H.I. No. 26: Brady Had Dinner With Darth Vader

"H.I. #26: Brady Had Dinner With Darth Vader" is the 26th episode of Hello Internet, released on December 12, 2014.
==Official Description==
Grey and Brady discuss podcast technical problems (exciting!), Norwegian design aesthetics, reasons for Dulles Airport's horrors, Hello Internet on Patreon, the Commonwealth of Nations, selfies, Brady in India, the Kindle Voyage and Amazon losing their mind, and the Star Wars trailer.
==Show Notes==
*Discuss this episode
*Definitely not CGP Grey, but the guy who picked up on FaceTime
*Flowchart of HI 25 #1
*Flowchart of HI 25 #2
*Hello Internet Animated #5
*Wreckage redaction
*Norway passport
*Norway money
*Best and worst airports
*coolmandan03 on Dulles Airport
*Dulles Airport tank/AT-AT/bus transport hybrids
*Burgh Island
*Dulles Airport mobile lounge video
*Hello Internet discusses Black Mirror
*Hello Internet T-shirts
*Hello Internet on Patreon
*Commonwealth Science Conference 2014
*Martyn Poliakoff
*The Commonwealth of Nations
*'First' use of selfie
*C. V. Raman
*Raman's Nobel Prize (and walking stick)
*Grey's Kindle Voyage Review
*Amazon Echo promotional video
*Apple introduces Siri
*Star Wars: The Force Awakens
*Fake Star Wars Trailer
*Star Wars cast photo
*Brady having dinner with Darth Vader
Oh my god, I feel like we should just stop. We've been trying for 35 minutes to get this thing to work, to get a connection between the two of us. And we've had one set of broken headphones, internet problems, echo problems, and apparently an Indian dude in between the two of us. Starting this recording was more difficult than the first one we ever did. Yeah, by far, by a lot. We have been beset with technical problems to not. Yes, we have. And there is nothing more interesting than podcasts talking about their technical problems getting started. However, you trying to call me and pressing the same button several times in a row, but getting some stranger is an interesting new technical problem. And I would love to know if any of the listeners have had this because yes, I am wondering now like, has someone tried to hack my account or does FaceTime just for the laws occasionally send you to random stranger? But it sent me to the same guy twice in a row. And like the third time I then got you using the same thing. So that was... I think there's a ghost in the machine, man. There's voodoo witchcraft going on here. Yeah, maybe, maybe. Should we just start and see what happens? I don't know if halfway through this podcast, I'm suddenly going to find myself talking to that other bloke. That might be good. He might be really interesting. He might be. He might be. All right, here we go. Well, he is, he is Braille and CGP Gray. And if a voice changes halfway through, it means we've changed midstream. I'm all, I'm all. Last now, I have to open up the thing. You're very flustered. You're very flustered tonight. I am. I'm very flustered. If people had seen our last half hour, which was mostly us looking at each other on video and not being able to hear each other. That was quite... It was thrilling. Absolutely. We were kind of just like two cavemen, like banging on the screen with a bone or something, trying to make it work. Even you couldn't make it work. The funny thing was, I was like, oh my goodness, for the first time ever, it's gray that can't work, that technology, and I'm Mr. Cool. And finally, at the end of 20 minutes, we realized it was my mistake and my headphones had stopped working. And you were convinced, because I think my headphones stopped working at the exact moment, you happened to mute yourself for some other reason. So you thought you weren't coming out of mute when in fact you were, and it was my fault. All right, all right. Okay, so let's try to do some follow-up like normal people. Flow charts. Flow charts. Okay, so I just wanted to give a shout out to a couple of people in the Reddit, made these flow charts of our conversation for the previous episode. And as one might imagine, who's listened to many of these episodes, our conversations can occasionally be, shall we say, meandering. They can loop back around. They can visit a topic many times, then return to something else. And to very patient, very diligent editors have detailed all of the various flows of the conversation and all of the various loops. So I'm going to put those two links in the show notes. And maybe nobody else is interested in this. But I actually find them quite interesting to look at and to see what happens if you try to map on a screen the direction that a conversation takes over time. You say meandering. I say textured and rich and complex. Yeah, is that what you're saying? Yeah. Also, I did note that H.I. animated made its comeback this week. There was the fifth installment of Dobsky's interesting take on snippets of our meandering conversations. No, Dobsky's done another amazing job with those animations. I really like his work. I'm very happy to see them when they come in. And so yes, I will definitely put a link in the show notes as well. People should check those out. If you haven't seen them already, I really quite like them. They're getting kind of darker on twist to that, like right? In a good way, but every time it's getting a bit weirder. And I realize there's lots of in jokes I don't get to because I'm not very cool with my internet culture, but they certainly change the context of things a bit. I think Dobsky has a style and I think he's doing well with that style. But yeah, so people should check it out. So that will be in the show notes. Cool. Okay, so last time, last time you told me about the airlines trying to paint over their logos when a plane crash has occurred or otherwise trying to obscure their logos. And you asked, or I think we asked people to try to come up with a term for this. And I'm going to say that pure Felix in the Reddit was the winner of this one. And he calls it wreckage redaction. I think that's a good phrase. And it is also what I was looking for, generalizable beyond just airplanes. And so he's saying like, oh, wreckage, you can think about this in metaphorical terms of any kind of disaster that a company has gone through. They try to cover up any of the wreckage so that you don't know that it was them. So I like this as the proposed term for this thing. I'm on board with that one too, mate. That's good. Oh, good. We're both behind it. The thing I like about it, because last week, not last week, but last episode, you said brand reduction. Yeah. And I thought using, I thought that just made it sound bland and boring and corporate, but wreckage is such an emotive word that I think wreckage reduction. And obviously it's also got the alliteration. So well done. Well done. It's absolutely perfect. We are both in agreement on this. So I quite like this one. And a small point was again, a little conversation in the Reddit was about the legality of this. And it looks like at least in the United States, it's pretty clearly legal that it would fall under the category of evidence tampering. It was the conclusion that seemed to come to it. That the, I don't know if I'll be able to find the link off hand, but it seemed like as soon as there is any kind of accident, the wreckage becomes the immediate property of the government to do an investigation on this. Okay. So any kind of manipulation of that is evidence tampering. So at least in the US, it looks like on paper anyway, this would not be a legal thing. That really seems to me though that they're using the evidence tampering law, not in the spirit that the evidence tampering law is intended, because they're not really tampering with evidence for its evidential value. They're tampering with it for a different reason. And I don't think they're not going to figure out how the plane crashed because you know, tie airways logo has a bit of black paint on it. But I think they're doing is taking something that's clearly dodgy and bad anyway, and they're using a different law to say it's illegal. You don't know, man. You don't know what's underneath that paint. The investigators could be going all CSI on that, but you know, oh, some dude with the paintbrush was stomping around and breaking stuff with his boots and you know, covering up that vital piece of whatever with the paint. I'm going to have a completely disagree with you here. I think it is totally evidence tampering. Okay. Well, I think what they're doing is wrong. And if they use the evidence tampering law to stop them then fair enough. But I don't think it's evidence tampering. And from what I've seen of plane crash sites, it's not like a typical murder scene where you've got to be careful about where you put your boot prints because it could, you know, these plane crash sites is not like a, you know, I was going to try to use the Brady metaphor argument where you would say something to me like, oh, would it be okay if somebody came in and painted over the corpse? This is the kind of question that you would ask me if I was arguing on the other side, but you beat me to it. Hmm. Okay. You're unconvinced, though. I don't think it's a spirit of the law, but whatever. They're doing something dodgy. So if that's how we can stop them, let's do it. What else we got? We've got a whole bunch of Norway stuff here. Yeah, two Norway things. I don't know if you can open those links easily. Oh, yes, I have, I've already opened one of them. You have sent me a link to a Norwegian passport. And this has CGP Grey written all over it. I don't know how you can presume such a thing, but I'll be on wrong. But yes, last time I discussed the US passports and the Irish passports and their various designs and about a million people sent me the links to the new Norwegian passport. You are correct. I love this. Way to go, Norway. The front cover is very simple. It looks like it's mostly just a color. It says Norway on it and there's a little cracks in the top left. But the thing that I think is really the centerpiece of this is the page for the stamps. And they have a very nice, simple diagram of the water and the mountains. The mountains are done in a very angular style and the moon is over it. But it's almost like for the video gamers among you. This is, it almost looks like what's called low poly artwork. We're using very few polygons to draw something. That's kind of what it looks like. But most importantly, this is a page that accomplishes what I think a passport page is supposed to. It looks good and stamps will look clear on it. And easy to forge. You don't know that it's easy to forge. I don't know that at all. Particularly because that second picture is what the same scene looks like if you shine a UV light on it. And so if you shine a UV light on this, it makes it look like it is nighttime. And so the moon starts to glow. There's an aurora in the sky. And it looks like there's a whole bunch of anti-fraud information, including the passport number maybe below. So I don't think that it's easy to draw. That is always being flipped. It is very cool possible. It kind of looks like it's from the 60s or the 70s or something. Yeah, it's almost like it's retro futuristic. Which I think if you can pull that off, that is one of the coolest looks that you can possibly have. Like movies that pull off the, oh, it's the 1950s, but actually it's the 2050s thing. It's very hard to do well, but if you can do it well, it looks great. Like Gettaker sort of thing. Yeah. And I think basically Norway has really hit that sweet spot. Big thumbs up to Norway on the passports. Do you have the second link? I haven't. No, let me call up the second link. I'm calling it up now. So passports was a winner. What's this here? Let's have a look. This is Norwegian money. Yes. Okay, so now, what are your thoughts on this Norwegian money? Or do you want to try to explain it to listeners, actually, is what you should do at first? Is this for real? Is this what? I will tell you that this is for real. Okay, so basically on the front side of the currency, it has quite a nice looking normal money. Reminds me a little bit of sort of this sort of euro currency. And it's design and appearance in many ways. Quite good. And then on the other side, it's kind of been, it's the exact same image, except it's been kind of pixelated or Minecrafted or made all blocky. And I don't know why they do this on the purposes. It's really. So on one side, it's like a really normal detailed image. And on the other side, it's this kind of redacted version, almost. What's going on here? Yeah, it is almost redacted. I think this is really interesting. One thing I do quite like about the front side of the Norwegian money is that they haven't gone with the terribly boring people from history route that so much money does. Or instead, they have a lighthouse. They have a very, they have a very Viking looking ship. Right, they have a fish. They have the ocean. I'm a big fan of all of these designs on the front. And yes, on the backside, they have pixelated it. And it is very strange to look at. Is this to make it computer readable or something? What's going on here? As far as I can tell, I was just trying to Google around a little bit. This is just a design decision. This is just to make it interesting looking. And this is again, this is one of these things in design. I never quite can put this into words very well. But it's like, I will give Norway a thumbs up for a bold decision on the back. And I don't know if I like this. I kind of think that I don't. But I applaud doing something different. You know, my thoughts are, I feel the same way as you. I'm not quite sure what I think, but I lean towards not liking it as well. But