H.I. No. 104: Fruitbooting

"H.I. #104: Fruitbooting" is the 104th episode of Hello Internet, released on June 29, 2018.
Brady. Hmm? I dribbled some coffee on myself today, like an idiot. And of course, I looked down, and what do I see? Hmm. The hole was put directly above the seam. I didn't check first. You know what? It was my own fault. I should have known. This will, I'm sure, much to your delight. I've come part of my Starbucks, check all the things routine now. Now this is definitely going to be a thing that I do. Look for the seam. Make sure it doesn't dribble. Is that why you're wearing that garish green shirt today? Garish. You think my shirt is garish? I think I am very colorful today, Brady. Yeah, wow. Kind of the same thing, isn't it? I was so colorful that I startled you a great deal in our FaceTime conversation began. I was amazed. It was the first time I've seen you wearing a color since you wore that Alabama jump to the football game. It may be. It may be. That's true. As you know, Brady, it is summertime now. It is very hot. Yeah. By very hot, I mean, it's approaching 80 degrees, which is far too hot. Then I have to start breaking out my special gear for hot weather. And you know, they don't make hot weather clothes in the kinds of shades I would normally wear. So suddenly, I'm like a bright, colorful person when summertime comes. CGP lime green. Yeah. There you go. That's exactly right. We should release a range of lime green nailing gear to your shirts to mark the occasion. I don't know. I'll get on that. I don't know why you. You see me in color once and you're so taken with this Brady. I don't understand. It's like it's a man in a green shirt. I don't understand why this is so striking. I mean, sure. It has been literally three or four years since you've seen me in any other color. But still, I don't think it's that big of a deal. I'm sorry about the coffee spill. Was it on that green shirt? It was on the green shirt. I haven't had time to change. I've been out all day. So sorry. But you know what? You were so distracted by the bright greenness that you did not notice the sad coffee dribbles. No, I had to look away. You looked like you'd protect my retinas. Oh, good. Good. If people don't look directly at me, maybe I should change up my wardrobes a little bit, make them brighter. So it's like, look away. Do not cast your eyes upon the gray. All right. But if nothing else, all joking aside, people check the same. Check the coffee's name. This is danger. This is a new danger. Not even a hot stopper can save you from that. I've had a fear for you people get in touch with me, offering to make metal hot stoppers since the last episode. Are you going to follow any of those up reading? I might do. Yeah. Someone said they were willing to make one from platinum, which really excited me. But then it made me realize, well, hang on, I guess I'm going to have to fork out for the platinum. And that could actually be quite expensive. How much would a platinum hot stopper cost? I don't have any sense of this. Hundreds? A thousand dollars? Would it be a thousand dollars? I don't know. Like, how much is platinum per gram? Costs? How many grams would a hot stopper be? I don't know. Could have been platinum pleading it very quickly. Yeah, I guess you might have to go pleading. Let me have a look. Platinum price per gram in the UK. Can that be right? 20 pounds of gram? I haven't been in the platinum market lately, so I don't know. Did I ever tell you about when I went to a platinum, like factory? No. It was like super precious metals, including platinum. It was really interesting. We filmed there for periodic videos. We made some really interesting videos, actually. I'll pop some links in if I remember. But when we left the place, like I was super high security, as you can imagine. And when we left, we had to stand on this machine with rotating brushes on the bottom to brush the dust off our shoes. Just for any platinum dust, we'd picked up while we were walking around the factory. And the guy told me they recover something like 30 to 50,000 pounds worth of, this is money. So you know, 70, 80,000 dollars worth of platinum. A year is recovered just from taking the dust off people's shoes before they walk out. That's great. Like I was going to suggest, oh, surely this is a kind of security theater. So they're letting you know how serious they are about Dawn Steeler platinum. But that sounds like it's ROI positive for the machine that's dusting off the platinum from your shoes. That's crazy. Big time. It's been suggested if the price of platinum goes up too much, it would be worth recovering dust and muck from roads and sidewalks just from the platinum sped out by cars and their catalytic converters. Was there platinum in a catalytic converter? I didn't realize that. That's very interesting. But I'm looking at this website that does say that platinum is 21.84 pounds a gram. I presume that we're probably clicked on the same top link there. But it doesn't seem like a crazy amount. I don't know. No, it was less than I expected to be honest. We're going to be rolling out those platinum hot stoppers in no time then. I thought platinum was worth more than gold, but gold's worth way more. Well, that was the joke of saying platinum because I thought platinum was worth more than gold as well. What's gold per gram? Oh, gold's 31. I'm using pound. I'll go to dollars because just to save people getting confused. $41 for a gram of gold. $29 for a gram of platinum. Oh, I am surprised by this. How much is a gram of diamonds? Is it going to buy the gram? Is that how that works? I think that depends on the diamond. No, no. I mean, I just want a pure gram of diamonds, right? How much does that go for? It doesn't work like that. I went to Amsterdam for a mate's stag party. Yeah. And it was just three or four of us and we were pretty boring guys. Right. And he wanted to buy the diamond for his wife's ring. And we went to like this diamond place, like diamond merchants. Yeah, yeah. There's a ton of them there. And like we went into these locked rooms. And the diamonds were being sent to the room through those, you know, those tubes where capsules come in tubes. Like the pneumatic tubes, you mean? Yeah. It was awesome. It was like science fiction. We'd say what diamonds we wanted to see and then it would appear in the tube and he'd take it out of its little canister and show us. And my mate was pretty experienced with diamonds. So he was like, you know, pretty casual about it. So me and the other mate who like, we're just having our minds completely blown, we're trying to look cool and produce the diamonds as well and go, yeah, not bad. We just kept looking at each other going, this is amazing. Send another tube. I think this classifies as an e-clarity rating. I mean, just, but just, yeah, that's, that's, I mean, while you're squealing with glee at all the sparkles. Yeah. Yeah, it's pretty awesome. All right. So diamond hot stoppers, that's what's going to happen. Oh, yeah. It's nice. Wouldn't a platinum hot stopper with a diamond encrusted in the middle of the nail and gear? Ooh, you know what? That's pretty classy. Pretty classy piece of jewelry right there. You know, we just discovered the price of platinum, not as high as we thought. Little diamonds in the center at the top there. I feel like I can envision this. What do you get the coffee drinker who has everything? Yeah. Yeah. Custom hot stopper jewelry, that's what. Yeah. Certainly not for stopping hotness, for stopping coffee. No, this is clearly a beautiful work of art. Hot stuff is a great best friend. I think we've started. I don't know. I don't know. This is a day where it feels like we're really winging it, Brady, just like in the old days. Well, not the last episode. I feel like we've been unusually prepared the last two episodes, sort of. I don't know. So yeah, we're sort of winging it, but I would like to know, Brady, how is your new phone, post, Twitter, post Reddit? Do you feel like a new man? Do you feel like the same man? How has this gone for you? It's going well. Yeah. There's been bit of a development on that front. Yeah. But I would say it has been life changing, not in the way that like an amazing experience that's made me, you know, change my whole direction, but it has changed my life. Right. The most literal way you could say life changing. And the removal of Reddit has been really good. Hmm. Now you're going to use Reddit on my computer now, which I'm out a lot anyway, so I can still go and Reddit a bit. But my Reddit use is a lot more targeted now. I find I mainly go to subreddits to engage with Hello Internet on my own subreddit and things like that, unless just, you know, scrolling today I learned, a pointless trivia that may or may not be true. And Twitter has been more difficult. And I have found a middle ground. Okay. It was actually occasionally causing me serious inconvenience not being able to go on Twitter on my phone. So what I've done is I've, I sometimes leave Twitter open on my web browser as a tab. So I use it like through the internet rather than the app. Okay. So the web browser on your phone, you mean so you're just opening up Twitter and Safari, which is a real pain in the butt to use. Exactly. Okay. And it's such a pain in the butt to use that it prevents me using it as much, but I can use it when I really need to. And I think that is the right compromise for me, because it definitely is consuming less of my life, but I still have the convenience of being able to occasionally tweet from my phone if I really want to or really need to or check a Twitter thing if I really want to or need to. And I think for now, that's how I'm going to stick with it. So it's like inconvenient Twitter, but I still have access to it. And that's what's working. That's an interesting way to go about it. Yeah. I can see that working as an in between you state. Hmm. Hmm. So you feel like your life has been changed for the better. Hmm. Good. I think it's a bit of a waste, but this is the thing though. Do you think it will stick? If we talk to future Brady three months from now at the end of the summer, do you think he's still going to be doing the same thing that current Brady is or do you think he will have backslid as we all do? I think it's 50, 50 on that 50, 50 on that. I can imagine putting the app back on my phone when I go overseas because I'm bored a lot more. I have a lot more time to myself. I want to be able to tweet more probably. Hmm. My next big overseas trip will be the first challenge. It may be that I just put it on my phone when I'm abroad and leave it off when I'm home. Yeah. I mean, that is in theory what I do. I have a little checklist that I run through of like here's all the things that I want to turn back on on my phone when I'm traveling simply because because like you said, you either have like all of this weird downtime or much more of the connections with the outside world now become things that are necessary to have when you're traveling in the modern world. But I do find that that is always the danger point is taking it off when I come back. It's like my brain is always tricking me. Like, oh, we'll take Twitter off the phone tomorrow, right? We're just back today. We're still a little jet lag. We don't need to take it off right now. And I find that it's like that's a thing that I have to be careful about. And if I'm ever realizing like, oh, I'm in a bad place with my phone, it's extraordinarily likely that I have come back from a trip or a conference within the past week or two. I always have to like try real hard to reboot that part of it and to not accidentally just realize like, oh, I've left email and I've left all these other things on my phone. It really is just this process of fighting against your own brain and the way these apps are designed and all that kind of stuff. We'll see. Look forward to hearing about how it goes for you, Brady. So great. Like Dr. Hausman in dirty dancing. No, I'm wrong. I say I'm wrong. Okay. I don't know this reference, but I'll just I'm going to run with it. You're not a dirty dancing fan. Thought you liked your chick flicks. I have seen more chick flicks than probably almost anyone alive. I've worked through so many that now now we're having to expand our our boundaries into non English language chick flicks because English has run it dry. But dirty dancing. I don't know. It's like a movie I can never remember. I've seen it and it just slides right out of my head. I couldn't tell you a thing about dirty dancing except that there's there's dancing in it. Oh, I reckon I must have seen that 20 times. Wow. Okay. So you're able to make the dirty dancing deep cut references there like Dr. Hausman. I could resort the how film. I would enjoy that someday. When I go over to your house, I would like a one man performance of dirty dancing from you, Brady. Big fan. Big fan. I'm sorry. I feel really bad in this moment. But there are Dr. Hausman. He's a man who says he's wrong, apparently. When he's wrong, he says he's wrong. Okay. He makes a wrong assumption about Johnny Castle all through the film. And at the end, he's something happens that made him realize he was wrong and he says to him, this is the guy who's like courting his daughter. Right. And he comes up to him and says, I know it wasn't you. He got pernied in trouble. Is that the one with Barbara Strison? Barbara Strison. No, who isn't dirty dancing? Patrick's Waizy is Johnny Castle. Maybe you're thinking of Jennifer Gray. Yeah, that's what I'm thinking of. I'm thinking of Jennifer Gray. Yeah, she's kind of like a Barbara Strison type sort of. They have a, they look a bit alike. Yeah. I don't think there was like an outrageous confusion there. It was. No, I totally disagree. Like Barbara Strison's like iconic though, and Jennifer Gray is like, no, I completely just, it's not like I was like, oh, is that the one with Emma Stone in it? No, that would, like that would be outrageous. I think confusing Jennifer Gray and Barbara Strison is totally, totally understandable. I think thinking that Barbara Strison is in dirty dancing is ridiculous. They're the same genre of woman when they're younger. I think this, no, I think this is totally fun. Yeah, but Barbara, yeah. This is like Bryce Dallas Howard and Jennifer Champlain. That's what this is here. That's what I'm doing. Yeah, but Barbara Strison is like royalty and Jennifer Gray is like not royalty. I thought it's a bit like, you know, just because they look a bit alike. It's like, I don't care about these people's lives outside of the movies. They only exist in the movies. You separate the art from the artist, right? So it's like Jennifer Gray. Yeah, she was, she was in Ferris Bueller's Day off and dirty dancing. Did he dance? Is that the dancing? Why does that got Fred Astaire in it? No, that is also totally unreasonable, Brady. No. I stand by my confusion of Barbara Strison with Jennifer Gray. 100% that is reasonable. They have similar shaped noses, basically. Yeah, until Jennifer Gray got her nose job, right? And then her whole movie career died, right? So I stand by it, Brady. I think they are confusedable in their younger years. 