Everything you'd want from the people handling

00:50:49 ◼   ► your mail if you are an admin or IT professional. But if you're a regular person like me,

00:50:53 ◼   ► works great too, super simple web interface. So remove spam from your life for good with

00:50:59 ◼   ► MailRoute. Go to mailroute.net/upgrade, easy to remember, for a free trial and 10% off

00:51:09 ◼   ► for the lifetime of your account. And thank you so much to MailRoute for sponsoring upgrade

00:51:15 ◼   ► and for filtering all the spam out of my email. Thanks MailRoute.

00:51:19 ◼   ► Seems like the perfect time of year to be thinking about email spam because we're already

00:51:23 ◼   ► getting so much email we don't want this time of year. So much. It's nice to know that

00:51:29 ◼   ► there are people out there that can help you at least reduce some of that.

00:51:35 ◼   ► Thank you, Mayor out. Thank you. Being a friend to my inbox. So we've been going a

00:51:41 ◼   ► long time. I feel like maybe we should just jump to some listener Q&A. Before

00:51:46 ◼   ► the show you announced on Twitter that we were running light on topics,

00:51:50 ◼   ► which ironically now we could have done two hours without this, but we're gonna

00:51:53 ◼   ► push some topics to next week and instead we're gonna enter the lightning round!

00:51:57 ◼   ► I wish I had a sound effect for you. Okay there we go we got one.

00:52:02 ◼   ► I'll do all the sound effects.

00:52:04 ◼   ► It seems like, Jason, there are lots of things that people want us to talk about.

00:52:08 ◼   ► Indeed.

00:52:09 ◼   ► And it's good because you know you were mentioning like when we talk about the podcast stuff

00:52:13 ◼   ► it is that time of year, it is the quiet time of year, so maybe this is a time when we should

00:52:19 ◼   ► fall back to what actually, funnily enough,

00:52:21 ◼   ► what actually people want to hear us talk about,

00:52:24 ◼   ► which is an interesting sentence.

00:52:25 ◼   ► Whilst I was putting these together

00:52:28 ◼   ► and I was using the official Twitter for Mac client

00:52:32 ◼   ► to drag and drop the tweets that they embedded

00:52:35 ◼   ► quite nicely in our Google Drive app,

00:52:37 ◼   ► which was a tip I got from you,

00:52:39 ◼   ► I did think to myself, is there a way,

00:52:42 ◼   ► is there a better way to try and get these kind of questions

00:52:46 ◼   ► coming through on a more regular basis?

00:52:48 ◼   ► I don't know. So again, another question for the audience. I know some people use like

00:52:52 ◼   ► subreddits and stuff like that, which I haven't looked into.

00:52:57 ◼   ► It's kind of scary.

00:52:58 ◼   ► Yeah, I'm not really a Reddit user at all. It's something I've never really gotten into.

00:53:04 ◼   ► I feel like I would probably lose all of my productivity being on Reddit.

00:53:09 ◼   ► Well, that's a good piece of feedback for people out there. What would be a good way

00:53:12 ◼   ► for us to have a kind of like a flood of topic suggestions on maybe the morning that we're

00:53:18 ◼   ► doing the podcast. Is Twitter the best way or is there some other way to generate, you

00:53:24 ◼   ► know, a form? I mean we could do like a Google form or something, it's not that exciting

00:53:27 ◼   ► though. I don't know. Yeah, exactly. There are many options, I'd like to see what people

00:53:32 ◼   ► think. It might be something that we've never heard of. So the first question that we have,

00:53:36 ◼   ► these are all via Twitter so I will do my best to read Twitter names, this is @EdaRoss

00:53:41 ◼   ► or EDA Ross. He's interested in... his question was selling your advertising

00:53:48 ◼   ► space on sites and podcasts so I guess we've both started doing this.

00:53:53 ◼   ► It's not really a question, I guess let's talk about this. Also by the way one of the weaknesses of the

00:53:57 ◼   ► Twitter app for Mac is that it brings across their username but not their

00:54:01 ◼   ► actual name so then I have to double check and sort of enter in that it's

00:54:04 ◼   ► listener ed or whatever which you didn't do so we don't know who these people are

00:54:08 ◼   ► but that's okay. Selling your advertising space on your sites, podcasts, what do you

00:54:15 ◼   ► want to say about that, Myke?

00:54:17 ◼   ► So I think the interesting thing is how this has changed for me and how now I'm doing it

00:54:22 ◼   ► on my own. When I was a part of 5x5, it was a very nebulous process. The ads arrived in

00:54:29 ◼   ► the document, in the calendar, and then I went and found the ad scripts and I read them.

00:54:36 ◼   ► The interesting thing about this stuff for me now is I'm doing 100% of it.

00:54:40 ◼   ► So well, not 100%.

00:54:41 ◼   ► We do have the mid-roll helpers as well, which is some of our stuff.

00:54:45 ◼   ► But I do the vast majority, over three quarters, if not more of the ad sales for Relay FM at

00:54:51 ◼   ► the moment.

00:54:52 ◼   ► And it's an interesting process.

00:54:55 ◼   ► There are parts of it that I do really enjoy.

00:54:57 ◼   ► I do very much love the thrill of getting the sale.

00:55:01 ◼   ► is a great feel. To get off a call and you've just put

00:55:06 ◼   ► three months worth of sponsorships, that's a nice feeling.

00:55:10 ◼   ► And I also like knowing exactly where the money is coming from and where the

00:55:14 ◼   ► money is in the chain and then I can communicate that to you guys as well.

00:55:19 ◼   ► It's also interesting writing the ad copy myself and I like that a lot. I like

00:55:25 ◼   ► writing my own ad scripts or my own talking points because they're written

00:55:32 ◼   ► by me for my voice, which I quite like. I don't take like canned reads from

00:55:38 ◼   ► advertisers as it stands at the moment because I like to be able to put them in

00:55:43 ◼   ► my own voice because we go to companies that either I use or I believe in

00:55:47 ◼   ► or I think are really interesting so I want to say what I want to say about

00:55:51 ◼   ► them and that's why with the mail route ads we have Jason do those ones because

00:55:57 ◼   ► I don't use mail route but you do so it makes a lot more sense for that ad to

00:56:04 ◼   ► come from you because you are a customer. So we have a forthcoming sponsor that

00:56:07 ◼   ► only works in the US and so I'm going to do that ad too because you have no I may

00:56:12 ◼   ► quiz you again like we did with Thanksgiving but that's really I'm gonna

00:56:15 ◼   ► do that one because it makes sense like I can use that product and you can't.

00:56:18 ◼   ► Exactly. And so yeah, I like these sort of interesting different

00:56:25 ◼   ► things that I get to think about now, now that I do them myself. It does add a

00:56:29 ◼   ► level of stress, but that stress is always there and in a way I'm more happy

00:56:34 ◼   ► doing it myself because I have a control over the stress. Like for

00:56:38 ◼   ► example, we had some free months in December, a lot of bigger companies start

00:56:43 ◼   ► to look at their budgets for next year. People want to talk about next year now

00:56:46 ◼   ► rather than the next couple of weeks. So today I sent some emails to some smaller

00:56:52 ◼   ► companies that we that we work with and have been able to sell some spots on

00:56:55 ◼   ► that. You know, so it's like okay if I was just looking at that calendar I would be

00:57:00 ◼   ► getting a bit freaked out but because I am able to affect it I just sent some

00:57:05 ◼   ► emails out today. You know? I like that. I like that feeling. How about you? How are

00:57:10 ◼   ► you finding the sponsorships on Six Colors? I am I'm not a fan of sales

00:57:16 ◼   ► stuff because I come from this editorial background and I'm not a salesperson.

