H.I. No. 38: The F-Word

"H.I. #38: The F-Word" is the 38th episode of Hello Internet, released on May 25, 2015.
==Official Description==
Grey and Brady discuss: naming voting systems (and other things), how lies spread, spiders and jellyfish, Apple Watch faces revisited and health gamification, and FLAGS FLAGS FLAGS!
(Plus homework for you.)
==Show Notes==
*Discuss this episode 
*SecretSurgeon reddit comment 
*H.I. Animated #3 
*Freebooting on Know Your Meme 
*Brady interviews a billionaire 
*Australian annual spider rain 
*Rain of animals 
*Grey's main watch face 
*Grey's alt watch face which he likes better but Jony Ive won't let him have the calendar on the bottom for no reason 
*Progress: Difference Engine to Apple Watch 
*New Zealand flag referendum 
*Murderball 
*2012 London Olympics 
*2010 Vancouver Olympics 
*London Olympics penis-monster mascots
*Official terrifying low-res intro video
*Vancouver Olympics mascots
*Intro video
*New Zealand Silver Fern flag 
*Australian Aboriginal flag 
*Proposed world flag 
*Vexillology subreddit 
*Allie Brosh 
*Hyperbole and a Half 
*Roman Mars TED Talk 
*99% Invisible 
*Cashless 
*Getting Things Done by David Allen
First of all, I would probably pay you to not stick a fork into your leg. What do you click on your mechanical keyboard about there? I was clicking to pull up the follow-up. There were a few things for follow-up. That's quite a few things. Actually, I wanted to pick something that is from a long time ago, which is that we made a joke at some point about surgeons listening to the podcast while they are performing surgery and how that would not be a good idea. It was even depicted in Dobsky's, one of Dobsky's 8-Shy Animated's. There was a comment that was left for us on the Reddit, which is terrifying to me. But it is from a surgeon who says that it is not uncommon for surgeons to listen to things like audio books during routine surgeries. He laid out the rationale that what you're most worried about in your surgeon is that your surgeon becomes bored and so then they become inattentive. So if they're doing very routine surgery, that this is a problem and something like listening to an audio book keeps a surgeon engaged, but I still find that notion absolutely terrifying. I would not want to know that while I was under the surgeon is listening to an audio book, I would be very uncomfortable with this piece of information. But now it is in my head that it is impossible to unknow. So surgeons apparently do listen to audio books at the very least, but I still say hopefully not podcasts. I read this as well just before the show. I mean they claim they're a surgeon. You never know. It's the internet. And they call themselves Secret Surgeon. Right. So I believe they're a surgeon. Now it makes sense I understand needing to have something to keep your brain engaged, I guess, other than the surgery. The Secret Surgeon did say this was when you're doing really mundane, same thing over and over again, not when you're doing brain surgery on someone who's serious things. But it does worry me a bit because Audrey's going into surgery next week. Oh no. Yeah. Just like she's been having lady surgery so she doesn't have puppies. Oh, she's being fixed. Yeah. And I'm really I'm like massively worried about it already because you know she's so small and delicate and doesn't breathe that well anyway. And now I'm going to have this in my head that the surgeon's not paying attention. So I don't think they go in through the nose for the surgery though Brady. I don't think her breathing is related to this. No, but she goes under like you know anesthetic and I'm worried. Then you know I'm just worried. I understand it is it is concerning when they come when they go into for any kind of surgery. Yeah. Also I'm not entirely convinced that secret surgeon is not a vet because it all seemed a bit ambiguous to me and it makes me think maybe they are a vet but wanted to sound like a human surgeon. Can you tell from reading all comments in the thread whether they're a human vet or a human surgeon or a vet surgeon? You know what? That's end and human surgeons. They're both doing surgery on animals. They're just different kinds of animals. I'll tell you what. I'll tell you what though. The best thing about the whole comment expressed on left on reddit is the last bit. You have to read the last bit they wrote and where they say one other note. One other note I arrived here via CGP Grey's channel which has been infotaining me for years now. I had never wanted Brady's channels before but now that I've been introduced to them I have to say I am amazed how I ever missed them. They are all brilliant than he lists a bunch of your channels. Great stuff Kudos mate. Is that the part of the comment that you like the best? Yeah. Can we just end the podcast there? You get a thumbs up from a secret surgeon that your channels and your work are all amazing. Yep. And also they did say that they have actually been doing surgery listening to our podcast now as well. Oh God. For the set that I say, for the past couple of weeks all my patients have been operated on by doctors Harry and Grey. I just, I hope that is not true. I really hope if you're a surgeon that you are not listening to this podcast during surgery. It makes me, it makes me want to be very serious all the time so we don't accidentally say anything that could be remotely funny to any human because I'm just imagining a surgeon you know what we know with their knife in a precarious location and they're like, oh, ha, right? And it plunges the knife into sensitive pieces. No, this is, this is no good. Please don't listen to the podcast surgeons. Tweak Grey if you're doing surgery right now. I like that image of the surgeon with the scalpel in one hand and their iPhone 6 in the other hand trying to awkwardly reach around the screen and they're like, oh, huh, let me tweet right now. Oh no, it's no good. It's no good at all. It's not. Anyway, there you go. I don't think I could do it. I don't think. Oh no, I probably could. I probably could listen to podcasts while doing surgery. Oh yeah. Are you, are you that confident in your surgery skills? I can't, I can't read if there's audio in the room. Like if a TV's on or there's any talking in the room, I cannot read. But I think I could, I think I could probably do. How surgery? There is definitely linguistic collision in my brain if I try to listen to a podcast and do anything else that has anything to do with words. And I'm always surprised and very doubtful when people say that they are listening to the podcast while doing something word related or like computer programming. Some people say they listen to podcasts while they're computer programming. I, I would not be capable of doing that. And I kind of, I refuse to believe that those people are able to do that. I think they're just doing their primary task really terribly. And the thing about the surgeons that worries me is I've mentioned before that I listen to podcasts and audio books while I'm animating because these are different areas of my brain. It's like the visual side and then the linguistic side and it's totally fine. But I also do know that there's a trade off that it takes me longer to animate if I'm listening to something at the same time. Like I can tell that the work goes slower. But I'm making a trade off here about how bored I get versus how long it's going to take. So I still just worry about surgeons having any part of their brain occupied by something other than the person's guts in front of them that they are manipulating. One of these days, but not today, I'm going to ask why animating is so boring for you. Because your animations don't look like that. That tedious to do. But we'll do that another day. If you want to do that another day, that's fine. There's not really that much to say about it. No. When has that ever stopped us? Now we talked a lot about voting and elections in the last podcast and different people got wound up to different levels by that. Is there anything you wanted to follow up from that? Yeah. This happens all the time when we do our podcast. Is that immediately after the podcast goes out, I feel really riled up about all kinds of points and things that I want to talk about. But then when we go to record, 10 days or two weeks later, I often feel like, eh, that thing that happened in the past, I'm much more willing to let it go. So I had all of these angry notes written down for points that I wanted to follow up and things that I wanted to clarify. And now I'm sort of looking at them and I think, eh. I have one thing. Yes. What do you want to follow up on? And it's more like a question that maybe you can answer for me. First pass the post voting, which I'm not a fan of. And I did say that last time. Yes. You were doing some amazing devil's advocacy in the last podcast. Okay. Well, let me ask you this. Why is it called first pass the post voting? Oh, I know. If there's one thing that it is not, it is first pass the post, it's almost like that's almost the definition of what this method of voting is not. Yes. Because it's one of the few methods where you don't have to reach the post like the other methods, you know, where they distribute preferences and keep going until someone gets to 50% like a post. That is first pass the post. So it's almost like describing the opposite of what it is. It's the one method where you don't need to reach the post. The name is entirely misleading. And I almost think that maybe that's part of the reason why it's able to spread is because you tell people, oh, first pass the post and they envision a horse race and horse races are really unambiguous about who was the winner. It's like, oh, right. The guy across the line first. That's how we determine winners. This must be a reasonable voting system. But yes, the first pass the post voting system, that name could not possibly be less descriptive. And it just, it just baffles me. It absolutely baffles me, which is why it's not even ambiguous. It's like willfully wrong. Yeah. That's what I mean. I feel like it is almost intentionally or just through random chance, very confusing, and a way that makes it feel more fair and more obvious. So yeah, it's the worst name ever, which is what they call it. It's like they call it adorable, fair puppy voting. Right, right. And you're like, oh, well, that must be the best way to vote. Right. Right. But adorable, fair puppy voting is actually a box full of snakes. That's really good. Is it? Oh, but you voted for it. It's not really what I was going for. But yes, it is why most of the time if you are a nerd and you are reading literature on different voting systems, very often when people who are familiar with the systems are talking about them, they will refer to it as plurality voting, which of course is actually what it is. It is, it is the voting system that selects the plurality, but not necessarily the majority of the voters. I know you love that word. I know you love that word and you used it loads in the last podcast too, but you really shouldn't why why shouldn't I use that word? It is descriptive. No, it isn't. Well, when you say I've got no idea what you're talking about. And I'm like, I'm like a normal guy. Like if you said to me, I believe in plurality voting, I'd go, well, I don't believe in plurality voting. I'm just simply saying that that is more descriptive. What I'm saying is that's a word that not enough people understand and they certainly don't understand it in that context and it needs a different name that is not that. Here's the thing. This isn't one of these, this isn't one of these Brady come up with a new name things. This is just it needs a, you know, it needs to be something like leading vote getter or I don't know, I don't know what the name for it is, but a name that explains what it is that isn't plurality. If we can move from a name that is actively confusing and misleading to a name that simply means nothing in the minds of most people, that is an improvement. Fair enough. That is way better. So that's why I would still advocate for plurality, even if maybe the majority of people don't know what that word is. But maybe a plurality of people know what plurality means. I saw a really cool comment the other day. I can't remember who made it. Apologies for not crediting you person, but I can't remember where I saw it. But you know my whole lagniat thing, for extra video footage, which is not as bad an idea as you said, because in some parts of the world I've since been told, lagniat doesn't just relate to commercial transactions and it can just make a bit extra on the side. Yeah, words always turn to mush. That's what happened. Someone said, why don't I call it vi, vignyap footage for video. So I could have vignyap footage. Yeah. So do you want to do you want a different prefix for all kinds of media, like the little extra things that we put on the Hello Internet channel? Should those be podniap? Sections, is that what you want? You're getting it, Gray. You're getting it. I like you thinking. The director's commentary on DVDs is odd app commentary. Yeah, well, it needs a bit of work, but. It needs a bit of work. But you think this is the picture? The guineaap could become a little genre. Yeah. You could have all sorts of guineaaps. Guineaap is the suffix here that you want. Well, it seems to be heading that way. Yeah, yeah, this is a free train that can't be stopped. I think it's definitely the case. I'll tell you what though, speaking of that, free booting. There was an interesting thing the other day about free booting. And that was someone sent me, and I think they sent it to you, a link to one of these sites that talks about defining new trendy words. I can't remember what it was called. It had me in it, but oh, the Know Your Memes, I... Yeah, yeah, that's the one. And they were pointing out that it had been posted there in the whole history of the word had been written and it had left us out completely. And it referred to people who first posted it here and there and destined video and a couple of other videos and we were left out completely. And I mean, that doesn't bother me, but it was just interesting. Are you sure? Are you sure? No, it didn't bother me at all. And since I tweeted it, it has since been remedied anyway, and we do get credit it now. I hope I am the one who is credited as usually in the case. Yeah, I think you get a fair chunk of the credit. And again, I should get no chunk of the credit, not at all. Well, that's by the by. The thing that it did make me think about, and it's something I've heard discussed before, is podcasts as source material. They are like the ugly sister of source material. Because they're... Well, because you can't search them very easily, you can't search them all really. They're like, you know, with a Google