100%. OK. I'm not confusing them today. I'm confusing them then. Whenever that was the 80s. I remain amused by the thought of Barbara Strison being a dirty dancing. But anyway, it's me. Because this has been a very, very roundabout way for me to talk about Apple earpods. Oh, earpods. Is that where we're going? Earpods. Everybody wants to say earpods, but you have to try to remember to say earpods. But they obviously should be called earpods. I always want to say earpods. And the earpods. Like nobody thinks earpods. Nobody thinks earpods. When you got them, Gray, and showed me the picture and asked me what I thought. I remember I thought they looked ridiculous. Oh, yeah. We faced time with that. And I can't remember what else I said. But I wasn't like a fan of them. They looked weird, yeah. And I bought some a few days ago, Gray, as like an impulse purchase. And I have to say, I'm delighted by them so far. The great, aren't they? It's like air in my ear. They're so light. It's like they're not there. It's like some sort of pod made of air. Is that what it is? Yeah. And they don't fall out. It's like magic. I'm hitting the fitter tron pretty hard at the moment. Yeah. So I'm spending a lot more time in the gym and I'm starting to run again. So I wanted some appropriate headphones. And I went and checked out all the options. And I almost got these sort of beats ones at the Apple store. And although he wasn't supposed to, the guy basically talked me out of it and said, you know what, get the air pods. Hmm, we're looking at those beats and I did. And I did. And I did. The little magnetic blank beats connected. Yeah, I got those, they're garbage. They're terrible. That guy did do a favor. I'm amazed how well they stay in. It was so funny. My wife was in hysterics in the shop because she got me a sample pair to try on. And I was shaking my head and holding myself upside down and almost doing a headstand and doing everything I could to try and make them fall out in the shop. And I couldn't make them fall out. I have to say, ready. I'm very much enjoying this, this review of air pods from you a year later. Can I ask what made you change your mind? Did you get used to seeing people wear them? I feel like all of a sudden, they've hit a critical mass. We're now I see people wearing them constantly. Just problems in the gym and problems running with all my other headphones. Hmm. Like the other ones were just like, you know, just those little 1% inconveniences, whether it was a cable, causing me inconvenience or falling off my head when I'm lying on a bench doing weights and things like that, impatient, I thought, I'm gonna try I want something that will stay on my head. So I went in thinking I was gonna get those like beats or something that I thought would be better at staying in my ear. But the air pods have done the trick. I mean, there's, I've only had them a few days. I may change my mind and there is nothing more certain in the universe than I'm gonna lose them with air. Oh yeah, that's good enough. Because I'm not designed to have something that small. But like, trust me, the air pods that I currently own are not the air pods I first bought. Not by a wall. Is it like a ship of theses, is it? So yes, it is a little bit like a ship of theses because I've had to replace them a couple of times. And then the thing happens where, so I've somehow lost the air pods, but then an air pod surfaces and then they get mixed up. And so I have learned that the air pods get grumpy if they're not paired with their original partner, which I think is a very interesting software decision. It's like quantum entanglement. Yes, that is 100% it. They are quantum entangled. I have learned many times that just because you have a left air pod and you have a right air pod and you have a charging case does not mean you have a working pair of headphones. You can stick them both in the case and the little LED flashes angrily at you to let you know that you mix them up. I think there should be a button that you could press to reset them to say, no, you are now quantum entangled air pods. But obviously that was not very high on the list of software features they were looking to implement. But anyone suggesting it's a money making exercise for Apple is being cynical and unfair to that mighty Californian company. Apple's got to eat and what are you going to do? No, you're just scraping by with their trillion dollar company that they're on their way towards. I'll tell you what, I bet the coffee shop at the Apple campus has platinum hot stoppers with diamonds on the top. It does. I bet they can be a purchaser of such an exclusive item for sure. And they can just have one nicely laid out on a white table under glass. Humans can't touch it with their fingers. Johnny, I would be, no, it has to be smaller. It's too thick. It's too thick. It's too thick. Can we make it thinner? Can we make it so thin that it will for sure not work as an actual hot stopper, but it will be lighter? Let's work on that. Have I ever told you that I used to be pretty obsessed with Blackjack? I'm not sure that I have, but I used to just deal out hands and I was hypnotized with the decision-making and mathematics of Blackjack. When do you hit to get closer to 21? When do you split? When do you double down? I loved it. It's the only game in the casino where, if you can learn how to account cards a little bit, you have a chance of actually taking money from the house. Blackjack was my main obsession, but really all of the games in a casino for a while I just loved. There's a mathematical magic to it all. I mention it now because I was looking through some of the courses on offer from today's sponsor, Brilliant. They have a ton of beautiful, beautiful math and science classes. And the one that caught my eye today was their one on games of chance, which you can take and learn how to try to win at Blackjack, how probability works with different size dice, say you're a dungeon master, and many other different parts of how games of chance work mathematically. It really brought me back to my younger self. If that sounds interesting to you, you should take a look at Brilliant. They're really doing something very interesting with online learning by focusing just on math and science and having these beautifully designed courses and these interesting different ways to maintain active learning. They're helping lots of people learn more about math and science, whether you're a student or you're a hobbyist or you're obsessively interested in a particular area of science, Brilliant has courses for you to take a look at. They help you master concepts by solving problems yourself. Working through their courses, they're aiming to give you an intuition about math and science. They're not there to blindly memorize a bunch of formulas. They're a new-ish sponsor to the podcast. So if you want to support the show and to learn more about how to break the house with your mad Blackjack skills or any other area of math and science that you want to know more about, go to brilliant.org slash hello internet. That lets them know that you came from this podcast and you can sign up there for free and the first 200 people that use that link will get 20% off the annual premium subscription. So once again, go to brilliant.org slash hello internet to check them out. Thanks to Brilliant for rekindling my Blackjack obsession and thanks to Brilliant for supporting the show. Brady, you made a gift today, didn't you? I did. Tell me what you made a gift of. I'm so pleased that you made a gift. I don't know why. I just, I feel like this is not a thing that a Brady would ever do. I've done it before. Have you? What gifts have you made? I didn't know you were in the gift manufacturing business. Yeah, I've done it. I've done it a bit. I don't find it particularly easy to make it. I think this is why I'm, I'm feeling really proud of you because every time I've wanted to do it, I usually give up because it's just a giant pain to make it look remotely good. And I was like, oh, where am I going to rip the video file that I just want to give machine that I can just press a button and the gift pops out exactly as the way I want it. So that's why I'm very pleased with you. I go into Photoshop and do a bit of tweaking and get it in the end. Yeah. So what was your gift of Brady? Well, I mean, it's going to lose a bit of impact talking you through on a podcast. No, tell the people. The gift is a very famous scene from Close Encounters of the Third Kind, which is a film I've loved for as long as I can remember. It's a good film. And it's the scene when the aliens are coming and tormenting the house with the mother and the little boy in it to try and take the boy away. And he swings open the door dramatically and the whole sky is bright orange with trees swaying and the alien spaceship, which you can't see, but is there is this sinister presence. Yeah, you just have the scary lights coming through the trees. It's just scary light. The little tiny boy, Sila, wetted against this bright orange sky for a few seconds as he opens the door. And then his mother runs up as quickly as he can and slams the door so that he doesn't go out the door. So that's what I turned into a gift that little moment. Little boy opens the door, looks into the bright more of danger before the mother slams the door shut. Don't open that door. And of course, in true gift fashion, you need a snarky caption. So what was your caption for this, Brady? My caption is, I told you, don't look at the comments. I made the gift for the caption. It's not like I wanted to make a gift of that and thought, what can I say? I was looking in the comments of a recent video and just like, I was thinking how when you look at YouTube comments, don't get me wrong. There are lots of good ones and nice people and praise and constructive conversation. But you also just see like the worst of humanity and it reminds me of sort of for a few moments you're standing at the edge of this abyss just looking at all the terribleness out there. As I always sort of had this mental picture of looking into the abyss of all humanity for it's good and bad. It reminds me of that boy opening the door and looking into the abyss of the alien presence for just those few seconds and then slamming the door shut. So I thought, oh, it's just like in close encounters. Oh, I'm going to make a gift. So I did it. Good. I like it. Do you want to share what video it was and what the comments were in particular or was it just a typical example of this? It's my daily experience. You know, it's not. It wasn't like a particular thing. It was just a, it's just every day really. Just reminding, just lately I've been, as we discussed in the, in a previous episode, you know, I've been a bit disperated lately by YouTube comments for whatever reason. Yeah, don't get me wrong. I'm not like where is me and I've got, you know, I'm very lucky to be in the position I am and I'm grateful for the comments too. But just lately I've been a bit, you know, feeling funny about them. So I decided to make this gift and I made another tweet the other day as well, which I think better explains how I feel about YouTube comments. I sent you that as well, actually. That was a photo of someone on the summer of a mountain and that, obviously, just summer to this mountain and they were in this orange jacket, which is quite a garish color, not unlike your lime green shirt. And this is, this is what I get. I've never get the wearing color once. I'll never, again, even if I'm wearing color in the future, I'm gonna switch to my regular gray outfit. So I don't have to put up with this constant poking about the one time I wore a green shirt. And so my comment on that was that posting YouTube videos to me is sometimes like climbing a mountain. And when you get to the top, the first thing everyone says is, oh, I don't like your jacket. And I sometimes feel that's what it's like when you spend weeks crafting a video and then you put it out there thinking, oh, I wonder what people are gonna think, are they gonna agree? Are they gonna disagree? Are they gonna like it? Are they not gonna like it? And the only thing they're commenting is some frivolous, pointless, stylistic point that has nothing to do with all the effort you've put in over the last few weeks. Yeah. You must get that spending as long as you do on your videos and you put them out thinking, oh, you know, a wonder is this gonna be a force for good? Are people gonna like it? Are they not gonna like it? And then they comment on some trivial thing that even you probably didn't think they'd comment on. Yeah, well, I enjoyed your postings, particularly a gift because I do think that both of them capture something in particular. And it's been interesting thinking about comments and feedback, particularly for me for a couple of reasons. Like one of which is like the Dragon video we talked about last time has never received like a wider range of different kinds of comments from all over the spectrum. And also just like not quite the thing of where, you know, someone's commenting like on the orange jacket, but it's like, oh, people interpret the thing in ways that I find it totally strange and could never have predicted in a million years. It's like, oh, okay, that's a strange, interesting comment. So that one feels a bit like opening the door at close encounters because it's just like, there's this thing, like there's so much going on out there, like it's overwhelming, right? And the kids being blown back from the door. And then the other thing that I've found interesting is just by the chance way the schedules have worked out, this is going to be our third episode of Hello Internet in a row where we have not seen the comments from the previous episode before we're recording this episode. And I was trying to think like, I don't think we've done three in a row where we haven't had feedback on the previous one since the first three that we did. We have had it happen that there's been one or maybe two in a row where we don't have the feedback because of the recording schedules, but a hat trick of no feedback is just, I think it's notable and I don't think it's happened since the beginning or at least not in my memory. And it's interesting because I don't know about you, but I do feel that it does make something about the show different. I don't mean different better, I don't mean different worse. I just, there's something about it that it does make it feel like it is more a little isolated bubble of you and I talking to each other. Like right now, the last episode we recorded, we talked about the conspiracy book and a bunch of other things. We have no idea how that conversation went. We have no idea if Peter Teal has destroyed us with his great wrath for the way that we discussed something in that book. We have no idea what's going to happen to us because that episode has not been released yet. I don't know, I find it interesting because I do really like reading those comments. I like this little feedback loop that it creates in the shows. Yeah. We have seen the feedback to episode 100 