00:57:20 ◼   ► I don't want to be a salesperson. Six Colors has been so far a sales success

00:57:28 ◼   ► in that we sold out through all of 2014. Every week got sold and every week got

00:57:34 ◼   ► sold by people coming to me and saying I would like to sponsor your site.

00:57:39 ◼   ► That's a real tough sales challenge for me. I did have to set a rate

00:57:44 ◼   ► and I set a rate that I thought was optimistic and I managed to sell you

00:57:50 ◼   ► know every week out by quoting that rate to people and mostly they paid it you

00:57:55 ◼   ► know I did a couple of like bulk deals for people who bought multiple

00:57:59 ◼   ► weeks but in fact that business 101 I raised my rates because if I sold out at

00:58:06 ◼   ► that rate I should probably charge more and I got good feedback from people and

00:58:10 ◼   ► So that's fine, but what I've said several times

00:58:14 ◼   ► to people who've asked is, if it comes to the point

00:58:16 ◼   ► where I really need to beat the bushes

00:58:17 ◼   ► to get weekly sponsorships, I'm gonna find somebody

00:58:20 ◼   ► to sell the sponsorships for me,

00:58:22 ◼   ► 'cause it's not worth it for me.

00:58:23 ◼   ► I do not wanna spend my time selling sponsorships.

00:58:25 ◼   ► It's just not, I have other things I would like to do

00:58:28 ◼   ► with my life then and create more stuff

00:58:31 ◼   ► and not sell sponsorships.

00:58:32 ◼   ► So if it comes to that point, I'll do what I do

00:58:34 ◼   ► for my other podcasts that are like the incomparable,

00:58:38 ◼   ► which is I've got somebody, in that case it has been Dan Benjamin and now it's going to

00:58:42 ◼   ► be the mid-roll. It was actually Dan and the mid-roll for a while, then it was just Dan

00:58:47 ◼   ► and a little bit from Oistas Tuyon and now it's going back to the mid-roll and they just

00:58:51 ◼   ► handle it and I don't have to worry about it. Some people like that. I don't deny the

00:58:57 ◼   ► fact that when I get the phone call from somebody who says we want to talk to you about sponsoring

00:59:01 ◼   ► Six Colors and we end up with an agreement to sponsor three or four weeks of Six Colors

00:59:07 ◼   ► in 2015 that I don't get that feeling of like "Yes!" afterward, but it's not for me. That's

00:59:15 ◼   ► not my thing. So I basically am relying on people coming to me and I love those people

00:59:21 ◼   ► who are approaching me about Six Colors and saying "We'd like to sponsor you." And then

00:59:26 ◼   ► otherwise I have other people selling the ads for me. And that's fine.

00:59:30 ◼   ► I hate sales.

00:59:32 ◼   ► I've always hated sales.

00:59:34 ◼   ► I used to be in a sales role for a while.

00:59:37 ◼   ► But I really don't feel like I have to sell this very hard.

00:59:42 ◼   ► All of the companies that I talk to,

00:59:45 ◼   ► they're very much, we wanna help support you,

00:59:47 ◼   ► we love what you do.

00:59:49 ◼   ► That's not a hard sell.

00:59:50 ◼   ► The hardest kind of thing that I have to do is,

00:59:54 ◼   ► would you like to buy an extra week?

00:59:56 ◼   ► Like that's kind of as hard as it gets.

00:59:59 ◼   ► I don't know if we're just lucky at this stage,

01:00:02 ◼   ► or maybe I'm not charging enough.

01:00:05 ◼   ► I'm very happy with the rates that we have right now.

01:00:10 ◼   ► If anybody cares, I'm currently making more money

01:00:12 ◼   ► than I've ever made.

01:00:14 ◼   ► I think that might make people happy to know that this

01:00:17 ◼   ► is going very successfully for us.

01:00:19 ◼   ► And I'm also not breaking the back of--

01:00:22 ◼   ► I'm not.

01:00:23 ◼   ► I'm sorry, Jason.

01:00:24 ◼   ► I'll give you more.

01:00:27 ◼   ► And I'm not breaking my back over it either.

01:00:29 ◼   ► So it's-- - That's good.

01:00:31 ◼   ► - I'm kind of happy with the way it's working.

01:00:33 ◼   ► - You're terrible at lightning rounds.

01:00:34 ◼   ► - Yeah, I know, right?

01:00:36 ◼   ► Okay, lightning round.

01:00:38 ◼   ► This is so lightning,

01:00:39 ◼   ► you don't even really get to answer this one.

01:00:42 ◼   ► This is from N. Beathy.

01:00:44 ◼   ► I'm really going with the Twitter names.

01:00:46 ◼   ► Not a tech topic.

01:00:47 ◼   ► I'm interested in hearing what you think

01:00:48 ◼   ► of the Star Wars teaser.

01:00:50 ◼   ► I've never heard Myke talk about Star Wars.

01:00:52 ◼   ► You're not allowed to answer this

01:00:53 ◼   ► because you've already done that.

01:00:55 ◼   ► That's the incomparable dot com slash 222. An excellent episode of The Incomparable

01:01:01 ◼   ► with you and John Siracusa and Dan Morin. I really enjoyed I say this to you

01:01:09 ◼   ► probably I enjoyed hearing John and Dan duel over Star Wars trivia like I know

01:01:15 ◼   ► more than you know I know more than you I know all about that I know what that

01:01:18 ◼   ► sound is. That may be the least that may be the least I've ever spoken in an

01:01:22 ◼   ► incomparable episode because those guys are just they were beside themselves about Star Wars.

01:01:26 ◼   ► There's one specific argument about the origin of a sound effect

01:01:31 ◼   ► which I was so entertained by but I'm very excited I am of course a Star Wars

01:01:38 ◼   ► fan I am not like devout I've seen all the movies I like the correct ones I've

01:01:46 ◼   ► never seen the D Specialized for example oh because I've never hunted it down

01:01:52 ◼   ► and also when I grew up there was no T Specialized Edition because I think

01:01:58 ◼   ► well I actually did see first see it on VHS tape but then kind of came into mind

01:02:04 ◼   ► with DVD copies was when I saw Star Wars the most. I don't necessarily like

01:02:11 ◼   ► the the prequels I don't hate them in the same way that some people do but I

01:02:18 ◼   ► definitely don't like them that makes sense like I'm not like I don't you know

01:02:22 ◼   ► begrudge people watching them but I'm very excited about the new Star Wars

01:02:27 ◼   ► stuff I am a big fan of JJ Abrams work I think the Star Trek series is fantastic

01:02:34 ◼   ► and I really enjoy those I love all these other stuff as well I'm very

01:02:38 ◼   ► excited I think that the broadsword lightsaber is awesome I'm one of those

01:02:43 ◼   ► people that look at that and I'm like that's really interesting I subscribe to

01:02:47 ◼   ► the exhaust theory that you have.

01:02:51 ◼   ► And I just think it looks really cool.

01:02:52 ◼   ► I look at that and I'm like, well, maybe this is a Sith

01:02:56 ◼   ► who's kind of doesn't really know what he's doing

01:02:59 ◼   ► and this is what he's stumbled upon

01:03:01 ◼   ► 'cause he's in a forest, right?

01:03:03 ◼   ► I assume he's just been living in the forest for a while

01:03:05 ◼   ► and he's built a lightsaber out of wood or something

01:03:07 ◼   ► and it's not working very well. - Yeah, he's a hermit.

01:03:09 ◼   ► Hermit.

01:03:10 ◼   ► - So yes, I'm very excited and I love the fact now

01:03:13 ◼   ► that Disney owns them because I love the thought

01:03:16 ◼   ► of a Star Wars universe in the way that we have the Marvel universe.

01:03:20 ◼   ► Yeah, I agree. Good one. Good one.