the thing that amazes me was this got through all the levels of approval and politicians and administrators and all the things this would have had to have gotten through to become real. It got through. At no point did someone say, yeah, that's really clever, but no. It just kept getting a yes until they were printing the things. Presumably they are printing these or is this some concept design or something? My understanding is that this is the next round of currency. They have not yet been printed, but these are the finalised designs. I think someone's going to pull the plug at the last minute now. Oh yeah, you think it's not going to make it? I think someone will hear our podcast and go, no, great, doesn't like it. I'm not saying I don't like it. I would take this over most currency designs that I see because they just tend to be really boring. Yeah, just snooze fasts. So this is at very least it is interesting. I feel like I would totally give it the benefit of the doubt. If I saw it on a regular basis, I think this might kind of move into Maryland flag territory. If I could decide, you know what? I really like this. Even though it's not that great on first appearance. But I applaud the boldness in design. So well done, Norway. I think your money is interesting and worthy of discussion unlike many countries' money, which is just totally boring. That is the Norway stuff. Now we're going back to your favourite airport in the world, are we? Yes. Dulles Airport. Dulles, what does Dulles even mean? What is that word? I believe it's an old Indian word for a terrible airport. No, it's the Dulles Airport. It means terrible airport airport. It is the literal translation. All right. What if you say, in the last podcast, you bemoaned how this was the worst airport in the world because the temperature wasn't quite right. Oh, you don't do, you've been trying to finish my question. And the ceiling was a little bit lower than you'd not prefer? No, it's not just a little bit. The ceiling is barely above my head. So first of all, there is an article which was a survey of people about the best and worst airports. And Dulles didn't come in as the worst airport, but it did take the third worst airport category. Hang on, you've put the list here in the notes. I'm going to look at this list. You've got, you've picked my curiosity. Yeah, there you go. I'm calling it up for you. So while you're loading that up, the three worst airports, according to the survey, the worst is New York LaGuardia Airport, which I have traveled through. It is not a great airport. Is it worse than Dulles? I don't know. I think I'd have to go back and do a comparison. But it's pretty bad. Second worst is Newark Liberty International, which I have never been to. But as a New Yorker, I am required to think that everything in New Jersey is terrible. So I'm just going to assume that their airport is terrible as well. And then third worst is Washington, Dulles. These are all American airports, by the way, people, just so you're aware. Oh no, they've got Canadian ones too. Yeah, it's North America. Okay. Because the best airport, according to the survey, is Vancouver International. So Canada takes it there. Second best, Portland, Oregon, International, and third best is Austin's Airport. I bet you like this website too, because they've done the graphics in that kind of clicky-clacky board style that you like. Indeed they have. Yes, you noticed that I am a big fan. And if you noticed, if you scroll, it does a pretend clicky-clacky thing. Yeah. If you scroll fast enough. So well done business week on this website about frustrating airports. But so basically, I'm not wrong. The Dulles is the worst airport in the world. Anyway, the thing that I wanted to mention, which I actually found very interesting, was there's a civil engineer who worked in airport planning, who commented on the last Reddit guy called Cool Man Dan 03. Thank you, Cool Man Dan, who left a big discussion about why the Dulles airport is so bad. He left an extensive comment, that is for sure. Yeah, it is very extensive. It is very interesting. And then it started me down a kind of Wikipedia rabbit hole about Dulles airport. And I just found out some more about some of the things that he mentioned. But the most interesting thing is people who go to Dulles. If you ever have to change terminals, it is a unique experience. Because I don't quite know how to describe these things. But in a normal airport, there would be some sort of underground tunnel, or perhaps a little tram. No. At Dulles, they have these things that are like tanks maybe cross-bred with AT-ATs, that are these just huge, mobile, ugly industrial buses. Dude, you're making me want to go there if I'm going to get to ride an AT-AT, or an AT-AT as I would call it. Yeah, it's not nearly that cool. Basically, they're elevated buses at the level of the terminal. And they pull right up to the terminal, and there's a docking port for them. And they shove everybody in like a bunch of sardines. And then this thing drives across all of the space where the airports are. Or sorry, it drives across the space where the airplanes are. It drives across a runway or something. I don't know exactly. And takes you to this other terminal. How high are they high off the ground then? How high off the ground are they? Yeah, they are at airplane boarding height. How are they touching the ground? What do they drive on? Sounds bizarre. They're very strange. Oh, yeah, that is kind of... Yeah, it looks like a humvee or something, they get away. That's why I say it's bizarre. The experience of riding in one, what it made me think of, is the opening scene to saving private Ryan and D-Day. Yeah. Because they load you in at the back, and then it pulls into the terminal, and it's like that front flap just falls forward and everybody has to rush out. It's like, oh, are Nazis going to shoot me? Right, as soon as this thing opens up, it's just like, it is such a terrible, terrible experience these things. They're just bizarre, and they are... They seem unique to dollars. I've never seen them anywhere. Do you know what they remind me of? They remind me of something I've been on that's much more pleasant at a place called Berg Island down in the southwest of England here. There's a little quaint island with a hotel on it where you can go and stay in Agatha Christie used to write books there, and it's kind of this art deco place. But to get over when it's high tide, you can walk over at low tide, but when it's high tide, it kind of gets cut off from the mainland. And they have this little tractor on wheels with like, it's a platform, and you stand up on the platform, and the rest of the tractor, like goes underwater, and you're just standing on this platform that's above the water. And that's actually really lovely because it's just 5 or 6 if you want it, and you're going to a lovely art deco hotel. But this is kind of the bad version of it that you're sharing here. Yeah, it's like you're on a cattle car between airport terminals. It's just terrible. Okay, but so here's the thing. It's like these things are just terrible. But as with everything in the universe, stuff just doesn't happen for no reason. Somebody wasn't just like, hey, I know, let's try to come up with a terrible way to transport people from one terminal to another. So in my Wikipedia rabbit holeing here, I came across this video, which is kind of worth watching. And it is the video promoting what Dulles airport is going to be back in the, I think it's like the early 60s. Is this video? And okay, so this is almost going to be hard to describe. But so what they're very concerned about is boy, aren't airports getting big and don't people have to walk a tremendous amount of distance? And how can we come up with some new system so people don't have to walk as much to get to their airplanes? And so here was the idea. They said, okay, okay. Instead of having these long, long corridors and the planes are lined up at each of the, and the planes are lined up along these corridors, what we're going to do is instead, we're just going to kind of have one big gathering area for all of the passengers who want to get on planes. And we're going to make these things that are called mobile lounges. And the idea is that there's just going to be this whole big docking station. So however many terminals the airplane, however many gates the airport would have, say it was going to have 20 gates, there would just be on one wall of the main area, 20 doors that you can walk through. And each of these mobile lounges on wheels are going to pull up to one of those doors, and it'll just tell you which door to go through to get to your plane. And the idea is everybody boards onto this mobile lounge, which is then, since it's at plain height, going to drive directly to the plane, dock with the plane, and just dump people on there. Right? And when you watch the video, it's like, that's actually kind of a genius idea. This could totally work. And it is also hilarious because the video talks about how absolutely luxurious these things are going to be. And it's like, yes, but I have ridden it. What? Right? It's like, this is awful. I know what is what, like the shape of things to come. But in the meantime, it's showing this cartoon guy who's like, you know, lounging on this couch, you know, it just, it looks, it looks almost comical in the video. But so, but so it's like, this is an interesting idea to have a row of basically buses that can dock directly with airplanes and drop people off. And then you can restructure the whole way the airport is set up and it can be much smaller and people have to move around less. So like, ah, this is an interesting idea. And so they started to build dullest like this. But apparently the problem is that this is just before the era of when planes became much bigger. And also some rule changes came in with deregulation that allowed, ah, basically airliners to change the way they manage their roots. And so like, just as they were building this thing, it sort of became obsolete. And then for unknown reasons, they kind of double down at dullest, I'm like, oh, we're going to build another really long terminal that is also for planes that are like a generation too old and that are way too small. And so the bottom line is like, it was a really interesting idea at exactly the wrong time. And then to try to fix it, they thought, oh, we can double capacity at this airport. But the thing that you need is spaces for way bigger planes. You don't need more space for smaller planes. And so this leads us to today where I found a couple of other articles just talking about how like all of the air traffic at dullest is going down and nobody likes to use it. And it's awful. And like the whole airport is just in jeopardy and they just spent a billion and a half dollars trying to make a train to it. It just looks like the whole place is a nightmare. But anyway, I just thought that this this mobile lounge notion is an interesting logistics solution to moving people around at an airport that was just at the wrong time. And I love the idea that these horrible, horrible transports are actually still called mobile lounges. So it's a bit like, it's a bit like an English town or something that's built for horse and carts and then cars are being invented. And the town plan is going, I'm sticking with, I'm sticking with building for horses. I think they're going to study in fashion. Yeah, it's a bit like they realize, oh, people can travel all around more because of all of these cars. So we better double the number of horse-sized roads that we hear because people are going to come here and they're going to need to get around in our town. It's like, oh no, now it's just twice as bad as if you just left it alone. So that's kind of what it's like. But anyway, I thought this was very interesting. I'll put the video in the show notes. It is also just worth watching is like a little piece of history. It's just, it's very strange to see something that is that old and talking about something you know turns out to be a total disaster. All together, how many human minutes would you guess you spent reading about this airport and researching how bad it was and all its problems? Less than an hour. Less than an hour. No. I've spent more than an hour on it. I don't even care. I read very fast and airports, despite the fact that I've just been talking about them for about half an hour, are not hugely interesting to me. I'm much more of a trained person than a plain person, but so yeah, I didn't get as lost as I might otherwise. All right. Okay. I think that's good enough for now. Do you want to tell the next item? Yep. Black Mirror is being released on Netflix in the US. You couldn't sound any less enthusiastic about it. I am enthusiastic about it. You and I both adore this show and when we talked about it and asked people to watch it for homework so we could talk about it even more, all of our US friends complained that they could not watch it in a legal fashion on their continent and this appears to now have been remedied and you can watch it on Netflix and you should definitely. And also, I see they're going to have a white Christmas special here in the UK. So we'll get another dose of new Black Mirror as well. So it's win-win on both sides of the Atlantic. Black Mirror on Netflix. Go watch it if you haven't. I wonder if there are any people that haven't listened to our Black Mirror discussion on whatever episode it was on because they couldn't watch the show and they will now have access to it. So I wonder if we're going to get a big spike in listeners to that podcast as well. I'll go check the downloads data and see if they move significantly. You let me know. Speaking of our podcast, we should mention that because people are really great, like they're always saying nice things and saying they enjoy listening and they've supporting our advertisers and they are buying the HIT shirts, which is interesting. Quite a few people have been saying they've been wearing the HIT shirt and random people just do come up and say hello to them as you predicted. Excellent. But we have something else to announce and I guess it's, are we going to do it like it's an ad because we're like advertising ourselves now? Should we do it like an ad format for this? Yeah, I guess we should totally do it. So we do like a sound. I can't even think what the sound is when an ad happens. Now I'm going to require you to make the sound. I imagine this guy's like tingling, tingling, tingling, no, no, no, I see that now you're just reaching too far. Your first one, your first one was good. Was that right? How would you say it goes? You're the one who actually works with it and listens to it. Can you do it off the top of your head? Wait, wait, I'll take a foot in the mirror. Now you're putting me on the spot because do do it, right? I think that's a doodly dude. So with the doodly dude taking care of here is our ad. This episode of Hello Internet has been brought to you by CGP Gray and Brady who now have a capacity for you to help support our podcast by doing something on Patreon. No, no, you've got to start off. That was terrible. What should I have? This podcast has been brought to you by you. Isn't that much better? See how clever this is? We're getting really meta here because maybe we'll leave this conversation in about us trying to figure out how to talk about this. And then what do we say? Because I mean, we can't just leave it at that. No, that's it. Then then closing sounds go bit of a dupe, right? And it's over. Okay. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, people will figure it out. So, so if people go to what's the address is patreon.com slash it's patreon.com slash hello internet. Yep. And we have set up a patreon account. So some very generous people have asked if they can donate directly to the podcast. And so we have set that up. And we just we had an announcement. We've been keeping it kind of on the down low. But we thought we should mention it at some point. So this is us awkwardly trying to figure out how to talk about these kinds of things. So our our patreon is available. I think I think describing that as awkward was generous. Well, it all depends on the editing now, doesn't it, Brady? Well, yeah. But thank you to anyone who has or does support us in that way. But it will not affect the podcast, which is, you know, business as usual. Free for all. Yes, that's that's always the thing. We're not locking up parts of the podcast. No, no, no, no, this is, you know, this is just a total like cherry on top kind of thing. If you really like the show and you want to chip us a buck or something for the show, then it's there. It's an option. And we would very much appreciate it. But it is by no means mandatory. Do you think we should have some mechanism whereby I have someone like particularly likes me, but doesn't want any money to go to you like your parents, for example, we should have like some capacity for that or should we just keep it sort of even? I don't I don't think that I don't think patreon I don't think that's built into their system to say. Okay, just split the money between just the two of us. He's 10 bucks and I want gray to get nine. That would be really mean if they were that it would become bit of a popularity contest. And I think the result might upset me. So let's not do that. I think the result would have said, everybody loves breeding. So I'm glad that that is not that is not part of it. Okay, now we can do the closing sound. Okay, now after that amazing stellar ad read patreon.com slash I've forgotten already. Hello internet or hello internet FM's hello internet is it brilliant? It's patreon.com slash hello internet. And we're back. Well, I wonder how that ad went. I hope it was polished and professional and thank you for listening to everybody. This is our really professional day, isn't it? This is 40 minutes to try to get a decent connection up and running. Yeah, then a very, very amateur ad. I'm not sure this has been the podcasting which it was appropriate for us to ask for support from our listeners. But this is the way things have turned out. I saw something on Twitter during the week that shocked me. Oh yeah, a guy I follow called CGP Gray said something along the lines of the fact that he has a Christmas tree. Yes, of all the people in the world of all the people that would not have a Christmas tree, you would have been top of my list. Hater of objects, person who does not like clutter, trinkets, mess, who pretty much is a bit of a scrooge. Oh, okay. Now you have a Christmas tree. Yes. First, scrooge. I don't know. That seems a little far to me. Secondly, I don't understand. Why is this so surprising? Christmas is nice. You don't like objects and clutter and ornamental things. You like things to be functional. What function does a Christmas tree serve in your house? What does it look like? What do you put on it? Explain. I don't see why this is so confusing. First of all, Christmas tree is a temporary thing. It doesn't stay in your house all year long. So changing stuff up is nice. It's nice to have things different. Yes, even though for the rest of the year, I might want my house to be relatively minimal. It's nice during the holidays to put up a Christmas tree, even if it doesn't serve any function, or perhaps precisely because it doesn't serve any function. Although it does smell very nice, it is actually a living tree, believe it or not. It's not even a plastic tree or anything. What's kind of a living tree? It hasn't got its roots in the soil anymore presumably. Yeah, I mean, technically it's a dying tree. It's on the way. Yeah. Every Christmas tree is a dying tree. So basically you just spend a few weeks watching a living thing die before your eyes. Yeah, that's pretty much it. That's what Christmas is. What's your decoration style? What's the plan of attack for you and Mrs. Gray when trimming your tree? Well, okay, so ideally what we would like to do, and I think it'll work out this year, but I find this podcast has gone up. It'll have already occurred. We would like to decorate on December 5th. Half of my family background is Dutch, so St. Nicholas Day is kind of a big deal there. I think that's also just a kind of nice, you need some arbitrary starting point. And so I think that is a nice starting point for like the official beginning of the Christmas season. I mean, of course, in the real world, it ends like seconds after Thanksgiving is over, you know, particularly in America, like Christmas decorations just go up immediately. But I think in the gray household, December 5th is the starting point. So that's when we will decorate. You know, there's the usual stuff you put up tinsel, you put bubbles on the tree. I think we have to get a new star this year. I think our star last year didn't work out very well. So it's nothing exciting. Do you go for like a dense, dense decoration or kind of a bit more sparse? I guess should I just send you a picture of my Christmas tree when it's done? Would you like that? I don't even know how to describe it. I would definitely like that. Who takes the lead role on design issues? Because I imagine in my head, you're the fuzzier person in the house, but I will arrange the lights because you have to arrange the lights in a particular way. If they're not even, it just it stares you in the face because it's in the main room of our house. So if you don't get the lights evenly distributed, it's no good. Why can't you? Why do that? We can both work on it together, which is what we do. You made it pretty clear then that you do the lights. We both do the lights, but sometimes the lights are not to my liking. So they need to be rearranged. But we both put up together. It's like a fun family activity. We both decorate the Christmas tree. And sometimes I rearrange stuff. Sometimes my wife rearrangees stuff, believe it or not. I just honestly don't see why this is so surprising. Well, okay. There you go. I stand corrected. I will take a picture of our totally normal, probably slightly boring Christmas tree. I'm coming to London in a week or two, so I expect to see the Christmas tree. Am I inviting you over to my house? I don't remember this. I think that's pretty much what just happened. I don't think that's what happened. I think if you play it back, you'll just die. Don't play it back. Just show me your Christmas tree. And I will bring a decoration to put on it because it's the only way I'll ever get something into your house by the centre. Now this is starting to cross some lines. We need to discuss boundaries. And when you're not looking, I'll just move a few lights to the left. Decoration gifts. That's an obligation that you're imposing on the other person. No, I don't know. I'm buying somebody else clothing or some kind of decoration for the house. It's no good. You can't do that. No good at all. All right. I will send you a nice picture. So last time we spoke, I was trying to get into India. Oh yeah, yeah. Everybody wants to know. Did you make it to India? I did make it into India. How did you end up? Because you didn't have the right number of days. Did you get strings pulled for you because you're an important? I am. Chemistry, video guy. There aren't many things I'm good at, but getting things like doing stuff like that, I'm quite good at figuring it out. It's kind of a a journalistic thing you develop over the years. Just figuring out how to get stuff done, getting to things. So I managed to find a way. And it didn't involve some elicit boardacrossing or anything. I did have a visa. So these sounds remarkably vague and I want more details. I think it sounds cooler if I just sort of make it sound like I, you know, it makes me sound a bit more James Bond if I leave it at that. Let's just say it. It totally sounds James Bond, but that's why I want to burst this bubble right now. I'm sure you don't, but I'm quite happy with this James Bond bubble. So I'm going to keep it. Let's just say I got in. Okay. Okay, you can have your James Bond moments. Thank you. The reason I went was for the Commonwealth Science Conference, which was a conference held in Bangalore with sort of scientists from all around the world came from Commonwealth countries. The main reason I was there was making a few videos, but I was helping Professor Martin Poliokov, who is the chemist in my chemistry videos. He's also the foreign secretary of the Royal Society, and one of his roles in that capacity was to make like the final speech at the end of the conference. And because he's got this kind of video reputation now, because of periodic videos, he quite liked the idea of showing a video at the end. And so I went along to help him make this video at the end, something he could show and, finish the conference nicely. Wait, wait, so you had to make a video about the conference while you were at the conference? Yes. Yes. So this is okay. This is an easy thing for me, obviously. You know, I'm a journalist, you know, and I had four or five days to do this. It was not a problem. So anyway, another, I had an idea at the last minute. So I suggested it to the professor, and he was on board with it. And what I said to him was, I think through the conference, through the four or five days of the conference, you should just take a whole bunch of selfies, just take selfies with everyone you make, everything you do, just go crazy. And then we'll turn that into a big montage and mashup video at the end of the conference. So that's what we did. But then I had to sort of, as a second idea, so it wasn't kind of this introspective here. We all are at the conference, a bunch of old famous scientists talking about science. I put out an appeal to people via, you know, videos and social media around the Commonwealth who do science, whether they're students or professional scientists, academics, commercial, whatever, to send me selfies of themselves, like in the lab or doing science. And we would make that part of this final video. So the video had one component, which was here we are at the conference, having a great time here at selfies. And there's a second component is, and meanwhile elsewhere in the Commonwealth, science is happening, you know, every minute, every day sort of thing. The sun never sets on the Commonwealth Science Empire. One of the more interesting things to me was people's reaction to being asked for photos from around the Commonwealth, which was very mixed. And I can't, and I haven't been able to fully interpret it, and you being Mr Geography and Commonwealth and Maps might be able to help me. Yeah, mixed how so. Well, first of all, some people were very angry. They felt excluded. I was accused of xenophobia by not accepting photos from everywhere. This to me seems crazy, because this was a Commonwealth science conference. So I think this is an example of a time where you can ask for just pictures from people from the Commonwealth. It would be crazy to then show pictures of people from the US and Mexico and Brazil when the whole purpose was that this was a sort of a celebration of science around the Commonwealth. Yeah, it would be like if America was having a science in all the states conference and people got angry because you're not accepting photographs from everywhere