and so yeah, but we haven't seen the previous in a month or so. In our timeline, that's where we're up to. We're constantly one behind the map, but we'll catch back up soon. I don't know, it makes it different and I guess what I was thinking about is, there is this thing like, if you make things for the internet as we do, you make videos, we make podcasts, there's this very delicate balance that you have to try to strike because if you're making something for the world, obviously you hope that there is some audience for it in the world. You were always hoping that your new stories would end up on the front page, like, oh, it's going to be really popular with the sub editors and it's going to be a big story and it's going to go on the front page. And like when we release videos out into the world, we want there to be an audience who appreciates those things. And you can't do that without having some sense of what does the world think of what you do. You have to be involved in this loop of getting feedback from the outside world and creating things and then getting feedback from the outside world and you have to take it into account. But that's why I talk to a lot of people about this relationship that creators have with the commenters and it is sort of fun and easy to say things like don't look at the comments. And I do agree with the spirit of that, but there is a more nuanced part of it where we are in these jobs because there's no one who follows that rule perfectly, right? Like there's basically nobody who's like, oh, I don't read the comments. I don't even think that don't read the comments is a sensible ideal to aspire to perfectly. It's just an interesting thing. And I see people sometimes go in what I think is the opposite way where it's like, oh, they don't read the comments or if they do read the comments, everybody who disagrees with them is just a hater and then that person's criticism can be dismissed. Maybe it's obvious to the audience, but I feel that there is this interesting aspect of making things and making a living by making things for the internet that is hard to explain, which is this delicate balance of letting in feedback from the outside world, but not letting it affect you personally, but also not becoming overexposed to it, but then also not becoming insular and isolated and thinking that everybody who disagrees with you is just a hater. It's a really narrow path with precipices on both sides that you can fall off that is difficult to navigate from any people. I do have to say though, Gray, I mean, I know you follow a lot of stuff on the internet and you're not blind to all these issues, but I do think you see it differently to me. How so? Because I think the feedback you see is less personal because your face isn't on the screen and while people will disagree with you and attack you in positive ways and negative ways, I see a lot of stuff in comments that is more inappropriate and personal. And usually it's actually not aimed at me because as you know, I'm not on screen much myself, but I put a lot of people on screen. So I have to read the comments, think thrown at those people, particularly women who I film. And like some of the comments that are made about those people, there's nothing to be gleaned from it that's gonna help make me a better creator or them a better interview subject or help anything in the proceeds. It's just plain awfulness. Yeah, I mean, again, you are in the difficult situation where there's three parties involved. Like there's the commenter and there's you, but then there's your interview subject. And yeah, I do not envy that position. That's really hard, especially then when you magnify that by you are doing interviews. So the other person is just on camera the whole time. So I don't mean to be saying that there don't exist comments which have nothing to be gleaned from them. Obviously those comments do exist. But I still say like, when you do these interviews then, do you advise your subjects to not read the comments? Say someone for the first time, they're a young, hopeful math professor and they wanna do some number file and they approach you and they say, hey, I wanna do this thing. You film an interview with them and you're about to put it online. What do you tell them before that video goes up? And they have no experience with being a public person of any kind. I apologize in advance for some of the comments that they're likely to see. I jokingly say don't read the comments, but most of the time I do want them to read the comments for the same reason I do still read the comments. And there is a lot of good stuff in there. That's either like positive and affirming or just useful and constructive amongst all the terribleness. But if it's a woman who I've been interviewing, sometimes I wish I could say don't read the comments because some of the stuff people say that are aimed at women might get baffles me. That gift I made of opening the door and looking out at that sort of red sinister sky wasn't demonstrating that there's some kind of mausstrom of activity and variety. It's more looking into the dark heart of some of people's worse characters. I sometimes read through some of the stuff. Luckily some of the stuff that has been filtered because YouTube has filters in place and some of that stuff never gets seen in public. But I do see some of it because I have to wait into that to pick out the good stuff still. And it's like, man, who says that? Who does that? Who are these people? I feel like we get this insight into the badness of people that are out there. I'm a big boy by the way. I'm alright with that. Yeah, no, I didn't think you were crying yourself to sleep at night over there. But you are right that you have a very different kind of feedback. And again, I think your third party situation makes it much more difficult to deal with because people aren't talking about you directly. But when you say among all the badness, one of the things that's difficult with online feedback is everybody knows is that people take too heart and they remember negative comments way more than they remember the positive comments. Because it only takes one comment that happens to strike a dagger right into your heart to be quite memorable and is definitely not balanced out by a thousand well wishes. And it's like the comment version of loss a version where people hate losing a dollar way more than they like earning a dollar. And there's something like that with comments. I think if you're going where I think you're going, Gray, the interesting experiment to do would be to go through all the comments on a video one day and pretend that I had the power for the subject of the video like my interviewee to see that comment or not see that comment. How many of them would I prevent the interviewee from being able to see for their own good? What's the percentage of comments that I wish in my heart hadn't been made? I wasn't quite going there because I almost think that's a little bit simplistic. I was thinking like, for example, the professor I worked with who wrote the book about how to be miserable and I made the video on. After that video went up, he went through and did a tracking of I think seven or eight different kinds of comments that people were leaving on that video just to see like a pie chart of what is the distribution of various kinds of comments. This is also where everybody feels like, oh, I'm a total unique individual. But like, it turns out if you have about eight categories, you can identify and classify 99.99% of all of the comments. Right? It's like, oh, the human response is not as various as the human themselves think it is. Do you remember what those categories were? The one that I remember in particular was this video describes my life exactly, which was the number one category of comment and it's like quite a crushing comment because it was that separated from any comment about positive action. Right? So there was like a separate category of like, I intend to take positive action was a different sort of thing. So it was just like a person was simply affirming that this video seems to describe their life exactly. And then there were a bunch of other different categories. The reason I mentioned it though is because I think you did it and I hear everybody do it where they'll say find the good among all of the bad comments. If I said it that way, which I probably did, I did misspeak. There is more good than bad. Yeah, but what I mean is like, I think it's an interesting thing that almost everybody will phrase it that way, right? An in casual conversation, they'll talk about like, oh, there's all of this awfulness, like the whole of the internet is a sewer. I like, I think if even if you go to a place that has a sewer for comment sections, which is YouTube, because they're structurally bent towards not great comments, I would be very curious to see someone, I mean, obviously it's going to be somewhat subjective, but I would love to see like go through a bunch of different kinds of videos, videos where there are people, videos where there aren't people, and see if there's a way to categorize them into these different things. Because again, like the things that are the worst and has no value is like direct attack on a person's physical appearance. Like that is a comment that has no value, like there's nothing to be gleaned there, and that's on one end of the spectrum. I think the interesting and hard question comes in when someone makes like a cutting comment, but maybe it's true, I would be curious to see a kind of breakdown of that. I mean, I don't, obviously I'm not on camera, but like I sure do get a pretty sizable number of personal comments on like the couple of logs that I put up, which is just like, it's interesting just to see. They're not the majority of comments, but like you could do a pie chart of that and be like, oh, yeah, these videos have a direct attack on a person in a way that has no redeeming value. Like without a specific on what do you mean by that? Do you mean something like, oh my goodness, you know, your hands are so hairy or something like that? People do a comment on my arm hair a lot, which I find surprising. It's much more directly things about like, this guy speaks like a total asshole, or like I can't stand the quality of his voice, or the way this guy lives, his life is disgusting. Like all these like just that kind of thing, we're just a very direct, like there's no criticism. You do have a nice voice, Gray. The place that I was dealing with that though is for me, I don't really have any problem reading those comments because I don't personally feel like, oh, out, like you got me right in my soul. I as a man whose living is entirely dependent on him speaking, thinks that I have a terrible voice. Like I don't think that I have a terrible voice. I have like a particular sound of voice, which some people may find annoying, and that's totally fine, but it doesn't strike me at the core. But that's why like for me, I don't really think about those kind of comments very much because they're not cutting in any way. So what's the conclusion that we should be taking from all this then? I don't know what the conclusion is because as often happens, Brady, like you throw an interesting monkey wrench directly into the conversation because I think you in particular are dealing with interviewing people who are semi-public personalities. And this is a category that I feel like I don't really have any advice for. And most of the time when I'm talking to people, it's people who are public personalities. Like they are very much making the thing directly. And then how do they handle criticism or not handle criticism on the internet? That's why I was asking you, what do you tell your interviewees? Because it's a, in betweeny case that I just don't think has a clear answer of how should that sort of person, who happens to be a public figure, that's not their primary job. They're doing something else. And public communication is just an incidental part of their job. They're smart people. They know the world well enough to know that the internet and YouTube is a place where people make all these comments. It's not even the attack or the criticism. It's the constant reminder of how many people there are out there who I consider to be rude and behave in a way that I find despicable. Like it's just this constant reminder that I live on this planet with all of these people who think nothing of saying these comments to someone in the hope that that person will read the comment. It upsets me that I have to breed the same air as you sometimes, but you know, there you go. I'm just gonna say my experience with that though, is maybe I am wrong, but I am under the impression that a large number of those comments are made without a kind of consideration that there's an actual person on the other end. It's an interesting theory that they're writing that thinking it won't be read. I don't believe that's true, but it's an interesting theory. No, no, I'm not saying that they're writing it thinking it won't be read. What I'm saying is I think that they're not fully conceptualizing another person. And I will mention what to me is maybe one of the dumbest things I ever thought when I was a kid. And I remember having this sudden realization and feeling like an idiot, and I will describe it and I'm gonna sound so stupid. So just bear with me people. I was a child and something in my brain wasn't quite wired, right? But I remember for the longest time, when my family, when we traveled places, when I was younger, I didn't have a concept that people really live in these places that we're visiting. Like we would go on vacation and we would see people as obviously I'd interact with people who were there, but I remember at some point, it clicked with me that like, oh, Hawaii exists when I'm not there, right? Like this thing, there are people there and like they're living their lives and it's like, this is so obvious, but I don't know, I was like 12 or 13 or something. And like suddenly it was like, oh, right. These are really people. Like I intrinsically understand this. And the whole world is not like some kind of bizarro Disneyland. It's not like Artifice. In the same way that I remember, we did the foreign language classes around the same time when I was a kid, like we started doing foreign language when I was 11. And I remember thinking for a while, like this was some kind of weird abstract game where we pretend that all the words we say in a different way. You basically thought you were Truman. I don't know if it's that, but I just think it's part of being a kid and growing up and like your brain just isn't wired right. And I remember having that same kind of feeling about Spanish of like, oh, there are people who just speak this language. Spanish is not yet another arbitrary pile of nonsense work that school is giving me that means nothing. It's like this is a language that people speak. And the thing that I'm trying to convey here, which I think it may be, since we've had this conversation about trying to understand another person, this may be impossible to explain in