search. And they're not as popular and high-profile as videos. So if something happens in a podcast, it's kind of... It is quite anonymous, even though we're posting these things on the internet and, you know, everyone can listen to them and they're out there. They're still kind of hidden. They're hidden things. And that is one of the things about podcasts. You know, if someone says something in a podcast and you're like, oh, who was it that said at that time? And I'd like to listen to that again. It's so hard to find them. It's just... They're invisible. In terms of searching for something, they are totally invisible. That is true. And I'm aware that I have to go on Twitter sometimes and ask people where on Earth we said something if I want to link to a previous conversation that we've had. I wonder if this is part of the problem of the popularity of podcasts and no doubt they have gotten much more popular in the last couple years. But I still think it's harder than other sources of media to get people started in podcasts. The percentage of the population who could potentially enjoy listening to podcasts is much, much larger than the percentage of the population that currently does. I get... There's a high barrier to get people started in podcasts. And that is... I think that might be part of what you also mean. It's about the invisibility of them. Like, where do they exist? It's like, oh, can I go to the website? It's like, well, yes, you can go to the website, but that's a terrible experience. You really need to download this app for your phone and then search for the thing in the app and then click subscribe. It's a bigger process than perhaps it could be in other ways. Yeah. But also, if I made a podcast called The Brady Loves Red Podcast and I made a podcast every day for three years telling you if on how much I love the color red. And then one day I wrote one blog saying my favorite color was blue. That's all anyone would know about me. Our Brady's the guy that wrote that blog that said he likes blue because the podcast doesn't seem to exist as record the way that written stuff on the internet does. Yes, but I also think that that is the strength of it as well. As we have discussed, I feel much more comfortable sometimes kind of just chatting about stuff on the podcast in a way that I would never write some of the same stuff as a dedicated article on my blog because it is the very conversational nature of it that is informing the listener that we are having a conversation. We're just talking about some stuff and sometimes we're saying things literally as they pop into our head or they're the first time we've ever thought about something. So I do also like the kind of low pressure world of podcasting versus writing an article which when you write an article, the presumption is that you have actually spent time formulating how you are going to say something and so it is held to a much higher standard. It's like when not under oath. Yes, I think that is an excellent way to put it. We are not under oath on the podcast. So if you ever want to quote us to us or take us out of context, all of this is not under oath. The thing with podcasts and the reason they can't go massive though is they're just such a time sync. If I have a week where I'm not doing a long drive or like a train trip, I'll just fall behind on podcasts completely and that's it. They just take so long to listen to. Yeah, but you can be doing something else while you listen to the podcasts. Well, not many things, but yeah, a few things. Yeah, you clean the house or whatever. Yeah, go for a walk maybe. Yeah, but it doesn't take like two hours to clean the house or what the dog. You are right. The podcast definitely do have a certain amount of time sync and I am massively over subscribed to podcasts and so have to use a kind of filtering sorting system on my own podcast Q to even do it. So yeah, they do take up a whole lot of time. But I still say that there are many, many more people who have room for podcasts in their life than then currently listen to podcasts. Can I just clarify something else for the record? And this is just one of those me wanting to sort something out for people because since we spoke about it on the podcast, I've posted the video, which is with this really, this billionaire guy. And in the comments under the video, I saw a few people making little jokes and references to his smoking and the first puff thing that we talked about. Oh, no. And read and reading some of those comments. I think some people misunderstood what I was saying. So I went back and listened to the podcast and I could see how maybe it could be misconstrued. And I don't know if it was because of how I spoke or how it was edited or what it was. But just let me say just so it's clear to people. When I said he has first puffs of cigarettes, I wasn't suggesting he sits there with a packet of cigarettes has a first puff extinguishes it. Pongs out another one has a first puff extinguishes it. That's not what I was saying. What I was saying is if he gets interrupted for some reason after five or six puffs and has to put it out, when it comes time to rewrite another one, like 20 minutes later, he won't rewrite a half used one. He will start again. He isn't a guy that just exclusively has first puffs. I hope that is clear. I thought that was clear from the previous podcast. Yeah. But I think this is again an example of how as stories get told on the internet, they become these cartoonish versions of themselves. And so it is almost inevitable that he is now going to have the reputation as the man who only takes a single puff from every cigarette that he smokes. Because you can't fight against that. That is a certain kind of meme that sticks really well in people's minds with the ideas of billionaires and it's kind of funny. This game is just over. You're never going to be able to undo that kind of thing. Well, just it'll be with him until the end of time now. And also, even if you say something is not true, it sticks in the head like listeners, hello internet listeners, I'm going to say something now. This is not true. But I'm going to say it anyway. I swear to God, I'm not even going to put that in the podcast. You need to come up with something else because I'm just going to cut that. Do you want to give that another go? No, I know. I like the idea. But you're just going to leave that in my editing hands. Is that what you're saying? I would just leave that with you. It does make the point that you're editing it out for that very reason because even if you know something's not true, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. It was stick. It was stick. I love the internet. I love the way that internet conversations can unfold. I think you can have lots of very different kinds of conversations than you ever could in real life partly because of anonymity and partly because of a whole lot of other factors. But one of the flip sides of that and one of one of the costs that you end up having to pay is this weird fact that just things get exaggerated and distorted in ways that are impossible to prevent from happening. I feel like that was what my whole this video will make you angry video was about. Like having been on the internet long enough to see this exact same phenomenon play out in many different ways over many different years. And yeah, it's just a funny or interesting lie has an enormous edge in spreadability and stickability over the boring truth. So Australia, full of spiders. What's this about? I don't know. You're from Australia. You tell me. But I made a joke about how Australia was full of spiders in a previous show. And then one day everyone is tweeting at me this article that just says it's raining millions of baby spiders in Australia. Is this is this normal weather for Australia? Do you just get spider rain all the time down there? Oh, well, I need the winter. Oh, I need the winter. I'm joking. Um, I don't know. It always rains weird things everywhere. This is, you know, this is this is just a thing. Yeah. You always say these stories about rainstorms of frogs or, you know, do you I don't hear these stories of rainstorms of frogs? Yeah, you're okay. When you were a little boy, did you not, my favorite books in the library when I was a little boy, with a, with a books of facts like Michael Cain books effects, which now have just become listicles, obviously. So basically I was in to listicles before there were listicles. And, and when you read those books, they were always like, you know, in, in 1932, it hailed frogs for 15 minutes in Cairo sort of thing. It, you know, I don't know how it happens. Something gets blown up from a like or something, I guess, and goes up into some thermal and I don't know. I don't know. Since we're just having this conversation immediately after the like lies spread immediately fast. So, let's see if that's an Australia spider rain into YouTube. What do I get? I want to see if there are video. Oh, okay. There actually is video of it raining spiders. That is, that's not just a story that some people are telling. Anyway, I don't, I don't remember ever hearing about it raining frogs when I was a kid. This is the first time I've, I've heard about it raining creatures. And it is of course spiders in Australia. So I am standing by my statement that Australia is full of spiders. They definitely rains frogs. I'm searching that now. Hang on. Are you going to find me a raining frogs video? There's a Wikipedia article called Rain of Animals. Oh, Wikipedia. And fish and frogs are the main ones they talk about. So I see I am entirely unaware of this phenomenon. Meaning animals. Jellyfish? Oh God, that would be horrifying. Jellyfish, man. I'm not a fan of the jellyfish. No, that's my wife's Achilles here as well. They're awful. I don't even, it's like who decided that the Apple Watch would have a jellyfish on it? It's a horrible decision. And their numbers are increasing as the carbon dioxide levels increase in the ocean. That's like my biggest concern with global warming. It's like, wait a minute, you're saying we're giving the edge to the jellyfish? No, we've got to put a stop to this right now. We don't need more of this jellyfish. When I was in Australia, just recently in Perth, we were jumping off a little jetty into the water and there were jellyfish everywhere. And we were having to jump into the gaps between them. And like kids were going in the water and picking them up and bringing them up onto the jetty and playing with them and holding them and all sorts. I mean, I guess it's fine if they're not the stinging kind, you know, but the stinging kind of no good. No, you just find like horrible stinging kinds on the beach in Hawaii. He's like, oh yeah, you can't touch that because you will experience pain like no human has ever experienced before. I'm like, oh, okay, great. Can we kill all of these things? Like, is there a way that we can kill them because I would be okay with that? You know how one of the things, if you get stung by a jellyfish, is you like pay on the person to make the pain go away? This is like an urban legend, I thought. I was under the impression that this is just like this starts because some friends want to make their, you know, their friends day even worse. Like, oh, you got jellyfish, man, a war. It's a real shame. You know, we have to do now. We have to pee on you. I think that's how that got started. Oh, really? But I'm not sure now we look it up. I'm looking it up to now. This is like an urban legend. I have a scientific American article saying, no, this is not, this is not helpful peeing on. Okay. All right. I'm absolutely convinced this is just someone's idea of a prank one day. And of course, again, lies, they spread very quickly. It's very memorable that you're supposed to pee on someone after they've been stung by a jellyfish. So this just gets spread forever. And even us debunking it now, if anything, we're just reinforcing it. People will listen to this podcast and they'll come away with the idea that, oh, yes, of course, we're supposed to pee on someone when they get stung by a jellyfish. Well, not even if they know it's not true, they'll just keep telling the story like, oh, it's been an urban legend. And I don't think it's true, but apparently. Yeah. But then people forget the urban legend apparently stuff. They just remember the facts later. Like it's, it's really, there's a couple of interesting kind of studies that I've come across on this. But it is almost impossible to tell someone a untrue fact and preface it with the fact that it is untrue and expect that six months later, they'll remember anything except the untrue fact. If it was true, Gray, if it did help, would you let someone pee on you if you got stung by a jellyfish? If it would work, yeah, of course, because it seems like getting stung by jellyfish is horrible. Yeah, but size getting paid on by someone. You have to, you have to weigh the situation that you're in. I have a man of war and it's wrapped around my arm and we just had to pull it off and my whole arm just feels like it's on fire. If someone peeing on my arm would make my arm feel better, it's like, please, can everybody just urinate all over my arm right now? Just, and everybody, right, just get in a little circle and let's just do this right now because I want to die from the extrocuting pain. That's, yeah, if it would work, of course, I would do it. Why wouldn't I do it? Well, because you're the guy that won't, like, you don't like sharing drinks because of saliva or anything. Yeah, but urine is sterile. It's fine. You're in a sterile. You don't have to think about that stuff. Okay. Right. Okay. Here's the, let's try to flip it around. Let's say, and I can't believe we're having this conversation. Let's say instead of, if we're going to start a new urban legend now, let's say that instead of urine, it was defecation. That was the urban legend. Okay. That's not sterile. And now it's like, well, you know, maybe it'll make your jellyfish wound feel less bad, but you're also risking horrifying diseases and repercussions. So no, the trade-off here is not worth it. But remember, people don't defecate on someone who's just been sung by a jellyfish. Yeah, that's, that's just making their day a whole lot worse. This episode of Hello Internet is brought to you by Fracture. Years ago, when my wife and I got our first department together, we did print out a bunch of pictures and we tried to mount them on our wall and we wanted to find glass minimalist frames. And it was surprisingly hard to do, but we eventually did find something, but we still had to stick our photos in between two layers of glass. There's always dust that gets in the middle and there were bolts that you had to put the picture between because you have to have something holding the two