01:03:24 ◼   ► And listen to the Incomparable 222 if you want to hear people talk for more than an hour,

01:03:28 ◼   ► about 80 seconds of trailer.

01:03:31 ◼   ► Jack Brister and Aaron Isaacs would both like recommendations on comics to read in Marvel Unlimited

01:03:37 ◼   ► because I think people are bringing this up because you just wrote a piece on six colors.

01:03:42 ◼   ► Yes.

01:03:43 ◼   ► Promoting the incredible sale.

01:03:45 ◼   ► - Yeah, as we record this, there's a 75 cent teaser sale

01:03:49 ◼   ► for one month of Marvel Unlimited.

01:03:51 ◼   ► And you're signing up so that, you know,

01:03:53 ◼   ► month two will be billed at 9.99

01:03:55 ◼   ► and it's, there's a, 'cause there's a $10 a month tier

01:03:57 ◼   ► and then you can also just buy a whole year for $70.

01:04:00 ◼   ► And I wrote, last week I wrote a kind of gift guide post

01:04:04 ◼   ► about Marvel Unlimited,

01:04:05 ◼   ► which I wholeheartedly endorse as a service.

01:04:08 ◼   ► Comics are expensive, new comics especially,

01:04:10 ◼   ► but even used, you know, not used,

01:04:12 ◼   ► old digital comics are still a couple dollars each.

01:04:15 ◼   ► And Marvel Unlimited, if you like Marvel Comics,

01:04:18 ◼   ► it's access to just a huge number of Marvel Comics

01:04:23 ◼   ► from their history and from the recent past,

01:04:26 ◼   ► not the ones that are for sale this month,

01:04:28 ◼   ► but like Netflix, it's stuff that's been out

01:04:31 ◼   ► for a little while.

01:04:32 ◼   ► And I can read one storyline in a day or over a weekend

01:04:37 ◼   ► and in Marvel Unlimited, and then I count how much money

01:04:41 ◼   ► it would have cost to buy those issues,

01:04:42 ◼   ► and it's like $50 easily.

01:04:44 ◼   ► So I think if you read two story arcs or runs of something in the year that you paid $70 for it, you've saved money.

01:04:54 ◼   ► Honestly. And so it's changed my reading habits. I buy very few, some, but very few new Marvel comics now.

01:04:59 ◼   ► And a lot of the other stuff that's going on, I'm like, "Eh, I'll read that in six months on Unlimited."

01:05:04 ◼   ► So best things to read were the sort of suggestions here, my standards.

01:05:09 ◼   ► standards. I mean Hawkeye is on there and the Hawkeye comic is great if people

01:05:13 ◼   ► haven't read that yet. Love that so much. That's great and the guys who did that

01:05:17 ◼   ► Matt Fraction and David Aja or David Aja or I can never he has some some of his

01:05:24 ◼   ► names are Spanish and some of them aren't as Spanish. Anyway they did a comic

01:05:28 ◼   ► with Ed Brubaker who's a really good comics writer as well. They did a run on

01:05:34 ◼   ► Iron Fist, I believe, is it Mortal Iron Fist?

01:05:37 ◼   ► That is really great.

01:05:39 ◼   ► And I'm not a, like Hawkeye, Iron Fist,

01:05:42 ◼   ► not really an appreciated superhero in the Marvel universe,

01:05:45 ◼   ► but they did a great run of, I think,

01:05:47 ◼   ► like 20 or 24 issues.

01:05:49 ◼   ► That was really good.

01:05:49 ◼   ► So I recommend that.

01:05:51 ◼   ► And I don't know, and this is all kind of happening

01:05:56 ◼   ► awfully fast, so beyond that, I read the Infinity event.

01:06:00 ◼   ► One of the things that Marvel Unlimited lets you do

01:06:02 ◼   ► is they actually create little playlists of these events

01:06:05 ◼   ► that span multiple books so it can get really confusing

01:06:08 ◼   ► about what the reading order should be.

01:06:10 ◼   ► And I read their Infinity event from last year,

01:06:13 ◼   ► which is mostly Avengers and New Avengers.

01:06:16 ◼   ► And I really liked it.

01:06:17 ◼   ► It was sort of a sci-fi event.

01:06:18 ◼   ► It was more everybody against an oncoming cosmic enemy

01:06:23 ◼   ► instead of supervillains versus heroes kind of usual.

01:06:28 ◼   ► And so it was more of a sci-fi plot.

01:06:29 ◼   ► and I'm not generally predisposed to like comic book crossover events,

01:06:34 ◼   ► but I felt like this one, it really was the same writer for all of it.

01:06:38 ◼   ► It was really only in two different books that most of the story was being told,

01:06:41 ◼   ► and I thought that was really good, and I read that over a weekend,

01:06:45 ◼   ► and again, that was one of those things where that was probably $45 worth of comics that I read,

01:06:49 ◼   ► and, you know, I had already paid my annual fee, so it was just free at that point.

01:06:53 ◼   ► So maybe check that out too.

01:06:57 ◼   ► I don't really have any recommendations.

01:07:02 ◼   ► -Thumbs up on Hawkeye. -Love Hawkeye.

01:07:05 ◼   ► I kind of fell out of comics a bit just because of the expense.

01:07:09 ◼   ► Yeah, yeah. I mean, that's one of the things I really like about this

01:07:12 ◼   ► is being able to just sort of try things that I wouldn't...

01:07:15 ◼   ► You know, they'd say, "Oh, we're introducing this new comic."

01:07:17 ◼   ► I thought, "Oh, that sort of sounds interesting, but I'm not gonna spend..."

01:07:20 ◼   ► Like, I read "Avengers Arena," which is an interesting idea.

01:07:24 ◼   ► It's like Arcade kidnaps a bunch of young Avengers

01:07:28 ◼   ► and puts them in Murderworld essentially.

01:07:30 ◼   ► And it's like the Hunger Games with superheroes.

01:07:33 ◼   ► And they're trying to get out, like the Hunger Games,

01:07:35 ◼   ► they're trying to figure out, you know,

01:07:37 ◼   ► do we have to play this game or not?

01:07:39 ◼   ► How do we get out of here?

01:07:40 ◼   ► And that was okay.

01:07:42 ◼   ► That was, I kind of enjoyed reading it

01:07:44 ◼   ► and I would never have bought it.

01:07:46 ◼   ► When it came out, I was like, nope, not interested at all.

01:07:48 ◼   ► But as part of Marvel to just try it out

01:07:51 ◼   ► and see if I like it and then read through 10 issues really fast and say,

01:07:55 ◼   ► "Oh, that was fun," and move on.

01:07:58 ◼   ► You know, that's really dangerous when you have to buy every issue,

01:08:01 ◼   ► but it's not with Marvel Unlimited, so that's one of the reasons that I like it a lot.

01:08:05 ◼   ► - Have you seen the movie "Battle Royale"?

01:08:08 ◼   ► - No, it's on my list. That's the Korean or Japanese movie.

01:08:12 ◼   ► Yeah, that's -- yeah.

01:08:13 ◼   ► Well, it's all in "Hunger Games."

01:08:15 ◼   ► This is the same premise, and it's all kind of combined together.

01:08:19 ◼   ► I'll put in a plug for Ultimate Spider-Man.

01:08:21 ◼   ► The original Brian Michael Bendis,

01:08:23 ◼   ► Ultimate Spider-Man going back,

01:08:25 ◼   ► I mean, he's still writing it,

01:08:26 ◼   ► but going back 10 years to when they started that

01:08:29 ◼   ► with Ultimate Peter Parker, that's a great series.

01:08:34 ◼   ► That's my favorite comic series of the last 10 or 15 years

01:08:36 ◼   ► where they're retelling Spider-Man from the beginning

01:08:39 ◼   ► and taking their time and doing it without the encumbrance

01:08:42 ◼   ► of the existing kind of Marvel continuity.