else in the world. So anyway, so I'm on your side with this award. Anyway, thank you for that. I also received an incredible number of pictures from people not in the Commonwealth clearly. And I don't know if this is because people just didn't pay attention. I thought it was an excuse to send me a selfie. They were trying to sort of circumvent the rules and get into the video knowing perfectly well. They're not in the Commonwealth. Or people just don't know what the Commonwealth is. And they just thought, I don't know what the Commonwealth is, but I'm probably in it. So he is Freddie from Belgium. And he thoughts on that, how famous is the Commonwealth outside the Commonwealth? I'm not sure how famous the Commonwealth is inside the Commonwealth. I think this is a bit of a problem. I would say at least in my experience, teaching English kids was there was a huge amount of confusion about the Commonwealth. No, really? Yeah. There was a ton of confusion, primarily about whether or not the United States was in or out or about just who was even in it at all. I would say kids had some sort of dim notion that it was the British Empire. But even then, it's a bit, I think it's a very unclear organization. So I am not the least bit surprised that lots of people would be genuinely confused about whether they are in or not in the Commonwealth. That's interesting to me. I mean, people outside the Commonwealth, I understand. And I've seen John Oliver's excellent video about the Commonwealth Games, which I highly recommend. And you can put it in the show notes before everyone tells us to watch it. But I'm surprised that people in the Commonwealth wouldn't know they're in it. And I think maybe this is betraying my Australian-ness for a minute here because obviously I'm Australian, I grew up in Australia. And Australians are obsessed with sport and winning sport things. And obviously the Commonwealth Games was a chance every four years for us to win a bunch of sport stuff. So the Commonwealth Games is a really big deal in Australia. And so this is like another version of the Olympics, but not as important. So because the Commonwealth Games are such a big deal, I think we sort of know what it is and who's in it and who we're going to be up against and what our chances of winning are because we're not going to have to beat this person because he's from America, but we will have to beat this person because he's from Scotland. So I think maybe Australians because of the Commonwealth Games and their obsession with sport are maybe more aware of it than some other commonwealth countries that are not as sport-centric. I'm just putting it out there. You're putting out the incredibly contentious statement that Australians are super into sport. And would therefore know all the nations they need to crush in the Commonwealth Games? Yeah, I don't think that's hugely content there. I think it seems quite likely that the average Australian might know way more commonwealth nations than a random citizen somewhere else in the Commonwealth. Oh, okay. I'm quite pleased with that because I came up with that idea. I would back that because of the sport connection. The Commonwealth of Nations is such a strange, what do you do exactly, organization? I was actually trying to find the Wikipedia summary. And you know how Wikipedia, they always have that first paragraph which tries to sum things up. And so here is the Wikipedia first paragraph for Commonwealth of Nations. The Commonwealth of Nations is an intergovernmental organization of 53 member states that were mostly territories of the former British Empire. The Commonwealth operates by intergovernmental consensus of the member states organized through the Commonwealth Secretariat and non-governmental organizations organized through the Commonwealth Foundation. That is as clear as it's going to get on what is it that the Commonwealth actually does. That's pretty, that's pretty dry. It gets worse as the article goes on longer. So it is a bit hard of like, what do you do Commonwealth? Nothing about sport. Not in that first paragraph. That's all the Commonwealth is. It's an excuse, and it's an excuse to have a sporting event every four years in which you're more likely to win medals than at the Olympics. Okay, Commonwealth games does not appear until the third paragraph. They may sing the boat there. But the thing is, according to this, the Commonwealth games are there to promote and enshrine the values in the Commonwealth Charter, which I'm sure you are well aware of since you are so into sports. I actually have a commonwealth charter tattooed on my inside left arm. Yeah, that's not figuring it. Australians are most into the Commonwealth games. You guys surely know the whole Commonwealth Charter by heart. I'm sure it's a riveting document. I'm sure it is as well. Riveting and very important and widely used. So I met Prince Andrew, who is the queen's third child, most famous probably for being married to Fergie and that. He has an unfair reputation. He's got these nicknames like AMI or Zandru and stuff because he travels around a lot as this business envoy. I think at Sunfare, I have a lot of respect for the guy. He goes to a lot of events that he doesn't have to go to for the good of his country and the Commonwealth. So I don't want to badmouth him. But he would not pose for a selfie. He actually said, I don't do selfies. So I got to hear him say selfie, but he wouldn't do one. But we did get some pictures and footage of him. So he helped us out and looking at all the speeches and things that man has to sit through and all the boring meetings he has to go to. You know, you can call him AMI or Andy or you want. He doesn't have to go to all those places. You have to think of the Royal family as diplomats. They're not like that. That is primarily what they are. They're like public relations and they're a kind of diplomat who can be a little bit above the day-to-day fray of goings-on in the political world. So like you said, boring, boring meetings and stuff. I could never ever get through alive. I would just fall asleep and not make it so. He is known for getting in above and above average number of rounds of golf when he does visit these places. He doesn't mind it. He doesn't mind it here of golf. So anyway, he's in the video, but he wouldn't do a selfie. He doesn't do selfies. I bet he's been asked loads of times. Yeah, I bet the frequency of that request is going up. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. He has to, you know, I think it's got to a point now where public figures have to have a selfie policy. This episode of Hello Internet is brought to you by a brand new sponsor, BrainTree. They provide the tools people need to build businesses and make it possible for companies all over the world to accept payments online and let customers make purchases easily. If you're a developer or product manager searching for the right payment API, check out BrainTree. It takes just minutes to integrate your payments with BrainTree and if you don't have minutes, just give them a call and they'll even handle the integration for you and walk you through it. With an actual live human person to talk to. The BrainTree code supports Android, iOS, and JavaScript clients and they support payments of all kinds. Apple Pay, Pay, Pal, major credit cards and debit cards, 130 global currencies and my personal favorite, Bitcoin. It's the most secure way to pay. BrainTree is known for their back-end security and merchant protection. Never worry about fraud if you ever get hacked. BrainTree has you covered. They use tokens and secure payment information so credit card info isn't passed on to the merchant server. BrainTree is the fastest, easiest, most secure way to pay period. It's no surprise that BrainTree is the payment API used by companies like Uber, Airbnb, Hotel Tonight, Living Social, and GitHub. BrainTree scaled with these companies from early stage startups to the successful companies they are today so BrainTree can scale with your business too. If you are searching for the right payment platform, check out BrainTree at BrainTreePayments.com slash podcast. That's BrainTreePayments.com slash podcast which I'll put in the show notes. There you can review their documentation, see that it's simple and concise. You can play around with their sandbox to give BrainTree a try with no commitment and test your integration before going to production. And after you integrate with BrainTree, the first $50,000 in transactions are free. So once again, that's BrainTreePayments.com slash podcast and we thank BrainTree for their support of Hello Internet. Speaking of selfies, I received a very interesting email from someone who watched some of my videos and therefore saw the request for selfies. But also tells me he's a big fan of Hello Internet. Let me call this up. This is from, I don't know if I'm supposed to say his name or not. His name is known but I'll just call him Hopi because that's what everyone knows he mess. Okay. If you look at it sufficiently anonymized him though, if you're trying not to say his name. Well, I mean, he's an anonymous. He is not anonymous as you're about to find out. When the word selfie was declared a word and won the word of the year last year and all that sort of thing, Hopi is the guy credited with first using it. Oh, okay. In a 2002 forum, he posted a picture of himself with kind of a cut lip. I think he'd had a drinking accident. Yeah, yeah, I think I've seen this. Yeah, and he put there here I am and I took a selfie and that is considered the defining moment and the creation of the word selfie and it's the thing everyone pins it to. Hopi got in touch and said, you can use myself if you want because you know, how I'm supposedly the guy who invented the word. I was really excited by this. Hello, Hopi. Hello, Hopi. But he went further. I basically, I got in touch and said we can't just leave it at the end. I want to know everything. And he took me quite literally and wrote me a really long email back telling the story of how it happened and what happened with the journalist afterwards and things like that. Hopi does not claim to have invented the word. He thinks it was just a word him and his mates used him was already in usage and he thinks it's ridiculous that it's attributed to him. He shares your attitude to the media and journalists. And I think that attitude was enhanced by his experience with being called the inventor of selfie. He said, like journalists were trying to contact his parents on Facebook and there was some ridiculous interviews and they'd start interviewing him and he'd say, well, I didn't really invent it. And then they'd try and keep the interview going for another three minutes or so. He had people investigating his past posts and trying to sort of analyze him and stuff like that. But basically, I think the thing I took away from what he took from it is that journalists are really lazy and the media is a bunch of rubbish. And I think that pretty much sums up your attitude to journalists as well. So you and Hopi have something in common. I can get along with the sentiment of that. Do you know what's funny though? Well, even though he makes it really clear that he didn't invent the word, he says, I don't think I coined the word. I might have, I guess, no one has contacted me claiming that they invented it. But it's such an obvious word whoever did invent it probably doesn't remember anyway. So that's what he says. So even though he doesn't claim to have invented it and he probably didn't, I still am calling him the guy that invented the word selfie for the sake of my anecdotes. And when I say, guess who emailed me and guess who listens to the podcast, the guy who invented the word selfie. Yeah, I think that's fair. I think that that's totally fair. I feel like what is it? In dictionaries, they have the, it's like the earliest known use of words you'll see sometimes. I feel like that that's what this is. The dictionary is not saying, oh, whatever example they have is the first time that word was ever spoken. They're saying, this is the first documented use of that word. And this is this is functionally the starting point of our history of the word. So he is the starting point for the history of selfie. Cool. I find it so funny because he wrote in one of the emails, oh my god, Brady emailed me. I'm a huge fan, especially the podcast. I'm going to have to humble brag at work about this. He could not be more excited than I am that he emailed me. I am the excited one here. All right. I'm right. Of the word selfie. Get a room you do. Not with those lips. Have you seen the picture? It's disgusting. Thanks, Hopi. And it's nice to hear from you. And big up for Australia, a member of the Commonwealth. Yes. There we go. Another thing that happened in India that was quite interesting. Have you heard of ramen spectroscopy? You probably have been a science teacher. Yes, I have. Yes. So this was obviously invented by an Indian scientist, ramen. And he spent much of his career in Bangalore and his institute is in Bangalore. And we went along and filmed there. So they said, come along. You can make a film. We've got a little, we've got like a little museum or collection. So we were really excited to see it. Thinking, are there going to be all these treasures from ramen's life? And we went there. And it was quite, it was a very impressive collection of minerals and rocks over three or four rooms that had been collected by ramen over the course of his life. But I have to admit, it wasn't more we expected. We were hoping for more to do with the man himself and to tell his story, not just his rock collection