pieces of glass together. Don't get me wrong. It looked good when it was done, but it was a huge hassle. But since then, the state of printing technology has improved and Fracture is the future. Fracture prints your photos directly onto glass. What you get in the mail when you order a Fracture is your picture on the piece of glass. There isn't any frame. Your whole photograph is the frame. And this is one of the things that I really like about the way these fractures look. When you mount one of these things on your wall, it's edge to edge. There's no space. It doesn't look like there's any extra glass. It is just a beautiful photograph on your wall. This kind of thing really is home decoration, the minimalist CGP Grey style. So why don't you today find some photographs that are meaningful to you? Events, people, places you've been, whatever it is, and then go to FractureMe.com and get some of them printed out. Instead of having these images forever hidden in your photo library somewhere or on Instagram, mount the important ones on your wall. When you order those photos, please make sure to use the coupon code HelloInternetAllOneWord for 15% off your first Fracture order. Once again, that's HelloInternetAllOneWord. Go to FractureMe.com and get your images printed in vivid color directly on glass. I don't want anyone to take this personally. I think the Apple Watch is perfectly cool and has lots of cool uses. But I want to talk about these watch faces on Apple Watches. These pretend watches. I think in the future we will look back at the fact people have got these pretend watch faces on their smartwatches and think it was a bit silly. And what were we thinking? What were we doing? That was a stupid thing to do. What a silly fashion. Did they not realise from the start? That was dumb. And I mean, I went over it a little bit last time and all the things I've been thinking have just fallen out of my head now. But to me, one of the things, well, there were two main things. One thing is, I think this argument that's made that that's just how I'm used to telling time man is unacceptable to me. And I just think it can be unlearned. You know, people used to tell the time by the sun going through the sky and then maybe a sun die would come along. And I'm sure people said, oh, I don't like that shadow on the ground. I'm more a sun kind of guy. And then maybe when clocks came out, people were like, what do we need? What do we need clocks? And, you know, what do we need sand things for? Like, you know, sand timers? What do we need clocks for? You know, we've got the sun or we've got, you know, I don't like this new technology. And then people were like, no, no, okay, there's a new way of doing it. And now we've got this, another new technology that's come along. And I think it makes sense to, to abandon the old way of doing things. And the reason clock faces a circular and turn the way they do and have hands is because of the mechanism that powers them underneath. And when that's no longer necessary, I don't see why you're clinging to it. It's like having an Apple watch. Actually, this would be quite cool, but it's like having an Apple watch that just has the sun on the screen moving across your screen over the course of the day. You could do it, but it would be like silly to be using that old-fashioned way of doing things. This is my drive you crazy, but one of the Apple watch faces is exactly that. Yeah, and like, that's a novelty, but that's not how you tell the time. And like, you do it for a joke. But I think these clock faces are being done. They're, that's considered like the serious thing to do. And all these people tweeting pictures of it and debating about it and talking about it. I just think seems putting clock, putting an old-fashioned clock face on this high piece of technology to me is, is like inventing the camera and using it purely to take photos of paintings or inventing a video camera and using it purely to record, to make it a theater and place. Like it's using, it's taking a new technology and just not having the imagination to realize this means I don't have to do it, how I used to do it. That last part is part of the problem that I do have with the Apple watch, which is, as it is right now, you can only use the built-in watch faces. So Johnny Ive, presumably, is the guy who has approved of the various watch faces. And I've been talking with some people on Twitter. And I think each of them is frustratingly limited in some particular way. And I really don't know if Apple is ever going to open it up. It would not surprise me if they don't. But I really think they should allow other people to design different watch faces. Because I know this is kind of not the Apple way, but let people design their watch faces. And you know what's going to happen? There's going to be thousands of hideous and awful faces. And many people will have terribly ugly, tacky looking watch faces. But when you open something up to the world to try to change and improve, some people will come up with amazing things that just the people at Apple would not be able to come up with on their own. And this is always the case. Like, if you're looking at what are the best watches that this group of five designers at Apple can come up with versus what is the best watch face that tens of thousands of developers can possibly come up with. The best one is probably going to come out of the larger group. And so I think yes, there are very many things that could be done to interestingly show the time in new ways on the Apple Watch. But right now that can't be done. And one of the reasons that I think you see so many people using the analog watch face is because there is really only one digital watch face on the Apple Watch right now. And it is hideous and badly designed. I took one look at it and thought, man, I could never use this as my watch face because they stick the watch part of it. The time is trapped in the upper right hand side of the screen. And I think they do that just to make it consistent with all of their other novelty watches. And I was like, look, if I have a digital watch face, I'm going to want the time big and in the middle. But you can't put it big and in the middle because Johnny I've says no, it has to go up in the corner because I want it to match all of the other watches. So I don't doubt that a lot more people would be using a digital watch face if they had better digital watch face options. And I'm kind of driven crazy by the limited options with the two faces that I have. So I'm kind of always switching back and forth between these two one called utility and one called simplicity because each of them has things that I like. I want to combine the features, the best features of both of these, but you won't let me do it. So I just think it's a failure of imagination and what you say is true. And the Johnny I have things interesting too because I mean, I don't pretend to know anything about Apple or Johnny I have, but I do know that he's big watch enthusiast. And I wonder if he has sort of seen this is his one chance to, you know, it's the nearest he's going to get to like designing a Rolex or an Omega or something and he's failed to realize that that's not what he should be making. I feel very strongly that it is totally fine for Apple to have a bunch of recommended watch faces. But if they never open it up to let other people design different watch faces, I will find that endlessly frustrating. And I just wouldn't be surprised if Apple says for several years, no, we're not going to allow additional watch, additional watch faces on our, on our beautiful device. I mean, everybody like that just that just feels like a kind of decision that Apple would make. And you know, while I do like Apple, there are certain ways that it is infuriating and you just have to learn to deal with that kind of stuff sometimes. And this is one of those. I mean, I understand they can't have had it right from the start, but I just feels like they might never do it. And I really hope that that is not the case. But I will probably still always use an analog watch face and I understand your argument that there should be something new. But I quite like the way the analog watch face looks. And yeah, of course, I could use a different watch. I could use a different way of telling time, but I would like a nice analog watch face on my watch. I just think it looks silly. I just think it looks. I just think it would be it just, I think it makes people look silly. Like I feel like going up to them saying, do you realize that like there are no cogs or wheels or gears in that thing? You do realize. Like do you do you know that? I didn't know that. There's no gears in my watch. I didn't know. It just seems a bit funny to me. I sent you a picture of what my watch face looks like. Good. I just, you know, I'm waiting for you to, you can tell me what you think about it. I mean, just as a picture, as like a, you know, as a screen grab, okay? But I just think when it's on your hand is when it looks silly. When you see the whole head and everything and then see this projection of a watch is when it looks silly. Well, you know, my suggestion for you is that you should never buy one of these. I don't know. And I genuinely hope that you stick with that. I don't know. I don't know if that will happen or not. No, you got to stay strong, Brady. I'm speaking as your friend. I don't think that you should ever get one of these. I think you will always be kind of sad about it. And your current watch looks so cool every time I see it. Yeah. Things are going to change my current watch. But the one thing that has slightly swayed me this week is I have decided this week. I've decided this week and I'm, I'm, I know you shouldn't say this publicly, which is interesting as well. But I've decided to switch on my health light bulb pretty strongly now. Oh, really? Yeah. So, and you know, and I'm, I'm not, I really respond to gamifying my fitness. So, you know, I need, you know, all the calorie counting devices and the exercise monitoring and I get quite into that. So I'm doing that and I've got it all set up on my phone. And it works fine on my phone. But it does make me think, oh, some of this would be a bit easier with the watch. Well, when I go out for a run or a walk and things like that. But I still think the phone does well enough that I don't, I don't need a watch. I have been surprised and how effective the gamification of the watch has been. And I am someone who has been exposed to gamification through all kinds of various systems for a long period of time. Like video games do this. This is kind of where the term gamification comes from. They're always trying to get their hooks into your brain with making you complete stuff or just working in and intentionally kind of addictive or goal seeking behaviors. And I'm relatively immune to those things. And I guess, I don't know how long I've had the watch now, maybe a month, just, just, or just slightly under a month. But I am surprised at how strongly it is sticking. And I think the real key factor is whoever at Apple made the decision that the activity tracker is a series of circles that you need to close versus progress bars that you need to complete. I think that little decision was really genius. And having it then on your watch face so that you are aware of these open circles every time you look at your watch, it's surprisingly effective and has an unexpectedly large staying power. Like an unsolved Rubik's cube or something like that, something that just knows it you and has to. Yes. It shows visually a thing that is incomplete. And I think if you did little progress bars, it wouldn't quite be as effective. But the notion of like, oh, I can close this loop and I can see on my watch that all three of those circles are filled. It's very effective. Now I'm curious to see six months from now. Is it still that effective? But I would have expected that by this point, my brain would have already learned to kind of not care about those circles and that has not been that has not been the case. And the Apple Watch also does give you these little badges when you complete various tasks like, oh, if you're unusually active in a particular day, it gives you like a little sticker basically. And those things, those things, I can't, I am never, I was never the kid in school who wanted stickers. But those little badges are surprisingly well received by me when it pops up on the watch. And I think, oh, I got this little badge. Now it adds to my collection on the Apple Watch as someone who in school didn't really respond to teachers trying to give out gold stickers and things. I wouldn't have thought that would be as effective as it actually is. But I do know from my experience teaching that stickers are shockingly effective at motivating kids. I never really used stickers that much when I was teaching. And it was because I just couldn't internalize how much kids wanted completion stickers or little stamps on their homework. But I swear on the rare occasions when I did bust out the stickers or the stamps, kids would murder each other in their sleep to get an additional gold star. It was, it was just amazing how much people respond to this totally arbitrary thing. And especially if you have the good stickers that some kids want, it was, it was like unethical to use stickers to motivate children to do particular tasks. I couldn't believe it. And so I didn't use it very much, but it was, it was just bizarre. And now I find myself in the same kind of way. I'm like, oh, I do want my sticker. Or there's one, there's one sticker that I know I'll never get because it's something about quadrupling your daily exercise goal. And I already started the daily exercise goal as being very, very high, very active life. And so there's no way that I can ever reach that one. And I find my brain sometimes going, you know, maybe you should just reset this whole system so that you can get to this point and have quadrupled your exercise activity just to get the sticker. And I was like, wait, wait, what are you, what are you suggesting, Brain, that we do worse with regards to our health activity for the period of a month to get a meaningless sequence of pixels on a phone screen? And then the brain says, yes, that is exactly what I'm proposing. And I think it's a great idea. Yeah. I mean, I totally, I totally respond to that. I was so into collecting sports cards and Star Wars cards and things like that when I was young. So I totally, I totally get that. Those loops really plug into the completionist part of your brain. I mean, look at me. I make a video about every element on the periodic table and every part of the Bible. You know, I'm still like that now. Once again, it's the total, it gets the Pokemon effect. You know, if you have one, you have to get all of them now. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. All right. The one last thing with this watch face thing, just the funny thing is it feels like when the Apple Watch comes out, everyone's like, what's this going to mean for all the glamour watch brands? Are they going to have to introduce their own smartwatches and try and catch up? And yet it feels like Apple is the wannabe. They're the ones who are trying to make their watches look like a Rolex or an Amiga or a tag. They're like the, they're the ones who are the, who are the, who are the, the poor cousins. They shouldn't be the poor cousins. They should be just turning their back on the old ways and saying, huh, okay, you can wear your old dumb watch as I've heard them called, which is a term I don't like, but I've heard them called dumb, dumb watches. They should be turning their back and saying, oh, yeah, you're dumb watches with your hands and your seconds. But instead, they're like, oh, I know we're modern and we're new. But look, we're trying to look like an Amiga. We're trying. It's like, well, hang on. Just give those, give those old brands a kick up the back side and say that's just not how we roll anymore. Instead, instead, I think they're doing themselves a disservice. Some of the interviews I've seen with Johnny Ive and some of the materials that Apple has released, it does feel weirdly like they are trying to prove themselves as a member of the watch world. We're right up there with all of these luxury watch brands. And I agree with you. I think the smarter play is almost to pretend like they don't exist. And to just say, we're doing our own amazing thing. And who cares about the approval of Swiss watchmakers? Do they think our watches are good or not? We've just made this thing and we've put it out in the world, the end. But it does feel like I think your comment earlier has a ring of truth to it to me that that Johnny Ive wants other watchmakers to like his watch designs. And it's like, no, just make your own thing. Just it's a different new thing in the world. Yes, it's related to watches that have come before. But really, it's much more the next step in the world of computing than it is the next step in the world of watches. I was actually at the science museum in London just the other day and I was walking past some of the early difference engines. And I took a little picture of my Apple watch in front of difference engine number two. This is progress because I really do feel that there's a much straighter line from the difference engine to the Apple watch than there is from a Rolex to an Apple watch. Like they're just different creatures. They're not even remotely the same. Like you sent me that image of your watch face a second ago. And if I was going to describe it, you know, it's clean and simple and all the things I would expect from a CGP grey watch face. But it is almost childlike as well. It's like a childish representation of an adult's watch to me. Yeah, I really don't like the hands and I don't like the ring that goes around on my watch face. That's the utility watch face for those listening. There's a watch face that I like much better, which is called simple, but I really want the calendar that I have on the bottom there that shows what I have currently signed up. But of course, because of Johnny Ives design limitations, you can't get both. I can't get that little calendar thing on the bottom on the watch face that I actually like more. And I see no reason for that. Thanks to audible.com for supporting the podcast. Now, last time I checked, audible was listing more than 180,000 titles in its range of audio books and other spoken material. That number seems to be going up all the time. In fact, I think they should have one of those little counters on their website, constantly showing what the tally is. Now I obviously don't need to sell you on the idea of listening to audio because, well, you're listening to a podcast right now. But if you haven't got into listening to books as audio, well, then you really should. One of the things I really like about audio books is it can actually be a shared experience if you want it to. You could be laying in bed with your partner or going on a drive with friends, maybe just sitting on a train and using one of those headphone splitters. Either way, it's really cool listening to a book with someone else because at the end of the chapter, you can discuss what's just unfolded and what you think might happen next. Now one of the books genres I really like for audio books and I've discussed this before is mountaineering. I think there's something about that kind of narrative diary style of mountain books that really makes it compelling as a listen, especially if you're listening while doing something outdoorsy yourself. Everest books are always a favourite of mine, but I also have to admit K2 books are also great. Now today I'm going to recommend a book. I may have recommended it before. K2, Life and Death on the world's most dangerous mountain by Ed Vistures and David Roberts. I'm sorry if I can't pronounce Ed's name, but I'm pretty sure I got David's right. This is a great mix of first-person account and history of the mountain. Really good listen, it's unabridged so you won't miss a thing. I listened to this one while I was on a mountain trek myself and it really stuck with me. Now maybe mountains aren't your thing but no matter what you're into, I can almost guarantee audible have it. And if you sign on for an audible trial, you can get your first book for free. You can't beat that. We've done it here in my household and maybe you should too. If you decide you do want to do it, I ask only one favour. You are the url audible.com slash hello internet. That will tell them you heard about audible on the podcast here and who knows maybe those sponsors are again one day. But either way, thanks to audible today, they're big supporters of podcasts including us and their top of the pile when it comes to audiobooks. Let's move on to the thing that everyone wants us to talk about. Oh what is that, Brady? The F word. The F word. Oh, the flag portion of our show. We have reached a critical mass of different things happening and requests and tweets and emails for us to no longer be able to ignore what the people want and what the people want is great talking flags. In our show notes, for a long time I have had a flag corner with a few things that I wanted to discuss but on any particular show it always felt a bit out of place but you are entirely right. There has been a critical mass of flag news recently that it is time to talk about. I want to start with what is the most exciting piece of flag news which is the New Zealand flag referendum. This is a no brain. If I may, I can't believe they're even having a referendum. This is the easiest decision in the history of flags. I don't know where you're going with this so why do you think it's so easy? If they're going to ditch their current flag which I think they should, they just need a plain black flag with a silver fern, a white silver fern in the centre. That is their flag already. I could not agree more with you. Oh that's no fun, that's no good. That defeats the whole purpose of our podcast if we agree. It does somewhat to be the purpose of our podcast but I will say a few years ago on the vexalology subreddit. I saw someone basically do a modified version of the black background and the silver fern leaf. The instant I saw that I thought, man, that is just a much better flag for New Zealand. It is also, I think, fits one of the criteria that it is distinct. There are not very many black flags and it makes New Zealand stand out if you are looking at a list of other flags of the world. It's great looking. I mean, how familiar are you with New Zealand's rugby pedigree? Dimly. I mean, none of the team is called the All Blacks and they do the little dance, the Haka. The little dance. Not the gods. Yeah, just the little dances, fine. No, what's the real name? It is the Haka. It's the Haka. It's more of a war dance, the little dance. I didn't mean to say that it was the All Blacks being dainty and doing little spins and things. Everybody knows what it is. They're standing in front of the Australian rugby team guy. If you like, then you should put a ring on it. Shake and they're tushes. That's exactly right. I first came across this on a documentary that I'm going to recommend, which is called Murder Ball. I don't know if you've seen this or not. I don't think I have. Murder Ball is a documentary which is about wheelchair rugby. I really like stuff that I expect to not like it all going into it. I was thinking, a documentary about sports. I thought I'm going to have a hard time with this one. I don't know if I have a lot of interest in this. It's like, but man, was this amazing to watch? It is about these guys who have, for various reasons, become paralyzed in some way or other, but playing wheelchair rugby. I'm thinking, oh, God, how are they going to handle it? They are just brutal with each other. It is an amazing documentary to say. It's a hardcore sport. It's a very, I have to say, the whole way that it works in the Paralympic Games was very interesting that they actually assign points based on how able-bodied the various players are. With team has a certain number of points that they need to distribute among their players. It's more able-bodied players cost them more point-wise, which is their way of keeping everything fair. Very, very interesting, but it was actually in that documentary that the New Zealand team was doing the Haka. This is just an intimidating war dance. It's a very impressive thing to see. I think that's probably the first place I ever came across this, where they mentioned this is the thing that the regular rugby team does. Of course, the Paralympic rugby team is going to do it as well. Anyway, if anybody hasn't seen it, I highly recommend Murder Ball. That is now the entirety of my knowledge about the New Zealand rugby team. I mean, obviously, they're the pride of New Zealand, and they wear the black, don't they, with the silver fan. I tell you what, the New Zealand government has got this website where everyone is and has submitted possible flag designs, and we'll put a link in the show notes, and you can spend hours going through all these designs. It just seems like a total waste of time to me. It's just delaying the inevitable. If they don't choose that as their flag, and they go for some compromise, which is half the old one and half the black with the fan, that will be a mistake. The first thing I wanted to know when I hear there's going to be a referendum is, how are they going to vote? What's the voting system going to be? This is even more than looking at the flag designs. This was the thing I spent time trying to find out. It's going, oh, wow, okay, the referendum has been approved. How is this going to work? I think they've done a very interesting, very good way of doing this, which is step one is the website we're looking at where basically anybody, and I think it's anybody in the world. You don't even have to be from New Zealand. Can submit a flag design. South Strideon's Latin-American sabotage the process. You can attempt to sabotage the process. You can submit a flag design of New Zealand being attacked by a jellyfish and then Australia urinating on them. I guess is that what your flag design would be? It would more likely be a sheep joke, but okay, with that. Oh, sheep jokes. So easy. You got to keep it simple. You got to keep it simple for the New Zealanders. There can be no certainty. There are simple folk across the Tasman there. New Zealanders, tweet Brady. Yes, so people can submit these various designs. And just like we were saying before, I think this is exactly what you want to do. If you are having some kind of competition, you want to open it up to everyone who can potentially contribute. Are you calling this consultation or just lip service? What do you mean? Like, are they really, are they just doing it so they can say they did it? Like, are we listening to everyone or are they really looking at this stuff and putting it into the mix? We'll get to this in just a second. So to me, one of the great examples of why you want to open up design competitions in particular to the whole world is taking a look at the 2012 London Olympics versus the 2010 Vancouver Olympics. And if anyone goes and looks it up, the London Olympics had some of the worst design iconography I've ever seen. And these horrible, horrible, one-eyed monster logo creatures that were just terrifying. They were dreadful. Yeah, I mean, and that Lyssa Simpson logo was terrible too for the actual games. Yeah, the Lyssa Simpson logo, it was absolutely awful. Everything about the London stuff was just terrible. And I remember, yeah, there we go, there's mascots. Let me pull up the picture just so I can see them. Yeah, oh, God. There was like, there were droplets of steel, weren't they? Yeah, I mean, that was, I saw the little video that they were supposed to be these little droplets of steel, you know, where the UK is trying to harken back to their manufacturing glory days or whatever. But the bottom, I mean, I don't think anybody could look at these things and not, not think they are metallic one-eyed penis monsters, right? Like there's no other way to describe these creatures. They're horrifying. And, but so everything about the London stuff was just a disaster. And I used to walk by this store in a very populated area that was an Olympics store that was selling stuffed monster creatures for sale for people. I never saw a single child in that store buying anything for the two year run-up that they had it there. That store was abandoned all the time. It was astounding, especially given the location of where it was. So the London one was just done basically by a committee of people who were appointed to design the thing. And on the flip side, the Vancouver one, the 2010 was beautiful. They had these excellent mascots. The design iconography was really good. They incorporated like the local culture, but it also had this kind of Asian flair to it. And it was just great. And my wife and I happened to be in Vancouver to the run-up to the Olympics. And I don't care about sports at all. But everywhere we went into the stores, I thought, I want to buy stuffed animals of all of these logo creatures. They're amazing. And I want to buy clothing with the 2010 Olympics. It's all beautiful and gorgeous. And I looked into it and the way the Vancouver process was done was they just opened it up to anybody and said, design our logos and mascots. And we want to see what anybody can come up with. And it was just a pair of two people. It was like a husband and wife design firm or something that won the contract to do all of the design