01:08:44 ◼   ► And there's like 150 issues of that.

01:08:46 ◼   ► So if you haven't read that,

01:08:47 ◼   ► I would go back and read that all with Marvel Unlimited.

01:08:50 ◼   ► It's great.

01:08:50 ◼   ► - How far back can you,

01:08:53 ◼   ► so how recent, just what I'm looking for,

01:08:55 ◼   ► how recent are the comics on Marvel Unlimited?

01:08:57 ◼   ► - I think the lag is like six to nine months.

01:09:00 ◼   ► - I would pay, I mean I'm sure everybody would,

01:09:04 ◼   ► I would pay more if they would just give me everything

01:09:07 ◼   ► that's happening now. - Yeah, but they just know,

01:09:08 ◼   ► they know they make a lot of money from people

01:09:10 ◼   ► who are the hardcore comics fans who are buying,

01:09:13 ◼   ► you know, when it comes out at full price.

01:09:15 ◼   ► And like with Netflix, you know,

01:09:16 ◼   ► I'm sure everybody would love their Netflix subscription

01:09:19 ◼   ► to have every movie that's released on it, right?

01:09:21 ◼   ► - Of course.

01:09:22 ◼   ► - And the moment it's released on video,

01:09:23 ◼   ► but you couldn't make a service with that.

01:09:26 ◼   ► So this is the balance of it.

01:09:27 ◼   ► I found that that release window has gotten a lot closer.

01:09:30 ◼   ► I think it used to be more like two years

01:09:32 ◼   ► or a year and a half,

01:09:33 ◼   ► and now it feels more like it's six months.

01:09:35 ◼   ► And I think they're using it as a,

01:09:37 ◼   ► I think they see value in releasing more new comics,

01:09:42 ◼   ► because if you really get into it,

01:09:44 ◼   ► then you reach the end of the "elimited" line,

01:09:47 ◼   ► and if you want to keep reading,

01:09:48 ◼   ► you've got to go buy the issues.

01:09:49 ◼   ► And I think they see that there's a marketing benefit

01:09:51 ◼   ► to that.

01:09:52 ◼   ► Like if they want people in the new Ms. Marvel,

01:09:54 ◼   ► one way they can do that is by releasing a few issues

01:09:56 ◼   ► of the new Ms. Marvel.

01:09:58 ◼   ► And then once you're into it,

01:09:59 ◼   ► maybe you're going to go switch over

01:10:00 ◼   ► and use the Marvel app or ComiXology or something else

01:10:03 ◼   ► to buy the current issues,

01:10:06 ◼   ► which I think maybe some people do.

01:10:08 ◼   ► So they've obviously made a calculation about it,

01:10:10 ◼   ► but totally worth the $70 if you like Marvel comics,

01:10:13 ◼   ► because you could just read, that could be your,

01:10:15 ◼   ► if you really like Marvel comics,

01:10:17 ◼   ► it could be your only purchase of comics for a whole year,

01:10:20 ◼   ► and you would have plenty to read.

01:10:22 ◼   ► You just have to not pay attention to websites

01:10:24 ◼   ► that are telling you about the latest whatever.

01:10:26 ◼   ► You just gotta just embrace being six months behind.

01:10:30 ◼   ► - Is comiXology completely ruined?

01:10:32 ◼   ► - It's not completely ruined.

01:10:36 ◼   ► Oh man, we could do a whole show about this.

01:10:38 ◼   ► It's not completely ruined.

01:10:39 ◼   ► I actually talked to them at Comic-Con in San Diego.

01:10:42 ◼   ► I think they were caught by surprise by how quickly the Amazon thing happened.

01:10:46 ◼   ► My problem, I mean I don't love the fact that you can't buy comics in the Comixology app

01:10:50 ◼   ► anymore, although you can in the DC and Marvel apps that are basically Comixology, but just

01:10:56 ◼   ► for those publishers.

01:10:57 ◼   ► Well here's the thing, those publishers can swallow the, they're not a middle man, right?

01:11:04 ◼   ► That's a relationship where it's like the publishers and Apple, and so they set a price

01:11:08 ◼   ► and Apple takes their 15% or whatever it is, or 30% or whatever it is, and that's okay.

01:11:16 ◼   ► But Comixology, in their main app, they're the middleman, and they're making all of their

01:11:20 ◼   ► money on the markup from wholesale, and then Apple takes the percentage and there's nothing

01:11:27 ◼   ► left for them, or Amazon.

01:11:30 ◼   ► And so it's different when it's the publisher, right?

01:11:32 ◼   ► Because the publisher can just set the price and there's, and presumably they're compensating

01:11:36 ◼   ► Comixology in some other way for that. So I think that's the difference there.

01:11:40 ◼   ► Maybe Comixology still makes the same cut, but it doesn't matter so much to Marvel at that point,

01:11:45 ◼   ► because there's still more money for them. I don't know. I don't know.

01:11:48 ◼   ► Yeah, it may be, but when it's direct, it's different. Anyway, so I don't think it's totally

01:11:52 ◼   ► ruined, but I am buying fewer comics on Comixology. I tend to buy all my Comixology stuff through the

01:12:01 ◼   ► web anyway, honestly, because I always thought that the Apple in-app purchase thing was kind of

01:12:05 ◼   ► of hinky. I always felt like, "Why am I getting Apple involved in this transaction at all?"

01:12:14 ◼   ► And so I would often go on the web and just sort of look at the big--on my Mac--and look

01:12:19 ◼   ► at the big images and then click on a bunch of things and add them to my cart and buy

01:12:22 ◼   ► them and then later I would just go to my iPad and read them. The problem is not just

01:12:27 ◼   ► that the--they've actually improved the iPad web experience for ComiXology a lot because

01:12:31 ◼   ► they know people can't buy on the iPad app.

01:12:35 ◼   ► The problem is that the app itself has not been redesigned

01:12:38 ◼   ► to reflect reality.

01:12:40 ◼   ► The app is essentially the old app

01:12:42 ◼   ► with some stuff ripped out of it.

01:12:43 ◼   ► And they need to do a much better job of saying,

01:12:47 ◼   ► hey, you just bought some comics on the web, here they are.

01:12:51 ◼   ► And right now there's like,

01:12:52 ◼   ► there's a tab with a recently purchased menu item

01:12:57 ◼   ► and then you can see what you just bought.

01:12:59 ◼   ► And that part needs to be much better and they know it.

01:13:02 ◼   ► And hopefully they'll do a software release

01:13:04 ◼   ► that improves it.

01:13:05 ◼   ► 'Cause that's, I think the ComiXology experience,

01:13:08 ◼   ► although it's never gonna be as good as it was

01:13:09 ◼   ► when you could buy in the app,

01:13:10 ◼   ► could be way better than it is now

01:13:12 ◼   ► if the app was redesigned to accept the fact

01:13:16 ◼   ► that you're not buying the comics there

01:13:21 ◼   ► and you're buying them elsewhere

01:13:22 ◼   ► and then they need to show them to you once you arrive.

01:13:25 ◼   ► So they'll get there eventually, but it's too bad.

01:13:28 ◼   ► It's a sad thing for this year.

01:13:29 ◼   ► - Let's take a moment to thank our final friend

01:13:32 ◼   ► for this week's episode and that is Dash.

01:13:34 ◼   ► Dash is a super cool website that lets you quickly

01:13:37 ◼   ► create real-time custom dashboards.

01:13:39 ◼   ► These dashboards allow you to get a visual overview

01:13:41 ◼   ► of data that is important for your website,

01:13:43 ◼   ► business, or even your life.

01:13:45 ◼   ► Dash allows you to pull in data from a variety

01:13:47 ◼   ► of different sources around the web.