that he left behind. It didn't feel like really connected with him. But anyway, we thought, well, this is what we've got. Let's make the best of it. So we were making a video and the professor was going along and talking about some of the items of interest and why he collected this and why this piece of rock was interesting, etc, etc. And we'd finished up and we were just about to leave. And this guy, the curator, was a real rock hound and there's nothing he didn't know about rocks and showing this rock collection off was obviously, you know, it was a big deal to him. He really enjoyed it. And that's all he cared about. That's all he wanted us to see. And then just as we were leaving, there was like a stick in the corner of the room. It's like, weird stick. And I said, what's that stick over there? And he said, oh, that was ramen's walking stick that he used all his life. That was his personal walking stick and it got left behind and you know, that was like his trademark thing. And I was like, well, you never, why did you not tell us that? But to the rock guy, it didn't occur to us that this would be interesting. So we were like, show us the stick and we got to hold his walking stick. And I find walking sticks are really personal thing like when people have died and you hold their walking stick, more than almost anything. I find walking sticks are really interesting thing. So anyway, we got these walking stick. Well, thanks for that. That was an unexpected bonus. And then just as we were going to leave again, Martin turned around and said to him, what happened to ramen's Nobel Prize? He won. I think he won the 1930 Nobel Prize. What happened to his prize? And the guy said, oh, I've got that. I've got that in a cupboard in my office. Would you like to see that? After two hours of looking at rocks, we were like, we would like to see that. Thank you very much. So he went to this cupboard out of the back. This thing is not on display. He locks this cupboard out of public view and pulls out his gold Nobel Prize medal. And like the official certificate that he got given, you know, in Sweden with all the beautiful calligraphy, one of a kind piece of art. And he goes, there you go, there's his Nobel Prize. So it's so it's so this became clear. This was how we were going to have to conduct the rest of this filming. So we just had to kind of interrogate this guy to find what other treasures he had, like locked locked away that he didn't think were worthy of display. That he didn't think where it was nearly as interesting as rocks. Ramen had because he was obsessed with spectroscopy. He had this tiny little pocket spectroscopy, always kept in his coat, like a little handheld thing, like, you know, the size of a pack of a life savers or something, to look at flowers and things when he was walking around in gardens. Another really intimate object that he always had on him, they had that locked in a cupboard away from view, pulled it out. There he go. You can look at that too if you want. I don't know why you don't want to just look at more rocks, but it was a really good example of when someone's too much of an expert in something and has too much of a passion for one thing. They kind of, you know, what is it? Don't see the wood for the trees or whatever it is. Yeah. So I got to hold a Nobel Prize and I sent you a picture, didn't I? You did. You did. I said more glamorous than a gold button. Yes. I was impressed by your picture of you holding a Nobel Prize. Did it look good? It suits you. Thank you. I think I think it's a good look. So while I was holding Ramen's Nobel Prize medal, I understand you have, if you got your hands on a new kindle or something. I don't know if you actually want to bring this up. But what? Am I a boy? Because you're going to go crazy now. Because I have some thoughts on a kindle. First of all, how come you've got a new kindle now when Christmas is so close? Shouldn't this be like a Christmas present? Why? Well, because it gives your wife something to buy for you. She doesn't need to get me anything. I can get myself a kindle. It seems reasonable. Do you do Christmas presents? Yes, we do. I don't know how successfully we always do them. But we attempt to do Christmas presents. But yeah, I feel like there was a new kindle out. I wanted to see what it was like. And so I ordered it at the end. Tell me what's a code? Has it got some name? Is it like the ZX3000 or is it the kindle or is it called like some stupid name? Like the Kindle Blaze or Kindle? This is the one we were talking about a couple episodes ago, I think, which is called the Kindle. We'd have to think about it really hard. It is called the Kindle Voyage. Oh, yes. I always just want to call it the Voyage, or the kindle that we do talk about. Are we about to spend the next 20 minutes talking about text justification or? Okay, okay. I promise not to talk too much about text justification. I promise. Only the amount that it deserves, which is quite a lot. But no, again, this is slightly strange because we're recording this podcast a little bit early. And so I'm working on a review of this Kindle, which will probably be out before this podcast. So just look to listeners, no. But okay. I think I guess the thing that I want to highlight here is not the justification of text, which is terrible and still unfixed. People have heard enough about that. It's like if I kept talking about humble brags, at a certain point, people just don't want to hear about that. You know my opinion on the justification. But this, like I have this Kindle. And I swear, this device has single-handedly made me doubt the entire Amazon company. I take a look at this Kindle. And it's like, I don't know if Amazon is going to be around in a few years. This thing is so terrible combined with a bunch of other stuff about Amazon. It's like my whole world view on Amazon has completely changed. And there are many things that I don't like. But let me just, let me just try to narrow my focus to one thing. Okay. Okay. So here's the little thing. So on Kindles, many generations ago, they had this amazing feature, which was a button that you could press to turn the page. And they had buttons on either side and they made a satisfying click sound and all was good. Turning a page is a pretty, that's a pretty fundamental part of reading a book, too. Yeah. You might say it's a core feature for a reading experience. Yeah. It would be in the top five. Yeah. It's like, okay, okay. Number one, can you see the words? Okay. Yeah. It's like, it's gonna be the words, right? Okay. There we go. Okay. Well, now we need to wait a turn the page. So yeah, you're right. It's probably second. Yeah. It's second to be able to read for a reading experience. Yeah. So they had a satisfying little button press on a Kindle, which was great. And then it is nice to have something a bit tactile, even though everything's going, EE, EE, isn't that like? Oh, yeah. It completely is. And the selling point of the Kindle is like, hey, look, we're not trying to be a general-purpose tablet. We are a machine dedicated for reading books. And so we can have a little button on the side, whereas the iPad is never going to have a little button on the side. And this is like a competitive advantage. But then Amazon decided for inexplicable reasons. They said, hey, you know, those great buttons on the side that everybody loves, whichever review mentions as being a great experience. Yeah, we're gonna take those out. And instead, we're gonna give you a touch screen. Right. And it's like, oh, okay. That's awful. That was the last Kindle that I had. Because I don't understand this at all, but whatever. Okay. So the new Kindle is out, the Kindle Voyager. Let me guess on this one, you can't even see the words. Well, it's like, it is inches away from that, right? So okay. So here's what they said. Like, oh, I know people loved that page-turny thing. And everybody complained when we took it away. So let's give it back to people. But I know what we can do. Let's make a button better. And what we're gonna do is we're going to take the worst part of a button and combine it with the worst part of a touch screen and make a brand new input device on the bezel, which I don't even know what they call it. But here, here, imagine, here is the user experience for this. There's like these regions on the side of the Kindle that you're supposed to suppress to turn the page. So imagine taking your thumb and pressing it against a completely immobile surface, like a huge slab of marble on the floor of a palace or something, right? Like, it's like really solid. And in order to turn the page of your book, instead of a nice click button, instead, you have to smush your thumb against a completely rigid surface. And when you have smushed it enough, the page will turn. So no give, no sound, no just it is it is baffling to me. That it will do this bizarre little vibrate thing as well. So every time you turn the page, it goes right to let you know, oh yes, we have registered that you have compressed your thumb hard enough against the side of our screen in order to turn the page. It's just and like, okay, so I took this out. Let's give this a fair shot. I really like I really want to love the Kindle. So I can out I load up a book on it. I press the button once on this or not the button. I press the immobile slab on the side once. And I go, ah, like I swear to God, it was physically uncomfortable. And then it vibrates in this like in this startling way. I go, who what person? What designer? Presumably Jeff Bezos saw this thing. Who came up with this at Amazon? Who on earth approved of this at Amazon? Why was there nobody who said, hey, you know, it would be a good idea, a button like we used to do that everybody loved. I just I swear to God, the the existence of these pressure sensitive regions honestly makes me doubt the judgment of everybody in upper management and Amazon. The fact that this thing was it came into existence just blows my mind. And so I thought, okay, okay, maybe my first experience with this is just horrible. Let me try to give it a good go. So I sat down and I'm like, usually I read in little 20 minute bursts. So I sat down like, okay, I'm going to read for 20 minutes. I'm going to use my Kindle. I'm going to use a little button thing that they want me to use on the side. I could not make it 20 minutes using this thing because my thumb started to get a little bit physically uncomfortable. And I realized, oh, oh, what this thing actually is, it's a repetitive strain injury creation device. That is the function that this thing serves. Like I can feel it. Like I've had repetitive strain injury before. You know what like the warning signs are like. And it's like, oh yes, compressing my thumb several thousand times over the course of a year against a completely rigid surface is going to give me repetitive strain injury. Guaranteed. And so that's that's what this thing on the side is. It's just baffling to me. I don't know how anyone could ever look at it and think it was a good idea. It's just it's just so crazy that I feel like, well, well, Amazon, it's been a good run. But I think this is where we have to part ways. Like you've got a wonder how the wheel would have turned out if Amazon had invented it. I know. It's just like, oh, I know. We'll make a wheel, but we'll put spikes all around the edge of it. So it was really grippy on the road. And it's just like, I don't know. It's just what are you going to do? Because like, what are you up? Are you going to start reading on your iPad or what do you like? Where do you go from here? Yeah. So basically, I was hoping to get this Amazon Kindle before my trip to Alabama. But because Amazon also hates the UK and ships everything later here. I didn't get it in time. And so I ended up actually using my iPad to read on the trip and discovered many things that I do like about iBooks. It's still not an ideal solution in very many ways. But it's more a question of like, okay, well, there's a solution which is not perfect for me, but it's fine. And that actually has many advantages over Amazon system. I would I would want I would want to use Amazon system in an ideal world. But just like you're demonstrating to me Amazon that you have lost your mind. And like, I want you to do these things like fix the the left justification or to fix all of these various things about your system. But like this physical piece of hardware demonstrates to me that you are just never going to do this. It's almost like it's like asking someone to love you, right? Like, oh, please, Amazon, please love me and do the things that I want to, right? And they give you a turn in a bag. And you if you like, if you stay at that point, well, it's not really Amazon's fault. It's your fault. And that's kind of how I feel at this moment. It's like, I can't take this abuse anymore. This kindle is just so awful. So I ordered the return box almost immediately. Like I cannot believe this thing is just terrible. Wow, returning it. I would never, if I don't like something, I just put it in a shelf and never use it. You actually return stuff. Well, I think it's expensive enough, right? It's worth returning. I wouldn't just stick it in a shelf. And then Amazon gets to keep my money. I feel like I need to send a message like, no, this is this is too much. Amazon. It's too much. I mean, there's just a million things about it, which are terrible. But that button is just like the embodiment of terrible decisions, which just makes me doubt the whole company. Is this just, is this, is this just gray fussiness? Or have you been hearing other people talk about this button in the same