work for the entire Olympics. I'm looking at them now. I can see why they would appeal to you. They look like a CGP gravity. The stuffed animals in real life were just great. And they even put together these little animation stories. It was just, it was perfect. I don't think there has ever been or will ever be a better designed Olympics than that one. It was astounding. So I think New Zealand is taking the right approach here basically by doing this competition of saying, anyone can try to design a flag. Now even though you and I both already know, I think many people have the idea of what the New Zealand flag should be, you never know. Somebody might come along with something that was really amazing that nobody ever thought of that people actually do like better. But the way this process is going to work is that of all of the ones that are created, New Zealand has then put together a committee of people who will select from the ones submitted four that are going to go to a referendum to the public, along with the including or along with the existing one. Excluding the existing flag. So they are going to have four designs that have been selected by a committee. When you're doing a public design, this is exactly the way I think you should do it. Because if you just tell the internet, hey internet, vote up the four that you think are the best and will have a public referendum on that, you don't want to give the internet that kind of control, right? Because people will organize all kinds of craziness to just have like the dumbest flags ever and it'll be a disaster. So you do need some kind of filter here where people can select for. Like when you tweet, what should we talk about on the podcast and then we just talk about what we want? Yeah, basically, right? We don't actually tell people, go to a site where you can vote on things and we promise we'll talk about the top four, right? Because you're just inviting disaster. Yeah. That would never happen. It'd be a lot more podcast about why no I'd paint a small stick. That was the case. Exactly. Every week. Or even just as a slight side note here, very often when you go to lectures and things and they do the moment of, oh, we're going to take questions from the audience. You know, people have given it a speech or you go to a debate or something and they question from the audience. Questions from the audience is always just awful. It's just, it's often, it's often not great. It's much better if you have someone who is a moderator who is, who is going through the questions that people have asked and then trying to select the more interesting ones. I have two other lessons for that, Gray. This is, this is going on a diversion of your diversion. The whole blood. I diverted away. I have strong feelings on calling up on questions. There are two things you should never do. You should never put a microphone at the front and invite people to come forward to the microphone. Yes, that's the answer. That's the answer. Because that attracts nutters and it doesn't attract normal people because normal people don't want to get up and make a spectacle to themselves. Exactly. You are selecting for people of a particular breed when you do that. The other thing you never do is call on people who are wearing hats. People who are wearing, people who are wearing hats always ask ridiculous, stupid or questions that should not be asked. Is this why a hat was, was your go-to example when we were discussing weirdo points and several podcasts ago? Someone who wears a hat to a lecture is very, very probable to be weird and then they'll ask some really political, controversial question that makes everyone in the room feel awkward. As a member of the audience, you can sometimes feel that the moderators are bending the questions or they're just trying to select softballs or things. But really, it's much better if you have someone who filters it a little bit or picks a good question that is representative of the rest. That's what you want. That's why New Zealand has this committee. You don't just open it up entirely. They're going to select for, it's going to a public vote. That was very pleased to see that New Zealand is using a preferential voting system, which looks like it's some variation of the alternative vote, where people can then order how they like those for and they only have to do it as far as they want. They can just say, oh, this one's my first favorite, this one's my second favorite, and they don't care about the others or they can just say, which is their favorite or they can rank all for. The winner from that referendum goes head to head against the current New Zealand flag. The sweep of all. Yes. There, it's just that this is the only time that first pass the post makes any sense because it's identical to every other voting system in this circumstance. If you have two candidates and you need to select one, you pick whichever one gets the most votes. This is totally a reasonable way to do it. The two round thing is very interesting. I think it gives the current flag more of an advantage, more of an edge in this election because it doesn't have to compete against all of them. It only competes against the best of them. That's fair enough. That's as it should be if you asked me. At first, I thought, I don't like that, but upon reflection, I agreed that, yes, I think it is fair in a situation like a national flag to give the national flag a little bit of an edge in the voting system. But overall, I have to say thumbs up New Zealand. They did a very good job selecting how this process is going to go, and I will be very curious following it. Is it 50.0001% of the population triggers a flag change? Or does it have to be like two thirds to change the flag? The description that I read is it is just a straight, first pass, the post, or plurality vote. If the new flag gets 50% plus one vote, then the change is made. I may be wrong about that, but that's the impression I got from reading through the documents. I got an email from my New Zealand might find out what the feeling is over there. He'll ask a few of his mates and we'll pretty much know the result of the election. Is your friend a sheep? I don't think sheep get to vote. No, no, they do in New Zealand. They do? Yeah. Yeah. Is it three fifths for sheep, or how does that work? No, no, no, they're fully, they're full citizens. Oh, wow. Yeah. It's very progressive. I imagine you're going to ask me about the Australian flag, which for all the intense and purposes looks just like these. Well, this is what I was going to say. It's as an Australian. How do you feel about this? Is the whole world can't tell your flags apart? Yeah. I'll tell you a story. When I was in high school, I was entered in one of these like, do you know what like Lions Club is? Like a, it's like like Rotary Lions Club. It's like Rotary Club, I know. Yeah. Lions Club is like like the Rotary Club. And they had this thing. It was called like the youth of the year or something and each school nominated someone to be like their like upstanding person. And you had to do like all these like interviews and I don't know, we would somehow judge and the final part of the judging was you had to go to the Lions Club meeting one evening and do like public speaking. So each, you'd give a prepared talk about the subject of your choice and then you'll be put on the spot and asked like a question you were unprepared for. So I went there against these two or three other students from schools in my area. And when the question time came, the question was what do you think about the Australian flag? Should we keep the Australian flag? And I was like, and I was thinking and I think, I mean, I would argue for anything, but I think my overall feeling is we probably should change the flag. But I looked out of the audience and it was just all these old men like in their 60s and 70s. And I knew my audience. I knew my audience. So I went into this stirring speech about our history and wars and things like that and the flag and like, you know, people dying for the flag and that, which is like a really serious thing. And it got like a rousing, rousing reception. Standing ovation is my memory. Maybe I'm maybe I'm gilding that one a bit. I think that's 100% accurate. But I won. I won the contest. And it was actually an action. That's what it's all about in the end. Well, you think that's a blessing in disguise. And like, I think I got like a check for a hundred dollars or something. And I thought I was a millionaire and I was amazing. But the problem was because I won, I got sent off to like the regional final against all the other winners from all the other places. And these were people unlike me who were really good at public speaking and were really good at debating and really good at thinking on their fake. And this time it was like a huge hole full of hundreds and hundreds of people. And because I had surprisingly won like my regional heat, like the head of my school came along to watch and thought, oh, Brady, it must be pretty good after all. I'm going to go and watch this. And in that one, I got up on the stage and I was asked some question I was unprepared for. And I had no idea. I don't even think I understood the question. And I just died on stage. I died. And the other people, the other students weren't allowed to watch until they'd done theirs. And I was first. So I got up on stage and just died and humiliated myself and just slunk off like a, in a heap. And then the other, I had to sit in the audience for the next four or five super overachievers who each got up on stage to the same question and just nailed at time after time after time and each time I was thinking, oh, why didn't I think of that? Oh, that course. Oh, they're so clever. Oh, it was terrible. And I'd much rather have failed at the regional heat in front of like 40 people in a small room than on the big stage. So I got my come-up and moral of that story is don't succeed, I guess. Yeah, I guess so. You will just be promoted until you fail. Yeah, exactly. You'll just fail on a glory of more glorious stage. So the Australian flag. Do you know what? Whatever. Yeah, I figured you would not really have a strong opinion about that. I kind of think the thing is, in the case of New Zealand, there's just like an obvious choice. Like they already have a flag. The fact they haven't, the fact they're not using that flag is almost silly, you know. And in the case of Australia, there's no real obvious standout contender other than maybe the Aboriginal flag, which is a brilliant flag. But that's just the Aboriginal flag and you couldn't really adopt that as the national flag because it has been taken by one group. But I mean, the Aboriginal flag is a fantastic flag. Is it the one with the yellow circle? The yellow sun? So it represents the sun and the... I can't remember. Yeah, it's a pretty good one. Yeah, it's a good flag. You know, it's very striking. And in Australia, it's very iconic. It's got massive recognition. But again, it's just got recognition for one group. So, and although they're a very important group, you couldn't really do that as your national flag. I mean, some people say, have the Australian flag but replace the Union Jack with the Aboriginal flag. But then we start getting into bad flag design. And I'm sure we're going to come onto that in a minute. The symbolic meaning, according to the designer, as listen on Wikipedia, is that the red is the red of the earth, and that would seem to fit for Australia. The yellow, of course, is the sun. And then the black is the Aboriginal people of Australia, that these are the three color elements of the flag. Of course, yes, of course. I think Australia has an obvious choice in that the new Australian flag should have, again, a red earth for the ground. And then above it, it should just show a cloud raining spiders down on a terrified population. That should be the Australian flag. Yeah, maybe. Maybe. I mean, I mean, I would imagine if Australia was going to change its flag, green and gold would be there, the sort of two colors associated with Australia by Australians. So sort of a green and yellow colors I'd imagine would be in some people's mind. I don't think green will, I think, Australia ever. No, I know, but Australians do because it's like the color, our national team usually wears yellow or green and yellow. And like the water flower with the green and the yellow is an Australian thing. So I don't know, maybe I'm showing my cricket bias a bit too much, but I think you might be. I think our sport teams tend to wear green, yellow or green and yellow together. Maybe I'd head that way, even though it's not a particularly cool color combo. But what do I know? I mean, it comes up a lot in Australia, redesigning the Australian flag is a perennial issue. Yeah, well, I think the reason that it comes up particularly with New Zealand and Australia is the fact of having the Union Jack on the flag, which I was trying to look it up before. And I think the only other places that have the Union Jack that are nations anyway are Fiji and Tuvalu. I think those are the only nation level places that have the flag that is not associated, that are not commonwealth nations or any of the million things I listed in my UK video people. Don't email me. Independent nations that still have the Union Jack on it. I think those are the only ones. And also don't contact us about the use of Union Jack versus Union flag. Haven't we done this before? It is all of those terms are completely legitimate. Yeah, I think that's about that. But it's too late. People have already sent you messages saying you shouldn't have sent Union Jack because it wasn't flying from a ship. Yeah, which isn't even true. This is like, God, that just drives me crazy. But you know, whatever, this is another falsehood that'll just be there until the end of time. And it's another classic example of one that gets discussed so often, but from both sides that you actually forget which one is right. Like you're like, I know one of them is right. I'm one of them are right. Both of them are right. They are both right. No, no, no, no, no, I'm talking about, I'm just talking about with Union Jack. Like is is Union Jack allowed or not allowed? I can't remember, but whichever it is, there is one. I just can't remember which one it is. Is it allowed or not allowed? It is allowed. Right. Yeah. They're both allowed. They're both fine. The Royal Flag Association of the UK or something, whatever it was. Like I got confirmation from a primary source. Relax. Anyway, you still there? I'm still here. Sorry, I was just having like a pregnant pause. I just felt like a quiet moment. Okay, I'm sorry. I'll give you a moment to collect your thoughts before we move on to the next bit of flag news. Oh, there's so much of it. Which one do you want to do