H.I. No. 36: Bear O'Clock

"H.I. #36: Bear O'Clock" is the 36th episode of Hello Internet, released on April 28, 2015.
==Official Description==
Grey & Brady discuss how hard-as-nails Brady is traveling yet again why Grey still nurses his jet lag from three weeks ago, smoking, Nepal, inconsistent emoji, Brady plugs all the things, sports, shopping for bras, the return of Brady's paper cuts with self-checkout machines, and Apple Watch first impressions.
==Show Notes==
*Discuss this episode
*Derek from Veritasium
*Michael from Vsauce
*Physics Girl
*Gross Science
*Nepal earthquake
*Henry of Minutephysics
*Lagniappe
*Woman Wearing Bunny Ears
*Rocketing traffic for the wolf face emoji
*Colin Bloomfield Melanoma Appeal
*TEDed
*Logan
*Call Me Ishmael
*Building an Orphanage in South America
*Getting Things Done by David Allen
*A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking
*Baseball
*Brady's paper cuts song
*Robots will take over the world
*Brady & Gruber on Twitter
*The Talk Show on Apple Watch
*Skeuomorphism
*Rotary phone
*Grey's (possibly temporary) Apple Watch
*Brady's Omega Speedmaster
*H.I. #21: Cave Troll in Your Pocket
I have to look good now, I have to smile for this. Yeah, it's like, do it like a funny pose and then turn off as you're doing that. Like, do it like a really funny face and then freeze it. I'll just, I'll just smile. All right. Does that work for you? Yeah, it's good. Do I sound more free to you at the moment? Can you feel the freedom that, that only comes with being in the United States of America? I can definitely tell that you are more free. I'm in your home state. Oh, yes, you are in New York then, huh? The Empire State, the greatest name for a state ever. Yep. And I am in New York City talking to you from the Big Apple. I am on Manhattan, a place I do love. And I have, I've been here for about a week and I spent a few days in Boston and now I'm back in New York for a few more days doing various things, various interviews mainly for number five. In fact, do you know who I interviewed? Who did you interview? I interviewed that billionaire that we spoke about in an earlier podcast. You know, I said, I met, it was the richest man I'd ever met. Yes, you said, I did you interview him and I said, no, and I probably won't ever interview him, but who knows? I went and I interviewed him in his office. Very exciting. How did that happen? It's kind of a long story, but it's because he's like a, he's a mathematician. For a second, I actually thought you were going to say he's a fan of the podcast. And I was, I felt, I felt a little bit of disappointment there. And you're like, oh, he's a fan of, oh, mathematics. Oh, okay. I guess that makes more sense. But for a moment, I thought maybe we'd have a billionaire listener. Yeah. Did you see his Patreon pledge for a $200 million an episode? Excellent. We can retire after this one. Yeah. No, no, I don't think he has, he knew the podcast. I don't think he knew a tremendous amount about number five either, but he agreed to an interview and that will appear soon. So stay tuned. I'll tell you a story. Is this interesting story? I don't know if I should tell this, but I'll tell it anyway. Okay. Because I went, I used a camera man, which I never used. And he came, so he came along with me and helped me out. And it's not, it's not a secret. So I can say this, that, that this guy, this gentleman does occasionally have a cigarette. All right. So, and you know, he smokes, I've seen him smoke in public places. So I can say, you know, I'm not, I'm not talking at school. It's funny, actually, it's a bit taboo, isn't it? To say someone smokes, but anyway, I'm saying who are you talking about? The camera man smokes or the billionaire smokes? The billionaire. Okay. The billionaire, the billionaire smokes. So, and you know, he's let it do what he wants. He's a billionaire and like, he gives a lot of money to good causes. So if he wants to have a cigarette, I'm not going to judge him. Right. But what I found really interesting was we went to his office, gorgeous office, full of beautiful things, beautiful furniture, works of art on the wall. Like, you know, you could tell that was the office of someone who, who has done well in business. And then he had like, he had a, he had a little bit of a cigarette because he'd been out working all day. So we waited for him to finish. And that halfway through, I think he had another puff of a cigarette and maybe at some other point. And the interesting thing was each time he like had another puff of a cigarette, he would then just put out the mostly unused cigarette in an atro. And then when he had another puff, he would like start a new cigarette. And afterwards, when we left, I was saying to the cameraman, you know, what do you think of him? You know, he was a really nice guy, really interesting. And I was like, did he like, did it feel like he was really, really rich to you? Like, could you tell he was really rich? I forgot this is your thing. This is your thing. And the only thing the cameraman said was, ah, the moment I knew he was rich was when he would like start a new cigarette each time. And he wouldn't like, he wouldn't really like the old one. And I thought that was so cute that of all the things, all the works of art and valuable things and stories he told and trappings of wealth, the one thing the cameraman noticed that made him think he was rich was he starts new cigarettes each time he wants a puff. I guess the first puff is the best puff. I don't know. Is that the way it works? If you're a billionaire, you might as well only have first puffs. You don't have to deal with second puffs. I mean, I don't think when he's having a whole cigarette, he just has first puff after first puff after first puff. I would do that if I was a billionaire. I mean, assuming that the first puff is the best puff. I don't know. I've never had a puff of a cigarette say. Mini there, so we are not able to talk on this topic. We are not the worst people in the world to talk about which puff of a cigarette is the best. It has to be the first one. I don't know. Maybe there's a sweet spot in the middle of the cigarette where you get the best flavor or the best nicotine high or buzz or I don't know. If you're a smoker, let us know which puff is the best puff. I got money on first. First puff is the best puff. I imagine the first puff is the best for other reasons because you haven't had a smoke for an hour, so you badly want one. That first puff seems the best. Well, that's all that matters. The first puff seems the best. No, because if you've sat down for a smoking session, is this what smokers do? They sit down for a smoking session. Yes. Now you've had your first puff, so you've been stated and now you're just going to say, all right, now I'm going to finish the cigarette. Would it be nice that I have a series of that first few centimeters of a cigarette? Or once you've got going and you've got your momentum going, is there a sweet spot in the middle of the cigarette that tastes nicer or the chemicals have mixed better or the oxygen has had the temperatures got to some, I don't know. I'm overcome with the need to say, don't smoke kids. Yeah. I have to point out that smoking is not necessarily the best idea. In fact, it's a bad idea. Yes, it's a terrible idea. And neither of us do it. And we are shining examples. And that's another reason that people should build statues of us. Oh, this again. Yes. Yes, the Brady statue, pushing away the coffee. Well, you pushed for the introvert statue of you inside a house as well. I simply mentioned it. I think there was no pushing. You sowed the seeds. You sowed the seeds. You were pushing. Anyway, a remarkable thing happened. I went to Boston. I checked into my hotel in Cambridge where MIT is, because I was also doing some interviews there. Plugged in my laptop, went on to Twitter, and immediately the top tweet was a tweet from Dirk from Verastableum. Dirk from Verastableum. Basically, yeah, that guy. Basically saying, I just arrived at Boston, and I'm doing something at MIT tomorrow. He was doing a public talk with Michael Stevens from VSource, who's also a friend of mine. And I was like, that's amazing. So like I texted to him and said, I just arrived in Boston as well. Like, where are you staying? And then as I was writing another text saying, I am staying at the Cambridge Marriott. He sent a text to me that crossed over with my text saying, I'm staying at the Cambridge Marriott. Half an hour later, Derek and Michael and some other YouTuber, so I hadn't met, but who were really cool, turned up. I got to hang out with him for a few days. And then I was like, what are you doing next? And they're like, oh, now we're all going to New York. So they all came back to New York as well, and they're all in New York. It's turned into a big chance to like, just to hang out with my mates. It's amazing. There's like a spontaneous, smaller YouTube conference. I know. It's the second time this has happened with Derek as well, because I remember one time I was in Berkeley, and he just tweeted a picture of that big pyramid-y building in San Francisco. And he didn't say anything, put on Instagram. And I'm like, man, he went to San Francisco. I'm here right now as well. And that we had dinner that night as well. So I think maybe he's following me. What I was just thinking is, Derek travels so much that he's like a quantum waveform over all the cities of the world at once. And so there must always be a non-zero chance that Derek is in any particular city at any particular time. Or maybe it's more a bit more shrouding or in he's in two places at the same time. Right. Right. But then you observe him in Boston. And so suddenly he's in Boston, and he's not in the other places that he could be. So if I'd been in San Francisco, I could have had dinner with him there as well. Yes, you could have had dinner with him in San Francisco. Like there's an infinite number of universes where he's sending out messages that he's in all of the various cities. And it just collapses to the one where you are. So I think maybe bumping into Derek all over the world is much less unlikely than we might first assume. He was very, he expressed a lot of gratitude to me for starting this whole dirt thing. Oh, did he? I'm sure he loves that. Yeah, he really appreciates it and said, keep it up. Yeah, I really enjoy all the comments and things that happen as a result, he said. Yeah, if I message him now, is that the, is that what I'm going to hear from Derek? I don't think he may not remember saying it. Oh, okay. I think I might be hearing a different story from Derek of Veritasium. If I actually message him directly, I think you were full of lines, Brady. Yeah, full of lines. But anyway, it was a good, it was good fun. It was good fun to say him and Markle and some other new people I met. The physics girl who is a YouTuber I had not met before, but she was nice and really is a big YouTube E.D.U. party. Oh, man, V.S. Gross science, which is a new channel as well. I met the girl who makes that. There are a lot of YouTube channels. I've got a lot of catching up to do. I still don't know how you do all this traveling. Your life exhausts me sometimes. I feel like I am still barely caught up with getting my life back into some kind of normal semblance from my vacation from three weeks ago and you are already flying to different countries and then going to different cities. You're just, you're impressive. You're hard as nails. I am hard as nails, but I have to admit, I am struggling a bit this time. I want to be back home. And I have actually said, and I don't know if I'll stick to this, but now you're going to have proof of it on the podcast. I have said I'm going to impose a travel ban for the next three months, where I am not going to be away from home for more than one night. So people on Twitter can keep track of you. Three months starting when, when does this begin? I want to try and do May, June and July at home. Okay. May, June and July. Keep an eye on in people. Or if I go away for more than two nights, that would be with my wife on a holiday. Okay. Yes. Holidays don't count. Yep. But otherwise, if you're filming in San Francisco or elsewhere that does count, and you're broken your travel ban. I wish I hadn't said it now. You did say it precisely because you want people to hold you to it. Yeah, it's good. You're right. You're right. That's why you brought it up. Hold me to it. Don't forget Twitter. Never forget. Never forget. The internet never forgets. Now, I think people, I was going to say, I think people are going to ask. People have asked us to, I don't know what they want us to do or say, but obviously there's been a great tragedy in Nepal, as we speak. And I guess because we talk about Nepal, the Mount Everest, a lot on the podcast, people, you know, as opposed to some tragedies, people are more likely to ask us about this. Has this crossed the CGP grade news radar, the earthquake in Nepal? Yes, I haven't been on Twitter very much, but when I did log on Twitter, I saw a bunch of messages all telling me, oh, I guess the random acts of intelligence trip to base camp is off with links to various news articles. And yes, the first thing that I saw was that there had been some massive avalanche down at base camp, which you assured me was perfectly safe, and instead resulted in the deaths of numerous people. So this is how it originally came across my radar. And then looking into it, it seems like it has been a much, a much bigger earthquake than just that one incident. I have to say, I am staggered by how widespread this is, like, because the earthquake didn't happen that close to Mount Everest. I mean, it's devastated Kathmandu, which is quite a way from Mount Everest. And it has been really sad, saying, I mean, obviously it's incredibly sad, the number of people who died, but it's also been really sad seeing a lot of the landmarks and buildings that I really enjoyed and took photos of and stuff in Kathmandu have just been destroyed. But then also Mount Everest, I mean, I guess it's pretty fragile in the Himalayas, shaking these mountains around, and can dislodge snow. But I've been amazed by the scale of the impact that had at Mount Everest. I still think we'd have to have been very unlucky, because you're only ever at base camp itself for sort of an hour or two when you do the trip. And like, and you'd still would have been unlucky to have been right in the heart of base camp. I feel, are you trying to back into the still a base camp trip? Is that where this is going? Is it like, oh, huge tragedy, but actually still we can go to base camp? I don't want to say the whole tourist industry of the Kumbu Valley obliterated because of, actually, in fact, this is the time we should be supporting them. Listen, listen, the kinds of