01:13:49 ◼   ► There are dozens of pre-built widgets for services

01:13:51 ◼   ► like Twitter, Chartbeat, Pingdom, Google Analytics,

01:13:54 ◼   ► GitHub, and many more.

01:13:56 ◼   ► and you're also able to display your own custom data in Dash as well.

01:13:59 ◼   ► They have an API that allows you to share data from Dropbox

01:14:03 ◼   ► or all around the web and create your own custom widgets.

01:14:06 ◼   ► So the pricing model for Dash is a lot like GitHub.

01:14:10 ◼   ► Everyone gets unlimited public dashboards so that you can share live data with the Dash community,

01:14:15 ◼   ► but if you upgrade to their Pro account for $10 a month,

01:14:18 ◼   ► you'll also get unlimited private dashboards too.

01:14:20 ◼   ► These are just for you to see.

01:14:21 ◼   ► Now to give you an idea of how these could work,

01:14:24 ◼   ► You could have a public dashboard which is focused around your favorite sports team.

01:14:28 ◼   ► So you could have the sports team's Twitter account in there. You could have Google news

01:14:32 ◼   ► stuff and you could have some of the recent things that are going on. And you could have some imagery

01:14:36 ◼   ► of like the logo, maybe the current jersey or something for the team. You could have some

01:14:41 ◼   ► imagery in there as well because you can add little images in to help personalize your Dash

01:14:45 ◼   ► experience. Or maybe you want a private dashboard that focuses on your own stuff. So you could have

01:14:52 ◼   ► information from your Why Things scale. You can have that pulled right in.

01:14:55 ◼   ► You could have your own Twitter account there as well. You could have an Instagram feed so you can

01:14:59 ◼   ► see what's happening in Instagram and maybe some analytics from your own personal website as well.

01:15:03 ◼   ► However, Dash is currently running an awesome limited time promotion for you guys. If you

01:15:09 ◼   ► sign up for a free account today at TheDash.com, you'll also get one private dashboard in addition

01:15:14 ◼   ► to your free accounts and limited public dashboards. There's no credit card required

01:15:18 ◼   ► and you'll keep your private dashboard for free forever.

01:15:21 ◼   ► There is a fantastic, this is a fantastic offer that you should definitely be taking advantage of.

01:15:26 ◼   ► There's nothing to lose. So go sign up right now at thedash.com. Thank you so much to Dash for

01:15:30 ◼   ► supporting us at Relay FM. We love you very much. Don't go to dash.com. That's a detergent.

01:15:37 ◼   ► Thedash.com. You can go there as well, but it's that they don't help. So go to thedash.com.

01:15:44 ◼   ► unless you have dirty clothes. So I've done a terrible job of this lightning round,

01:15:48 ◼   ► and we're about three questions into our 100 questions. So we're speeding it up. Should we do

01:15:54 ◼   ► a few more? So yeah, super lightning. Okay, I have nothing to say on this one. So Tiger Matt would

01:16:00 ◼   ► like to know Jason's thoughts on tech in sports and how baseball in particular is handling the

01:16:05 ◼   ► future, like replay. All right, I think Major League Baseball in the United States obviously

01:16:12 ◼   ► is doing a great job with technology.

01:16:14 ◼   ► They actually set up a company called

01:16:16 ◼   ► Major League Baseball Advanced Media,

01:16:18 ◼   ► which most of the streaming sports video

01:16:21 ◼   ► that you have live streaming sports video in the US,

01:16:25 ◼   ► and actually maybe in the world,

01:16:27 ◼   ► is run out of Major League Baseball Advanced Media,

01:16:29 ◼   ► even other sports.

01:16:30 ◼   ► ESPN, their streaming stack is

01:16:33 ◼   ► Major League Baseball Advanced Media.

01:16:35 ◼   ► It's actually a really cool story

01:16:36 ◼   ► about a cool tech startup.

01:16:38 ◼   ► The instant replay stuff, I believe,

01:16:40 ◼   ► all leveraged from Major League Baseball Advanced Media's Digital Media Center in New York City,

01:16:46 ◼   ► which I went to a few years ago, is really cool. And they have this insane server farm

01:16:54 ◼   ► across the street from their office. And I had that moment of like, is it really economical

01:16:58 ◼   ► to have all these servers here in Manhattan? I mean, like, surely there's better space

01:17:02 ◼   ► somewhere else. But no, they're in, like Chelsea. Anyway, I'm very impressed with their technology.

01:17:08 ◼   ► I think they do a really good job. There are always issues. There are lots of issues with rights for, you know,

01:17:13 ◼   ► cable and satellite TV companies spend a lot of money to save themselves from cord cutters by getting exclusive rights,

01:17:19 ◼   ► which is why you can't sort of stream your home team.

01:17:22 ◼   ► I would like... I'm a robot umps and robot officials in general fan, and I know a lot of purists don't like that.

01:17:32 ◼   ► I love the game, but I'm a stats guy. I'm a stats guy for all of this.

01:17:36 ◼   ► I love how math and analytics and intelligent viewing of sports changes how we view, like,

01:17:43 ◼   ► I love the New York Times fourth down bot for American football, which has analyzed

01:17:48 ◼   ► the probabilities of going for it on fourth down and realizes that coaches are way too

01:17:54 ◼   ► conservative and they're actually losing themselves games by not trying, by not gambling.

01:17:59 ◼   ► They're afraid to take a risk and so they never take a risk and as a result they actually

01:18:03 ◼   ► are worse off, which I'm fascinated by psychologically and also just from a competitive standpoint

01:18:08 ◼   ► I think it's interesting that you're saving face by doing worse. And then Major League

01:18:13 ◼   ► Baseball the same way, I love all the sabermetric stuff and how we think differently about who

01:18:20 ◼   ► good players are now that we have a better idea of what really impacts the game, although

01:18:28 ◼   ► I think we still haven't cracked it. There's a guy named Ken Arneson, I'll put his post in the

01:18:34 ◼   ► show notes, who wrote a great piece saying that he thinks we're still missing some of the core

01:18:41 ◼   ► concepts of how baseball works because the sabermetric stuff can't measure these thought

01:18:50 ◼   ► chains about the pitcher trying to fool the hitter that are actually at the core of the game. So I

01:18:55 ◼   ► I love that stuff.

01:18:56 ◼   ► I, and again, this is not very lightning.

01:18:58 ◼   ► The last thing I'll say is I think that now that we have computers and cameras that are

01:19:03 ◼   ► mounted in all the major league stadiums that can tell where a baseball crosses home plate,

01:19:08 ◼   ► that umpires need to stop calling balls and strikes and they should give the umpires a

01:19:11 ◼   ► little clicker that like tells them whether it's a ball or a strike and we should remove

01:19:15 ◼   ► that human elephant element from the game.

01:19:17 ◼   ► Not human elephant, that's something totally different because the computers know and getting

01:19:23 ◼   ► right is is important and you can you can keep the flavor without uh without i think ruining the game

01:19:29 ◼   ► so um and and you'll get things more right and be more consistent i think that's a good thing so

01:19:35 ◼   ► that is my sports dump uh did you understand a word of that we'll we'll uh you know we we're

01:19:41 ◼   ► still getting up to speed with thanksgiving mike i don't wanna i don't wanna confuse you too much

01:19:45 ◼   ► with sports and american sports no less which is terrifying i have literally no idea what you yeah

01:19:51 ◼   ► Do you care about sport at all?

01:19:54 ◼   ► No.

01:19:55 ◼   ► Okay, so it's even worse.

01:19:56 ◼   ► It's twice removed.

01:19:57 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:19:58 ◼   ► This is American sport and sport.

01:19:59 ◼   ► I can't even put that information into football or cricket.

01:20:05 ◼   ► I literally have no idea.