next? I want to do the World Flag next. Oh, yeah, let's do the... I got so many tweets and emails about this that I assumed it was a big like burning international story. I'm now beginning to think this is just a little minor thing, but it's just inundated Aaron Boxes. I know nothing about this except what I know from Twitter and I get the impression that this is... I don't know how to say... Like this is just something that someone made. It's a student project. Is that what it is? I was trying to find out precisely what it is. It's a very well done student project with some kind of PR behind it or maybe... I don't know. Anyway, some person in Sweden, I don't even know if it's a man or a woman, has designed what they think the flag of planet Earth should be. Presumably if we go and stick one on the soil of Mars or, you know, if we ever need to be represented as a whole planet rather than a nation, what would our flag be? Which is quite an interesting intellectual exercise, isn't it? I think it is an excellent intellectual exercise. So some people will have seen this proposed design by this student. Some people won't. Do you want to have a bash at describing it first? Okay, so this particular flag for Earth, again, to paint an audio picture for the listeners. Two by three, isn't it? Two by three ratio? Yes, standard two by three ratio. It is a blue background, slightly more dark blue than light blue, I would say. I love royal blue, maybe. Royal blue is an excellent description there, Brady, spot on. And in the center, there are seven overlapping rings. I'm sitting six. Oh no, you're just seven here. That's one in the middle. You're right, seven. So there is, if you imagine a single ring in the middle and then overlapping around it, there are six additional rings. So seven in total. And the rings are white. You'd really need to look at this, people. This is perfectly adequate description. All right. Sort of like imagine a royal blue background and imagine the five Olympic rings, but there are seven of them instead and they're all white and they're interlocking and they've been bunched into the center a bit more rather than spread out the way the Olympic rings are. Yes. And the way the design is done is to give you the impression that they are interlocked. So there is, there are little cutouts around the edges. So you're trying to see like, oh, this ring goes over that ring so it's interlocked in all of these various ways. Sort of a borrower Mayan ring type weird thing going on. It kind of also looks a bit flour-like. Yes. It kind of looks a bit asian to me. Yeah, I can see it's almost like, it makes me think of Macau almost. Yeah. Yeah. Or like the Japanese provincial flags, it has that feel to it. So there we go. We've had a description. And before we talk about whatever we're going to talk about, what's your verdict on it? What do you think of it? If this was, if someone said this is going to be the flag of Panorath from now on, would you be angry, happy, sad? Like, where would you stand on it? This was chosen. I think this is, I think this is a terribly boring design. It's, it is, it is yawntastic is the way I would describe this design. Earth is amazing. And this flag, I feel like it captures literally nothing that is earth-like or, or, or, or that relates to the excitement of, of the planet earth. So I'm just, I don't think it is a bad flag design. I think it's, it is kind of a good looking flag, but for something else. I don't, I don't see how this, this does not make me think of earth. In any way, I don't think it is, it is a good enough symbol to be representative of an entire planet. I don't, I don't, I don't like it. But what, what do you think? I like it. Oh, come on, Brady. I like it. Do you know what? I was so sure that you wouldn't like it. No, I do. I was so sure. When I, when I found out what it was and I went to click on it, I, I went to it, not wanting to like it. Mm-hmm. And when I first looked at it, I thought, I don't like it. And I started thinking about the reasons I don't like it. And the more I've looked at it and the more I've thought about it, the more I think, Kudos, my friend. Kudos, Oscar, Perniff Feld. I'm not sure it would be my first choice or it would win a vote. And I think there is, it has its deficiencies. But I, I wouldn't, I wouldn't like leave the planet in a half if it was decided this was going to, this was going to be a half leg. I, I, I would think, I would think, not a bad choice actually, not a bad choice. I think, I think it kind of, it, it kind of is sufficiently abstract to not alienate anyone. And yet it kind of makes me think of Earth because although we think of Earth as, you know, being sort of very green, really from space, it really is pretty blue and white. And this does look like a big blue sea with sort of a white cloud. And yet the rings have a kind of an aspiration to them of sort of togetherness that we aspire to and an extra level of organization beyond, beyond just the haphazardness of nature that is symbolic of our humanity. And I don't know, I think, I think it's pretty good. I think it's a little bit finicody and fine detail to maybe for a big bowl flag. But overall, I think it's a really good effort. I think it is a good flag, but I just don't think that it fits for the flag of Earth. And I do also agree that there is too much detail in it. The overlappingness of the rings is kind of where it falls down for me in that. It's too, it's too precise. And then particularly for a flag for Earth. I feel like it needs to be crystal clear at a distance. And there's just too much on this one. It's a bit too fussy. It's a bit too fussy. Yeah. And a perfect example for me is on the website itself, if you're looking at it in the browser, I don't know if you have it open right now. I do have open now. Does your browser have, if you're in Chrome, you'll see it'll have the favorite icon on the top of the browser where it shows like a little picture that represents the whole page? Yeah, I can say that. And you lose all the detail. Right. For me, the flag of Earth, it has to be distinct at that, I think it's like 32 pixels by 32 pixels, a favicon size. And it is not distinct at that size on the web page. I will say when you start seeing it, because it's been on this website, it's been rented in various locations like on astronaut uniforms and meeting holes and things like that. It does start to look a little bit corporate and like it was designed by the European Union. Like it does, it does start to, it does go a bit far down that path. I will give you that. But you know, the American flag that most iconic flags is incredibly fussy. Like a little, like a little kid could never draw that. I mean, we must have discussed this before. I'm not a fan of the American flag. Okay. I think the American flag is way too busy and is kind of hideous. You know, it like it works for America, but I am, I am not a big fan of the American flag. I know why there's 13 stripes, but like 13 stripes is too many 50 stars. I mean, come on, who are you, who are you kidding? Yeah. And when it eventually gets to 51, it's going to be hideous for everybody who likes things neatly arranged. It's funny because the very last picture on this page is the earth flag next to the American flag. And I feel like they both suffer from the same design problem in my mind of it's like too much, too much going on on this flag. But I know that from a distance earth is mostly blue and white, but I think if you have humans making a flag about earth that they are planting on other planets and using to represent themselves, you have to have it be blue and green at the very minimum. Like there needs to be a green design element. And if you don't have that, I feel like I'm not going to get on board with your earth flag. There has to be green on it. Otherwise I'm not, I'm not getting on board with this. I initially thought that and was really surprised at first when I didn't see green on it. And my thinking on that has changed. And I think it doesn't need green on it. But I understand why you say that. But I think, I don't know, I think you're showing a kind of a prejudice. I'm showing some land mammal centristism here is what I'm doing. No, no, no, fair enough. It is a flag designed by humans, like you said. I just think that it doesn't need that. I think that would almost be cliche. Because at first I thought, well, clearly it's going to have a globe or some kind of thing or like a round object to represent our planet floating in space. But then it occurred to me, if all the planets in the universe had flags, they would all be planets. They would all think they were special because they were a sphere floating in space. And that's not what makes us special. And likewise, life and plant life and things like that are probably also not what makes us special. What does make us special? I don't know. Do the seven rings represent the fact where loosely you're ranging to seven continents? I don't know. But if so, that's unique. That's small. That's something unique to us in a way. And I think the flag should project what we think is unique about us compared to what other planets maybe like as opposed to just being a planet. If you want it to be what's unique about us, then it should be a flag of a monkey. That's what's going to actually be unique about our planet versus other planets. I totally agree with you that if we're having some kind of united federation of planets, everybody is going to show up with their circle on a black background with the colors of their planet flag. It's like, oh, this is embarrassing for everybody. Oh, what a shame. So yes, I agree with you that the most obvious thing cannot possibly actually be the choice, especially if we're going to run into other civilizations. It's just like, oh, this doesn't work at all. And that also does increase incredibly the likelihood that they're going to be blue and green combinations. Green has to do with photosynthesis. That's not going to be an unusual color out there in the universe. It is not an easy project. And what I was trying to look up while we were talking, and I almost can't believe it, but as I have mentioned many times before, one of my favorite subreddits is the Vexilology subreddit. And one of the things they do that I adore is almost every month they have a design competition for flags. And they often just pick some kind of interesting and arbitrary contests. So they'll say, oh, make a flag for the internet or make a flag for this other thing. And I was trying to find it. I almost can't believe that they haven't done it, but I can't just googling around and find a Vexilology contest for a flag for Earth. I will put it in the show notes if I find it later, but I would love to see what the people at Vexilology come up with because they come up with just great, great flag design sometimes for all kinds of things. And as soon as you see it, you think, yes, that is perfect. You've designed a better flag for Reddit than Reddit could ever design for Reddit. Or yes, this is a great flag for the internet. Or yes, this is a perfect flag for Antarctica. What about a flag for Hello Internet? I believe it's a great flag with the words high. No, because you wouldn't allow words on a flag. So how are we going to get around that? I mean, obviously it has to be gray colored. Yeah. Because you shoehorned that branding in before we even launched. So I never, you know. You approved of the logo before we launched. Yeah, yeah. Listen to some designs. You didn't have any alternatives. No, no. There was no shoe horning. No, I know. I would, you know, I would be very curious to see what the internet can come up with with alternative flags for Hello Internet. I do agree that the letters are, the letters are problematic. Yeah. But our show has almost literally no other design elements. Yeah. And I think, I think Hello Internet has become so big now that it probably even transcends conventional flag design rules. Yes, that's true. That's definitely true. It's worldwide phenomenon. Yeah. So just before we leave this world flag thing, can you give me any more ideas about what a gray design to world flag would look like? I know you don't claim to be the world's strongest designer, but I've said before, this is why I am very interested in design is precisely because I am not good at it. And on the occasions that I have tried to do stuff like this, it always turns out, comically childish. And that is why the art style in my videos is often comically childish. Like this is not like one of my favorite people on the internet is Ali Brosch who does an excellence website called hyperbole and a half, which is filled with brilliant, brilliant writing. And she has an art style that is very childish, but it is intentionally childish. And she occasionally posts her actual artwork and it is phenomenal. Whereas my childish artwork is actually the peak of my abilities. Like I'm concentrating really hard and sticking out my tongue like while I'm trying to draw these things perfectly. And this is actually the apex of my ability. So I could not come up with anything better than this flag of planet earth design. All I can be is a real grump and just sit here and say, no, thumbs down. I don't like that. And they say, where's your better flag? And I go, I don't have one. That's all that happens. Well, I'm giving a surprising thumbs up. It's a, I didn't want to like it and I did. Now I was sent another flag link during the week because a TED talk by Roman Mars, so he's the host of 99% Visible podcast, which I haven't listened to much, but I know you like. Yes, I highly recommend it. He did a TED talk about flags. And I don't really watch many TED talks just because they're a bit too long. They're at 17 minutes or more than I'm usually willing to spare in a day. But so many people have sent it to me and I knew we were going to talk about flags on the podcast that I bit the bullet and I thought, okay, I'll start watching it. It turns out it was a fabulous talk. I really recommend it. I really enjoyed it. We'll put the link in the show notes. But the one thing that did strike me was it was almost like a mirror image. But we'd stop stop here for a second. Okay. Stop here for a second. I'm stopping. I've stopped. I have not watched this video. Okay. And I have not watched this video for a very particular reason. Okay. Which is that. I totally love the 99% invisible podcast. His excellent Roman Mars does an amazing job. But I have to say, when I saw all of this stuff coming out on Twitter, I was absolutely crushed because my intended video for this month was called How to Design a Flag. And when I saw all of this stuff coming out, I knew one of my constant fears and the problem with being so slow at making videos is this kind of moment of getting scooped in a sense by someone else. Scooped