people who are going to go to Everest, this is not going to stop them. I don't think there are a lot of people on the margins of, oh, maybe I'll go, maybe I won't. If you're going to Everest, you know you're the kind of person who's going to Everest. I bet you, I bet you the tourist trade is perfectly fine. I bet they'll be totally okay with people going back to Everest. Well, not if, not if, scaredy cat slot you keep. But I was never going to Everest in the first place. No, you're coming, you're coming if the rest of us come. No, that was, no, no. My statement was that the value proposition changes if everybody goes. But the value proposition has changed again with earthquakey, avalanche death now very clearly on the horizon. What you promised me was like, oh, you'll just be able to, to relax at base camp. You just get to chill out, just hang out. And now your back, I, oh, will only be there for an hour. It won't be very dangerous. No, I don't like the service. You just interpret what this base camp trip is like. You don't go and spend like time at base camp. It's a bit like, it's a bit like going on a trip to Paris. And yeah, you spend like half an hour at the top of the Eiffel Tower because that's what you do. But there's like weeks of stuff either side. And it's like that with base campers. Week's. Oh, forget it. Weeks. No. It's a, it's a long walk. I have to admit, though, I have, I have to admit, I was talking to Dirk about it last night. And I did say we were talking about what happened in Nepal. And then we were also talking about, well, I guess this is going to put a damp on the chances of grey coming with us. And then he told me about a walk in the wilderness that you guys did the day before I arrived in Alabama. Oh, yeah, you weren't there for that. I wasn't there, but I was told. And I was shown photographic proof that you were a bit of a lightweight. And you were like, oh, it's so steep and not so rocky. And like I saw a picture of you like gingerly holding onto a tree as if you were going to fall over while everyone else was just hanging around. Like they were normal human beings. So when I saw that, I was like, I won't, I won't, this is a problem. I won't try to defend myself except for the fact that I was wildly unprepared with the foot gear. And that would have been much less of a problem if I actually had boots. But I had completely worn down, perfectly smooth sneakers, trying to walk down hills with wet leaves on them. So this was not ideal circumstances. And I was not described how what this route would be like probably on purpose before we set off on it. That was not my idea of an entertaining time. I believe I called it a death march on the the random act of intelligence stage is what it felt like, especially because Henry of Minute Physics, who some kind of superhero, decides that after he's gotten off a long, planned flight, the thing he needs to do to recuperate is basically march at top speed through the woods. And so this is why we were there in the first place. You get off the plane and it's like, oh, what do you want to do? It's like, I want to march through the woods. And so we did. And I was like, I am not prepared for this. I did not sign up for this. I would never have have gone along with this if I knew what it was in advance. And you get to make fun of it because you weren't there at the time. But I guarantee if you had been bought blindsided by that, you would have been grumpy like me. I'm pretty hard. I would have handled it all right. I like a good walk. But I mean, I couldn't keep up with Henry. He's like ridiculous. But it wasn't a walk. It was a descent is the best way to put it. Like I enjoy a good walk as well. But this was not a good walk. Yeah. You like a nice walk, like, you know, through London to a burger bar or something. It's a prize. You forget, man, I've gone into the national parks. I'm not as totally in the city kind of person as you think I am all the time. Anyway, base camp not going to happen. That's a bottom line. But it also was never going to happen. This doesn't really change anything. I still think there's a chance. So I'm going to work on it. There is a non-zero chance. You were correct. Okay. Something we talked about in the last podcast or maybe even the last couple of podcasts has been the whole issue of interacting with retail workers. Yes. Yes. Should you, you know, should you have a little, have a nice day, chat if you're regular and stuff like that? I think quite possibly this is the topic I have received the most tweets about. And the thing that I was finding kind of frustrating at first was I was getting all the tweets. They were all at Brady Harons and not at CTP Gray as well. And they were all people agreeing with me. They were all saying, at Brady Harron, I agree with you a bit of, you know, to different level, some were saying a little bit it's okay and some was really like it. But definitely the overall tone that I have received is people agreeing with me that a bit of interaction is nice. But they were all just sending it to me. And I was going crazy and I was about to start sending all these things back saying, don't tell me like, I already know. Tell Gray, he's the one that needs to know this. And then I went back and listen to the podcast and there was a little thing you said something along the lines of, Yes, like I said, please, send Brady. That's crazy. This is my slight revenge for the airplane thing. That's what I was trying to do there. I'm glad you got a bunch of feedback. I actually did see it. I was curious. I looked at your at replies at one point and also just on the Reddit, I have to say that there was much more positive feedback from retail workers about being happy to chit chat with customers or wanting to chit chat with customers than I would have expected. But afterwards, I was thinking about it and then I realized, oh, wait, that actually makes more sense than I might have first thought because there's going to be a selection bias here with the kinds of people who are applying to retail jobs in the first place. I would never apply to a retail job unless, you know, I absolutely had to. All of the various jobs I've ever done have not been very customer centric. I could see that or someone who thinks I would enjoy a retail position is much more likely to be an extroverted person. You probably don't have throngs of introverts trying to get into retail positions. There's also probably a second level of bias going on here and that is the sorts of people who are going to tweet or read or email and say, hey, I want to tell you what I think. I also have the sorts of people who quite like that. So this is why I think there's also a problem with just companies like in particular here in the UK Starbucks pushing for policies where their employees are supposed to talk to the customers because I think the very customers who fill out feedback forms and surveys about how their little interactions went at Starbucks or what they wish Starbucks did, I think it's the same kind of selection bias that the people who love social interaction are much more likely to fill out those forms and say, oh, I wish the retail employees talk to me more. And the people like me never fill out those forms and just keep moving on. So I think even from a company perspective they're probably going to hear more from the outgoing people as well and then bend policies more towards them. And then in Starbucks make the mask for your name. Which is a terrible policy in London and it's hugely frustrating and I hate it. All of that said, I have come out the other side of this thinking, I'm a bit more in the right than you. I do think more people do, people do long for contact. When I told my wife about the conversation, she doesn't listen to the podcast, but when I told her about your position and my position, she was like outraged at you. She thinks you're very wrong. That I don't want to talk to people at Starbucks. She thinks it's not the right attitude to have. You know, she thinks people should interact with each other. Always all the time. Generally, yeah, generally. Let me tell you like a funny little thing here about interaction that I've just noticed. So I think I mentioned before on the podcast that my parents retired from New York down to North Carolina several years ago. When I go visit them, there's a kind of a walking path behind where their house is and there are a whole bunch of people who use the walking path in the surrounding houses. And as someone who lived in New York, when I visited them and would go on the path, I was always kind of just exhausted by the number of people who would say, good morning, right? And say hello. And we're just like walking by the stream of people and so many of them would greet you. Like look right at you and say hello. And to me, this is just totally startling. And also as someone who lives in London, you can walk right by someone in a place like Hyde Park. Nobody acknowledges anybody else because you just can't possibly. But in North Carolina, I was surprised because I thought the people density here is too high to keep up this level of interaction yet they still do it. It was absolutely, absolutely exhausting. So it's not like one person every 20 minutes or something. It's like a total stream of people both ways. I will, on this walking path, I would say, it was probably at busy times like a person a minute and they would still all say hi. And it was just exhausting. But my only point here that I did notice was that it was different depending on two factors. Am I walking with my wife? And is the other person walking with a partner of theirs? If you have two couples walking down the path, it was like 100% guarantee that the other couple is going to say, oh, good morning to you. And then you say, good morning as well and take off your hat and keep walking or whatever. But if it was two single people and two in particular single guys walking past each other, that was the highest probability of not having to do anything except the nod. You know about the nod, right, Brady? Yeah, right. I know the nod. Right. And that was just a pleasure. And it suggested to me that there are very many people who don't really want to do this. But it was like, oh, great. We're two guys. We're just walking past each other on the path. We'll just do the nod. And that's all that's necessary. We acknowledge the existence of the other person. But we don't have to keep saying, like, oh, hello, hello, hello to you too, sir. What a fun day. And do it again and again and again on this walking path. Also having a dog was death. If I was walking the dog, everybody says hi too. I was like, oh, great. You should try walking Audrey. But two guys meeting like alone on a path in the woods does carry a certain amount of baggage that you may want to avoid. So I can see why you just move on as quickly as possible. That's exactly it. We don't want this to end in a murder or in a knife fight. It's like a bunch of silver backer illers all walking past each other on the path. Are we acknowledged each other? But we're staying out of our personal space out of the territory. And that's the way it should be. All right. That's right. Someone has pointed out this word. Let me, I'm going to try and pronounce it. No, I'm not. Lagniap. Lagniape. Lagniape. How would you say that? Lagniape. Yeah, you have to say it with a high tone like that. High pitch. You know how to read those Wikipedia. How to say that? No, I do not. I can see I'm looking at it literally right now and I see this stupid IPA and you know how useful it is. Zero percent useful. That's how useful it is. Oh, it looks next to it. It's got Lagniap. Written. Is that Lagniap? Lagniap? I don't know. Okay. And we're just embarrassing ourselves. You're embarrassing yourself because this is your note and you didn't look it up in ahead of time. Why don't you put it in? I only looked at it like five seconds before we started recording. Okay, to be fair, that is more preparation than I did. Yeah, there you go. I've got the, I've got the, how, how do you say a guy doing it? And... Lagniap is the way he's saying it. Just Lagniap. It looks poshier than that. It looks like it should be more exotic. He has two ways to say it, but I'm having a hard time hearing what he's doing with the first one. I'll put the audio in because this is that guy that everybody knows as the dude who pronounces words, Guy. Lagniap. Oh, Lagniap. This is a word for... According to Wikipedia, a small gift given to a customer by a merchant at the time of purchase. So, the example used on the page here is like getting an extra donut when you buy a dozen. The example I used last week was the guy I bought a car from giving me like a sponge to wash my car. I like, there's a word for it. And I do think it's an interesting phenomenon this whole giving someone something to make them feel special. Lagniap. I like this. You know, you know me. I like words. You do love your words. Maybe I can appropriate that word sort of freeboot style and give it some new meaning. At some point in the future. Oh, you know how I could use it? When I make a video, like, you know, like a number file video that's like 10 minutes long but there's some extra footage I cut and I put it on number file two, I could call that my Lagniap video. If you'd like some Lagniap to go with this video, go over to number five two. No, but no, it doesn't make any sense. The viewers haven't purchased anything. It's a terrible reappropriation of this word. No, thumbs down. This cannot happen. I feel like they've given me their time and their attention and for that, I'm going to give them the extra footage that the smallest wouldn't have given to a customer by a merchant at the time of purchase. That's not your bonus video is nothing like that. Grey, you're misunderstanding. You're misunderstanding. I understand that you're trying to take a word that has a perfectly solid definition and just broadened it. This happens freebooting. Like a new use for it. Free Lagniap videos. Oh, I love Brady's Lagniap videos. They're the best. I don't like Grey's Lagniap videos so much. They're a bit short, but Brady does good Lagniap videos. I don't have any Lagniap videos. I will never have a Lagniap video. That's not going to happen. I'll have footnotes. I'll have extra videos. I'll have bonus videos. But not Lagniap videos because that doesn't make any sense in its terrible reappropriation. No. I can hear you breathing in. You haven't. No, whatever you got, I do not approve of this. This will not happen. I mean, I guess I can't stop you. But no one will go along with this plan. The harder you go in against me, the more likely I am to succeed. So I'm just letting you help me. Hi, I'm not helping you. Lagniap videos. Keep an eye out, people. I'll put it in the video description. Damn, I