01:20:06 ◼   ► I know that I hear people explain some of the technology that is lacking from football,

01:20:12 ◼   ► and I don't understand it.

01:20:14 ◼   ► For example, there are no sensors on the goal lines to see if something goes in.

01:20:18 ◼   ► You should be able to do that.

01:20:19 ◼   ► And the technology exists now, and the fans

01:20:20 ◼   ► will demand it eventually.

01:20:22 ◼   ► You end up having so many decisions that are--

01:20:25 ◼   ► I mean, this happened in the World Series this year

01:20:27 ◼   ► and in baseball in general this year,

01:20:29 ◼   ► that they now have instant replay.

01:20:32 ◼   ► And the fact is, they get the calls right.

01:20:34 ◼   ► And it used to be, umpire would make a call,

01:20:38 ◼   ► or a football referee would make a call,

01:20:40 ◼   ► and you would immediately see the instant replay and say,

01:20:43 ◼   ► oh, they got it wrong.

01:20:44 ◼   ► And that was it.

01:20:44 ◼   ► You just had to be angry that they got it wrong.

01:20:46 ◼   ► And now, when you see they got it wrong, you say, oh, well,

01:20:48 ◼   ► that'll be overturned. They'll get it right.

01:20:50 ◼   ► I feel like this might be an unpopular thought, but from my perspective, considering it is

01:20:57 ◼   ► legal to put money on these things, there shouldn't be allowed to be a margin for error

01:21:03 ◼   ► by a referee's decision.

01:21:06 ◼   ► I agree with you. People talk a lot about the human element, and I think a lot of times

01:21:10 ◼   ► not the human elephant. And they're talking about how, "Oh, well, you know, part of the

01:21:14 ◼   ► storytelling is that you get mad because there was a bad call and you lost the game. It's

01:21:18 ◼   ► like, you know what's a better story? That everybody got it right and the team that won

01:21:22 ◼   ► won because they deserved it. That's a better story. That's the human element as code for

01:21:27 ◼   ► sometimes people make terrible decisions and we all have to live with it. It's like, what

01:21:31 ◼   ► the hell kind of crazy human element is that? So I think getting it right is probably what

01:21:36 ◼   ► the priority should be. And again, if you destroy all of the atmosphere and excitement

01:21:41 ◼   ► of the game by getting it right, you're doing it wrong.

01:21:44 ◼   ► But I think that there's a long way to go

01:21:46 ◼   ► between getting it right and destroying the game.

01:21:49 ◼   ► And people who are opposed to getting it right

01:21:50 ◼   ► always talk about destroying the game.

01:21:52 ◼   ► But I think, again, having some cameras and sensors

01:21:55 ◼   ► in a goal to verify that that goal happened,

01:21:59 ◼   ► it's probably worth it.

01:22:00 ◼   ► Probably, probably worth it.

01:22:02 ◼   ► People would probably rather get it right

01:22:04 ◼   ► than get it wrong.

01:22:05 ◼   ► - So Seth K. Jolly would like--

01:22:10 ◼   ► - Yeah, Seth Jolly, yes.

01:22:11 ◼   ► - Is very confused, Jason,

01:22:14 ◼   ► about whether he should be buying a Chrome stick,

01:22:18 ◼   ► a Fire TV stick, a Roku, an Apple TV.

01:22:22 ◼   ► He doesn't know what to do.

01:22:24 ◼   ► Can you help? - Oh, this will be a short one.

01:22:26 ◼   ► I have a Fire stick now.

01:22:28 ◼   ► I've tried it out a little bit.

01:22:29 ◼   ► It's nice.

01:22:30 ◼   ► What all of these point out is that Apple's interface

01:22:32 ◼   ► is really kind of old and out of date

01:22:34 ◼   ► and the Apple TV needs a major upgrade

01:22:35 ◼   ► and I'm not quite sure what they're waiting for.

01:22:38 ◼   ► I would never buy an Apple TV right now because I feel like it's at the end of its lifespan

01:22:43 ◼   ► and there will be something else, a new Apple TV that will be better.

01:22:48 ◼   ► There better be because there's other stuff.

01:22:49 ◼   ► The only thing the Apple TV has going for it right now is that it's connected to Apple's

01:22:53 ◼   ► ecosystem.

01:22:57 ◼   ► The Fire Stick is fun and it's really small which I really like and a lot of TVs have

01:23:01 ◼   ► USB ports so you can power it via the USB port on the TV and it's basically invisible

01:23:06 ◼   ► at that point and it's got a little Bluetooth remote.

01:23:08 ◼   ► So it's cute.

01:23:09 ◼   ► I have only used the Chromecast briefly.

01:23:13 ◼   ► It's fine.

01:23:14 ◼   ► I prefer one of these devices to have a remote control

01:23:18 ◼   ► and not an app remote because I think app remotes stink.

01:23:21 ◼   ► I don't like, and I have a Roku and the Roku is nice too.

01:23:24 ◼   ► I don't like the idea that you're gonna control a device

01:23:28 ◼   ► with your phone all the time

01:23:29 ◼   ► 'cause I don't always have my phone with me

01:23:32 ◼   ► when I'm watching TV

01:23:33 ◼   ► and I certainly don't have my phone in my hand

01:23:36 ◼   ► unlocked, ready to control it, and look on the touch screen to see what I need to tap

01:23:41 ◼   ► in order to get it right. I hate that. So I like the fact that the Amazon Fire Stick

01:23:46 ◼   ► comes with a remote that is itself much larger than the product. So they're fun and they're

01:23:53 ◼   ► cheap. I mean, I bought the Fire Stick because it was 20 bucks, and I thought, "What the

01:23:56 ◼   ► heck? I can try it out and maybe write about it at some point." But all of these products

01:24:03 ◼   ► are good but have limitations. And, you know, that's really all I can say is they all try

01:24:10 ◼   ► to tie you into an ecosystem of some sort or other and depending on what ecosystem you

01:24:16 ◼   ► have files in, that's going to affect your decision.

01:24:22 ◼   ► We have a couple of questions about headphones.

01:24:26 ◼   ► Headphones!

01:24:27 ◼   ► @cf318 and @_joedarnell are interested in the headphones we use both what are the fun

01:24:33 ◼   ► headphones we use for music, what do we use on the desk, how do they differ and I guess

01:24:38 ◼   ► I would also throw in professional what do you use for your podcasting.

01:24:43 ◼   ► So Jason what headphones do you use?

01:24:46 ◼   ► I have a pair of ultimate ears in ear monitors that I use at my desk that used to be my headphones

01:24:55 ◼   ► that I wore everywhere, but they've got replaceable cables, which is good because the cables go

01:25:00 ◼   ► bad eventually. And I've run, they no longer make cables for these headphones, and I've

01:25:06 ◼   ► run out of the iPhone version that's got the clicker and the microphone, so now all I have

01:25:12 ◼   ► are regular headphone cables. So now they just stay at my desk. So those are what are

01:25:15 ◼   ► in my ears now. And they are, they're standard in-ear monitors, they're like the UE4s, I

01:25:22 ◼   ► I think they're really good.

01:25:23 ◼   ► They're the best headphones I've ever owned.

01:25:25 ◼   ► And I'm an in-ear headphone guy.

01:25:27 ◼   ► So I'm like the, when Marco Arment reviews headphones

01:25:30 ◼   ► and says, stop telling me about in-ear headphones,

01:25:32 ◼   ► I can't wear them.

01:25:33 ◼   ► I'm that guy who can.

01:25:36 ◼   ► And I actually have silicone custom ear tips

01:25:39 ◼   ► that I had made a few years ago.

01:25:41 ◼   ► So that's really cool 'cause they're molded to fit my ears.

01:25:45 ◼   ► So they don't just stick in with a little like foam earbud

01:25:48 ◼   ► that sticks in your ear.