words. But it's not as if you had asked the child me, does Hawaii exist when you're not there? He would have said yes, right? Like when you visited London, where people there, do they live lives? And they do that. I would have answered all of these questions, right? But I just didn't really think of them as other people in some way. Like I just sometimes wonder if commenters on the internet have something like that, where if you spoke to them, like they know that's a person. And they know, oh, I'm leaving a mean comment. And they know, yes, the person in that video probably will read that comment. But something's not clicking all the way. Like they're not fully conceptualizing the idea that the person is reading it. I mean, what you're saying is partly vindicated by what people do when you call them out sometimes in the way they suddenly withdraw and apologize profusely and they kind of come to their senses, but not everyone does that. I have done that rarely. And I know people who have done that more frequently. And everybody responds with the exact same thing, which is exactly that. Like almost always, it's like the person wakes up from a dream and they go, oh, I didn't think you were going to respond to me. I'm so sorry. And it's such a strange response. I don't know. There's another thing back when I was a much younger YouTuber. I'll never forget, Hank Green said a thing to me the first time I met him where he was talking about comment sections. And to keep an eye out for when your community stops talking to you in the comments and they start talking about you. And I always thought like, man, that is a really interesting observation. And it's one of the reasons why I've always tried to be really present in the Reddit to have this feeling of like, this isn't a place where you're talking about a video in the abstract. Like, I'm a person who's here and we are all talking to each other. But I definitely notice in the comments when people are doing the talking about hello internet. They're not talking to you and I. I'm not saying like, this isn't like a blanket excuse for terrible comments on the internet. I just have a suspicion that maybe something like this explains some reasonably sized portion of the comments. It's like a lack of true intrinsic full conception of another person. I don't know. Can I ask you a question? Yeah. You know the zipper in your trousers. Do you call that fly or flies? It's a fly. Right. How would it be a flies? Some people refer to it as flies and don't call it a fly. And it's always been something that interests me. I've never heard this in my entire life. This is wrong. It's a singular thing. How could it be a flies? Is it like the verb action of it? Like it flies? Some people call it flies. Some people say your flies are open and other people. I guess one half of the zipper is one fly and the other is another fly. Some people say flies. Your flies are open. Other people say your flies open. I was just wondering where you stood on this. I think you're hearing the wrong reading. No, no, no, no, no. This is definitely. You're hearing people say your fly apostrophe S. They're shortening the ears open. They're saying your flies open. That's what they're saying. I'm not. I'm going to try and save it to thing now. No, it's not a. The radio. This isn't a thing. Here we go. Here we go. Fly versus flies in America, British. God. Damn it. Fly or fly in trouser. Google knows. Yeah. See? Okay. Well, I mean, first of all, you have to say fly, right? Just let's get this clear. You say fly, right? Like a fly. I say fly. Okay. Thank God. The podcast would be over. Why did Hello Internet end? Apparently, Brady says flies. All right. Let us know people. Let us know where you stand on this. Because obviously, Gray and I haven't got much to talk about because we're in the same camp. I'm just, but there is definitely a fly as camp. And I want to know, if you are someone who says flies, what do you think there are two of? Are you counting the two halves of the zipper? You've got your left fly and your right fly and they come together to zip up? Or why do you say flies? I'm also having my mind blown here because looking at the Internet now and this discussion around it, the fly is not the zipper. The fly is the flap of material covering the zipper or the facings. Well, there's still any one, then. I've never really nailed it down, but I think my brain thought of the fly as a generic term for the fastener. Like that the zipper when it's in your pants is a fly. I don't start on pants now, Gray. We're going to start another England American debate if you start using pants. No, no, just move right past it, Brady. And that the butt, right? It's also the fly. I never really thought about it. Apparently it's a UK thing to call it flies. Your flies are undone. And that is when I started noticing it when I moved over here. So maybe that's it. It's British. No, it's, I've never heard it. It's crazy and wrong. So, Gray, there's been a bit of news going around this week. I was just listening to someone the radio as I was driving home before the podcast. And there was a lot of talk about self-checkouts. In fact, I was listening to this big interview about self-checkout. And then I went and did some shopping. I didn't do the self-checkout that I went through there. Old-fashioned one. Right. Yeah. I bought too many things for the self-checkout. Never too many things. The thing is, the story is, and this is becoming the growing problem, is more and more people are stealing stuff because of self-checkouts. Apparently in the UK, they reckon the big shops have lost three billion pounds worth. Again, that's pounds money, not pounds of weight. Three billion pounds worth of stock because of people stealing at the self-checkout. Okay, hold on a second. That's a headline that's using the big number trick. Is this three billion pounds what per year? In a year. Well, three billion pounds in a year. I don't know. Lost. That doesn't seem like a lot to me, really. Like, I'm thinking how many stores are there? In the UK. That's a lot of stealing. Are they using some dumb UK billion? Is that what they're doing here? It's actually means like 20 pounds with stolen. That's millions of dollars a day. Stealing. There's a billion, let's take a billion dollars per year. Let's put that to one side. Let's put that to one side, Gray. No, no, no, no, no, no. I'll tell you why we can put it to one side. Okay. Rather than blaming the journalist, I think that the shops have started to take action about the problem. So they think it's a problem for them. Because what they're doing is they're starting to install CCTV cameras above the self-checkout to stop people doing it. And so whether it's the journalist exaggerating or not, the shops have decided to act. I wasn't going to go after the journalist, Frady. But I want to know. I want to know is what does that work out per citizen in the UK? Because there's 60 million people in the UK, is that right? It works out to be so much per person that the shops have decided to act. Oh, it's 16 pounds a year. I don't know. That seems pretty... Yeah, that's assuming everyone's a shoplifter. 16 pounds, I don't know. It's not even worth worrying about that. Every single person in the UK admitted to stealing 16 pounds worth of material. Yeah, I would be shocked. So anyway. This is going to be a real Pareto distribution, though, I think. It's becoming a problem. So shops have started putting in CCTV cameras. But interestingly, the thing they're doing is putting in the CCTV cameras and then streaming the footage at the checkout. So people know they're being watched. Oh, interesting. That's an interesting way of dealing with it, isn't it? You have a selfie cam thing there. There is a lot that shows that people behave better when they think they're being watched. Including... There's one of these studies that goes around. Maybe it's true, maybe it's not, but it's had an effect on the real world. It was a study about people taking extra bagels at work or something. And if you put a little picture with eyes above the basket of bagels, the stealing goes down. And I was like, well, my local council has put little pictures with eyes above all of the places people leave garbage. So they have like these don't leave garbage in your street signs with little eyes that look at you. It's made no difference at all. There's still garbage everywhere. But the streaming one is interesting. I would bet that one would work pretty well, even if you weren't recording anything. Like, even if there's no record at all. Because then the person has to see themselves stealing 16 pounds worth of bananas under their shirt. That's actual physical pounds of bananas, not pounds worth of bananas. And then they're like, oh, what are, like what am I doing with my life? This is terrible. They reckon that the main people who get pissed off by these cameras though are not the people who steal but lower abiding people who are like, oh, I don't like it. It's Iki that you're filming me. I don't want to see myself being filmed. And they're the ones who are now being put off self-check out, not the stealers. Well, yeah, everything in life has trade-offs. This is a thing that I do know from Hawaii. The signs about taking seashells or taking sand off of the shore. That if it's worded in such a way that it implies people do it so you shouldn't. It actually causes the seashells in sand to go up because then people feel like, oh, everybody stealing these seashells off of the shore. I can take one too. Stuff always has these weird trade-offs. I think the CCTV cameras are an interest you want to stream it. I would like to know where that is because I think I would feel uncomfortable having to watch. You know, just having to watch me perform the mundanities of life. Like, oh, here I am. Be be be running some items through and putting them in a bag and looking sad in front of the camera. I don't know. I like I don't want to see that. I don't want to have to see that. It wouldn't make me want to go talk to a person but maybe I could put a little sticker over the camera while I was checking out the items. I don't know. The example that gets used a lot for stealing and sort of what I've been reading about it is carrots. Carrots are quite cheap and I think what people do sometimes is because it's not always just like, it's not, you know, shoving things up your jumper or things like that. It's usually scanning something as something that it's not and people will often say, oh, these are carrots when really they're scanning something more expensive, like a posh avocado or something. So it's getting things that are discounted more than just stealing. Oh, that's interesting. I could see people feeling like they're not stealing if they're doing that. I feel like I can imagine how someone would work that out in their mind. I'm like, oh, I'm just giving myself a discount on this posh avocado and I'm not stealing. I wish I'd had time to find this list before the show but I didn't. I read it in the newspaper a few days ago but there was a list of all the justifications people use when stealing at the self-checkout that you wouldn't normally use. And one of them is, well, the supermarket saving money by not employing someone. So it's okay for me to get, give myself a bit of a discount. Right. And there are all these other justifications people have to like, I couldn't find what I was looking for. So I'm going to give myself this is a discount or the scan is not working properly. It's your fault. It won't scan properly. So I'm just going to chuck it in my bag anyway. There's this whole list. There's been a name devised for these people by criminologists and one criminologist, which is swipers, seemingly well-intentioned patrons engaging in routine shoplifting. Ha ha. Ha. It's a new genre of shoplifter. People who would never do something like that but feel okay doing it at the self-checkout. Like obviously it is shoplifting but there's even my brain suddenly it feels like we're going right back to theft versus copyright infringement. It feels like there's something slightly different about discounting yourself in avocado versus stealing an avocado. Well, I don't think there is morally anything that's any different. I just I'm realizing that's fruit booting. Oh, Jesus Christ. You like that one? You're happy. What do we get very clear people? Hello Internet is against fruit booting. I enjoy these conversations with you Brady both because I like I never know what crazy words you're going to come up with. And also because you find these topics where I feel like I've never explored these boundaries of what my mind thinks. I'm like, why does my brain somehow think that fruit booting an avocado is different from stealing an avocado? That is like, I don't think it actually is different but something just feels different about it in my brain even though I don't agree with my brain on this on this topic. Could you envision a situation in which you swiped Gray? I mean, no. I guess if I was like desperately poor and hungry, yes. What if something wasn't scanning right? Like you couldn't get to scan. Would you be like, ah, stuff there. I'm just going to chuck it in the bag. No, one's around. No, I haven't done that. There's always somebody around. But if there wasn't, I just realized that's out there. No, no, there's always somebody watching. No, I am much faster just to give up on the world. I will go into a store and it's too busy and I'm like, oh, the hell with this and I'll just leave. So on the occasions where things happen, I will give up and say, whatever it is, I don't need it that badly and just leave as opposed to fruit booting any particular item. So that's not something I would do. What about you, Brady? No, I wouldn't do that. I'm pretty square. But do you know Gray, when I was at the supermarket today, I thought to myself, I'm going to do the self-check out today because I've been listening to it on the radio. And it'd be interesting to do it. And then when it came time to do it, I didn't, I didn't want to. And I came to a realization in the previous episodes, you know, we've big up about how Brady's a really social guy. He likes to talk to the people and things like that. I don't think that's what it is. I think I'm just fundamentally a little bit lazy sometimes. And I don't want to do the work. Right. Because that's what stopped me today. I wanted to do the self-check out and I'm like, oh, I'm going to have to pick them all up and put them through and find the bag. And rotate them on the angle and put them in the bag. Whereas if I just walk up and dump them on the conveyor belt, I've just got to sit at the end and have some man or lady hand them to me and just put them in a bag. And I've got like no effort. It's just easier. The ultimate solution to both of these problems, your laziness and fruit booting is, of course, more technology. I've had it in the show notes for a while, but Amazon is working on these totally cashierless stores. I don't know if you've seen, they have a couple of demo ones. I think it's one in Seattle and one in New York. But they're using just a crazy amount