know you well. Thank you for watching this lagniap video. Brought to you by. Maybe I won't. I don't know yet. Let's see. I hate it. Don't rule that. I hate it when words have solid, precise, specific definitions and they kind of turn to mush over time. I mean, it happens with every single word in existence. But still, I find it frustrating when this occurs. That's okay. All you're doing is accelerating this process now. One final bit, follow up here. And this again was something that happened. This again, it's not a word, it's an emoji. In the last episode, I revealed how I use the wolf face emoji as the representation of both my dogs actually, because they've both got this kind of yellowy-based color to them. So if I'm texting my wife about the dogs and we're being cute, I might sometimes use that. And we discussed it. Anyway, you did a nice thing today and you were tweeting me something about one of my dogs and you used the wolf face emoji. And I was on tweet dick. And I thought you'd just use the wrong emoji, because instead of this side profile of a yellow dog, I got this forward-facing gray dog looking at me. So I cheekily like, messaged you back in tweet dick to say, yeah, you use the wrong one and use the correct one. Oh, that's what you were doing. When you sent me the emoji back, I thought you were just being an idiot. I thought you were like, why did he send me this back? He just must have copied it piece and he did, oh, Brady, he doesn't know what he's doing on the computer. No, what I did was I went into, because I don't know how to do emojis in tweet dick. So I went into my messaging app in my OS. And there it was the yellow dog. Right. And I copied and pasted it, pasted it into tweet dick. And it still appeared as the dog. And as soon as I pressed return, it turned into that gray-faced dog. And I was like, what the hell is going on? It's a wolf. It's very clearly a wolf. Yeah, well, OK. It doesn't look so much like a wolf when it's that yellow one. It looks more like my dogs. So I went into my phone and looked at the Twitter conversation in iOS and sure enough, both of us had used the yellow dog. And I'm like, what's going on? And like I tweeted you in this sort of state of confusion. And you then pointed out to me that, you've had this emoji pdf or whatever, some thing I didn't even know existed. That in iOS and OS, it appears as the yellow dog that looks like Lulu and Audrey. And in other systems, it's this forward-facing gray wolf. This is, and this was like, this is a game changer for me. Because now, depending on how I'm interacting with, maybe I can't use the yellow dog to represent Audrey and Lulu. That's just stupid now. This is the weird thing with emoji. And I have mixed feelings about the emoji. But one of the biggest problems is, yes, that all of the various platforms and sometimes even particular programs like Tweet Deck will render the emoji differently. Because there's just this description of what it's supposed to be. And I think for that one, it just says wolf face. And so Apple decides to draw the wolf face in the most unwolved-looking way ever. But then it ends up being you are all like Lulu. It doesn't look like a wolf in the slightest. It looks like a fox if anything. Yeah. The really weird ones are with people when you see what the descriptions are supposed to be. The people and then how various operating systems or programs choose to interpret that description. So what will I say? A blonde headgear or something? One of the weird ones, I mean, just some of the Apple ones are really creepy. But there's like, girl wearing bunny ears, which is, I don't even know how, like how does this official list of emoji get created? Who decides that girl wearing bunny ears is going to be an official emoji and then Apple has to decide what they want? Tweet gray your answers on that one by the way. Because everyone's going to want to answer that. I'm going to cut that out because I can Google myself two seconds to find. I don't know right now. You didn't do it when you told people to Tweet May. You didn't cut that out. I'll leave it in, but don't tweet me people. I'll just block it forever because I can just Google it myself. I know that the answer is there. I'm just saying this because I don't know right now. But it seems weird that there's a committee somewhere, which is like, yeah, girl with bunny ears. We're on top of that. That's got to be a thing to do. We need that. We need that. It's huge demand for gay with bunny ears. Yeah. And like, there's tons of things that they don't, but with that one. On iOS, it renders as two girls dancing. And then on other ones, it's just a face with little bunny ears. It's just, you don't know what you're sending to the other person unless you know for 100% sure that they are using the same program on the same operating system as you. That's a real problem, too, because sometimes you like try to make little stories out of your emoji. You know, you've got a gun pointing at something. And if the guns render the other way around, suddenly you've gone from shooting one thing to another thing. And yeah, there's a lot of potential problems here. Amogies are really designed for interpersonal communication. Like you are talking to someone you know and you are trying to convey something joky or emotional that is difficult to do in very short sentences. But as soon as you start talking about putting emoji in a broader form, it becomes very hard. Like I sometimes I see people want to put emojis on their website. You don't know how that's going to render on somebody else's computer and I don't know. I have mixed feelings about the emojis, but they're just weird. And this is yet another weird thing about emojis. And the Apple ones are also weird. So weird and creepy if you look at the people. I like that they've got a luloo Audrey emoji by accident. So I like them. Also, the other thing someone pointed out, the wolf face emoji had a sudden spike in, I don't know if it was the page where they describe it or the emoji itself had a sudden spike in interest. It nearly hit the top 10 on a moja pedia after Hello Internet mentioned it. So we, whatever it ran, does we were responsible for a sudden surge in interest? And there's like a great graph that shows it as well. We were responsible for a surge in interest in the wolf emoji, which I feel good about it. Yeah, our show notes, they carry a lot of power. People click on the show notes, they check things out. You can push a wolf face emoji to not quite the top 10 on a website. You know, we must be careful how we wield this great power when we learn things in the future. Yeah, be careful. Take it easy. Take it easy with those things. Anyway, thank you for pointing that out. It made me feel good. Is that follow up? Are we good? Don't follow up. That's follow up done. This Hello Internet episode has been brought to you by Hova. If you want to register a domain name, check out hova.com. If you're doing anything in the online world, it's really worth making sure you've got a really good domain name. And hova is the place to do it. It's a great site, great service, and great prices. They've got a few little extras things you should know about, like valet transfers, where they'll take care of all the hassle of transferring other domain names. You've got with another registrar and putting it onto hova. They also handle all the DNS stuff. I don't know exactly what that means, but I know it causes lots of problems. And they're really good at it and make sure you won't have any hassles. Another thing they're really good for is volume discounts. If you're someone like Gray, one of those people who likes to hoard lots of domain names, they've got some really good offers. Good prices, if you're buying, I think it's more than 10. The good prices start to kick in. Now, if you're a Hello Internet listener, there's a very special deal, 10% off your first purchase by using the code when you check out Dirk. D-I-K. That's Dirk. 10% off hova.com. Check them out. By the way, if you're having problems with my pronunciation, hova is h-o-v-e-r.com. They're a great sponsor, they're great fun to work with, especially because they let us use all these cool codes. So there you go, domain names, hova.com. Dirk. If I may briefly bring up something very serious and said, and that is a person who I know, Colin, his name is Colin Bloomfield. He worked for the BBC and the East Midlands were I used to work. And he was diagnosed with skin cancer quite a while ago. And after a really amazing battle with skin cancer, that he handled with total class and dignity, but also really tried to make a difference about cancer awareness. Unfortunately, Colin recently died. It was a very sad news, but I just wanted to give him a quick mention here on the podcast as a top man who handled some terrible misfortune in a really, really classy way. And if you ever want to check him out, you can google this guy, Colin Bloomfield, and see some of what he did. And Gray may even put in the show notes a link to a sort of a foundation or a trust or something that was started in Colin's name to raise money to do with skin cancer awareness in the part of England where he was from. So rest in peace to Colin Bloomfield. And if everyone has different things they like to support, but if you, if skin cancer is something that is on your mind, and that's something you'd like to contribute to, go and check it out. Link in the show notes. All right. Now, I have another little thank you and sort of plug for lack of a better word that I should mention. And that is today I am recording in an incredibly hot sound booth. Yeah, how's it going over there? When the door was closed, I thought, I know how that's going to go. Sound isolation is also heat isolation. It is. I'm really starting to get very hot here, but I am grateful for the opportunity because obviously New York is a very loud place. And I am, I am recording in the Ted Ed offices in Manhattan, Ted, but you know, the famous Ted and Ted Ed being their little educational spin off that makes these really cool educational videos. So thank you to Logan from Ted Ed for making this possible and giving me a bit of space, giving Hello Internet a bit of space. This is the same Logan who we mentioned on a previous episode who started that very interesting call me Ishmael project on YouTube where people leave voice mails about books that they like. And I tell you what, people really need to check that out, Gray. I think it is such a clever idea. And it's not getting the traction that it should on YouTube, like the view numbers aren't high enough for what a cool idea it is. And yet, away from YouTube, talking to Logan, there's all sorts of other cool projects and spin off things going on and book stores and libraries and all these people are so excited about the project and he's got so many like bowls in the air now as a result of it. He's having all this success. And yet on YouTube where you can just go and listen to these things for free and watch these nifty little videos, it's not getting the traction it should. So go and check it out. I tell you what though, I'm here saying how great it is. You know, go and check it out, et cetera, et cetera. And yet, I am yet to leave a voice mail about a book on it. So I'm not practicing what I preach. And do you know what has stopped me? What? I can't choose a book because it's not like just recommending a book that you think is good. I've kind of got this impression that all the people that call me Ishmael and leave a message always have these really touching stories about how a book like changed their life or made a really impression on them. And I like I've read lots of books and I liked lots of them, but I can't think of one book that has like that changed me somehow. Really? Have you got one? If you were going to do a call me Ishmael, what book would you pluck from the shelf? What's the book that you would like do a two minute message about and say this book is important and it meant something to me? Well, call me Ishmael is is high steaks high high intensity there because you're calling a voice mail service. You don't have the chance to go back and edit what you're saying. You've got to do it all right all once. That's that's too that's too high pressure for me. But couldn't you couldn't you record it and like play it down? Oh, you could fake it. Yes, you can totally I know what that never even occurred to me. You can totally fake it. Or you could just talk to Logan because he's your mate and say look, can I just send you a file or something? But he probably wouldn't let you do that because the idea is that it is all phone call. I think he has far too much integrity to allow me to cheat the system in that way. Yeah, he's a pretty he's a pretty straight shooter. I'm just honestly surprised that you can't think of a single book that has had a major influence on your life because you do you do read a significant amount. Well, I mean, I don't really I maybe that overstates the case, but I do read books, but it's like I read lots of books and think, oh, that was awesome. And brilliant. Or I wish I wrote that or like it makes me think about some cool space thing or sciencey thing on Mount Everest or something like there are lots of books that I read and go, that's awesome. And I want everyone else to read it. But I can't think of a book that's got this amazing story that made me think, you know, now I'm going to go and build an orphanage in South America or now I'm, you know, I'm going to I can't think of anything that really has changed like me as a person immediately. I can think of lots of things that have inspired me and made me think about things and, you know, and all those things chip away at you and change you, but I can't think of one book that was like, wow, I'm going to change the course of my life now. Have you got one? I have two, I have two books that I can say majorly change the course of my life. One which is less interesting and one which is probably a little bit more interesting. So I'll go with the less interesting one first. Other less interesting one is vastly more important in some ways. And that is getting things done by David Allen, which I've mentioned before on the podcast as a book I really like. But that really was no joke. The book that allowed me to transition from I'm an idiot who can't do anything into Oh, I'm an adult who can, you know, can be organized and change the course of my life. I think that that that book definitely had the biggest single impact of any book that I ever read. Say I say Logan could just lift that bit of the podcast and chuck it on call me. We have licensing licensing agreements, I think, if he's trying to. Oh, no, he'll have to give us a he'll have to give us a big whack of cash. Of course. Yeah. Yeah. Just take that. But yes, that one is