in gigantic quotation marks here because like we said, made up. Nobody owns the facts. But when your life is about making viral videos, you know that there is only so much time and attention for a particular topic in a particular time frame. And so I thought, oh man, I've got a shell of this project. And normally I would disagree grand say, no, no, don't be silly, Gray. Like there's room enough for everyone. But if your video is about what I imagine your video would be about, you've been torpedoed. Here's what I want to guess. I want to guess what the structure of his video is. And if I guess right, then we can keep talking about it. Okay. But if I make a guess and I'm wrong, then there is a potential for me to sometimes do a video about this in the future. But my guess is that Roman Mars went through the design guidelines from the North American Vexological Association and used various flags as examples of why they're good or why they're not good. Correct. So it's dead. It's done. It's dead. I'm sorry, Matt. It was crushing. And I have actually been kind of floundering the last two weeks or so trying to figure out what I'm going to be working on as my next project. And I was like, oh man, if this had just been a little longer, I could have scooped it. I could have beaten it. But I mean, I can imagine what your video would be like based on our extensive talk about flags in a previous podcast like, you know, because you talked about a lot of those things. And I imagine I love those things you said would inform your video. And when I watched this TED video, it was so similar and it's so echoed all the things you said and believe about flags and all the things you said that I actually thought something suspicious was going on. I thought either he listened to our podcast, which is incredibly unlikely or you had heard him talk about this before and it's so informed. You're thinking that you were kind of parroting what he says or the third option, which is probably the true option, is that you guys just think the exact same thing about flags and it's based on these design guidelines because this TED talk was like deja vu all over again for our podcast. Roman Mars and I are drawing from the same source material, which I originally came across actually from the Reddit, a vexological association because it's the Reddit, I came, I originally came across from the the Reddit vexological subreddit because they link to those design guidelines every time they talk about the flag competition as like, by the way, unless you really know what you're doing, you should probably stick to these rules. A long time ago, I tried to get in contact with the association to tell them, I'm working on a video about this, I would like to get your approval and some feedback and talk to some people and they never responded to me and then maybe about three months ago, I decided I'm going to move ahead with this project anyway, even if I just never hear from this association. Yes, so this had been my big project for a while and then when I saw on Twitter, everybody was suddenly talking about Roman Mars and flags, I thought, I know exactly what's happened here. His Ted Talk is going to be the canonical one and there is no point, there's no point in continuing with this. Well, I mean, you will reach a whole audience, he wouldn't reach and I think there's room enough for both of you and I would love to see you do it, but I know you well enough and I think it's also a bit of professional pride with you that you won't do it. This happens to me all the time, this happens to me because I make so many more videos if I make a number file video and the Viha has done that before or so and so has done it already done a video on that mathematical thing. This is like, I am very thick skinned to it and I just realized we just don't know what each other is doing and if you've been working on that project for a few months then why stop because he did it? It might result in some comments that people are saying, oh, you copied him. Well, they're wrong. And if they think that, he cares. You wanted to say it as well to your audience and you should, but I know you won't. Well, I think it's an interesting point to discuss because I'm not concerned about people talking about copying because I get enough of those comments from people where other people make videos on the same topic that I have made and then people alert me to people who are ripping me off and it's like, no, dude, we just made a video about the same thing or vice versa. This just happens all the time and that's totally fine. So yes, this is the nobody owns the facts thing. Everybody gets to make a video and you can do it on whatever topic it is and it is, it is very natural as well that videos that cover the same topic will often have the same structure. Yep. And that's precisely the reason why I always know that if I'm planning to do a video, I can't watch other people's videos on the same topic because then the way they explain something gets in your brain and it blocks out your ability to come up with your own way to explain something or perhaps you would focus on something slightly differently, but you see how someone else did it. So that's why I'm not watching, I'm not watching the Roman Mars thing. But more importantly is I'm really aware that because I make fewer videos, the videos that I do make need to be more popular. Yeah. So it's actually to put it grotesquely, it's a financial decision, you think it's less likely to go viral. It's not so much a financial decision. I wouldn't say it's directly that, but it's just, I have this, I have this, I think this is the news metaphor talking about oxygen in the room for various topics. I feel like this comes from news desks. But I feel sometimes I feel like, oh, when I'm selecting topics, it's like, it's like you're I'm walking around in a mansion that has like almost an infinite number of rooms and each room is a potential topic for a video. And over time, some of those rooms build up an amount of oxygen inside them so that if you open them up at the right time and throw in a little candle, they make a big explosion and it's exciting. And after any particular explosion, the oxygen will build up again, but like Roman Mars has just thrown a candle into the room about flag design. And so even if I ever want to do that topic, which I mean, because it's something that I really do like, I may still make that video at some point in the in the future, but it'll be a long time before that room fills up with oxygen again in a way that people would want to see another video about flag design. So that's kind of the way I think about it is it's, I mean, like yes, my videos make more money if more people watch them, but for me, it's much more directly related to the interest in this topic has been burned up. And so I might as well pick something else. And so that's, but that's absolutely terrifying thing. This is a slightly side note here is that my my other video that I want to switch part of the reason that I've been kind of floundering is because the other big video that I want to do now, I am 98% sure that there is somebody else who's working on the exact same topic. And we'll probably be able to beat me to that one as well. So I feel a little bit like, oh, I know I got like surprise kicked into pants once. And then the next thing that I want to do, I feel like I don't necessarily want to start that because I'm pretty sure I'm going to be scooped by that one too. Let me come back to your oxygen rooms again. Where is the difference between the rooms oxygen being stolen and taken up by someone like Roman Mars and a topic generating more interest and more oxygen and you being able to ride away because there's two things that go on there isn't there. One argument is, well, that's been done there. And the other one is, oh, this has created a lot of interest and I can feed on that interest and make something even bigger and better. Like for example, when you make videos around election time, surely you would think someone would say, well, surely all of our election oxygen has been depleted. And yet that's just when you put out an election video because you think interest is at an old time high. Sorry. This is in the YouTube business linko, Tentpole events, which is a phrase that I hate. But yes, the idea of big events that lots of people want to make videos about. And in my view, what those are, I mean, the analogy doesn't work perfectly, but in some ways they are rooms that are so big that they can't possibly explode all at once. Yeah. And there's room for multiple explosions because there's just like an enormous amount of interest in them. And there's a lot of extra hate in there because of all those candles. Yes, yes. There's a lot going on. But what has been the case sometimes when talking with other creators is you're also aware that even around big events like that, if everybody's working on something, you still want people to each have a different angle on a thing. And everybody can't quite do the exact same topic that that then just because like, well, one of them will end up becoming the main video about this thing and the others end up looking like pale limitations. Even though that's not necessarily really the case, it's just kind of by chance which one happens to be the one that catches on. The reason why I wanted to guess about what Roman Mars did is because I thought that that's probably what he would do. And so if I were to do a video about flags right now, I would have to pick a very different angle or a very different way to do it. But again, because I work so slowly, that's not something that I can basically do and turn around before the end of the month. Yeah. I have to say it was kind of depressing because so many people on Twitter were like, you must be so excited about this video on flags. Like endless tweets from people saying, why don't you watch Roman Mars thing? It's amazing. And all I was like sitting at home drinking myself into oblivion. Like, oh, there are there are those months of work, right? Just down the toilet, like, flushing it away. I just want to be really clear here. Roman Mars on the off chance that you're listening. You do an amazing podcast and this is nothing against you personally. And your Ted Talk was really good. I assume that your Ted Dog was really awesome. And if you ripped it off from our earlier podcast, what Greg talked about the guidelines then shame on you. Yeah, but there's no way he did. No, I knew you were both pulling from the same source. Yeah, yeah. So I'm not the person doing that video that you're worried about being scooped on on the other thing, am I? No, that's not you. That's not you. Okay. Cool. Because you could tell me. I would talk to you about it, yeah. Yeah, cool. I'm thinking about all the things I'm making videos about at the moment. I'm thinking there's no way Greg would make a video about any of them. I guarantee you it's not the thing. It's not the thing that you're thinking of. But the problem is it's a video I've been wanting to make for years and years and have been collecting research on for years and years. And so it's like, oh, God. I just I don't like the same situation is going to happen again. And I just so I'm having a hard time kind of picking. I'm working on I'm working on a very small project that's not really related to anything, but I need another main video and I'm kind of having a hard time selecting the next topic right now. Well, what are we to do like a couple of extra podcasts instead? Yeah, that's possibility. Or I could ask the internet and they could vote on what my next topic would be and I would promise to do it. This episode is brought to you by Hover. Hover is the best way to buy and manage domain names and it is the company that I use to manage almost every single one of the domains that I have. How many domains is it? It's dozens of domains. I have Hover open on my screen right now and there are so many that I have registered with that company. If I ever have an idea for some kind of project at some point in the future, I almost cannot resist ordering the domain name and just having it secured in case. 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Don't ever try to transfer your domain name. You may be like me. You may think I'm a technical guy. How hard can this be? I can transfer my whole domain name. Sure you can, but it might end up taking up your whole afternoon. And if you do it wrong, if you mess this up, it can be really bad news, especially if you're actually running your website at the time. So leave it to Hover. They have experts. This is what they do all day long. Get your domain names into their system. Let them help you. So many good things to say about Hover. They include domain name privacy for free, which of course is what everybody wants. They don't upsell you. They have great customer service, whether you want to talk to people on the phone or do it by email instead. They have tools to help suggest alternate domain names that you might not have considered. They have so many different suffixes that you can get, including the normal ones like dot com and dot net and then plus all the crazy ones like dot design dot guru dot soy and for Brady dot cricket. So that's it. Go to Hover. Use offer code Derek D E R E K. That's the correct way to pronounce it. That's the correct way to spell it Derek D E R E K. And you will get 10% off your first purchase. So that's hover dot com offer code Derek. Thank you to Hover for supporting the show. I saw an article on the BBC website that I just wanted to briefly mention. You see it there in the notes called cashless. I do. Oh, I just noticed that the person who wrote the story is actually someone I know, but that's that's by the by. Oh, yeah. One of your reporter friends. Well, it's a long story, but you're kind of here. So it said it's the article basically said that I'm assuming this is just in the UK that cashless payments had overtaken the use of notes and coins for the first time. You know, I don't I don't think I need to explain what that means. So obviously, you know, cards and things like this and all the all the non cash methods of I can't believe I never explain it. What that means. I was just going to let you roll. Yeah. I think people I think people probably get what I mean. What what's your initial reaction to that new story? The new story was written in a strange way where I thought that they meant things like contactless payments, but it seems like they actually mean all credit card and debit card transactions. Yeah, everything. Yeah, everything that is not notes and coins. Yes. And so when I realized that that was the angle, I found myself actually surprised that that was not already the case. That's exactly my reaction. I was like, how can it possibly be that cash transactions