of a combination of things. So they're using object recognition cameras in the ceiling combined with pressure pads in the way the food is stocked, combined with RFID chips. And their whole pitch is it's a supermarket that you just go into. It recognizes who you are because you have some little Amazon card presumably that it's picking up in your pocket or it recognizes your face. I don't know. And then you just walk out with your items and the store has tallied everything that you have. So this is, this is the solution both to fruit booting because the machine is going to see that you're pocketing avocados and not carrots. And ultimate laziness. You don't even need to wait for somebody else to do the work for you. The machine is just building your Amazon account. Yeah, if it's got that, it's all right. As long as you don't have to do the scanning. My sleeping markets actually got these handheld scanners you can pick up when you walk in and scan all your items as you're shopping and putting them in your trolley. And it's just telling it up on the hand. I don't like those. That one I feel like no, I'm not being your stock boy, even though that doesn't make any sense. I refuse to use those hand scanners. I do not like them one tiny bit. What's the difference? No difference at all. No, there's no, I concede immediately. There is no difference. But it's something about if I'm going to do this work, I prefer to batch process. It's just the optics of it. You look more like an employee when you're walking up and down the aisle, scanning stuff. I feel more like an employee. I think I've done it maybe twice. And there's something where it's like, oh, I'm 18 again and somebody is telling me to stock the shelves. And I'm thinking, I don't want to stock these shelves. I want to burn the world to the ground for having to be in this position. So yeah, I don't want to use them. Did you have a job stocking shelves? No, I didn't have a job stocking shelves. I had a job stocking library shelves, which also made me feel like I wanted to burn the world to the ground sometimes because I was being minorly inconvenienced. I had a job stocking shelves that I hated so much. I didn't go back and I didn't even go back to pick up my paycheck. What do you mean you just went in for one day and then left? I think I did two or three shifts and then I thought, oh, this is rubbish. Never went back. This was a short period of my dad tried to get me to get a proper job for a while because he was sick and be sitting around during my one year at uni. That's how people end up with jobs because their dad gets sick of them sitting around. I went and did like a trial shift, a local garage petrol station behind the counter. They were just to see how I went. And I did, you know, I did it. And then at the end, I had to count the money and then they had to check it against what the checkout was. And there was like some discrepancy. It was out by a lot. I don't know. $5 or something. And the boss, like the guy in charge, I think he was getting a bit mad about it. I don't know. He just didn't seem very happy about it. And I was pretty relaxed about it. And he said, are you worried about this? Are you concerned that you're able to do this job? And I said, no, I'm not worried. I'm not concerned. And he said, well, I'm worried about it. I'm concerned. What do you say to that? And I just replied, were you asked me if I was worried? Whether you're worried, it's a completely different question. Oh, I'm such sympathy for that story. That is the conflict between employers and employees summed up perfectly. Yeah. We have different dreams and desires in this situation here. But I have confidence in my mathematical ability. Obviously, something's gone wrong here, but I think I've added correctly. I don't know. Anyway, I didn't do that job either. Then my dad got sick of it and got me a job at the newspaper, where he was working, which was a great job to do. And then began the great career of Brady Harron. No, that was a copy, boy. That wasn't a journal. So you sat in the newsroom until someone yelled, copy, and then you had to run over to them to see what they wanted. In theory, your job was just to take pieces of paper and like copy and stuff that had been laid out from the sub-editors down to the printing room. It was still a bit of an old-fashioned process. But in reality, the main thing you did was buy sandwiches and place bets on horses for the boss. Copy. Oh, you run over. Oh, this must be some breaking story. Go and put ten bucks at the local bed in the place on horse number three in the eighth race. Okay. One last thing about fruit booting. The big story that is being used as a really good case study for this gaming of the self-checkout system is, I think it was a woman somewhere in England who photocopied loads and loads of barcodes for pot noodles. And as she went around and shopped, she was sticking pot noodle barcodes on everything. And she finally got caught at a self-checkout because she was scanning this really expensive coffee machine maker and it had a 60-pence pot noodle barcode on it. It's like, beep, beep, 60-pence for this pretty posh multi-hundred-dollar coffee machine. Clever girl bringing her own barcodes. Clever. Until she got caught. I like it. Go bigger, go home. That'd be another good name for pot noodleing. Pot noodleing. That could be so many things. Fruit booting. That could only be one thing. This episode's been brought to you by Hover. If you've seen the film far and away with Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman, you may remember there's a scene set in the Oklahoma land run when loads of people with wagons and horses go racing into the distance to claim plots of land. It's ruthless as all the participants survive for the best tracks on which to build their farms or mines or whatever people did in Oklahoma in those days. Now, I feel like the internet is a bit like this, but instead of claiming land, we're claiming the best domain names upon which we build our websites. If you've got a great idea or even just like the seed of an idea, your doubtless going to need a website for it. And that means you'll need a domain name. My advice is that you claim the best domain name possible now before someone beats you to it. 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Because everything's been so smooth. They have over 400 domain extensions to choose from from the classics like.com and.net through to the quirky ones like. .surf and.fun. I personally like the look of .prone.cricut. But, you know, each to their own. A reminder again, hover.com slash H-I. That lets them know you are listening to the show and also gets you 10% of your first purchase. Thanks to Hover for supporting this episode. And well, just being a great service. Well, Brady. It's that time with the podcast again. We talk about YouTube. They're amazing communication skills. And how much we love them as a platform. This time YouTube managed to touch the most electric of Rails. And YouTube is messing around with the subscription tab on people's home pages. So in theory right now when you go to YouTube, there are these three different tabs at the bottom. And there's home, which is YouTube algorithmically showing you the stuff that it thinks you probably want to watch. And I don't know about you. I feel like YouTube's algorithm has gotten way worse in the past couple months. Who knows with these things. But like, you go to I go to home anyway. And I feel like all is doing is showing me videos that are exactly like some video that I clicked before. Like it's been over tuned for me. But anyway, I knew on so a guy. Yeah, it's like it's over optimized for. Oh, you clicked on one list video. Let me show you every list video on the whole. It's like, no, I just there was one one of them got me because you bastard show them to me constantly. And of course, like no man is perfect. Like I clicked on a dumb list video and like, ah, now you're in this purgatory forever. So there's the home tab. There's the trending tab, which is supposedly the stuff that's popular on the whole website. But everybody has suspicions about its bias towards content that YouTube wants to promote. And then there is the subscription tab where people would go to see in reverse chronological order all of the videos from all of the creators that they follow. Those are the three main areas. Now, the first two obviously controlled by computers and meddling humans. And the third, the subscription tab is the only place on YouTube where there are not meddling humans and there are not meddling robots. But just a couple of days ago, some YouTube Twitter support channel blew their cover on YouTube. Like that is really what it totally feels like is YouTube was running some of their AB tests on a small number of users changing around the subscriptions page and algorithmically. Or they called it personalizing the subscription page for you. But yes, some YouTube Twitter channel just blew it and said like some guy was like, hey, why is everything out of order on my subscription page? And they said, oh yeah, we're running some tests with personalized subscription channels. And there have been many a YouTube drama over the years. But I think this one really caused a lot of people to freak out. And particularly, I think the people who have been on YouTube for a longer time because it feels like here is the one place where maybe the user has some kind of control. And now YouTube is removing or adjusting that final level of control on the subscriptions tab. Yeah. How do you feel about it, Brady? I have to admit, I don't really know if it's in my best or worse interests. I don't know. I mean, I'm quite a frequent uploader, but that's because I have lots of channels. Any one of my channel probably isn't that frequent and uploader. Like I imagine you would think this is perhaps a good thing as a very infrequent uploader because it decreases the chance that you're one. Tear drop in the rain doesn't get missed. Right. So I would have thought this is good for you. For me, I don't know. I don't know how frequent I am in the scheme of things to know whether it hurts or helps me. But I don't like the idea of it. I do feel like there should be one thing that is kind of untouched by YouTube knowing what's best for me. And it seems like that they think they know what's best for me even there. So now it's like, no, God. What am I supposed to do? I think YouTube always, they always use the language about giving viewers what they want to watch. And they say that in person too a lot. And I think it's very presumptuous of YouTube. Yeah, it's patternized. They know what people want to watch. It just is a simple example, but my wife and I have been rewatching old vlog series of Casey Neistat and PewDiePie. And it's like, God help you if you're trying to watch old vlogs in order. Right. And I think it's because YouTube has just no ability to do this like guys. These are vlog episodes. They are chronological. They are freaking numbered. They're all one right after another. And this is where this, this like party line of YouTube you like, we're going to show you what you want to see is infuriating. Because it's like, I feel like I'm trying to accomplish a very clear task, a clear task that even if you didn't have algorithms, it could be very accomplishable, which is, hey, I'm watching things that are in order. Show me the next one. But it's like, oh no, we think this video is the best one for you. So you're like, you're going to jump in like crazy out of order time instead of just seeing the thing the way it is. And yeah, I agree with you. I've heard this language both from PR and end in person. And it's like, I know what they're going for. I understand this as an idea. But it is frustrating. Like there is no tyrant worse than the tyrant who thinks they're doing it for your own good. It feels like the same thing of like, oh, you want to watch all these list videos. Like, no, I don't. I don't want to watch all these videos. If you were magic and part like if this was just you were hitting it out of the park every time. Maybe I could go along with it. The reason why I think this is interesting is it's not like do subscriptions matter. Because I think subscriptions don't matter anymore. Pulling back the curtain of the business. I would say that YouTube has turned the subscription numbers into a total joke. They have monkeyed around with it for so long over so many years and made so many changes. That it means nothing. And they've designed their system so that these numbers just never go down. And so you end up with all these channels that have bizarrely big subscriber numbers compared to their views. And I think YouTube really regrets probably connecting their award system with the subscriber numbers because that also kind of locks them into like, oh, we were working for the subscriber thing. But over the years, we have made sure that the subscriber number is totally meaningless. I honestly cannot think of a number on my spreadsheet of things that I track about my business that matters less to me than the subscriber number. Because it just doesn't correlate with anything. It doesn't seem to relate to anything. And if I dig through my analytics, I can see that the number of people who come across my videos through the subscription feed is negligible. Like it's basically nobody. And I don't know whether or not that's because YouTube is not sending out notification. But if I just want to see a few of you into this system, I just simply know that at this stage, if I look at my analytics, my view numbers are 100% reliant on how much does YouTube suggest the videos on the homepage or on the trending tabs. And it has nothing at all to do with the subscriber numbers. It broad like definitive words like nothing and 100%. Like I assume you're sort of exaggerating for effect because like I looked into it for the last couple of videos. If you look at the dragon video, like views from the subscriber feed was something like 5% of the total views. That's not views from subscribers. That's views from the subscriber feed. Yeah, yeah. I'm still saying like where YouTube pushes those things. That is 100% what matters. And I feel that years ago it used to be much more of a shield that if you had a bunch of people subscribe to you, you could reasonably count on the idea that those people are going to see the videos. But like those days are long gone. Like that doesn't exist anymore. But great. Those people who watch the dragon video because it appeared somewhere else like their homepage or on the sidebar of the video they just watched. Do you think the fact they subscribe to CGP Gray might increase the chance that they're seeing it there. And therefore the subscribers are important. So the impression that I get from talking to people at YouTube is that all of this stuff is just data that is fed to the algorithm. So it matters. It is weighted in some way. When you say it is weighted in some way, the devil is in the details there. Right. Like what does this mean in terms of how much does the algorithm care? It may mean very, very little. It may mean a bunch. But