that one is far less interesting, but it is it is really true. There I feel like there is the time in my life before I read getting things done and there is the time in my life after I've getting read getting things done. And the people on either side of that divide are hugely, hugely different people. Oh, man, I just feel like I should maybe read that book at some point. Would it help me from what you know of my? No, I don't think anything would help you, Brady. I'm going to be honest here. I just you just are the way you are. And I don't think anything can help you. But I also don't know if anything if you need anything to help you. You seem pretty happy. Hmm. All right. What's your other book? The book that started me down the course of deciding that I wanted to do physics as a major and going to the college that I went to to do physics, which was Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time, which I read. No, you understood that book. Okay. Well, I'll be clear here. I read the Illustrated Edition back in high school, which is beautiful, by the way. I still in my parents' house, I still actually have it. It's this big, big book that has these amazing diagrams on all the pages. The diagrams, they really help. If you're going to read a brief history of time, I highly suggest you get the Illustrated version. I was kind of not really aware of physics before then. It happens to be the way that my school did physics. Each year of science was all by itself. So in freshman year, we just did, I think it was all geology. And then sophomore year, we just did all biology and junior year was all chemistry. So you didn't have like what how I taught here where it's mixed up every year. So I was kind of floating along, not really aware of physics. And then I read that book and I really liked it. So that one definitely is a book that I can point to you as having a big impact on my life. Cool. All right. Well, if you enjoyed hearing that little vignette from Gray and you want to hear hundreds and hundreds of more people talk about the books they liked, check out, call me a schmal and that will make Logan happy. And means he will let me use this booth again on future trips to New York to record Hello Internet. And that's in game for me. It's in game for you. Yeah. And it's a good start and Logan's a good man. Let's move on though. He has had more than enough promotion for nothing. For nothing. He got that. And I've bought him tickets for the baseball tonight. Baseball. That's the one with shuttle cars, right? No, baseball. Baseball's the one where they throw the ball. They throw the ball. They don't ball it. Yeah. I'm going to the Yankees versus the Mets. Does anybody die in those games? Do they shoot the players in front of you if they don't do well? Is that how that works? Not that I've ever seen. I hope they don't. No. You must, you don't mind baseball, do you? Do you like baseball? So boring. So boring. Yeah, just boring. But you understand that. But you do like kind of understand the rules of that one, don't you? Yeah. Yeah. Just because it's like it's in your DNA, isn't it? Because I had to play it in gym. And I would always remember far left field is the position that you want when you play in gym and you don't want to participate. Far left field sport, right? I would always go for as far left field and then just stand out there. It's not such thing as far left field. Daydreaming. Looking at it. And then every once in a while, the ball would come near me and like, oh, God. I would pay money to see you playing baseball. Like that would just make me laugh. I'm just imagining you like swinging a bat and then running to first place. And actually he's making me smile like the problem was always the being in the outfield and trying to do like the catches and fast passes. I could, you know, that was just hopeless. Actually, just hitting the ball, it was pretty good at. And that's super satisfying if you play baseball, even for someone who has no interest in sports and would never do it on their own. When you really, when you hit the baseball, that crack at the bat is very satisfying, enjoyable experience. So I have played baseball. Oh, I feel a little bit, a little bit, a little bit proud of you then. Why? The thing I can't imagine though is you running. Like you running just doesn't come into my head very easily. I was very briefly on the track team because I had to be really. Yeah. This is a parental requirement that I try some sports. And I don't know why, but somehow I thought track would be the easiest because it wasn't a team sport. So I was thinking everybody could just leave me alone. Like, oh, I just have to run around in this circle, but I don't have to interact with the other people. Fine, I can do this. But I really hate a track and I gave it up as soon as I possibly could, but I was very briefly on the track team. I can't imagine your running action. I just can't imagine what that would be like. It's amazing, Brady. I don't like to run, but when I do run it is majestic. You're good. You've got down like it's like watching Tom Cruise run. It's just amazing. It's cinematic is what it is. I just choose not to. Well, let's, let's crack out the high speed camera sometime and make some videos if you're running. No, that's not going to happen. I'm sorry. All right. Okay. We have to move on because you have written in the show notes. Brass shopping. Are you shopping for bras, Brady? I, this is a topic that I am already regretting too late now. Yeah. Let's do this. It came about the other day. Basically, you know, my wife really enjoys shopping for clothes. She's a very fashionable woman. She is. I quite enjoy going with her and she'll be looking at dresses and all the different things that she looks at. She asks my opinion and I try to give them. And I actually, what I really enjoy is sort of going off on my own and finding something that I think she will like and like bringing it to her and going, what do you think of this? I think this is your style and she'll be like, oh, it is. Yeah. I feel really proud when I manage that. And she likes what I found. So I'm not averse to close shopping. But there is a problem. And I know this is like, who with a supply to this must surely only apply to men who have female partners. I can't think what other configuration this would cause the same level of awkwardness to anyway, being a man who has a female partner. When she ventures into the bra section of the shop, I find this a very, very difficult and very awkward to know what to do. Because at that point, I can't browse on my own really. Because I think that looks a bit unusual. You could. Yeah, I could, of course. And I know there are men who, you know, often buy lingerie for their partner. But you don't need to stick to traditional gender stereotypes here, Brady. You can be a new modern man. I know. And like, but also when I've got a really bad habit of like, I'm quite tactile when I'm shopping. So I like to stroke all the fabric and stuff. And I think if I'm just like you stroke the microphone. Yeah, exactly. I like I'm a bit of a fidgetess. So if I'm like looking at dresses and that, I feel quite comfortable sort of stroking all the dresses and the fabric to see what they're like. But if I'm in the, if I'm in the bra section, I feel like I will look a bit wrong. If I'm like stroking, stroking underwear. No, no. Brady, you have to, you have to touch it to know the quality of the material. So I don't see, you should definitely go ahead with this behavior. I don't, I don't feel comfortable. But like I know this is my insecurities, right? And the other, and the other thing is I find it, like if I'm in the, you know, dress section, I'm quite comfortable making eye contact with other women and smiling at them and, you know, how you're going? And but if I'm in the bra section, suddenly I feel like if I'm looking like at another woman shopping and she's like, she's looking at bras and then she looks up and sees me looking at her. I feel a bit creepy like, oh, I'm watching you brush up. I feel like I feel like a bit of a weirder. And I know I'm not. And again, I know this is just my insecurities. But anyway, while this was happening, the thing that occurred to me was what does CGP grade do? What would you do? Do you like, because I find myself in this situation and it just seemed like an awkward situation. And I said to myself, I bit great, I doesn't even do this. I bit he just walks away. But then it realized I didn't know. So I thought, I'm going to ask Gray, okay, do you brush up on your own with your wife? Do you have a, a bra section policy? Okay. So here's the thing with us Brady. I think we are sometimes so different. We can't even conceive of the level of difference in the other person. Because I dimly knew what you wanted to talk about with this. And I was like, oh, okay, I have a guess of where he's going. But right out of the gate, your story was just totally different from what I was expecting. What were you expecting? Well, I was expecting the much more standard version of this story, which is that you get dragged shopping with your partner, right? And that you, you have to tag along. And then you find yourself in the bra section, and oh, isn't it embarrassing? I didn't realize that, that you were gleeful to go along on the shopping expedition. Not only gleeful, but, but actively participating in your partner's shopping expedition, hunting for dresses, bringing them back. This is amazing to me. I can't even understand this. Well, I wouldn't say gleeful. Like clearly the thing I want to do is like look at the gadgets and technology and things or look at like things that are interesting to me. And my wife and I share a lot of things we find interesting, like, you know, furniture maybe or we both like antiques and we both like. And because she wants to look at clothes, I'm happy to do that. And like I said, I see it as a little challenge. I wouldn't like big to go close shopping, but I don't even like close shopping for men's clothes, but I would do it. So I wouldn't say I wouldn't say I big to do it or gleeful, but I do do it. But it is exactly as you describe. Then when I find myself in the bra section, like I'm supportive and like, you know, I get it supportive and I'm willing to do it because you know, I want to help my wife and join her for the expedition. But that's the area where I suddenly feel out of my depth and a bit like I just haven't learned how to do it yet. I haven't learned how to do it cool because I'm just maybe not a cool guy. So where are you? You just you just don't go close shopping at all or like where do you stand on all this? Many many years ago before I met the woman who would become my wife when I was involved in relations with other women, I remember getting dragged along for clothes shopping. And I think because I was a younger person, a person who wasn't thinking about how their life is going and the way things work in the world. And it's went along with us because it's what you see everybody else do. You go into any clothing shop primarily for women and you will see a bunch of men kind of loitering around. Yeah. Usually burdened like alpacas with bags slung over their backs that they are that they are carrying. And so I did this too as a as a much younger person. But one day there was a particular shopping trip which lasted a very long time. It was I don't remember but I feel like it was a full work days worth of shopping for clothing with a particular person. And this was supposed to be the weekend. I was going to have a whole day to myself. No, you have a whole day under fluorescent lighting looking at clothing that's not even for you and having having to have your input asked on a thousand tiny decisions. That's really the exhausting part of of this is it's not even it's not even the being there. It's the thousand little decisions. It just melts your brain into a pool of nothingness. After this this particularly long shopping event I was pushed over my limit and I decided hey wait a minute I don't have to do this. There's no there's no I don't need to do this. I don't need to give up my weekend to go clothing shopping for another person. If someone asked me to go clothing shopping with them the answer is just no. No, I'm not going clothing shopping. I have no interest in this and I will be of no help and it will be just a total misery and no, I'm not going to do this. So from that day onward I have not gone clothing shopping with any of the partners in my life. Now very luckily my wife never even knew about this policy because she never even asked me to ever go clothing shopping with her. It would never occur to her to bring me along clothing shopping. So this is this works out very well. She doesn't want me to go and I don't want to go and we're both very happy. Hang on. She didn't ask you but do you know she doesn't want you? Do you think maybe she might get pleasure from you being there and helping and no no she does not want me there but she doesn't want you there probably because you're a grumpy guts who doesn't like it but would she want you there if you were like being helpful and supportive and interested like she doesn't want me there because she doesn't want to be there either. She also wants to go shopping and get stuff done as fast as possible and when you do it with two people it's like oh now it's like an outing it's just much slower and something that never crossed my mind but my wife has very often complained that when she goes shopping she has to deal with all of these partners of the other women in the stores blocking the aisles getting in the way because they don't know where to stand and because they're in the brass section they can't make eye contact. You can't make like the can you move to the side gesture because they're just looking at their feet on the you know on the floor trying to get out of the way so my wife is frustrated by the other men in the women's clothing department who obviously don't want to be there who are just sad sacks who are beasts of burden holding onto a bunch of bags and I actually you know what let me take this moment right let me use the like the power of the podcast here. If you're a guy listening to me right now and your arms are getting sore and tired from the bags of clothing that you are holding right now and you're listening to a podcast to try to escape the horrible drudgery of following your partner around on a shopping expedition on the weekend perhaps perhaps it's Sunday you could be doing all kinds of great stuff watching sports ball on the TV instead or something I don't know whatever whatever you do world of war crafting you still have to finish this today because you've already agreed to this but in the future you don't have to you don't have to go along with this you're a grown person your