have outnumbered debit card and credit card transactions? I know. I was completely amazed by that fact. And the other thing and this may be a surprise to you because obviously people would imagine that I'd be Mr. preferring cash in the old fashioned way. I am on board with cashless payments because there's nothing I find worse and it happens way too often than going into a place that will only accept cash. Oh, yeah. I can't believe that still happens. Yeah, I am I am amazed when that occurs. And it does happen. I almost always feel like, are you joking? Are you kidding me? Yeah. Is this like some criminal enterprise? Yeah. I presume that you're laundering money then at the like official chip shop. Yeah. It absolutely baffles me when a place won't accept cards. And I know people will write in and say that the store owners have to pay the transaction fees on the credit cards. Yeah. I just I cannot believe that they're not missing out on more money than they would otherwise. Well, no, because by the time you find it, it's normally too late. But I guess you think people won't go back next time. I'm thinking people people don't go back next time or if I see the sign that says cash only nine out of 10 times, I don't really have any cash on me. Yeah. So I can't actually go that's true. Actually, yeah. More interestingly and I think a little bit not so great though is people when they use credit or debit cards will spend more. So it's not it's not necessarily that more customers arrive because you are using a credit card, but it is much more likely that a person adds a small amount to their pre existing order when they're using credit cards or debit cards. People's brains treat physical cash like no other form of exchange. It's much more real. And so if you're asking people to part with notes and coins, they are much more parsimonious than if they're just using a credit or a debit card. I bet online shopping is the next level up to you because sometimes if I'm on Amazon, I'll just start going crazy checking stuff in the basket. Yeah. What does that matter? Because then it doesn't even feel real and Amazon gets you with their one click button. It's like, oh, I fell on my computer and I bought a $200 thing. It's like, wait, I didn't even mean to. No, but it's already been shipped to your door ding dong. Right. There it is. I was telling you earlier off air, but that happened to me today. I was there was something. Yeah, I was going for an impulse buy today. And I and it was like, it was expensive. It was an expensive thing. It was like, it was 200 pounds. And I clicked to buy it. I think I was buying it through PayPal because that's even less real money than normal money. And and I made the purchase and I was like, oh, that's good. Then I went off and watched some cricket and did some work. And then I came back and opened my browser and it turns out the transaction hadn't gone through. Like something had something had failed and some error message had come up. And I looked at that and thought, actually, I don't even want that thing. And like, I didn't like then didn't buy it. So it was like, I got saved by and it makes me wonder how often how often that would happen. If two hours later someone came up to you and said, oh, you sure you want to do that. Whether you say actually, no, of course, of course, increasing any amount of friction would vastly decrease sales. I mean, could you imagine if Amazon was required by law to send you an email two hours after every purchase that said, are you sure you want to buy this? You have to click yes to continue with the transaction. Right. Their sales would plummet without a doubt. Which sounds crazy because you think, oh, people do things deliberately. But if there's one thing we know, it's that people don't do things deliberately that human decisions are extremely context sensitive. And I forget the details, but one of one of these studies I was reading about was talking about how like white collar crime and people cheating and how if you if you pay people for getting the correct answers on a test, but you trust them to tell you how many they got right. If you're doing the transaction in cash, people are much more honest about how many questions they really got right on the test. But if you give them tokens that they can then redeem from a second person in terms of actual money, that people is like lying just goes through the roof, that if you put any kind of level of indirection between the cash money and the person that it just it makes people just think of it like it's less real. Like, oh, I'm not really scamming this person out of dollars. I'm scamming them out of tokens. And those tokens can turn into dollars, but it's totally different. I wonder if Cassanoes have that problem with their chips. This is precisely why every video game and every gambling establishment wants you to convert dollars into their own crazy currency before actually spending money. So you're not saying, oh, you're money getting hoovered down a shoot. That's exactly right. This like it's no, it's, you know, video games are kind of the worst at this or you know, just lots of other websites they want you to have some kind of secondary currency. And it's because they know people are way more likely to spend it or it's like consumer loyalty points, all this kind of secondary currency stuff your brain just treats really differently. Always be suspicious when people want you to convert your actual money into some kind of other form of exchangeable money that is their own proprietary thing like chips in the casino. That comment you made before about if Amazon sent you the email later saying, are you sure you want to buy this? Did remind me of another thought I had just earlier this week actually. I was thinking about, you know, telethons like where they used to do them on, well, they still do them on TV. They'll have like a big, a big night on TV like on the BBC and they'll have like comedians or sport stars and all that. And they're all trying to raise money for an event like, like, you know, Africa, you know, starving people in Africa or something. And they'll have, and they'll be all night saying, give, give money, give money. And these days it'll, you send a text message or you'll go online and you'll give money. And at the end of the night they say, hey, we've raised 36 million pounds. Isn't that fantastic? And it is fantastic. It's a really good thing. The thing I was wondering is what was it like in the olden days when you and I were young, when those shows used to be on? Because when those shows used to be on and some of our younger viewers won't know this, you used to just ring up and pledge what you would donate. You'd say, I'm going to give $10 and they would add that to the list. And then at the end of the night they would say, hey, everyone, we've raised 30, $16 million or pounds or whatever. But then you had to the next day or over time go and give that money somehow. Like because you couldn't do it over the phone and you had to go and give the money at some place. And they would always say, don't forget what your pledge was and make sure you go and give that money tomorrow. I would love to know how many people actually saw through their commitment after saying, I'm going to give this money. If the next day they had to give it, when they weren't watching the emotional videos of, you know, people in distress, if I were to land, if I still gave. The drop off rate must have been enormous. And I would expect from two things, one, people just not following through. So maybe 50% of people just don't follow through. And I would also be very willing to bet that of the people who follow through a big percentage of them give less than they pledged. Yeah. So I'll give $20 and then they actually give $5. So I'm sure that that it just must have been a huge drop off. I mean, it's interesting because on some of the fundraising platforms, they advise you if you're doing like a one time fundraiser or ongoing fundraiser. The usual advice that I've seen is to be aware that at least you can expect 10% failure rate when we actually go to charge everybody's credit cards. This system couldn't be any easier, right? People put in their credit card information. It's there. It's fine. But then when like the Kickstarter project finishes right off the bat, you've lost 10% of the promised revenue because the credit card transactions don't go through. Yeah. So I figure that's the best case scenario. And if that's about 10%, those TV telephones, yeah, I wouldn't be surprised if it was just a majority of the people don't actually follow through on their pledge. I would love to know actual numbers. I would love to know actual numbers. I have purchased and you can hear it here. Getting things done, the Art of Stress Free Productivity by David Allen, which for those of you who've never listened to the podcast before, because only those people won't know what this book is. This book is Gray's life-changing Bible that turned him from a mere mortal to the efficiency robot that we have before us now. And while it is previous... I'm not that discrived that way. Well, I just did. And while it has already been stated by none other than Gray himself that I am beyond saving and this book cannot save me, I agree with that. But I've decided I'm going to have a look at it anyway just to give me a greater insight into the mind of Gray. So I'm going to attempt to read it. I may even make notes. One of the reasons I bought the paper version was that I could scribble notes on the pages as I read it for questions for you. And then hopefully I actually haven't got a red-sinked page yet. So I don't know how successful I'll be. But hopefully maybe the next podcast, maybe one after I don't know, at some point in our future, I intend to ask Gray questions about this book. And if you want to have read it already, you have that option. It will not be necessary. It will not be required reading. But it may increase or decrease your pleasure of the podcast at the time. I'm giving you the listeners that option. I already saw you tweeting today about how you bought this book and that you haven't read it at all. Yeah. Which is a really standard order of operations for... Or let me go and buy a book about productivity. And, wow, I feel really great. I feel so great I can take the rest of the afternoon off. So my suggestion is that we actually try to set a deadline of talking about it for the next show. Okay. And this is actually for the both of us because you, I understand, have bought the new edition, David Allen, just happened to come out with a new 10th or 11th anniversary edition of the book. And I have been intending to reread getting things done for a whole bunch of reasons for like a year and a half now. And I haven't done it either. So I could use the deadline and I think you need the deadline. And so this can definitely be homework for next time for the listeners. We will have a little conversation about getting things done with David Allen. And there will be a link in the show notes for people if you want to get it. I asked you if you thought I should get the audio book because one way I could do with this is on my new sort of fitness drive. I could listen to it while I'm out going for runs. But I suspected this isn't one that would translate as well to audio book and you kind of, you kind of agreed. The link that I will put in the show notes will be to Amazon. I listened to a lot of audiobooks and I read as well and I'm keenly aware that some books are better in one format or another. Some audiobooks are better as audiobooks and some are worse. But I think that a book like getting things done doesn't translate well into audiobook format because if you're really serious about it, there are things that you have to do as you're going through the book. And in audiobook format, it becomes a bit more like entertainment. Right? I am, oh, I'm listening to this to be entertained. And I'm reading stuff that I want to have an effect or to change my life in a particular way. I will often prefer to read it on the page because I think actually having it be a little bit more difficult to read on the page as opposed to someone just reading it to you can like that difficulty actually makes you focus on it more. I thought you were favoring the sort of the eyeball version as opposed to the ear version was because it was sort of it's very listy and very flow sharty. But it's not because of that. It's just because more because you have to stop and make notes and do little things. There are a couple of points in the book where I think it is genuinely useful to do what he suggests doing. And it's a look. Don't get me wrong. This is not, there's a certain kind of genre of book that I absolutely hate where they have a little exercise at the end of every chapter. And I love that stuff. I think that stuff is totally gimmicky. There's only one or two things in this book that I actually think are moments when you should do something. But it is also a book that is much more just to be actively thought about as opposed to listened to. So I really like audiobooks for books that are about a particular topic. And I will listen to audiobooks for fiction. But for a book like this, which is I actually want to really try to change something about my life, I think it is worth deliberately sitting down and having a pen so you can make notes or underlying sections or write some stuff down on an additional sheet of paper. Well, what about a sponsor of this episode? That's a good question. I greatly prefer our method of not knowing who the sponsors are. I think this is a good, because I feel like people are not always aware of this. That we don't, we don't know who the sponsors are when we're recording the podcast. We don't do the sponsors until afterward. And audible is a sponsor of this podcast. Well, people will have already heard from them. We'll have to decide who's doing what after the end of this show. Well, the people listening already know what we decided. Is the worst way to end the conversation on a podcast? I love that they are more powerful than us right now. Like I almost feel like I feel subservient to them at the moment because they know something I don't know. They're not more powerful. They're just in the future. Well, that kind of does make you more powerful, doesn't it? I guess, but they're not more powerful right now. They're existing somewhere in the world as we are recording this. Yeah, I mean, they don't even know we're recording this. I mean, they're nothing to us right now. See, you just, you've swinging these wild extremes. Like this? Oh, the listeners, they're vastly more powerful. And then suddenly the listeners, they're nothing. I'm a black and white kind of guy and you, my friend. I agree.
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