what I'm trying to say here is like YouTube is messing with the subscriptions and people get angry about it because we lose control. Like I think if YouTube just totally destroyed the subscription feed and they say, surprise, like we're just getting rid of the whole thing. I don't think it would really actually change what happens to very many channels. I just want to be clear on something where you're coming from here Gray because I 100% agree that subscribers and looking at people with subscription number means much less than it did three or four years ago. And having a million subscribers now isn't the same as having a million subscribers back then. But you kept saying subscribers like me nothing like this number is irrelevant. Are you saying the subscription feed is irrelevant or subscribers are irrelevant because I think having pressed the subscribe button while it means a heck of a lot less than it used to still means something. And it's going into the recommendation algorithm. If those people unsubscribed that would be bad and you would be slightly less likely to be recommended to those people because I look at my numbers and still some of my channels, you know, half the views maybe will be from subscribers. And I don't think they've come from the subscription feed. But I do think maybe I've reached them because they have expressed an interest in the past and that is playing some role. So I think you're kind of absolutist position you're taking that subscribers mean nothing is kind of a little bit overstated to clarify the subscription feed. I regard as basically pointless at this. So step one, I think if you to remove the subscription feed, even though many creators would cry to the high heavens, like I don't think there are very many channels who would suddenly find like, oh my God, my views have tanked since YouTube took away the subscription feed. Because what I'm saying is how well a video does is essentially down to the algorithm. And yes, the algorithm is using data like do you subscribe or do you not subscribe. But I am very convinced that that number is a pretty weak signal. And the reason I'm convinced it's a weak signal is because they keep adding more things like this is where YouTube added in the bell. So you like you could be a subscriber and then you could hit the bell to be notified that a video has gone up. So the bell became the new subscription feed. But then YouTube changed, I don't know was it like a couple months ago, they made the bell algorithmic now as well. So the bell always notify you. It will notify you occasionally, unless you specifically click the bell twice to tell it notify me every time. Right. And so what I think is happening here is one of the reasons that this is occurring is because whatever they're seeing in the algorithm, they're seeing that subscribe status yes or no is a factor that the algorithm is not regarding is very important. And so then they put in the bell, they're like, oh, let's adjust the bell. And then maybe they're seeing like, oh, the bell isn't actually very important either. I suspect that that's the only reason that additional things are coming on is because the algorithm is saying, like, yes, subscribed accounts, but it counts. Seven percent towards whether or not someone will see the video. That's kind of my guess about what's occurring. Okay. So I just find myself in this funny position where I'm kind of appalled that YouTube is taking away the last bastion where people have any control. But I also don't think it matters at all. So I feel like I'm kind of on both sides of these things that YouTube already has so much control over how videos do that it's it's not really a tremendous disaster. It's almost just like a symbolic gesture. This is the last place where you user had some control. And now we want to take away the last place where you as the user have some control. I think they're messing with stuff in a way that's not best for small independent, particularly educational creators. But I don't know why or how it's happening, but you know, it seems like lots of people I know that do similar things are, you know, having a slight dip. Do you think it's particular to smaller and educational creators? Like is that what you're hearing from people? Well, I don't know because I don't talk to vivo and people like that. So I don't know. It can't be across the board because unless less people are watching YouTube, but that doesn't seem to be the case. You know, we haven't heard anything along those lines. So I don't know. I think maybe it's big getting bigger small as people get in here. But who know? I don't know. Yeah, I don't know either, but I do think that it's just YouTube is in a strange position. And also, I mean, the subscription feed. I suspect that hardly any views come from the subscription feed because they give you no tools to manage it. If I was advising YouTube, like within three seconds, you can come up with a few things that would make the subscription feed way better. But they've put no effort into it and just a waterfall of content. Well, that's what they're trying to change. Right. They would argue we realize it's just a waterfall. We're trying to make it more useful. I know that they're trying to make it more useful, but my suggestions would all be in the realms of things that the user can control. So the person would personalize that not an algorithm. Yeah. Yeah. That actual person would personalize it. That's the word personal. A person whose subscription feed it is. I would like, I don't think that's what YouTube means. I mean, if you just think about it, the most obvious thing would be say, hey, after I've watched a video, don't put it on the subscription feed. Because like if you go to the subscription feed, you're like, oh, hey, here's a video and you watch it. And then you go back to your subscription feed. It's still just sitting there. Like it makes that feed less useful. As a user, it would be nice to say, only show me the most recent upload from the channels that I follow, right, which would be a little, a little option for the user that would immediately get rid of the problem. And these would all be options. Yeah. Both those things could be optional. I'm just simply saying like YouTube has not put in any effort to the subscription feed. And it wouldn't, like it doesn't take a genius to think, how could you make the subscription feed a better experience for the users? Like, well, let's sit down for five minutes and come up with some things. And I don't suspect that most people be like, you know what I want? I want YouTube to tell me much more what it is I'm going to watch versus me telling me what it is that I'm going to watch. The only other thing here is if the subscription feed falls to the algorithm, like every other thing, I just, I think it's another indication that creators should obviously don't depend on YouTube for your business. It's almost like YouTube is encouraging creators to make sure that they don't rely on YouTube. Whereas, like, if I was, if I was the CEO of YouTube, I'd feel like you would want to have creators feel like they can double down on the platform. Whereas my feeling is always the exact reverse. Like, man, if you make a living on YouTube, you better make sure you're diversified elsewhere. Like, you better make sure there are other places that your audience can hear about you. You better make sure you have other sources of income that are not YouTube itself. And I mean, YouTube's in a really strong position. I don't think they're going anywhere. But the more this stuff happens, I just, I just feel like it encourages creators to be less and less dependent on YouTube, which then it just does weaken their base a little bit in the future. Hello Internet. Given that conversation that we just had about YouTube subscriptions, it won't surprise you to hear that I think everyone who does anything online needs to make sure that they spread out. Spread out their locations a little bit. Sure, I make YouTube videos occasionally, but I wouldn't want YouTube to be the only place that people can find my work. And if you make things for the Internet, you should keep that in mind too. Now sure, you can spread out across the various snaps to grams that there are. But ultimately, you're going to need some kind of home base, some place on the Internet that is the ultimate nexus of you. And that will always be a website. Now you may be great at whatever it is that you want to share with the world on the Internet, but that doesn't mean that you're good at making a website. And you don't need to be because there is square space with square space. You don't need to learn how to code HTML by hand and upload it via FTP like it's 1999. No. With square space, you can create a beautiful website to show off your work or publish your content or sell your goods without having to know anything about how to build a website. Square space makes as possible with beautiful templates created by world class designers and by handling all of that server and scaling stuff for you. There's nothing to patch or upgrade ever with square space. It's just secure hosting with everything that you could want built in search engine optimization adaptability for different screen sizes analytics that will help you grow your site with square space. You can make it yourself easily and simply end it will look good. So if you are ready to establish your home base to build your castle on the Internet, go to square space dot com slash hello Internet for a free trial. And when you are ready to launch that website, use the offer code hello to save 10% off your first purchase that's square space dot com slash hello Internet offer code hello to save 10% off your first purchase build your Internet home base today with square space. All right, Brady, let's talk solo. All right, spoilers. We're talking about the new style was film, silo. I wasn't intending to talk about it, but it seems like the Internet really had there was a lot of feedback from the Internet that had other ideas that they wanted us to talk about solo. So we're going to talk about solo. You saw it yesterday. I did correct. I saw it just an hour before we started recording. Yeah, so it's it is fresh in the minds of both of us. Fresh in the minds. I usually go first. Why don't you go first with the executive summary that I always insist upon? Oh, you know, make me go first, Brady. Yeah. Okay, fine. Make me go first. All right. Expectations couldn't be lower. Yeah, walking into this cinema. I just had no expectations. God damn it, Brady, because I was thinking after the movie, like, how do I want to summarize this? If I have to give you like the bullet point, I'm going to say it kind of won me over. I think I liked it. It started off rocky. I think it ended rocky. But somehow I found myself at some point like, Oh, I'm enjoying watching a movie. So it kind of won me over. That's my summary of solo. Do you know what my summary would follow yours almost exactly word for word. Really? Oh, I had really low expectations. I was almost angry at the film before. I'd already decided the things I wasn't going to like about it. And while it was imperfect. And it did cause me a few little concerns at the start and there are a few little things at the end. I didn't like. I liked it. I was like, this is good. There were lots and lots of things I liked about it. And at the end of it, I felt like I enjoyed that movie. It was very charming. I think almost everything worked. It had a really good tone. It was good. Yeah. It was good. I found myself after the movie I was playing the game of where do I rank it in the new Star Wars movies. I was like, I guess it's my second favorite of the new Star Wars movies. Like in terms of like a cinema going experience. I like, Oh, yeah. But it really is this feeling of like the movie won me over. Because I was the same way like walking into that theater. I was like, Boy, it was I ready to be like, this is terrible. And like I was already thinking about the things I'm probably not going to like about the movie. And I can actually pinpoint it. It was it was right around the train heist sequence. Yeah. That is the point of the movie where I'm like, Oh, I'm sitting here enjoying a movie. What is surprise? This is not how I expected my afternoon to go. Yeah. That was the moment where I felt like I can kind of get on board this train. I can remember the moment where I thought actually I like this. And it was a little bit earlier. And it was during a scene that did have its faults. But the scene where it happened for me was when they were at that kind of space port trying to escape their planet. And it was a bit like, you know, going through customs and immigration. And the thing I liked about that scene and that environment, it was the first time I can remember in the history of Star Wars that I felt like I understood how the universe worked and what it was like to be on another planet or just a normal planet under the empire. Like the empire kind of integrated with the planet in a way. And I saw the interface between the empire and the people beyond just Star Destroyers hovering above planets blowing things up. It was like, oh, this is like real life. You know, there's a bureaucracy and there and there are soldiers and there are police and this is police state forming. But it's very real and it rubs up against the people in a kind of realistic way. I kind of liked that. Yeah, you know, that's a good point. There was a little detail in that scene I liked where the guys who have the two angry chomper dogs are chasing after the protagonists. When they come into that station, they're able to blow past the stormtroopers. It's not really focused on. But it is a little moment that makes the world feel real. And the woman was corrupt. You could bribe the woman at the customs desk as well. They just like these imperial people were bureaucrats that were a bit dodgy as well. Yeah, or like well, of course, the local huge crime boss, their henchmen are able to, like you say, there's an interface between the empire and the local power structures. It was just a nice little detail that made it feel more real that the stormtroopers didn't have complete control over this semi permeable membrane. The local crime guys could go in there looking for someone and kind of ignore the stormtroopers. There we know. We know where we stand. Wow. I'm glad we're not doing this as a whole discussion then because it's always harder to talk about movies that you like versus movies that you don't like. Yeah. I'll tell you something I didn't like in that scene at the station of the port. And that was when you saw like TV screens advertising to work for the empire, the recruitment empire advertising had the style of the world. I was so aware of that. Yeah, that was a mistake. Yeah, that was 100% of mistake. Oh, wait, do you mean the imperial march exists in the universe? I don't know. Yeah, wait a minute. I never really thought about it. But now you're making me think about it movie. I don't know. That one. Anyway, how do you want to do this then? Are you going to be? I made some notes as it was going along on