partner is presumably a grown person you can each shop for clothing on your own separately you don't have to do this together live a freer happier life say no can I can I now speak to the to the same people sure if you're a man out shopping with a with a woman you have a female partner and that is something that gives her pleasure enjoy it as well enjoy her pleasure doing things together makes you closer and doing things that make her happy with you is a positive experience doing things you both enjoy as a positive experience if you don't enjoy it but she wants you to be there for support be it moral or financial also even better even better also also enjoy that because one day you will both be old and slow and unhappy and you're not going to sit there thinking I wish I'd done more things on my own you're probably going to sit there thinking I wish I did more things with my partner and finally one final one final thing if you like me find yourself in the brass section and you have figured out how to make that work do let me know because because I can't figure it out and obviously gray is going to be no help whatsoever I am like the most help that I could possibly be I want to give you time back and take you out of this situation for which there's no way to win I don't want to I don't want to spend less time with my wife I don't think there are very many men who have on their deathbed thought I wish I did more clothing shopping my wife that's the way you're presenting that there I don't think that's that's accurate well you're right we are we are quite different and and pretty much I kind of half expected this result like when I when I sent you that text from the brass section at the shop which was awkward in itself because I was taking out my phone which also doubles as a camera these days right I I did think I big grain every when finds himself in these brass sections no he would just because he's a stubborn and would just refuse to be anywhere he just burn a bay stubborn that's it yeah you always you always turn these things at the very end into something something more than they are that's what you always do that's that's that's your M.O. that's my thing yeah I know what you've oh let's take a particular example and now we'll just broaden it out into oh he never does anything that he doesn't like for his partner ever you know that's not that's not all the situation I know but I did but I do just enjoy it anyway you do you want to leave you twisting I like to live you twisting in the wind yeah yeah that's exactly it you want to get the final word in and look you look like oh look at you you're such a hero Brady and oh look at him you such a jerk I'm not a hero I'm a creepy weird guy staring at his shoes in the brass section yeah you are that's not a hero I can save you from that okay well thank you for hearing me out and like your advice is kind of what I expected but it's still interesting to hear can you just wait somewhere else yeah but it's not like it takes that long sometimes if my wife and I are out and she happens to see something in a store that she's interested in yeah she'll pop in really quick to take a look many stores have what is very obviously set up as the man waiting's area they'll have like a little chair at the front which is so clearly for husbands and things to wait in these expeditions with my wife last minutes because she knows that my patients will run very short but surely there is some place that you can just retreat for a few moments while the brush-hopping is being done like you don't really need to be there if it's going to be lengthy and there's another place within like eyeliner and sometimes I will go but I don't know I think I think I think my wife appreciates sort of important she wants to do things together and Lord knows you know I'm in New York for two weeks and Lord knows I spend enough time away on my own hmm anyway I think we have spent more time talking about bras than I thought we ever would in the history of this podcast so today hello internet is sponsored by audible.com it's almost impossible to believe at this point that someone might not know what audible is but in case you don't they are quote a leading provider of spoken audio information and entertainment basically audio books I listen to a lot of them you should listen to a lot of them as Brady and I discuss before a good book can change your life we were mentioning sciencey stuff before and so today I'm going to pick a sciencey recommendation which is a short history of nearly everything by Bill Bryson this is a different book from a brief history of time by Stephen Hawking which of course is also unaudible because they have a hundred thousand plus books but today I'm recommending a short history of nearly everything by Bill Bryson it is a very enjoyable listen that is kind of an overview of all of the history of all of the various sciences put together and Bryson who I have recommended before as an author that I quite like does a really great job of just approaching all of these various topics and he has a unique knack for explaining things in a very funny way and big portions of the book take place here in London at the natural history museum which if you've ever read the book visiting the museum then is a much more in-depth experience now I read this book in print and I also listened to the audiobook which is done by Richard who just has a great great narration voice that really adds to the book and as you may know if you are plugged into the Amazon ecosystem you can switch back and forth between the two read it on your Kindle paper white and then listen to it on your audio player of choice and Amazon will keep everything synchronized between the two so if you want to listen to it audible has it with a zillion books in every genre covering just about everything you could possibly look for now if you go to audible.com slash hello internet you can listen to a brief history of nearly everything by Bryson for free and get a 30 day trial at audible going to audible.com slash hello internet let's audible know that you came from our show so they keep supporting the show and it gets you a free book it's a pretty good deal for everybody so go check it out link will be in the show notes for you brief history of nearly everything bill Bryson learn about a bunch of interesting science history with very pleasant narration shall we move on should we move on to something else that is in the area of retail okay we'll move on to something else what's next and do you know what it is it's a Brady's paper cut oh Brady's paper cut it's been a long time since the Brady's paper cut Brady's little song well we have got a song there is a Brady's paper cut song but oh yes of course yeah there is like a whole thing people can go and watch that if they want it lives elsewhere today my paper cut is automated checkouts or automated self serve checkouts is that what they call me like at the supermarket at the at or various stores but yeah that's supermarkets and other stores that are a little convenience stores things like that yeah I cannot tell you how much I dislike these things oh no come on man and my dislike for them is ever increasing okay I'm sorry I should interrupt straight away I just can't all right tell me what tell me what it is I'm just reading a few little subtle nuances in your reaction here listen they might be they might be they might be one of the greatest inventions of mankind they're just they're ah I think they're like on a daily basis there's fewer fewer inventions have made my life faster better easier more pleasurable on a daily experience than the automated needs for me I might think slower and less pleasurable you just don't know how to communicate with the machines I think is the problem okay you just tell me tell me what it is what is it that's what's so bad about the best thing ever I do find them a bit finiquity and like sometimes they don't work properly and you got a call for help anyway I feel like they're like slow because I'm not very fast at you know putting things in the bags anyway so I so it slows it slows me down I find like sometimes they don't scan or I can't find the bar code or then something goes wrong the person's got to come over with their magic swipey thing to override the machine and give permission for something and then you've got to you've got to do everything yourself with the paying and it won't accept the money right or the couple there's a problem with the kernel and also because they're becoming so omnipresent and they having less and less real staff they're becoming just massive cues for them anyway so like you're still wading in a huge queue to get to it anyway and it's taking away yes here I'm going to say it's taking away another level of human interactions where I can just like be talking to a human who's experienced at scanning things and is experienced at using bags and can do it quicker than me anyway and it's just a nice little it's a nice moment where you get served by someone and say thank you even if even if you don't have that fake hello house your day it's just an interaction with a human that I like I just they do my head in I dislike them and oh that you know they've been around for a while now and my feelings towards them are not like a not softening I'm hating them more like a lot of technologies when they're new I'm like oh how does this work and then after a month or two I'm like oh I could never have lived without it automated checkouts are not going in that direction automated checkouts are going in the opposite direction and I know your mr robots would take over the world and of course you're going to think the opposite to me but it is a paper cut of mine on a daily basis and I'm hating them more and more the robot's taking people's job thing is a whole separate issue putting aside the massive unemployment these things might cause which wouldn't be good for my own personal selfless experience they're just the greatest I'm like almost you know aside from the Starbucks and as we've discussed many times but like a whole bunch of the little stores on my my errands routines places I need to go have the automated checkouts and it's great I can hit like four stores without having to talk to anybody and if you know how to use them they're faster I mean I do see you know little old ladies get confused with the scanner and it deals with them and then the person needs to come over and of course for that person it takes way longer than it does if you if you can use the machine competently but if you know what you're doing it's it's just the great you bam right in the store grab your things scan and boop boop boop here's the card it's even it's even more magic when they have the contactless cards here so you just tap the card happily on top of the machine it goes right everything's fine the transactions through out you go you don't even have to pick up the receipt it's it's so nice it's so great I love everything about it and if you don't put it in the bag in like you know three point two seconds it's like oh you have a bagging area malfunction problem they're always telling you off and they're yelling at you and barking instructions and this this happened the first couple times I use a checkout machine and now maybe one in a hundred times now this this thing happens where it goes oh there's you you didn't put the bag in the checkout or yeah you didn't miss what is it miss place item and bagging area or whatever but almost always you just take the thing out put it back in and it's fine two seconds later this this is not some huge problem unless you're just completely incapable of scanning and and packing something at the same time well well maybe that is me I mean I I use them of course I use them and like you know I'm I think I'm above average intelligence for like my fellow man or you know at least somewhere near the middle and I have problems with them I don't enjoy them and why don't you go on the line for the people then there's almost always a people line I will I will always go in the line for the people if I care if one exists and and it's not onerous compared to the if it's a 50 50 you're a 60 40 proposition I will go to the person the other day I was using one just two days ago here in New York and it didn't work there was a problem with it and I think it was the machines fault and and I was only buying two I was only buying two or three items and I'm like I turned to the hill there was a woman behind the counter another woman there and I'm like this isn't working and they're like oh sorry you're right it's not working and I said can you just put this through and she was like no no go over to the other one the other one over there is working and I said and I was standing in front of her with the staff and I said no can't you just put this through I'm standing in front of you now and the staff were like scared of dealing with me they're like no no go over there and use the machine I'm like you've got the thing right in front of you you were serving someone two seconds ago and I just shoved it in her face and said put it through these are the charming human interactions that you miss people are people are afraid of you in the stores well yeah because these were like CGP Gray people who were like oh no don't we don't want to we just want you to go and use machines it's like that's right CGP Gray people that's what it is yeah that was that was your social skills failing there I I of course no surprise to anybody and resentful of there's one supermarket in particular which should obviously have self checkout machines that I sometimes have to use and it doesn't it's like oh great you just have a bunch of humans here this is the worst but my most frequent supermarket I'm irritated because they only have a single line that feeds into both machines and humans and that's oh great now I don't have the choice but I am the total weirdo who when I get to the front of the line if one of the humans waves me over I will let the person behind me go ahead and I will wait for a machine I would much rather have the machine than an actual person it does sometimes seem a bit awkward if I happen to wave a couple people through in a row and like no I'd much rather use the machine this way also don't have a you know some person who's touching other people all day long touching their cards touching their things then touching my things as well no no thank you this way I handle the bags I check it out on the machine and I never have any problems with the machines or exceedingly rarely exceedingly rarely it's great it's absolutely great all right I think you just you just need to figure out how to competently use a machine yeah and maybe you need to figure out how to competently talk to human beings nope I don't need to the future is going my way on this one right