way? I was, I was curious because I was like, is this just me? Do I have a defective one? Can I change settings on this, which you can? There's a whole bunch of settings you can try to change. There's a whole bunch of different ways you can try to adjust this. But universally, it has been panned. I haven't seen anybody who's written any kind of review that says that they like it. But again, if you, if you ever are in a store and see one of these things, just touch it once and you'll immediately, it's like, ah, it's just terrible. It's like, I might as well put a thumb tack on the edge of the screen and say, oh, use this to turn the page. It's just, it's equally useless. What are they thinking, Gray? Like, what's going on? Like, put you just for the sake of argument, tell me why you think it got approved. Like, what happened? Is it just some, did one person think, oh, I never, you know, we've got to do something different. If we don't do something different, we'll die. Is it a compulsion to do something different or? Well, here's like, again, I always say I try very hard when things seem strange to imagine what's happening in this other entity. And this is just my breaking point with Amazon. It's like, I cannot understand or I cannot come up with any kind of rational reason for why they are behaving the way they are. And the other thing was, I think, I think you saw it, but I tweeted their last bizarre product announcements, which was that Amazon echo thing. That is the, that is the freakyest, weirdest, promotional video I've ever seen. I don't know, I don't know what's going on. So I'm, I'm going to say that, that for me, the Kindle voyage is like the third strike in Amazon has lost its mind. Strike one was the fire phone, which I didn't think much of when it came out, but then I was just curious to see what do people think of it. And it's just like unusably awful. It's just terrible, terrible piece of equipment. It's like, you can't even use this as a phone, as a phone, even if you wanted to. Strike two then was the Amazon echo thing. And strike three is the Kindle. It's like, these three things in a relatively short period of time just seriously make me doubt whoever is making decisions over there. The echo thing, for those who haven't seen the video, I will put it in the, in the show notes. No. I almost dare you to watch the whole thing. It is, even the commercial is so awkward. It's so painfully awkward. And someone watched it and signed off on that. Someone said, okay, yes, we are willing to release that to the public. Yeah. It's, it's, the video is basically this family who gets a device. And you can, all it is, is it's basically Siri that plugs into your wall that isn't a phone that listens to you 24 hours a day from a particular location in your house. Big brother or something. Yeah. And you can ask it all the same questions that you can ask Siri, set a timer, how many cups in a court or whatever. You know, there's like a minimally useful stuff. But not anything shockingly useful. It's like, your phone can do all of this except that your phone is on you all the time. It's just like, it's who is the person this product is for? I just, I simply cannot imagine. And then they have the most terrible commercial in the whole world. And there's a little detail, which is again, is one of these things where it's like, somebody over there has just lost their mind. So I have asked several people this when they watched the commercial ago. What is the name of this product? And everybody gives the same wrong answer because this little family in the commercial sets up this product, which is called Amazon Echo. But there's this like quick little two second thing where they say, oh, when you set it up, you have to give it a special name. And it only listens to you after you say that name. And so they name the thing Alexa, I think. And so then you have this commercial, which is supposed to be selling a product. But they must say Alexa a hundred times. And they say the name of the product Amazon Echo maybe five times. And so everybody thinks it's Amazon's new Alexa product. And it's like, no, this is just an incidental thing. But who could possibly like what person creating a commercial says, how can we say the product name less? How can we figure out how to make this more confusing? So it's just like the echo is crazy. The Kindle Voyager is just completely non-understandable. And especially, they keep selling it in this way. Like, oh, it's especially designed for someone who makes books. Like, have you seen someone read a book? Have you ever read a book? This product is clearly not designed for anybody who reads books. I don't understand it at all. I don't understand who the echo is for. I don't understand how on earth you can be trying to sell your terrible phone. And you can't even sell it now. They've reduced it to $1 to buy the phone. It's just like it's embarrassing. And so these three things together, I feel like I don't even feel safe having my digital books in Amazon's ecosystem. Like putting aside the whole justification issue and all the other problems they have is like, I can't count on you to fix anything. I don't feel good about buying books in your ecosystem anymore. And I'm going to give up on trying to make you love me. Right. Like, you've just, you're off the deep end and we need to separate. So. You know, but they're coming back to that echo ad for just a second. Oh, yeah. It's so funny. If you had made that video and you said, Brady, I've just made this spoof video. And I want you to watch it. I would think it was the best video you'd ever made. I'd say, your legend, it's so funny, it's so clever. It's like, it's so good at being bad. Right. That it's genius. Yeah. The only problem with that ad is that it's not a joke. Yeah. That it's genuine. It's, yeah, it's almost, it has that like Saturday night live feels to it. Exactly. Exactly. The family is just a little weird and a little off. And one of the things that I love is, okay. So again, trying to envision this product if you haven't seen the commercial, it is this black cylinder that spies on you that you have to plug into the wall. Like, even that seems like a joke. I know. It's like, all they need is to give it a menacing red ring around the edge, right? It's like, it's just, it's just, it's unbelievable. But then, but then the whole camera, like they keep, they keep doing like point of view shots from the echo. And the way they do the camera work, it also looks like a joke because it's like the echo pops up. So they show the couple sleeping in bed and the camera pans down. So suddenly the echo is in front of the camera, like looming over them, looking at them, sleeping in bed together. Like, you think the joke's going to continue and like in, in the next scene, the husband will come home from work early and his wife will be in bed with the echo or something like, like, that's where they're going. Yeah. Or the, or the next scene is him going to be driving in the car and they show the echo, like, buckled into the passenger seat or something. It's just like, you, you, you can't believe it's real. And it's just awful to watch. It's awful to watch. But again, it's like people signed off on this. So they, they built it. They've made it. They've sold it. They hired a team of people to make this God awful commercial. Somebody watched the commercial and said, let's, let's run that on the internet. Like that, that is why people were given money for making that. People were, were, were given money for that. Well, I mean, if I'm those actors, I feel like, hey, Amazon, I'll take your money. But someone at Amazon should look at that thing and just say, like, we're going to get slaughtered on the internet. People are going to laugh at us. Nobody is going to buy this ridiculous product because it doesn't serve any need for any human on the face of the earth. Like, who should get this Amazon echo instead of just getting an Android phone? Nobody. No one anywhere. I will accept, though, that if you make a good enough ad and trick me, maybe I will think I need one. Like, people will buy anything if it's promoted well enough and well marketed and is made to look cool. But then they've made it, they've made a product that I don't really want. Look, even worse. Yeah. So I think an interesting exercise is, I showed this to my wife because I was like, you have to watch this ad. You're not going to believe this. And I had to preface it with it is not a joke. This is for real. And then as an interesting comparing contrast thing, I'm not trying to hold Apple up here as a, as an amazing example. But we went back and we said, what were the first ads for Siri when Siri first came out? And it is, it is really interesting to watch the two of them side by side and to see how Apple tries to do a better job of convincing you that this thing will be useful. And part of it is not overselling it. Part of it is just, look, you can just quickly ask your phone what the weather is and it tells you. And they also have a little emotional resonance part at the end of the Siri ad where they show, oh, I don't know, a blind person using their phone, right? Like Apple always knows how to get you. And they show it actually being useful. And the interesting thing is they show Siri doing probably 80% of the same things that the Amazon Echo does. But it's in a 30 second commercial. And this Amazon Echo thing is five minutes long. And in the Echo commercial, it's like, it's the center of everything. It's like this freak that's come into the house that they're all coming to say. And like some like, the girl, my girl even says at one point she goes, Amazon Echo, or she knows, I'm sorry. She says, Alexa has really become part of the family. Like, really? Is that really like, because you know, if you start saying that your phone has really become part of the family, you have some problems with your family, right? Or with you? One of the two. And yeah, it's just, it's so oversold and it's like their whole lives revolve around this. It's just, it's just awful. It's like, this is the family you don't want to be. So if you buy this product, you will become like them. Yeah. Or like one of the selling points is is the children can use it to passively make fun of each other when the like the daughter asks Alexa to define annoying. It's like, yeah, that's a real selling point there, Amazon. People are people are, oh, I wish, I wish that I could, I could turn over to a machine making fun of my sibling. That'd be great. I'd love to buy that. I just, oh, but anyway, all of this is why I think Amazon is like, I'm worried about you, Amazon. But you know, I'm going to keep buying all of my physical items from them because I don't like to go to stores and they ship stuff to my door. Like they do that great. But man, they're, their whole electronics ecosystem. It just seems like it is in terrible, terrible danger of whoever is running it and whoever is approving it. This episode of Hello Internet has been sponsored by Harries, which is the Shave of Choice for Hello Internet co-host Brady Harron. That's me. Now I do admit this is maybe because they sent me a set. And it's also because as some of you know, CGP Grey's dead has been supplying me with spare blades on the side. But even if that wasn't the case, I would be a Harry's man and I'll tell you why. First, they just make great products. The sort of the handle raises really good, really nice feel to it. Good quality replacement blades and they have all those extras you'd want. Cream gel. Second, they have really cool branding. All the packaging logos, designer done really well. It's kind of understated and classy. It just looks like the sort of thing that I'd want to be using. Third and pretty importantly, they're cheap. They're really affordable. I'm not going to run through everything now, but check out their excellent website for all the prices. That's harries.com. Lastly, they're easy to use. You just go online to that website, order what you want. And as if by magic, it appears at your door. This online shopping thing blows my mind. Now by now, you all know where to go. Harries.com. Now in the build up to Christmas, they've got a really special deal that they want to tell you about. Basically, if you get in before the 14th of December, which may be cutting up fine, depending on when you listen to this podcast, you can get this set called the Winter Winston for $5 less than usual. That's a $30 set for $25 bucks. The set includes the razor, the handle itself, three replacement blades, and a tube of either the foaming shave gel or shave cream, depending on your lubricant of choice. Now go to harries.com and enter the promo code, H.I. holiday. That's a little H.I. for Hello Internet, and then holiday. If you do that, that's how you get the $5 off the winter Winston set. And also, they know you've come from the show, which is good. Now even if you're already a customer who's used a code before, you can use this one again. Now you're probably thinking, if I've already used the code, and I've already got a razor, why am I buying another one? Well, 25th of December, Christmas, you may be under obligation to give someone a present. And if you're anything like me, you might be thinking, hmm, this would be a good present. Really cool, classy looking shave set, practical gift, could be a good one. Check them out, harries.com. And thanks to them for sponsoring our show once more. Now, let us talk about Star Wars. See, I don't know that I want to talk about Star Wars. Well, this is, we haven't had this discussion yet, but we've kind of half had it. Basically, when the new Star Wars trailer, teaser