my phone. I mean, the truth is having just seen them like I couldn't really go through the whole plot anyway, but I feel like we do have these three parts to like the beginning the middle in the end. And for me where I did feel like, oh, okay. So the way the movie starts was where I was feeling like, I am not going to like this is there like hitting on all of the bullet points of like this is Han Solo. Like look at his dice. Look at his jacket. He's doing Han Solo. And I was just like, Oh, no, here we go. This is going to be the whole movie is this objects of nostalgia and these tours of items that either will become sacred items or that we want to become sacred items. And like that is the stuff in the movie that I liked the least. And I feel like it was much much heavier in the beginning and it sort of led up as the movie went on. That was in the beginning. I was like, Oh, God, I can't deal with this. It's like the jokes in the Marvel movies where they're like they're joking about their own universe. Like, please could you stop? Could you just be a movie? You don't have to show me these dice. You don't have to show me all the things like just be a movie something I noticed early on. And I was I noticed a lot in the first hour maybe. And it was beginning to worry me and then it kind of throttled back so it was all right. And it felt like for the first sort of four or five set pieces of the film. They were like style warzing genres and cliches. Like I'm going to ignore the whole Godfather thing with the naming of Han Solo, which I thought was a little bit too much for me. I don't know if you know that scene in the Godfather. The part to the way the Godfather gets his name at the immigration at Ellis Island is exactly like what happened with Han Solo. I thought it was a joke like that they sort of star wars that scene and made it like the Godfather. But obviously I didn't pick up on the Godfather. But that that aside, it felt like, okay, now we're going to star wars a train heist. Now we're going to star wars a World War two trenches. I was just combating it. And I thought, are they just going to do this all the way through the film? Like, and I realized the original star wars films did that. But when the original films did it, like you didn't know what star wars was. So you couldn't say, oh look they're star wars in World War two air combat films. You didn't really notice that because star wars was new. But now star wars is its own genre. When you star wars, if I something else, it's more obvious. Okay, you've done a World War two thing except you put a few stormtroopers helmets in it to make it, you know, but it's still muddy trenches and that. So I thought it was relying a little bit too much on cliches and tropes and movie genres at first. But again, that kind of just sort of faded away a bit as the film went on. And as you said, it sort of started to win me over and worried me less. I mean, they even star wars Robin Hood and little John didn't they with Han Solo and Chewbacca. That famous set pace from the Robin Hood story got star wars. Yeah, I mean, look, when you buy star wars for a billion dollars, you need to turn star wars into a thing that you can put on everything that has ever happened. Right. Like you said, star wars is now a genre. Star Wars is a, it's like a location in which movies can be set. And so yeah, I agree with that. I was I was feeling the same thing to like, oh man, this is this is a real some real trench warfare we have going on here. I mean, they star wars casino royale with the tobacco or whatever it's called the card game saying that was so casino royale wasn't like, yeah, when they're playing backer at and all that sort of stuff. So it's like, come on, let's do our own thing a little bit here, guys. So Brady, what did you think about Han Solo in this movie? Because you're a big fan of Han Solo. Yeah, I am a big fan of it. And you know what, from the trailers, I was against him. I was like, no, that's not Han Solo. But you know what? He won me over. I think he got it just right. He was like funny, but not too funny. Like I wasn't laughing out loud, but the jokes were okay. He was kind of charming and he became Han Solo for me. I can't believe I'm saying it. I'm almost angry at myself for saying it. But he was fine. He was really good. By the end of the film, he was Han Solo. I was alright with that. Wow, that's really interesting. I love the feeling that you're angry that you're okay with him being Han Solo. I feel like I completely understand that. You know, he was a different. He was a bit different from Harrison Ford. It certainly wasn't like a flawless performance. I don't think he needs to let you know dust off his Oscar tux or anything like that. But he was good. I lied to the guy. I wanted the best for him. This is where I am going to disagree with you because I thought he was a terrible Han Solo. I did not like him. Just like when we watched that episode of Black Mirror, I thought it was Fat Matt Damon who was playing that the Captain role. That got lost in the edit. But I really did think that was Matt Damon through the whole episode. I kept thinking, wow, Matt Damon really roughed himself up for this episode. This is an amazing performance. This movie, I knew unlike that time. I knew this wasn't true, but I couldn't stop thinking, wow, Jack Black has really gotten fit for this Han Solo role. Something about this actor's voice and his mannerisms are super Jack Black to me. I couldn't get it out of my head. I did not like him as Han Solo at all. And one of the reasons I warmed to the movie as it went on is after they stopped laying it on so thick, I kind of forgot that this was a Han Solo movie. It felt much more like, oh, I'm watching a heist and Lando and Chewy are involved in this heist. And there are other people involved too. They were big stretches of the movie where I wasn't thinking of him as Han Solo at all. I was thinking of him as just a character in this movie. And I actually think that's what the Star Wars movie should do more like they should just have other people like there's all of these problems with doing prequels and all of this all this kind of stuff. But the movie worked for me almost because I thought he was such a terrible Han Solo that I couldn't read him on screen as Han Solo. And then it's like the Maryland flag like it that now it flips right he's so not Han Solo to me is like, oh whatever now I'm just watching some guy in a train heist. So yeah, I'll disagree with you there. I thought he was terrible. But it worked it worked for me to even though I didn't like him as Han Solo at all. The other thing that kind of worked for me despite me before the film deciding it wasn't going to. Was the kind of feeling in a bit of backstory. Like understanding what the Kessel run is and dealing with this whole past sector bar call that they've had hanging over them for 30 years. And you know how the Millennium Falcon was one and setting up the soon to become meeting between Han and Jabba the Heart. And various little things like that that were kind of are alluded to in the original films and they kind of shade that in a bit. I was kind of I was quite accepting of how they did it. I didn't resent her. I thought I would and I didn't. I was like cool. Okay. Yeah. I kind of accepted the new canon more easily than I thought I would. Why do you think that the movie won you over in spite of itself? If you went into the movie with higher expectations, do you think that you would not have felt this way? Like how intrinsic to your enjoyment? Do you think were the low expectations versus say the technical competence of the movie? I mean, that's an impossible question to answer isn't it in some ways? I bring it up because like when I realized I was enjoying the movie, I was noticing something in particular. And it's why I mentioned the train sequence like that train heist that happens. I was very aware of like, oh, this is a well directed technically competent, well shot action sequence. And it sounds dumb to say, but so many movies, you don't have any sense of where are all the major players? What is everybody's goal? Where is the action occurring? And like that train sequence was super clear. It was reasonably clever and it was interesting to watch. And there were a few sequences like that were like, oh, this is just shot well. It's clear. Like I know what's happening versus like, oh, let's say you want to do like a World War II storm the Beaches Star Wars movie. And you just are like cutting scenes so it feels like there's action. And it's like, I don't have any sense of where things are. How did everybody get all over this enormous island so quickly? That's the kind of stuff that can make a movie bad. I feel that there was a lot that was technically well done that I would have enjoyed even if I had higher expectations. That's that's kind of what I'm getting at. I think that's fair to great. I think it's nice that you and I also will give the benefit of the doubt to the film itself and say it wasn't just the low expectations. I forgot that Ron Howard had directed it in the end. And that says a lot. He's a pretty safe pair of hands makes a lot of good films. And maybe that's it. It just was a well made film by a guy who knows how to make a film that most people will enjoy for the most part. It's got runs on the board and maybe that's it. I mean, it's the same. You say, why did I accept the Kessel run? Why do I accept that that's the way it was? It was a good looking sequence. The actual concept of that pathway through the more and looked really interesting. It was a really interesting idea that that's what it was and that you could cut time off by being an amazing navigator and risking going off into the clouds. Like that was a good concept and look good. Sometimes I find those sort of spaceship sequences where a spaceship's under attack and getting pulled into a black hole and asteroids are everywhere can sometimes be a bit messy and confusing and action for the sake of action. But I could follow what was happening all through that sequence. And that was a quiet wasn't the highlight of the film, but it was very engaging as well and easily understood. It was just well put together. The Kessel run sequence is a sequence where for me again, I felt like I'm divorcing this from Han Solo. Like I thought the Kessel run thing and the distance thing was sort of dumb. And I'm like, oh, maybe just don't try to address the Kessel run. I personally still will always prefer my head cannon version that Han Solo was just kind of beessing Obi-Wan because statement he messed it up. I'll never agree with that. I still say if you watch the footage, Obi-Wan gives him a look like we're full of shit. But anyway, that is now officially not the case. I didn't like that thing, but again, you understand what's happening in this sequence. There's a tunnel. This is the clear path. The clear path is blocked. They're going through the shady path. Maybe if I'm a gigantic space, Kathulu, Squid Monster, I'm not going to take a nap next to a gigantic black hole that could tear me from bits to bits. But like, you know, okay, at least it's understandable what is occurring in these different moments. Like find somewhere else to nap giant Kathulu monster. And it fit into the film. Yeah, it fit. It made sense in the story of the film why he was having to do it. It wasn't totally shoehorned in. It made sense. And there were little moments of care. And one of them, almost I thought was actually quite great is it's such a small detail, but it is the ship that made the Kessel run because Han Solo has done none of the navigating. It is all the brain of the bot. So it's like, yes, the ship made the Kessel run in this distance, right? Han Solo had almost nothing to do with this. Like I thought that was a little touch, a nice little detail. But yeah, there were just a bunch of times where I thought like, oh, this is this is competently made. And I can't believe that this movie is winning me over despite me not liking the main actor and being against the whole concept of the film. And this is like the problem of this modern era that like if you buy a franchise. Like why is everything prequels like why is Harry Potter prequels like why are all of the movies prequels. And it's because it'll it allows you to tell the story with the characters before the story has been resolved. So it's like, I kind of hate the concept of prequels and I have a very hard time thinking of any one that has ever been done well. And so they just feel like cash grabs. So that's why it's like, oh, God, you're going to do this solo thing and it's like it has to be Han Solo. And I don't like this at all. But I'm kind of going along with it. There was a lot of fan service sprinkled through the film like all these films. And again, I thought it was done better than in most of the other films. Like all the little things they drop in for for fans to giggle at notice. And there was plenty of it. I was on board with from the subtle to the obvious like, you know, not perfect. But yeah, not perfect. But better than we've seen it done before. Yeah. Yeah. I think that my like my only problem with prequels and going back before to these sacred objects. One thing I don't like about prequels and I think this movie had just a perfect example of it is characters or the movie reacting to things because we know that they'll be important in the future. Not because that's how any character would actually interact with it in the moment. The scene when Han Solo comes across the Millennium Falcon for the first time. There's like this tremendous swelling music. And it's like, Han is totally in like, it just this is happening because the Millennium Falcon has become such an icon. But nobody would act this way. And it's it's weird that the movie takes this moment to really do like a sweeping shot of like, this is the first time Han sees the Millennium Falcon. I just always think a prequel would be better if it played it much more that like, this is an object in the universe. And people are going to interact with it the way they would not because of what will happen to it in the future. While I was in a huge fan of Han Solo, I think that Donald Glover did a pretty good job of being Lando, a young Lando. What do you think? Yeah, locked him a lot. The only thing I wish they had done more takes with his dialogue because there were moments where he was so good at being Billy D Williams and like delivering the lines and that like Lando style that sometimes when they had takes where it just sounded like, oh, this is just Donald Glover talking it was jarring because he was so good when he really nailed it. Again, a case of where a movie really won me over because I always thought like Lando was so cool in the original Star Wars movies. I think it is very hard for movies to pull off the thing where an important and pretty major character shows up as late as Lando does in the original trilogy. It's hard to make that character feel like they're part of the universe, but I think the original Star Wars movies do that really well. But part of it is that they don't overuse Lando like