everything's coming up CGP gray here yeah you're right everything's coming up gray you're our world is getting grayer by the day ain't that the truth oh it's beautiful it's beautiful soon we'll live in a world with no color whatsoever I am very happy that once again the application that runs my entire life omnifocus is back sponsoring the show omnifocus is a complete task management system for your life if you want to just keep simple to do list items omnifocus can do that if like me you want to have hundreds of projects and thousands of actions all tracked together in one system and have crazy complicated repeating templates that use external scripting methods omnifocus can do that but it doesn't have to it can be exactly the amount of to do list that you need you need a lot it can be a lot you need a little it can be a little and it's everywhere you need it to all day long omnifocus is open on my Mac I actually have it set up so that when my computer turns on omnifocus automatically turns on and you can also have omnifocus on your phone and your iPad and now your fancy Apple watch and it all syncs together with their omnipresence system which is custom designed just for omnifocus and a bunch of the other amazing programs by the omnifocus group most of which I also use one of the biggest features for me about omnifocus is the way it can slice and dice all of the to-do's that you have so that you can only see the things that are relevant to you right now the simple version of this is that you can just see errands that you need to run all at once or phone calls that you need to make all at once without having to look at every single thing that's in your system but I like to use this for certain kinds of things that I'm working on so just with the press of a button I can see all of the to-do items I have that are related to hello internet or I can see all of the to-do items that are related to my YouTube videos but perhaps one of the most useful ways to divide up my own projects is that I can just see all of the tasks that I can do when I'm kind of brain-dead I don't have a lot of thinking power but I can still do kind of boring non-thinking tasks at that very moment I don't want to search through all of my projects for those sorts of items I just want to press a button boom I can see all the things that I can do without having to think too hard about it and just grind away I have tried every task management program and every to-do list manager under the sun and omnifocus is the one that I am going with and the one that I really rely on keeping up with the theme of books that have changed your life getting things done the book that I mentioned before that turned me basically into a grown-up omnifocus is designed if you want it to to work as a perfect implementation of getting things done so you want to turn around your life great by getting things done and buy a copy of omnifocus your whole life will be better unless you're Brady Brady can't change at this point but you can so right now go click on the link in our show notes check out omnifocus I'm going to send you to the one for the iPhone just to get started on something and give it a whirl and you can just try it because omnifocus comes with a money back guarantee you don't like it get in touch with the omnigroup they'll work to refund your purchase how many apps on the app store do that basically nobody nobody does that but omnigroup is so confident in their products that they are willing to do that go to the show notes click right now change your life so let's do topics because I think do we have topics yeah the top topic here says Brady is frustrating I believe this relates to the Apple Watch okay oh okay yeah yeah okay so let's let's let's do grays Apple Watch corner first we're doing Brady is frustrating corner because dear internet this is for you by the way I am frustrated on your behalf because Brady and I we do this podcast together and sometimes things come up that are interesting and I think in those moments it is useful to take notes about the interesting thing that you might want to talk about on the podcast because we're often recording you know 10 days or a week and a half after some event has actually occurred and you forget and it's really useful to have notes but Brady Brady doesn't take notes and I'm trying to get him to take notes for you listener so that you can have a more pleasurable experience but every time some Brady text me about something interesting happening I text back and say take notes and what do you say Brady no no I'm not going to take notes because you disrespect the audience that's why you don't take notes no I don't if you were a better interviewer I wouldn't need notes because you would just you would massage information out of me you know I'm a terrible interviewer you know that yeah you are I am the worst and as far what you do when you interview people to me seems like witchcraft I have no idea what's happening or how you do it and this is a skill that I will never have so this is why I beg of you to take notes when you're doing something interesting but you don't that's Brady is frustrating corner so what Gray is talking about is shortly after the last podcast when Gray had seen the Apple watch and I had not I booked an appointment to go and try some on and you know do that whole experience they do not because I had any intent of buying one but just because I wanted to say it and look at it and play with it so I went along with my wife and we both had you know a little half an hour in the store with the Apple Watchman who enthusiastically showed us everything and let us try everything on and we did all that and it's done what did you think of the experience I can't really remember what what would you like to know what would you like to know I will answer all your questions if as long as it's a little bit more specific than just what did you think of these how are we already established them terrible at asking good questions okay well that's like I just want to hear I would what I would want you to do is go through your notes but you have no notes let's cut to the let's let's start at the end let's cut to the chase I have to go look back at the text methods conversation my scroll back yeah my current position is having done it is still I don't want to get one and have no intention of getting one so that's that's the headline like like a good newspaper man I'm doing the inverted pyramid and just getting straight like the newspaper story is starting with Brady Harron will not buy an Apple Watch no watch for me says Brady Harron says Harron says Harron yeah there we go even better nice work great nice headline no watch for me says Harron hey you got to start with the strong word in the newspaper right and then it's all downhill from that headline it's a go wait yeah it should be more Harron slams watch yeah yeah so I'm not going to get one there's your headline my impressions are that it was I expected it to be nicer looking than I expected and it was if that makes sense okay to parse that for a second yeah just think about it you you you wait I didn't like what it looked like in pictures but I knew when I saw it for real I would think wow that does look better than the pictures and indeed that is what happened so you knew that your expectations were lower than they should be I knew it would be more impressive in real life and it was then you were expecting it to be yeah you know what I mean you know what I mean you're just you're just hanging me out to dry now I am not I swear to God I am not hanging you out to dry I feel like like we have two levels of expectations here and I'm just trying to figure out how you hold them in your brain but let's move past that because we'll get derailed but I am I am not trying to confuse you I am genuinely this is there's like a there's some kind of weird recursion here in your expectations that I can't quite unravel the Apple Watch was much nicer to look at in real life then it is in the pictures on the website right right and that is what I expected the case to be so what did you try on for yourself I tried on loads of them I tried on lots and lots different sizes and different bands and the fact the thing I thought was let's not talk about the watch itself for a minute but just talk about the bands really it's all about the bands isn't it the going to the shop you look at what it does and then it's like this whole band experience yes some of the things I thought about the bands I was I was impressed by the ability to change links so easily which has never been the case with watches I was very impressed with the mechanism whereby you can change the bands themselves on the watch I thought it was a lovely little piece of engineering most of the bands I was impressed by how nice they felt on the hand a lot of them felt very pleasurable on the hand especially those kind of leathery ones they felt nice I didn't like how some of the bands looked the millenase one I think so debacle I don't know why anyone will get that but anyway but some people like it so that one seems to be a very divisive one yeah I would say that one definitely seems to be very divisive because I I've had the same conversation with a few people where to my eye that looks like a very feminine watch band but people seem to disagree and when I first heard I was surprised I was shocked that anybody could possibly disagree but this is this is where fashion is just a strange thing everybody has very personal reactions to different kinds of bands and I've heard people say things about the bands that I like where I think oh how could you possibly think that but so yeah it's very it's very very weird but I I would bet the millenase one is top on the people disagree in wildly different directions about it band I didn't like how it looked off or on the hand some of them like I thought some of the metal link ones and the metal ones I would like and then when I put them on my hand I didn't like so much if I was going to get one I would probably get the leather band with the traditional buckle friendly enough that's that's the one that I felt like I could see that working for you yeah I didn't expect that to be the case I thought because you know I've got my watch has got like a steel band like I wear a silvery steel band but I didn't like how that looked in the Apple watch so much I still don't like how it looks as much as a normal watch that kind of square look I didn't use it enough to give you a fair assessment but I didn't particularly enjoy the touching and the using of it I didn't immediately like it it didn't immediately seem hugely intuitive to me which one did the Mrs. Lake she liked the watches she she found that she doesn't want to get one either but she she enjoyed her she enjoyed looking at them and found them really interesting and in some ways I felt maybe she liked them more than me and then like I said she knows nothing about them about what they're made of or the price extractor how anything works and after looking at them all she's like how can I try one of those goldy colored ones on and he said oh you can't try them on and she's like oh they're the one I quite like the look of that one so I think I'd probably get that one and then I know I was like and then she was like how much is that one and then the guy said you know all these thousands upon thousands and she was like you're joking yeah they started 12,000 pounds in the UK I think so I then had to explain you know they're made of actual gold and you know she's a smart woman so she was like oh okay well of course right she didn't realise they were made of actual gold she just thought they were like goldy colored and it does raise an interesting question that if you don't like silvery colored jewellery and you like goldy colored jewellery like like some people are in camp silver or camp gold and some people wear old gold jewellery and there's no watch for them because you can't wear a silver watch if you wear old gold jewellery or gold jewellery because it clashes so Apple have kind of left those people out in the dark haven't they they're like I'm partly surprised there is no goldy colored one that is affordable but I see why there's not yeah you can see why they can't have a sports watch that is also gold yeah because you have because the gold is all about the rich people showing off and how can you prove your rich person if other people can have cheap gold colored ones so anyway I went and looked at them and I've gone and looked at them since again in the shop and had a little touch and a play and but your your Amiga speedmaster is going to live live indefinitely on your wrist is that the plan I love it more every day I am genuinely relieved to hear that I'm genuinely relieved to hear that yeah so is there anything else you want to know or have I told you enough without notes I my interviewer skills are lacking by I feel like I feel like I I get a sense of it I'm not surprised about the classic one for you I could definitely see that working as a as a look for you most of the clasps are very clever I'm they have done very well with their like their little engineering novelties they've they have done well like most of the clasps I liked but I did like just the traditional looking one I will say one other thing about that I think about the watch before you talk a bit about it because I know you'll have a few things to say and that is and I've seen other people discussing this and I even weighed into a Twitter discussion about it with the likes of John Groober and that is having the watch face show like a pretend mechanical watch like there's this chronograph setting so you look at your screen and it's like a pretend watch you know rendered on the rendered on the watch I don't see the point of that I think it's and I think it's really pointless and a little bit silly like I always say if you're going to be a bear be a grizzly if you're going to have this electronic high tech watch don't have it rendering pretend old-fashioned watch faces on it that seems really silly to me that's the equivalent of having a fireplace or an aquarium on your TV if you want an aquarium get an aquarium if you want to have a fireplace get a fireplace if you want to have like hands and second hands in a round face in that old-fashioned watch get an old-fashioned watch if you want to move with the times and get something high tech and and take the next step and maybe it's the way of the future do that but take advantage of the technology take advantage of the things a screen can do like you don't have electronic versions of a rotary dial on your phone because that's that's an old-fashioned technology and I think people having this like old-fashioned if they want that kind of you know speedmaster chronography look on their wrist and it's just being rented on a