trailer came out. Did it come out on Thanksgiving? I didn't, it came out. And I watched it, and you and I both love Star Wars. So I sort of said to you, well, obviously we're going to talk about this on the next podcast, because we're huge Star Wars fans, and there's a new Star Wars teaser trailer. Yeah, and I'm not, I'm not, I'm not up for this. No, I, you know, I don't, I don't like spoilers. You hadn't, this is it. Like, I knew you didn't like spoilers, but I've assumed you would have watched this partly because it was unavoidable and partly because this film's not out for a year, and this is like a tape. This is a taste of the forbidden fruit. And it has to be watched. And I said, let's talk about it. And you said, I won't watch it. So before we, before we thrash it, presumably you still haven't watched it. I have not, I have not watched it. I have not seen any spoilers. I, you know, I, I, you seem very insistent that I should watch this. Well, first of all, let me tell you why I think, let me tell you some reasons I think you should watch it. Uh-huh. You say it could, I'm presuming your argument is seeing anything from the film will spoil the film in some way, even, even the most subtle thing that doesn't tell, explain the story, gives bits and pieces away and you want to go into this film in December next year, completely cold. That, that would be ideal, yes. I think that, I know you think that is the correct way to see a film. And I respect that. But I think you're wrong. I think, I think teasers and trailers are part of the cinematic experience just as much as popcorn and opening credits and all the other, all the other parts of films. I don't think a film is just about the 90 minutes or two hours you see on that given day. I think trailers and hype and expectation and teasers and things. I don't think leaks and spoilers are part of the experience. But I think a trailer made by the director and released by the director who is in artistic control of this process, he wants that to be part of the experience. That is part of the experience. And I think you are denying yourself part of what the maker of this film wants you to experience by not watching this. I feel like I don't know who you are right now. Haven't we had conversations where you agree that knowing anything about the movie spoils it, that that trailers are spoiler-filled? I know. I feel like I've got to do your trailers. I feel like I've got to do your trailers. I've mentioned before on the podcast my dad used to be a film critic. Yeah. And one of the things that we would occasionally get to do was like once or twice a year, they would get in all the trailers for that year's film in a little tiny special cinema and just show him all the trailers for the films that were coming out and you just sit there for an hour and watch trailers back to back. I loved that. I'm the guy that refuses to miss the trailers that the cinema and gets their 20 minutes early so he can watch the trailers and if people talk during the trailers, I get really angry and shoot them dirty looks. Trailers are my favourite things. I think they're great and I understand they have this potential to ruin if done badly. A bad trailer can ruin a film and if a trailer gives away the whole film, it's probably a sign that it's a bad film anyway. So you're telling me that this isn't a bad trailer? That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying you should watch it. And you said to me, you said to me, does it have spoilers? And of course, if it shows one frame of the film, it contains spoilers to some extent. So I'm not going to sit here and say to you because it's a teaser and it doesn't tell you the plot. I'm not going to say it doesn't contain spoilers. Of course, of course, by its very nature, it contains spoilers. Okay, so I'm not going to make you that promise. But I do think you should watch it if only because I so want to talk to you about it. And I think we'll be talking about Star Wars for the next year before this film comes out. And I also think you're just making life difficult for yourself because people are spoofing it, people are talking about it, people are analysing it to death and you're going to get snippets here and there anyway. You're not going to be able to avoid it when you open the front page of Reddit or something happens, you know. And you may as well know what they're talking about. I think you should watch it. Okay, well, I feel like this is a big moment in our relationship, Brady. Don't say that because against my better judgements, I am going to follow your advice. Before you do that, because I don't want to jeopardize every now and then. Now you're walking back on me. That's a big thing to say. This is why this is an important moment. Tell me what could happen when you watch it that would make you upset with me. Spoilers. I've told you there are spoilers. But you're also telling me that I should watch it anyway. So I am trusting your judgment that even though there will be spoilers, that the experience of watching this would be better or a life where I have watched the trailer before seeing the movie is a better life than where I have not watched the trailer before seeing the movie. It's a better life for me because I can talk to you about it. And I like talking to you about stuff. But but but let me you will you will be upset afterwards. There are things that will be spoiled. And you will grumble for a year about it. And tell me that it was wrong. But you will be wrong. And it will have been the right thing to have done. So you're saying that I will be wrong about my opinion. Yes. Not for the first time. Okay, Brady, send me this thing on iMessage. Okay. All right. I'm going to I'm going to dim the lights in my recording booth here. So I'm going to make this like an event. Okay. I've sent it on iMessage. I'm a bit nervous now. You should be. You should be. All right. Here we go. I'm going to watch it. Okay. There's being on a weekday. Have you felt it? Screams And, in dark sight And the light The day is done I'm here. Yeah, yeah, I know you're there. I know you're there. I'm not sure what to think right now. I think I don't know. Just tell me what you're feeling. First of all, it's impossible not to be excited by a Star Wars trailer. You know, it's like it doesn't matter. Yeah, moments ago we were talking about Amazon and it's like, oh, on this this abused spouse And I'm like, I'm leaving. I can't make Amazon love me. Yeah, but with Star Wars is like, I will always want Star Wars to love me. And as soon as you see the new trailer, it's like all of that abuse of the three prequels It just feels like, but this time it'll be okay. I mean, to be fair, I was really excited by the Phantom Menace trailer. Look what happened there. Oh, yeah, I remember watching that Phantom Menace trailer over and over and over again. Like it was the greatest thing ever. And this trailer, I have the same feeling. Like my heart is lifted by the Star Wars music. It's impossible not to like watching the trailer Even though it is definitely filled with things that I would regard as spoilers. But I said that. I said that. I know. But it's impossible not to be hopeful. And I find myself filled with a new hope that this next movie will be good. And I do, I do, I put some trust in J.J. Abrams. So I am. So before we talk a bit more about it, you've watched it once. What's like your overall impression. What's your feeling about it? Like what like compared to what you expected. Because obviously for a week we've been talking about it, you had no idea what was in it. What would happen? What's your reaction? Is it what you expected? Is it not what you expected? Is it better than you thought? Is it worse? It's what I would expect a first trailer to be. Very brief scenes of just things in the movie. Things you might be excited to see when they first pop up on screen. But we're going to show you them right now. That's what I kind of expect a first trailer to be. I think it's about time that they've gotten some handguards on those lightsabers. I'll tell you that. A little foil around the edge of the lightsaber. It's a good idea. So these are amazing technological developments of having hand protectors for your lightsabers. So I like that. I'm a fan of that. I think that's a good design. It looked like there were just two coming out. I might have more than just two. So you had a real foil. Like a disc. Yeah. Like Fensers had 300 years ago. That's the kind of thing I might want. I think that is dangerous. I think it looks like something you could, your hand could slip up and touch very easily. Well, I have now, of course, now I have to go through and watch the trailer frame by frame. But it looked like there was a little bit of metal that your hand could bump up against. I know. I'm sure the nerds have analyzed this quite in depth. Well, before to give you my story with this, a few days before this was released. I sort of didn't know it was about to be released. But obviously most people did. And people started releasing spoof ones like or fantasy ones or sort of fan type trailers of what they hoped the trailer would be. And I also didn't know this was happening. And I was on Facebook a couple of days before this trailer came out. And I got tricked into clicking on one of the fan made ones. Not knowing it was fan made. And it was really good. And I watched it. And I thought, this is awesome. This is going to be brilliant. And I was really, really pleased. And there was something that didn't quite seem right about it. I can't remember what it was, but it was there was enough to make me go into the comments. And that very quickly became apparent that it was fake. And I felt like bit of a douche and like in hindsight, you know, there were probably lots of things I didn't realize. But I obviously had my guard up then. And then this one came out. So I started watching not being entirely sure if I was watching a real one or not. And I would have been more likely to have thought this one was fake than the first one I watched. And a lot of people have been very positive about this trailer. And I am less positive about it. There are a few things about it I didn't like. Like you, I have supreme confidence in JJ Abrams. I am sure the film will be excellent. It will certainly be better than let us not speak the name of those three films that that would that were created. Yes. Yes. But there are a few things about this that slightly alarm me. I don't know if you want to watch it again. There are only seven scenes in the trailer. There are seven clips. Well, I don't know if you want to. Again, I'm feeling very conflicted at this moment. And it's again, it's just funny thing because I've been talking about these movies coming out in its JJ Abrams. And I've been telling myself, you'll go into these movies thinking that it's a kind of alternate universe that it's not Star Wars. And if you enjoy these movies, you know, that's great. And then maybe they can be Star Wars. But go into it, treating them as a kind of different, different kind of movie. It's like a reboot. Yeah. Or something like that. And again, as soon as the trailer starts playing, it's like in my heart of hearts, like, you know, you can't do that. You know, it's really Star Wars. And you're going to go into it thinking that it's really Star Wars. And so, and so I worry, I worry. And it's funny. It's funny. It's funny. I don't want to be burned. I understand. And one of the things I worry about, Siley, is like, I think I have a lot of trust in JJ Abrams, mainly because of the first Star Trek movie. Yeah. The new one, the 2009 Star Trek movie, I think. Yeah. That is by no means a perfect movie. I do have problems with that movie. But overall, like that is, that is an exciting movie. And I think he pulled off what was just an impossible task of making you really believe in in Star Trek, making you believe in that world. You know, the casting was perfect. Everything about that was just great. So I, and I would have thought, oh man, whoever has to do the Star Trek reboot, this project is just doomed. No one can pull this off successfully. And I would say, you know, the movie has some minor flaws. But overall, that was a two thumbs up total success. And so that's why I feel like I'm very happy that JJ Abrams is doing the Star Wars because I feel the same thing that it's like, this is an impossible situation. This is this is a no-win scenario. It's like a Kobayashi Maru kind of scenario. But if anybody can pull it off, it would be JJ Abrams. So I am hopeful. Okay. But now I would like to know, what is it about the trailer that you don't like? I was just going to go through it saying by saying and say, what I thought of each thing. Do you have a list of the same? Okay, let me pull it up here. Because yeah, I definitely have some thoughts. And yeah, my very first thought watching the trailer is Helmut List Stormtrooper. I don't know. I don't know about this. Well, my feeling about, well, I mean, I don't really want to speculate about the plot. When that guy pops up into screen, that made me think it was a joke. That actually made me think Saturday night live, like, you know, you think everything's all peaceful and this is going to be Star Wars and then some dude pops up. And then I guess when I rewatched he does look very serious and worried. Yeah, he does look very serious and worried. I mean, to be fair, my assumption is that he's not a Stormtrooper. He's a guy in a Stormtrooper outfit. And I think a lot of people have assumed that the raid on the death star in a new hope with, you know, Han and Luke and that. That's by the by. My first impression was when