01:25:49 ◼   ► I've got these silicone things that are the exact shape

01:25:53 ◼   ► of my ear canal.

01:25:54 ◼   ► So when they go in, the seal is solid

01:25:57 ◼   ► and it isolates me from outside sound,

01:26:00 ◼   ► sometimes laughably so,

01:26:01 ◼   ► but it makes them sound that much better

01:26:04 ◼   ► 'cause there's no sound interference.

01:26:05 ◼   ► And then separately, for when I'm walking around,

01:26:08 ◼   ► I've got a pair of Edomotic in-ear ones

01:26:12 ◼   ► that come with the little iPhone clicker on them.

01:26:15 ◼   ► And that same mold that I used for the custom tips for here,

01:26:20 ◼   ► that company, which is, I wanna say ECS, I think,

01:26:24 ◼   ► that makes those custom ear tips,

01:26:27 ◼   ► I just called them up and said,

01:26:31 ◼   ► do you still have my mold?

01:26:32 ◼   ► 'Cause they do a 3D scan.

01:26:33 ◼   ► So it's just a file.

01:26:34 ◼   ► And I said, can you make me a pair

01:26:36 ◼   ► that work on the Edomotic headphones?

01:26:37 ◼   ► And they're like, sure, that'll be,

01:26:39 ◼   ► I don't know what, 75 bucks or something like that.

01:26:40 ◼   ► And so I have the custom,

01:26:42 ◼   ► I have custom silicone ear tips on those Edomotics

01:26:45 ◼   ► that I use when I'm walking around.

01:26:47 ◼   ► - Very fancy. - I'm an in-ear guy.

01:26:50 ◼   ► Once you go, for me, it's like once I went in-ear,

01:26:53 ◼   ► I would never go back.

01:26:55 ◼   ► They're super comfortable and they sound great.

01:26:57 ◼   ► And I totally appreciate how other people can't wear them,

01:27:01 ◼   ► because especially when I went to Arizona to visit my mom,

01:27:04 ◼   ► I forgot my headphones and I had to buy a pair of headphones

01:27:07 ◼   ► and I bought in-ears, but with just little,

01:27:09 ◼   ► like, you know, generic tips on them.

01:27:12 ◼   ► And boy, wearing those for an hour,

01:27:14 ◼   ► my ears were really unhappy with me. But when you get the customs done, which

01:27:18 ◼   ► aren't cheap, the custom old cost like 150 bucks or something like that,

01:27:22 ◼   ► but boy they sound good and they feel good.

01:27:24 ◼   ► Yeah I can't do in-ears, they make my ears really hurt. And one of my ears, I think my

01:27:30 ◼   ► left ear, just doesn't stay in. I don't know why. When I'm out and about I just

01:27:36 ◼   ► earpods. They're fine. They're fine. I mainly listen to podcasts rather than

01:27:44 ◼   ► music. I do listen to music with them but I'm not on audiophile. I listen to

01:27:48 ◼   ► streaming music services. The quality is not massively important to me.

01:27:54 ◼   ► Obviously I want good quality but I'm not, you know, I'm not crying about it.

01:27:58 ◼   ► When I'm traveling I do have some Bose headphones. I can't remember what ones

01:28:06 ◼   ► I have but I will make sure that they go into the show notes

01:28:10 ◼   ► And I just use those because when I'm on a plane I like to have

01:28:14 ◼   ► headphones that go all the way over the year

01:28:17 ◼   ► But I don't I I don't

01:28:21 ◼   ► Like noise cancelling either

01:28:26 ◼   ► It makes me feel sick. I don't know why

01:28:30 ◼   ► I have the Bose QuietComfort QC15. No I don't, I have a different model. I looked at the picture and realised they're not the ones that I have.

01:28:42 ◼   ► Because I read in an airport, I think I was on my way to San Francisco, I bought up one of Marco's reviews and went through that and picked a pair.

01:28:56 ◼   ► But now I can't I can't find them, but I will find them. Don't worry

01:28:59 ◼   ► they're like the

01:29:02 ◼   ► sort of the

01:29:04 ◼   ► smaller ones anyway, I

01:29:06 ◼   ► Yeah, I

01:29:10 ◼   ► Pasted I pasted in the chat room what I think of as the first time I ever saw who you were

01:29:15 ◼   ► Which if you can look at that picture, I put it in the show notes as well

01:29:21 ◼   ► This this is some guy sort of singing into a microphone holding on to headphones. I thought who is that guy?

01:29:28 ◼   ► That was you that was me. So those headphones

01:29:31 ◼   ► Those are like Sony like studio. Yeah, they are the the Sony HDR 7506. Yeah, they are widely considered to be

01:29:39 ◼   ► The best for spoken audio whenever you see

01:29:48 ◼   ► pictures or video of people in studios.

01:29:52 ◼   ► They are pretty much all wearing these.

01:29:54 ◼   ► I think I said it wrong, it's the MDR 7506.

01:29:57 ◼   ► - Yeah, that's what we had in the podcast room

01:30:00 ◼   ► at Macworld was those.

01:30:02 ◼   ► So those look very familiar.

01:30:03 ◼   ► - I went to my second pair because my first pair

01:30:06 ◼   ► I used so much that like the black on the cushion

01:30:09 ◼   ► started fading away.

01:30:10 ◼   ► I can't recommend this enough.

01:30:13 ◼   ► I wear these headphones sometimes for like eight hours

01:30:17 ◼   ► day and they are incredibly comfortable and they sound fantastic so big fan I'm

01:30:23 ◼   ► a big fan yeah I think that's it for me on headphones all right now I think we

01:30:31 ◼   ► will maybe go into two very a couple of very quick questions actually grumpy

01:30:36 ◼   ► wants to know that now my commute is shorter will I have bought the six plus

01:30:39 ◼   ► the answer is yes because I love it obviously I can't speak for a alternate

01:30:43 ◼   ► timeline me but even now I would still buy the 6+ I would still get this form

01:30:49 ◼   ► factor because it's no regrets like no regrets at all.

01:30:51 ◼   ► Alright. N. Kremens is interested Jason in the more Nerf brain ball more Nerf

01:30:59 ◼   ► brain ball I was gonna cross over that part no okay what would you like to say

01:31:03 ◼   ► about the Nerf brain ball today? We got we got multiple requests for more Nerf

01:31:07 ◼   ► brain ball I I haven't I I'm holding it now I enjoy the Nerf brain ball I have

01:31:13 ◼   ► no new Nerf brain ball news other than to suggest that at some point it would be really

01:31:19 ◼   ► great if we could find a way to get a Nerf brain ball to Myke and or an equivalent as

01:31:27 ◼   ► well as some Manchego.

01:31:29 ◼   ► We should we should work on that.

01:31:30 ◼   ► Come on people help me out here.

01:31:32 ◼   ► And I have had a few people send me pictures of other like foam brains or brain props most

01:31:39 ◼   ► which really are disturbing, but keep sending them. That's my brain ball update.

01:31:44 ◼   ► He also mentioned the Top Shelf episode, which is I think The Verge do. They did a great

01:31:54 ◼   ► episode of Top Shelf about podcasts, which you should watch. I enjoyed it a lot.

01:31:59 ◼   ► But I think the main thing that he wanted you to talk about, I'm going to put this on you,

01:32:06 ◼   ► your opinion on the App Store Red notification.

01:32:10 ◼   ► I'll put some links in the show notes

01:32:11 ◼   ► if you don't know what they are.

01:32:12 ◼   ► Those show notes, by the way,

01:32:13 ◼   ► can be found at relay.fm/upgrade/12.

01:32:18 ◼   ► - I don't have a lot.

01:32:20 ◼   ► I mean, so App Store sent out a notification yesterday

01:32:23 ◼   ► saying, you know, buy great apps

01:32:26 ◼   ► and the money goes to Red, so it goes to FightAids.