screen I feel like that's a bit silly and I may be mistaken but didn't you record a u-log on one of your channels for people to play on their computers at Christmas yeah and I did that because I was I was invited to do it and I was afraid to do it but but but also but also I did that but I did that with like the the twist of being able to like throw dangerous chemicals onto it and things like that still a Christmas your log people would be playing on their computer as a Christmas I also feel like that was a bit ironic but I don't think people having the chronographs on their watch are doing it in a kind of ironic funny way I mean those those your log videos were like almost a spoof of your log videos in the same way that like my calculator unboxing videos are a spoof of unboxing videos I feel like my your log video was like a parody of the fact people do that whereas I don't think people who are wearing these pretend chronographs on their eye watch are like parodying anything I think they're doing it because it's the look they want and I'm just not on board with it I think if you're going to have an Apple watch you know utilize the screen the people who have these sort of panel versions where they showed their time and their next appointments stuff like that okay like it's not for me but I'm on board with that you're utilizing the technology but telling the time on this with pretend hands and all that sort of thing which you know you have hands on a clock because of the technology necessitated the way watches and the mechanism or watches work necessitates it it's no longer necessary on a on a computer I don't know it just feels a bit silly to me it feels like it feels like having a you know you you don't have modern well you probably do actually but I wouldn't have a modern grandfather clock which instead of a grandfather clock has a screen on there that has like a pretend pendulum swinging and pretend yeah yeah that feels stupid to me that feels stupid to me and it feels a bit the same way with the watch I feel like you know don't have an old fashion and I know there's a bit more nuance to the discussion and I've read a little bit about what and I've heard what John Grieber said about on his podcast and what he's written about it and I understand the argument I just don't I'm just definitely not on his side I missed I missed your Twitter interaction so I'm not I'm not sure what his his argument would be but I'm thinking so so for me I am very aware of time as existing in this circle that goes round and round that is part of his argument that's just how that's how he's used to reading time and he doesn't want to unlearn that which I don't agree with I think you can unlearn it very quickly and just so you're in the picture the other thing he says is he thinks the watch isn't too sort of skewer more for whoever you say it like he says you know it's not like they're rendering shadows and things like that so he thinks it doesn't go too far down that path yeah I mean I don't know the skew morphism argument has never been interesting to me it's like does it look good it doesn't not look I don't really that that's that's not I only care about skew morphism once you talk about skew morphism enforcing limitations as famously the apple podcast did when it was pretending to be a real to real tape player and allow you to do basically nothing because they want to preserve the metaphor that looks like a real to real tape player so what are you doing this is stupid or the thing that I find most frustrating is on the kind of skew morphism on digital calendars where you can only scroll a month at a time and so you have to flip back and forth between two virtual pages when you're looking at an event that's at the end of April and the beginning of the next month they know you can make this a continuous scroll and so that's why like that's the kind of skew morphism that I find really frustrating there's no reason for the month to exist as a page on a computer but the way you know the way things look with shadows and stuff I've never I've never really cared about that but okay I am aware that for me the like a digital readout I have always found somehow harder to read there's something about it being overly precise that bothers me and some people have noticed when I take screenshots on occasion of my computer I don't have a normal clock in the upper right hand corner I have something that's called a fuzzy clock where normally it would it would display the digits right now it actually just has a few words and it says five past eight so the clock on my computer always writes out a sentence like that it'll say quarter to six then it will say 10 to six then I'll say six o clock or I'll say noon and I find that a million times easier to look at and to have a sense of the time then something that says six thirty seven and there's something about like I can't deal with the precision of the minute it's too precise I don't need to know it and it's almost like it somehow that extra precision slows me down and so that's why I really do like circular clock faces as well because you can look at it it's like I have a sense of the time without needing to know the precision of the time is that because knowing a precise time would kind of add to your cognitive load or it would like it would just it would cause you stress and you want to avoid that stress I don't I wouldn't say it causes stress I'm just aware that there's something about looking at digital number clocks that is fractionally slower every time I do it which makes no sense because it's it should be more immediately readable but it isn't it isn't and it's probably just because I grew up with circular watches looking at circular clocks in school and watching them go round and round and you know praying for the end of the day and knowing the shape of the clock when you could finally be free and go home and not have to do any of this nonsense anymore so if you'd grown up with clocks which showed like the face of a bear when it was three o'clock and then the face of a giraffe when it was four o'clock and yeah I'm sure I would be thinking oh it's almost barrel clock now thank God you know yeah and I would I would keep that up so it's almost like a pictorial way of telling time rather than yeah somewhere between the two it is yeah okay I mean that's kind of that's kind of the group argument too I think to some it's just it's just what he's used to it's just his way of telling time but I just I don't know I don't think it's utilizing the technology and I think that's a behavior that could be pretty easily unlearned I grew up using a rotary phone and dialing phone numbers by putting my finger in the three and then moving my finger down to the nine and I unlearned that pretty quickly when I had the buttons so I don't know it doesn't quite it doesn't quite wash for me and I think making the watch try to be like these old-fashioned watches is just I think it's not the way to go you know so the reason this is particularly funny is because right on my watch right now I actually happen to be using the chronograph face of an Apple watch so you are wearing an Apple watch you haven't told anyone that yet I am wearing an Apple watch right now and I don't I don't actually normally use the chronograph I don't like the way it looks but I thought oh let me switch over to this and let me just use it for timing the podcast and tell me your thoughts tell me your thoughts on it is we we are in in one hour 32 minutes 17 seconds right now so I have to give I just have to give first impressions because my watch arrived just a little bit over 24 hours ago so I have had kind of a day and a half with it and yes great great did not tell me everyone he didn't tell me he didn't say okay okay okay listen yes today we were we were just trying to coordinate the time to to get this and who was not replying to my text messages you I literally had no time except minutes before this podcast in which do possibly tell you that I had gotten an Apple watch you were busy you were busy offline I sent text messages to two different addresses I sent an email I didn't get a response until this morning I felt deeply hurt but I didn't know where you were I wasn't going to randomly start some conversation hey let's talk about my new Apple watch maybe you're busy dealing with some problem I have no idea if I got an Apple watch our text you straight away I'd say because you're like my Apple watch mate so I'd be like great guess what I'm wearing guess what I've got I'd be so excited we and we literally had no time in which to possibly discuss this until this podcast not true but anyway that is that is a 100% true I will not let you deceive our listeners in this manner there was no time in which we could have discussed this I'm not saying discuss I'm just saying tell me you've got it I told you right before we started to record no you didn't I saw it on your wrist no no you said you don't have a watch and then I said yes I do and showed it to you I can I have the I have the recording if oh she's maybe I don't have the recording I saw the band I saw the band and you thought it looked different if I have the recording I'm gonna put it in right now but I told you first I swear this is the part where I'm either proven no you need the video to do it justice because I saw the band on your hand and I thought it didn't look like you're watching I'm like what what are you wearing now that I don't think that's what happened but anyway this is all this is all a side show of us just of us just bickering like old ladies let's go close shopping I would love to not go close shopping with you Brady that would never happen tell me about your first 24 hours with the watch because you you you were not are you gonna keep it all that sort of stuff when I said I was relieved before that you were liking your Omega speedmaster more and more my first 24 hours with the watch definitely convinced me that that you should never have one of these this would be this would be no good for you and it is so easy to make it be just this notification addiction machine so I thought oh god I hope Brady never gets one because he will be even more consumed by beeps and buzzes and distractions and shiny things than he already is so I'm very very happier with your Omega speedmaster can I just clarify for you I I have unbelievably few notifications on my phone like I don't get notifications for emails or the only time my phone will ever make noise is if I get a text message and I only get text messages really from you and my wife and maybe a couple of other mates so like yeah I do understand I'm just talking about in general your distracted nature yeah my problem is I take it out of my pocket all the time that's right and now you have things you'd have something on your wrist to constantly be checking and looking yeah to anybody who either has just gotten an Apple watch or his or will be getting one very soon I think the way to go into this is to almost pretend that additional apps don't exist and really think of it as I have bought a watch it has changeable watch faces I'm going to select one that I like and this watch happens to be able to do a few additional very useful things but a number of people that I have spoken with and that I've heard talking about the watch are trying to treat it as though it's a tiny iPhone and it is so clearly not a tiny iPhone but in the stores and with family members and with a bunch of other people everybody is all about the apps they're thinking oh what are the apps that can be on this phone and I think that is the totally wrong way to think about this device and I was trying I was trying to date to think of a way to describe it and the best I can come up with is that the Apple watch my first impression anyway is this might be one of the most low key technology purchases I have ever made it's in my life it's very helpful but it's not attention getting in the way that an iPhone is and it's not trying to do a whole bunch of stuff that away an iPhone is it really feels like hey I'm a watch that is additionally useful in some clever ways but I'm not trying to take over your whole life so low key is the best way that I can think of it and I have really enjoyed it so far don't think about all the apps people just think about it as a watch that happens to do some additional things pretend like those apps aren't even there I think you'll have a much better experience with it kind of straight away well let me ask you this then because your previous watch which was a gift wasn't it from your wife or like your previous watch it's very very pretty you know very beautiful very a very elegant good looking object and to me it was also a piece of jewelry it was it was it was a statement you were making about your taste and things like that does does the Apple watch cut the mustard does the is the Apple watch at the same level as that watch or have you compromised do you think what you're wearing on your wrist now is less beautiful or less of a statement in that terms about the style of who you are okay well this is this is terribly unfair question at the moment because I ordered two watches hoping that one of them would arrive before the one that I really want so I actually have one that is basically my trial watch see if it's something that I'm going to to keep so right now on my wrist I am wearing the black aluminum sports watch right which I think is is pretty good looking but it is it is nowhere near the piece of jewelry of the watch that I am actually really have my heart set on is the black link one that is not arriving until next year or so according to delivery estimates so that is the that is the one that I would actually want is and that's the one that I think would look the best although I still haven't been able to try that on because the supplies are so low they don't even have them in the stores like I keep checking in every once in a while with the Oxford Street store here about oh do you guys have the black link and they go oh no we don't have it right the not even to try on so that's why I really think that one might not be shipping for forever which is why I put in the order for the black sports one to at least be able to try it right away and to get some sense of is this a thing worth waiting for is it a thing that I want to really have or you know I'll just you know just return this and then not even and then cancel my order for the other one because it's just not worth it but I like it straight away okay the thing on my wrist is is not a piece of jewelry it is it is a very functional object and that's fine what are you liking about it then if you're if you're using so few of the apps you are liking just a little notifications and well I guess you ready yeah this is exactly what how I feel things are useful is that if it can