he pops up and gives you a scare and he's like, got this startled look and he's so close to the camera is that it was a joke. It was a parody. So straight away, I was suspicious the first time I watched it. I've moved on from that. So that was that was my thought on that scene. The next scene with like that soccer ball droid, made me reinforced my thinking that it must be a joke because it's such a silly droid and it's something we've never seen before. So I was thinking, oh, that's silly. I was pretty disappointed by that. So it was in a way it was not from two. The next scene had those kind of troopers on a lander coming down in stormy weather and it was quite moody and that was quite good. And that was more what I expect from JJ Abrams. It's going to, you know, we're going to have some darkness and some lens flare and things are going to be cool. Yeah, that looks like a JJ Abrams shot. Yeah, it's gritty and it's cool. People get themselves in a tears about stormtroopers versus clone troopers and that makes me really upset because people don't understand the difference between clone troopers and stormtroopers but this is getting into fan territory we don't need to go into. We might be here for a while and start down this path. So that's trying to contain this kind of trailer. That seems kind of cool and that gives me hope that that he's getting away from the George Lucas static boring shots and we're going to have, you know, it's going to be modern filmmaking. Yeah, there was not a single couch in this trailer. Yeah, exactly. So that was a good. Then we have a woman getting on a speeder in the desert and that was pretty, you know, pretty typical Star Wars. Nice sounds all fine. I don't know. I'm neutral in that shot. It looks fine. But you really do need someone to talk to this. Yeah, exactly. That's what I'm so glad you watched it. Then we had the X-Wings going over the water. Cool. You know, it's a ship we all love in a cool new environment and it wasn't in the desert which relieved me because I don't want a whole film on Tatooine or I assuming it's Tatooine or I don't want to whole film on a desert planet. So that was cool. We had the light saber then with the, you know, a menacing character who I think we're all assuming is a villain. We don't know, but he's wearing a hood and he's got a red lightsaber. So that Star Wars language for villain. And I paused it. There's definitely a bit of metal that his hand can put in the desert. So okay. That design thumbs up. People have been quite mixed a bit in their reaction to that design. I think it looks pretty cool. And again, it's a really cool scene. I like the stormy weather and I like the way it's shot. So that's good. And then we have the Millennium Falcon at the end. And a lot of people got very excited by that shot. And most people I've heard from seem to like it. I do not like it. The Millennium Falcon should not be doing that in my opinion. I know it does some pretty cool things in the asteroid belt and you know, it's a pretty cool ship. And don't get me wrong, it's my favorite ship in the world. Or you know, it's my favorite ship. But it just seems too nimble for me. Yeah, I had the same thought of that. The Millennium Falcon is like a bee. It's bulky, isn't it? It's a freighter. It's a bulky thing. And it shouldn't be capable of such close quarters nimble flying. And people think it's great to see the Millennium Falcon really strutting at stuff. But I don't think the Millennium Falcon should be doing those kind of maneuvers in that way. So I was not comfortable with that. And I hope the Millennium Falcon doesn't have its identity changed. Because obviously, Jay-Jabes is quite keen on the Millennium Falcon. And you know, from the things he's said and shown, he's quite keen to see this ship making a comeback. But I hope he doesn't change it too much. I like it as a big bulky freighter that you know, it can, you know, it can, it's got some tricks up at sleeve and it can do handy stuff when it has to. But let's not turn this into a little, you know, F18 horn or something. That's exactly it. She's got more personality when she's the freighter. And like you say, is clunky doesn't handle the bass, doesn't go to light speed immediately. If it's, if the Millennium Falcon is just doing all kinds of tight maneuvers like any fighter ship, it's totally uninteresting. We can have X-Wings doing this. We can have all kinds of other ships. Look at the design of that thing. It obviously is not supposed to be really nimble. Exactly. And one final thought is for a film that's clearly going to be so expensive and so meticulously done, I think the way that the name of the film comes up against the Star Wars logo at the end is really amateurish and crappy. And I'm surprised that got past some designers who said, yeah, that's a good way to show the name of the film. It's funny. You mentioned that because when it came up, I had a moment of not being able to read it very well. Because I wasn't even sure what the name was. And it took a moment longer to read it because it does come up in a strange, overlapped with the yellow way. It just looks like a dog's breakfast. And it was another thing that made me think it was fake the first time I watched it. I was like, well, no proper film company would do that. So anyway, they're my thoughts. But I still haven't started about the film. I'm sure it would be better than the rubbish that was served up to us for the pre-course. But I wasn't as enamored by the teaser trailer as some people were. I'm still feeling mixed about having watched this. I'm sorry, man. I just had to do it for me. I know. I know. And I can already tell we're going to end up talking about this a whole whole lot more offline than even just then we're just discussing now. I mean, we'll also talk about it more in the podcast. Consider it your job to have to have watched it. I guess so. Yeah. It's just this what I'm getting paid for. Yeah. Is to have my Star Wars experience potentially diminished from what it could otherwise be. You were never going to go a year with it avoiding everything because people are going to make memes and funny jokes. People have already released a George Lucas special edition of the trailer where they're just cram. You have to watch that. They've just crammed more crap into every shot. Like I can really ruin it and put jazz yapping in it and all that sort of stuff. Okay, so I will be able to enjoy this boost then. That is a plus sign. Yeah. I don't know. It's funny. You mentioned the the the millennia Falcon. The one thing again, while in JJ Abrams I trust one thing straight from the start which has worried me was even when the casting was announced and that was just impossible to miss that piece of information. Yeah. And it's like I love the original Star Wars movies but I worry about how much of an inclusion of the old characters there's going to be. Like they released that photo which again was impossible to ignore of the cast sitting around JJ Abrams. And everybody tries to do the criminology about where they're sitting, you know, who's most important depending on how close they are to JJ Abrams, the sun king of this picture. And it's like I just I just worry that the old characters will will dominate it too much. And that was just like when I hear the casting it's like oh god, I know. I don't know how much is it going to be these three particular people again save the universe. I just I don't know. What do you take from what do you take from the fact none of them are in the teaser? I bet that's just on purpose is kind of dull things out over the course of a year because everyone so wants to say Luke Scott Walker again and hands out though again. Yeah, I think it makes sense not to have them in the teaser but I've just when I've seen the millennium Falcon like that that was kind of reminding me of oh right that you know they're going to bring back this ship and you know probably Hans flying it again maybe you know who knows but it's a bit like oh god, do I want to do I want to revisit that in again? No because it was really awesome the first time and the the the Star Wars universe is so huge you can have other stories take place. So I don't know I still feel like that is one of my major concerns about the movie. But again I will trust JJ Abrams and almost certainly be let down later. Okay. Thanks for making me watch it Brady. Well, hopefully you'll watch it again now and we'll have more to talk about. Yeah, yeah, now I'm going to watch as soon as we're done recording I'm going to watch it like 30 times in a row of course. I'm putting on a big show right now but like now I can't wait to get off the phone with you and just like okay, wait no repeat repeat repeat and keep watching. Well before we do that, speaking of old characters and things like that as well, there was one more thing I wanted to tell you about and I've kept it a secret. Okay. And I resisted putting anything on Twitter even though I know you avoid Twitter and don't see things I tweet I didn't want you to see this. Uh-huh. So I've I've kept it a secret. Uh-huh. Last night I had dinner and spoke for hours with someone amazing. Uh-huh. I'm just like letting the moment hang. Okay. Three minutes. Okay. Should I give you a clue who this person was? Um, what was that noise? That was my phone not in airplane mode. Talk about ruining my moment. I'm very sorry and it's because of all our technical problems that it was. I had to un- I had to un- airplane mode to send you a message so we could get in touch. Okay. Okay. All right. I'm listening and I'm like actually speaking of phones I will send you a picture of me meeting this person. That's how I will reveal it to you. Okay. All right. I'm just getting my phone out because the picture's on my phone. Making me nervous here. Really? You have no reason to be nervous. I don't like surprises. No, no. But here we go. Here is me with the person. Who is this? Hmm. Don't know who that might be. Do you want to tell people what your look the picture you're looking at is? It is it is you in a motai. Yes. Smiling. Yes. With an elderly gentleman who was also smiling. Yes. Who looks familiar? Hmm. How would you describe him? His appearance. He has gray hair. Yes. He looks like you plus 50 years actually. He is a lot bigger than me. He's sitting down. Oh. Oh, is it Vader? Yes. Oh, wow. I had dinner with Darth Vader, David Prouse. Oh, wow. Wait, wait. This was last night? Last night. Very cool. I know. Very cool indeed. So it looks like Vader in 50 years. No, I don't mind being told I look that Darth Vader and a former bodybuilder. How did this come to happen? It was a fundraiser at Bristol Zoo. I live on the edge of Bristol. It was like a sort of a big charity dinner, posh night with all sorts of things going on. For various reasons, nothing to do with me, to do with my wife. I was set at the prestigious top table. Again, I don't know if it was because word had got out I was a Star Wars fan. I don't know if it was a coincidence or it was because word got out that I was a Star Wars fan, that I was put next to David Prouse and his wife because he was like a guest of honor there. Of course, he's from the Bristol area and as a supporter of the zoo. So he came along as part of his support for the zoo. So I was sat down next to him and I knew I was going to be there for the next few hours. You can imagine I was in heaven and I said to him right at the start, I didn't introduce myself and he introduced himself. He was a completely lovely man, completely lovely and his wife was completely charming. I was introduced to him and I sort of said to him, I'm going to tell you, I'm a big Star Wars fan, but I said oh I promise you I won't talk about Star Wars too much. Too much I like that. Well you can't avoid the topic. He said oh no it's no problems at all and his wife kind of pulled me aside and said don't worry, he completely loves it. And I also said to him, I broke that promise I talked about Star Wars all the time and the other promise I made to him at the Star Wars, I won't ask for your autograph because I already have your autograph. I already have a signed death rate, a picture signed by him. I also broke that promise because I ended up stealing his name tag at the end of the night that was on his on the seating next to us. We have our names because it was like a wedding, you have little names on tags and he said David Proud's MBE because he's got his honor and I got him to sign that for me. And I also got his wife to sign hers from Mrs Vader. She said it was the first time she'd ever been asked to sign her name so I said don't ever sign it again so I've got the only Mrs Vader autograph. That's pretty good. It was great. It was great. So I spent the night talking about Star Wars with Darth Vader. That is pretty cool. I know. Brilliant. You look so happy in this picture. I know, I look like that right now talking about it. It was superb. He's such a top man as well. He's like such a gentle giant and he just spends all his life now being Darth Vader, you know, going and signing autographs. So I think that's all he does. He's got some other things going on but his life is just the Star Wars circuit now. And yeah, it was brilliant. It was brilliant. So there you go. Very cool. Very cool. I Brady had dinner with Darth Vader. If that is not the title of this podcast and what. But that's going to be like a spoiler for who the person in the picture is. Oh, but you love spoilers so he might as well put it up front. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So that's what we have to lead with now. Big old Brady spoiler.
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