01:32:30 ◼   ► And the fact, I guess what I would say

01:32:35 ◼   ► Some people got upset about this.

01:32:37 ◼   ► I guess I would say these things have been going on

01:32:40 ◼   ► for a while.

01:32:41 ◼   ► This is sending notifications out for sales

01:32:44 ◼   ► and for other things that are against the App Store rules

01:32:47 ◼   ► has been a thing that's been happening forever.

01:32:51 ◼   ► And I think it's dumb that this is a rule

01:32:55 ◼   ► if it's not gonna be enforced.

01:32:57 ◼   ► And I think it's extra dumb that Apple is breaking it,

01:33:01 ◼   ► but it's also doing it for a good cause.

01:33:03 ◼   ► and if it's a rule that's not being enforced anyway,

01:33:06 ◼   ► then for Apple to break it with a tasteful message

01:33:08 ◼   ► for a good cause as a part of their App Store Red promotion

01:33:12 ◼   ► seems to be about as gentle a way

01:33:15 ◼   ► to break that rule as possible.

01:33:17 ◼   ► So I understand the frustration of developers

01:33:20 ◼   ► that the App Store rules aren't being followed

01:33:22 ◼   ► and aren't being enforced,

01:33:24 ◼   ► and maybe Apple should look at that,

01:33:26 ◼   ► but it's hard for me to get particularly angry about this.

01:33:29 ◼   ► If this was the only time,

01:33:30 ◼   ► if apps had been pulled from the store

01:33:32 ◼   ► and nobody had ever, ever sent a notification

01:33:35 ◼   ► that violated those rules at all.

01:33:37 ◼   ► And then this was the first time,

01:33:38 ◼   ► even then I would probably be like,

01:33:40 ◼   ► "Eh, you know, it's for a good cause, it's fine."

01:33:42 ◼   ► It's hard for me to get worked up.

01:33:43 ◼   ► I understand that a developer who has to go back and forth

01:33:46 ◼   ► with Apple about App Store rules would be mad

01:33:48 ◼   ► when Apple's own apps violate some of the rules.

01:33:50 ◼   ► I understand that, but you know,

01:33:53 ◼   ► it's hard for me to get particularly upset about it.

01:33:56 ◼   ► App Store rules should be clear

01:33:59 ◼   ► and I think it's great that Apple

01:34:01 ◼   ► was so involved in the RED project this year.

01:34:06 ◼   ► So, you know, shrug.

01:34:07 ◼   ► - It's pretty much how I feel.

01:34:10 ◼   ► Like, yeah, it sucks that they sent out a notification,

01:34:14 ◼   ► but they did it for a good thing.

01:34:16 ◼   ► And also, I mean, the only reason it sucks

01:34:18 ◼   ► is because of the rule.

01:34:19 ◼   ► If the rule isn't there, it wouldn't even matter.

01:34:20 ◼   ► So maybe I should just get rid of the rule

01:34:21 ◼   ► in the first place, but whatever.

01:34:24 ◼   ► But I do think that it should, you know,

01:34:28 ◼   ► if you can overlook it, you should overlook it

01:34:30 ◼   ► because it was kind of for a good reason.

01:34:32 ◼   ► - And we have time for one more comment,

01:34:35 ◼   ► which I promise will be very quick.

01:34:37 ◼   ► This is from Jim in Tonic.

01:34:38 ◼   ► And he says, "I'm flying tomorrow for work.

01:34:42 ◼   ► What are your preferred technologies for air travel

01:34:45 ◼   ► and or travel altogether?"

01:34:47 ◼   ► And I'm gonna keep this simple, airplanes.

01:34:50 ◼   ► Airplanes are my preferred technology for air travel.

01:34:53 ◼   ► Zeppelin's would be a second, but airplanes are,

01:34:56 ◼   ► I generally go with airplanes for air travel.

01:34:59 ◼   ► - Not 100% sure if that's what he was getting at.

01:35:04 ◼   ► So...

01:35:07 ◼   ► - I don't know what else it could mean.

01:35:09 ◼   ► - Whilst I agree with Jason, I also like airplanes.

01:35:14 ◼   ► I think a couple of things for me that I would suggest,

01:35:17 ◼   ► I use Evernote to keep all of my travel documents in.

01:35:21 ◼   ► I use an app called, I think called Flight Track 5

01:35:26 ◼   ► or something again.

01:35:27 ◼   ► - Oh yeah, Flight Track, I use that.

01:35:28 ◼   ► I'll put that in the show notes so you can,

01:35:30 ◼   ► you know, just as a good way to track my flying planes.

01:35:35 ◼   ► I don't know what to say.

01:35:38 ◼   ► And I could say headphones.

01:35:39 ◼   ► - I have Passbook now.

01:35:40 ◼   ► I use Passbook or the Photos app sometimes

01:35:44 ◼   ► if it's a, here's your barcode on a webpage.

01:35:47 ◼   ► I'll take a screenshot of it so I make sure

01:35:49 ◼   ► that I don't have to load the webpage

01:35:51 ◼   ► when I get to the airport.

01:35:52 ◼   ► - I'm a big fan of Passbook when I'm traveling,

01:35:56 ◼   ► when it works, when the airline allows you to use it.

01:35:59 ◼   ► Makes me very happy, Jason.

01:36:01 ◼   ► - And these in-ear headphones that I mentioned earlier,

01:36:03 ◼   ► those are great on an airplane.

01:36:05 ◼   ► - Yes.

01:36:06 ◼   ► - Those are great on an airplane.

01:36:07 ◼   ► They just block out the airplane sound.

01:36:09 ◼   ► - You should 100% be using a set of in-ear

01:36:13 ◼   ► or any kind of over-ear, just good headphones

01:36:16 ◼   ► when you're on a plane, I think is quite important.

01:36:19 ◼   ► And it's why I have my unidentified Bose headphones for that.

01:36:23 ◼   ► - I hope, anyway, Jim,

01:36:25 ◼   ► I hope you're flying on a jet airplane tomorrow, because that's the best. Good luck.

01:36:29 ◼   ► Good luck. I once flew on a propeller airplane and I was very scared by the whole situation.

01:36:37 ◼   ► My dad actually had a plane for a little while, a propeller plane. Well, that demystifies

01:36:44 ◼   ► a lot of flying when you realize that. I don't know how my mother allowed him to spend any

01:36:48 ◼   ► money on something like that and then eventually he sold it. But he was a private pilot and

01:36:53 ◼   ► flew to the little tiny airports in this little tiny airplane and it was a kind

01:36:57 ◼   ► of scary but then we did we took a commercial flight that was a prop plane

01:37:01 ◼   ► in Florida once and I was like what have we gotten ourselves into so very slow

01:37:06 ◼   ► flight very slow scary okie-dokie we haven't even gotten to all of our

01:37:12 ◼   ► questions but we'll save some for next time too late if you'd like to find this

01:37:15 ◼   ► show in a six episode you want to point your web browser of choice at relay.fm

01:37:20 ◼   ► slash upgrades slash 12. My name is Myke Hurley I'm @imicontwitter I am YKE and my

01:37:28 ◼   ► illustrious co-host Mr. Jason Snell is @jsnell on Twitter that's J S N E double L

01:37:34 ◼   ► and he writes at the fantastic sixcolors.com. We'll be back next time with

01:37:39 ◼   ► another episode of Upgrade. Thanks again to our friends Hover, Dash and Mailerout.

01:37:45 ◼   ► Till then, goodbye.

01:37:47 ◼   ► Goodbye.

01:37:49 ◼   ► [MUSIC PLAYING]

01:37:53 ◼   ► [Music]

01:37:55 ◼   ► [ Silence ]