do a couple things well I'm sold and the thing that the Apple Watch does really well are these little tap notifications where it feels like it's tapping your wrist because when I got the watch first thing I did put it in mute so it doesn't make any noises so it's not beeping or anything and then I turned off basically every single notification except for a very few and I really like the way a couple things are coming through on the watch and one of which is really great because I'm is timers so I use timers a lot when I work I have 40 minute timers and 20 minute timers that I'm constantly setting for different sorts of tasks and I want to know when those have run down and to have the watch do this little tap tap tap thing when the timer has run down it's hard to describe how helpful that is when I'm working because it's something that I'm aware of but I can ignore in a way that I could never ignore a vibrating phone or an audio alarm for for the timer being over and boy is that great it's like okay tap tap tap I know that the timer has gone off but you've managed to not distract me or startled me with the sound or be a thing that I have to deal with like the iPhone 6 Plus and it's huge vibration motor on on the desk or anything so I absolutely love this as a little feature and even if it was just a watch that additionally did these silent timers I'd be I'd be totally sold but there are some other things I've been playing around with the health features which are really nice I did my exercise at the gym today with it recording my heartbeat and all that stuff I mean this this kind of thing you need to use over over a longer period of time I would say the silent notifications are the greatest and I also did play around with the walking directions where it taps you on the wrist for when you want to turn left or when you want to turn right which if you go back to one of our earlier podcasts was one of the things I guessed I would really like and find useful and I'm exactly correct about that being able to set a destination a walking destination and have it just tap my wrist for the turns is beautiful it's absolutely beautiful I can just walk somewhere and kind of not have to think about it I don't have Siri interrupting me in my ear with audio directions if I'm trying to listen to a podcast at the same time which is hugely frustrating and no small part because Siri is way too chatty so I'm really liking that as well and yeah it's it's very nice I'm pretty I'm pretty happy with it let me see I have a couple of their notes here okay someone makes nights at least I do make I do make notes oh yeah so more convinced terrible for notification junkies not for Brady oh my my other concern that the other concern that I had was I was worried about glancing at the time that it might not work out very well because there is this little bit of a delay when you turn it up so far I haven't even haven't even noticed so I'm pleased about that I think that comes into my head and I know this is sort of I've something I hapt on about before but I still feel a bit sad about it because to me watches in in their various forms but especially like you know mechanical watches they're just like a little connection with the past and part of human heritage and I didn't feel like it was a big sacrifice to have a watch on your hand is a little nod to that and a little piece of tradition and I feel like I feel like oh now we've lost that too to functionality it's a bit like this is an extreme example when you'll get angry at me for it but it's a bit like saying well let's knock down the colosseum because what the colosseum is old and not useful for anything and yet we could put a shopping centre there or a cinema or a housing or things that people can actually use every minute of their life as opposed to just a relic from the past that we look at and I feel like we're taking the little colosseums off our hand a little that little connection with the past and trading it in for trading it in for taps and notifications and timers and and we didn't need to do that we already have lots of other things that do it and so I feel a bit sad I feel like we're losing a little piece of a little connection with the past well yeah you don't have to and you're going to keep wearing your Omega Speedmaster of course but let me let me give you a good let me I just I was just thinking of trying to explain why this is different and so here's a really good example that just happened so my wife and I before the podcast we were just having dinner and I know that you were on a timetable for when we can record this today so I had set an alarm on my watch that told me at this point you need to leave and go set up the podcast equipment in order to make it on time for Brady and so while my wife and I were having dinner she's just telling me a story about what was going on in her day and while she's telling me the story the alarm goes off on my watch now I have it set to silent yeah and the little moment is she can't hear my alarm she has no idea that the alarm just went off so my alarm doesn't interrupt her story it doesn't cut her off I'm aware of what I need to be aware of and I could let her finish her story and then part the conversation at a moment that felt like it was a better moment to say okay you know I know I've got to go you know I'll talk to you later and I didn't have to be like a little interruption and I think that is really valuable to to be able to be notified of something without disturbing the people around you if you set it up in the right way now lots of people will will leave sounds on a phone and your pocket wouldn't have done that the phone the phone wouldn't do that because of course I would do that you know perfectly well you're sitting with someone everyone can hear when your phone is vibrating anyway yeah you know that Brady all right there will not necessarily but all right yeah but you're but you're going to grant it to me that lots of times you're sitting there it's not like a secret that your phone is vibrating I think it should be but maybe they haven't quite does aren't it well enough we're not talking about it if it should be or isn't but but it isn't under lots of so I know I'm with people I can hear when their phone vibrates it's it's it's no surprise so that little kind of interaction was something that I thought was was was very nice to be able to do in a different kind of way I know the thing that I need to know but I haven't interrupted the person who I'm talking with and which is it was just a very small moment but that to me is like oh this is a great additional little feature I mean there's a couple other things that have been very nice just using it in in the past day just in the gym being able to tap a couple things on my wrist instead of having to pull the my phone in and out of my pocket all the time like that just made exercising at the gym a little bit easier and it like these little things for me really add up like oh can we make this interaction a little bit smoother can we do this just a little bit easier I I think that's really valuable you're going to think I'm crazy for saying this but when you tell me that story about talking to your wife and getting that secret tap but letting her continue to talk I find that really sneaky and really non-transparent and I actually don't like the idea that I would be sitting at you with the pub and you're getting all these secret messages into your wrist and not telling me and like managing me I would almost rather the transparency of your phone going ping and you're going oh that's my alarm I've got a meeting later on but let's keep talking I almost find a little bit deceptive that everyone's going around getting these secret little messages into their wrist and I don't know and they're like they're like they're man managing me I love how you are already positing a world where everybody is already managing you with their secret watches first of all I can guarantee you that not very many people will set the watch the way I do to have it be completely silent I bet almost everybody will leave all the little audio notifications on which I think is entirely the wrong way to do it and as we have discussed I don't have very many notifications and I am aware that with the watch I'm already turning down some of the limited notifications that I have on the phone because the one thing that I don't like is at least in the current version of the software there isn't quite enough control over how you want notifications to be distributed between the phone and the watch it's a bit like oh the phone either mimics what the watch does or the phone doesn't I'm sure they'll do more of that in the future but the interesting the interesting trick if anyone who's playing around with the watch that I have found so far if you're a person like me who has very few notifications is to not have the watch mirror the phone in do not disturb mode what this means is that notifications that would normally be blocked by your phone while your phone is in do not disturb mode can still go to your watch and there are a couple of situations where this is this is proven useful and they're like interesting things that you can do about it but they do need to add more more settings for precisely how notifications are controlled but nobody's managing you yet Brady you haven't even seen anybody with a watch and I'm sure everybody else's watches will be loud I'll be well I will be curious to ask you what I for hear what your wife's reaction is when she hears that anecdote you just told that she was telling a story and you got this secret tap she didn't know about and you like allowed her to finish her story but the whole time you knew you knew you now had something to do but you were just keeping it to yourself and waiting for her to finish her story I'll be curious to hear what she how she feels about that she's probably probably pretty cool but because she's pretty cool person but like I wouldn't like it I wouldn't like it I would prefer that I just knew that you just had got a notification and it was now on your mind I want to I'd want to know what's affecting you and not have secret things coming in that are affecting you in ways I don't know I can see very briefly on the flip side because my wife got her watch on the day of launch so she's had it a little bit longer than I have and she had it when I didn't have one one thing that I noticed right away is she has messages go to her watch it was the first night we were just sitting around and she got a couple of text messages and I have to say I really liked the fact that she could do exactly what she did which was a couple of times she clearly got the notification on her wrist that a message come through she flipped up her watch she looked at the message and also saw that it didn't need to be replied to and then just put her wrist down and we continued talking and doing whatever we were doing that it it sounds dumb but that's a million times less disruptive than when she would have to pick up her phone and kind of hold her phone in between us and take a look at it and then put the phone down and then the phone is now say like on the table in between the two of us it's it doesn't sound like it's a big difference but I'm telling you it's a huge difference in someone being able to just quickly look at a thing versus bringing out an object to like physically demonstrate that they are checking the thing in front of you or potentially unlocking their phone I don't know it was it's it's different in and I think a very positive way it makes things smoother in a way that I found oh I like or I should put this way that I was kind of less annoyed at moments when she would check a message than I might otherwise be uncertain circumstances so I was on the opposite end of that and I give it a I give it a thumbs up well I'm happy that you're I'm actually a bit disappointed that you're happy I was secretly hoping that you'd get it and tell me that it's not that great and you'd return it but I knew that wasn't what was going to happen I knew you'd love it and you'd do it's I should be happy for you I'm just being I'm being I'm being grabbed yelled man it's okay you can be you can be a grabbed yelled man yeah it's not even that I'm happy with it it just feels that it's almost like it is integrated so fast into normalcy it is surprising and that's why I use the word low key I can't I really can't think of any kind of analogy for it's it's almost like I don't know you know like buying like buying a really good coffee cup is this coffee cup a lot better than the previous one well no it's a little better but you immediately find yourself using it all the time and you appreciate the way that it is slightly better but it's also super you're used to using a coffee cup all the time so it just like slides right in there's no getting used to it at all like already comfy pair of shoes yeah yeah or just you know getting a yeah getting a new pair of shoes it's very comfortable you don't need to relearn how to use shoes yeah and I feel that the watch is very much like that I don't really or at least so far I haven't really been using the third party apps at all it's just a watch in the way that a watch normally is there's a couple of buttons on the edges that I can press to get some additional information and it also silently notifies me about things that I have chosen for it to notify me and it's it's a it's a it's a big deal I actually already replied to you on the watch once today with one of those messages that you were sending me before and it was very nice very easy this was during that time when you couldn't contact me and couldn't tell me you had a watch yeah this was 15 minutes before the show when we were instant messaging okay that's exactly right okay well I don't know if I can send you flowers from the watch I think it's just smiley faces so I don't think those are as good I've been sitting on this really hard flat chair for about two hours now and I've got a really sore back sir I'm sure the listeners want to know I'm just saying maybe we should stop let's stop let's stop we have got a couple of other cool items here but they can they can wait he's totally lying there's nothing else in our show no there were two there were two more items here you can see them under Brady is frustrating I won't say what they are because you'll get all upset because you don't want people to know what we're going to discuss next time but you see them you see them both we're looking at the same document I do see I do see them both I have prepared really for neither of those things they were just they were just things that wrote down to make it look like I had prepared you yeah so that we can talk about Apple watch i do have one on me right now
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