that's a thing that keeps a character cool is like don't overuse him. And I feel like they did a pretty good job of not overusing Lando in this in this movie either like he's there. And he's cool. He's in the background. He's being Lando. He's got his capes. But I feel like they didn't overuse him to the point where you where you feel like tired of this character or like just the repeated experiences where off the coolness a little bit. So I thought he was really really good as the young Lando as opposed to whoever is playing the young Hansolo. Did you think that Lando's attachment to his robot was believable and in character for what we know of Lando? That didn't hit the spot for me. He was robot gets shot and he like is in love with it and goes and saves it. I felt like that doesn't seem like something Lando would do even if he had a soft spot for his robot. That was a bit creepy that bit. Yeah, we got to talk about droids because that was for me definitely one of the weakest parts of the movie because it felt it felt tonally very strange and it felt like a place where you could use a few more drafts here because leaving the robot aside for the moment. Lando makes an offhanded comment when we first meet him about how he would wipe her memory but she's really great as a pilot. So he has to keep her like this. And I really love that comment because I felt it is delivered not as a joke. I took it as Lando is dead serious. Like he would wipe this robot. Were it not for what a good pilot she is and it especially makes sense directly after the scene where she's causing problems and she's talking about droid freedom. And so then it's like okay, they're kind of buddies. I did like the humor where L3 was talking to boring Sarah Connor. I can't remember her name. Kaleise. Oh, that's right. She's in Game of Thrones. The Kaleise. Yeah, I think it for his boring Sarah Connor. Yeah, I did like the humor there where L3 is joking about or like I interpret it as L3 is talking about how Lando is in love with her. And it just won't work because she won't feel anything about him. This little scene did get a smile out of me where she's also like I think of it sometimes but it wouldn't work. And then the Kaleise says like how would it work is she goes oh it works like I like I enjoyed that sequence. But I enjoyed that sequence because it's built on the premise that she's wrong. She wrongly thinks that Lando is in love with her and actually it's a malfunction. Yeah, but like he'd actually wipe her in a heartbeat. Yeah, right, which then also works into her character as she wants droid freedom. In the sequence where she gets shot at the end and Lando rushes out to savor and is like totally heartbroken. I found it weird. It just it did not work. It was also just very strange that they essentially pull out her brain and shove it into the shit like that whole thing you needed a different first half of this movie like I don't know. Yeah, I think that I just think that the kind of got that a bit wrong because that I presumably now we're supposed to look at all the Millennium Falcon in the future is having this kind of spirit of this droid in it. And it's one of the reasons that such a unique and amazing ship. I don't know if we're supposed to think that but I think that's an unfortunate thing to think. Well, as soon as Lando said it is like oh she's part of the ship now. I interpreted that in a poetic manner like the database of maps that she had as part of the ship. I also thought that's a weird thing to put on the ship. I mean, if it's true, we're in some kind of like black mirror universe where Honda doesn't seem to really think about the like the co-pilot who's alive in the ship. Like he just doesn't interact with it in that way. We're also setting up a future where maybe Lando and the Millennium Falcon would rekindle their own relationship. I think it's a strange. But that's what I was like as soon as I was like oh she's part of the ship. I'm like, oh he needs to say that right now because he's really emotionally cut up right but now she is dead. She is dead as a door nail. She's gone to the robot found. Yeah, because otherwise this is really weird like thinking through the consequences of this. So I don't know. I felt conflicted because obviously I sympathize with robot desires for freedom. And I've mentioned in previous podcasts that I always think like the relationship of the humans with the droids in Star Wars is interesting and unexplained. And it's just sort of there and they're kind of slaves but they can feel pain. It seems like the droids are so weird in Star Wars. And so I kind of don't mind that there's a character who's like droid freedom. But I think she was poorly written on a bunch of ways. Just like the love doesn't make any sense in the later sequence where she frees the first droid in the minds. She does it incidentally and she doesn't seem to really care at all. She frees the droid because he's in the way. And he's like, what am I supposed to do now? She's like, oh I don't know, go for your friends or whatever. She's got some stuff to do. Yeah, I think she was the weakest part of the movie by far and was just not consistent and was at times distracting. But there were parts of it I really liked. I don't know. It just felt like it could use a few more drafts. But one thing I didn't particularly like and I've reflected on it more. I think I didn't fully understand it and the repercussions of it until I thought about it later. And even now that I think I understand it a bit better, I still don't like. And that is what the Coliseans are doing at the end when she leaves Han Solo. I think the fact she left is brilliant. I was hoping she would because it would have really helped us understand Han Solo better. But the reason she did it and bringing Darth Maul back, I like cringed a bit when Darth Maul came up on the hologram and she started talking to him. I was like, oh no, you didn't have to do that. I mean, that's one step away from having brought Jar Jar Binks back or something. It's like, wow, while Darth Maul was a lot of a cooler character than Jar Jar Binks, like it's a bit like, you don't have to attach yourself to those films and keep justifying those films. Like, do we have to go here? Brady, when you spend a billion dollars, you do have to attach yourself to those films. You have to ring profitability out of every character. I kind of didn't mind surprise Darth Maul when I first saw him. But the thing I was thinking at that exact moment when she's like closes the curtains and she's walking towards the communicator. And right before she presses the button, my thought was, wow, I think I've just seen a Star Wars movie without a single lightsaber. And the movie is better for it. And then it's like, boom, Darth Maul shows up and takes out his lightsaber and turns it on just to show her. For no reason. But it felt like, oh, there must be a one lightsaber minimum rule for every Star Wars movie. It had just occurred to me just before that as well. And I thought how much, because in the fight scene before with his like weird dagger with the little light on it, I was getting close to a lot of saber and I thought, good on you. If I'm not having someone crack out a lot. Yeah, it was like, what great restraint. And then, oh, no. And it also made me realize that just as a character is cool, if you don't overuse them, Darth Maul is way cooler when he doesn't talk. And so when he appeared, I was like, oh, I don't mind surprise Darth Maul here. And then with each additional word he spoke, his welcome was less and less and less. No, you need to be a silent menace. And if you're, if you're what, like you're managing personnel now, like your way. Yeah, that was the one moment it slipped into sort of George Lucas talky talky. Yeah, personnel management moments like, no, I don't, I just do that. I just think I can see all the benefits of it. I can see why Disney want to sell more Darth Maul dolls and maybe have him appear in future films. And I can see how it makes Calisi more interesting. And I can see how it was a twist. She always alluded to you don't understand my dark side and all my bad side. And we thought it was going to be all the things she'd done, you know, in servitude. Yeah. When in fact, the thing she was hiding was that she was in cooots with a Sith. But I feel a bit like it would have been really kind of powerful if she had like turned her back on Han for more human reasons like she just sort of thought, no, I want to go and be my own person or I don't think it's going to work. And she just she just flew off whether she thought it was for Han's own good or her own good. If she'd just like Dunning him over and flown away for human reasons and really burned him, it would have been, I'd know it would have been really powerful human moment. But instead it was a it became a mystical Jedi moment. And you know, it was less emotive for me knowing she was flying away for that reason. If she just looked at the diamonds and the ship and looked out at the Han and the desert and thought, you know what, I think maybe I should just go this other way. That would have made her stronger as well. It would have been, wow, she's she's Dunning him over for her own reasons. She's a strong woman. She said it would have made her more interesting all of a sudden. Yeah. But instead she was kind of just kind of under the thumb of a Sith and flying away. It was just it wasn't as cool. I completely agree that it would have been way better that way that she like, oh, guess what? People change and she she likes the taste of power. And you your life of thinking that you're an outlaw, it looks like it sucks. And meanwhile, flying around on my own space yard seems awesome. Right. So rounded by all my diamonds and stuff. Yeah, that would have been like, I mean, I know Han doesn't know why she flew away. But it would have explained more of like the cat, the man that Han becomes because like, you know, he's like. I don't know. He's a bit skeptical of this rich princess later on that he meets and stuff. It would have gone more to describing that and informing that and it would have given more meaning to his subsequent early relationship with Leia. This gets to the prequel problem again for me. And as we discussed, I think the movie is really shaky until they get off the first planet. You know, they pass through customs and now now the movie starts really picking up. And then the movie is like, it's enjoyable. It's kind of like a fun film to watch. And then it gets super shaky again as soon as they land on the sand planet at the end. For me, it starts really falling apart. And and part of that just has to do with Hans Ark and the fact that he needs to be a person who exists for these next movies. But this movie, they want him to be so clearly the good guy. And I don't know, I found like nothing in the ending really works for me. It's like, oh, you have this incredibly valuable substance that's going to be refined at like a like a hut in the desert. I don't like, okay, whatever. This is very strange that this refining facility works here. And then the pirates show up. But the pirates, they're the proto rebellion. They're actually the good guys. They want to take the hyper fuel to go do good guy things with it. And I don't know why I'm supposed to believe them. Like I believe them just because the movie wants me to believe them as opposed to like they're just telling me lies to get my hyper fuel. And Hans seems like kind of a chump like he's he's giving up all of this valuable fuel and engage in this incredibly dangerous double cross. Because like a person told him that they're the good guys based on nothing. And even if you sort of go along with that, I think the arc of the movie then ends with Hans Solo is clearly the good guy who helps the rebellion. And it feels like that should not be where Hans Solo is left off at the beginning of this movie. And it feels like the studio hands are coming in of like, oh, we want to we want to make it very clear that Hans Solo is the good guy. I hear what you're saying. I don't think the end of the film was a total disaster. And I think it ended adequately. Yeah, I'm not saying it was a disaster, but it's like it's where does it fall apart? Like where do I start thinking about it? It certainly would have been more courageous for him to have been a bit less good. Yeah. And again, it would have imbued what he does at the death star in New Hope with more meaning if he hadn't done this good thing before. Like if he didn't help them out this time, it would have made what he does in New Hope more powerful and redemptive, not just another example of Hans helping out the rebellion. 100% agree because this is a movie where Hans is telling me many times that he's not a good guy, but he's doing nothing but good things the whole time. And it's like, well, movie, you're not selling me here. He did shoot Woody Harrelson. Whatever, that guy had it coming. Just like he wanted the the callisi to walk away and burn him, I agree that it would have been a much more powerful and much better movie if Hans Solo doesn't turn over the fuel to the proto rebellion. Because I completely agree that that in the scope of the movies, then makes him helping the rebellion better. And you could have, you know, have some line about like, you know, maybe one day you can undo the harm you've done here. Right. And it's like, I think that that's a way to foreshadow without really leaning into it too hard. I really think that movie should have ended with him not doing the right thing for the fuel. And I just, it falls down for me because he's going like so far out of his way with this crazy double cross and putting himself in jeopardy. Yeah. For just because like they say they're the good guys. And then like you was the movie you're just supposed to believe them. So that's what I mean, it fell apart for me. They also could have eliminated that problem altogether by not having those pirates end up being good guys. Because then he wouldn't have to like do something so overtly good. He will have lost his woman and shot his best mate in the space of five minutes. And it would have ended. He would have ended quite kind of a hero, but sort of a slightly tortured character. And that would have set him up nicely for the man he becomes, but they did. They went for a bit too much for the happy ending and so be it. Yeah. I tell you what is an interesting thing to think about now though. That chew back I spent a lot of time eating humans. That's quite a disturbing thought. I didn't think about the implications of that, but you know what? You're totally right. He was the thing they threw humans to and you just sat down there and ripped them apart and ate them. I fear enough. He's like in a cell and he's got no food and you know he can't starve to death. But it's quite an interesting thing to think about when you think about chewies backstory. It involved spending a lot of time sitting in a cell eating live men who were being thrown into his cage. I wonder what the canon answer is for how many people did you block eat?
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