H.I. No. 41: Some Kind of Freak

"H.I. #41: Some Kind of Freak" is the 41st episode of Hello Internet, released on June 24, 2015.
==Official Description==
Grey and Brady are back from the live recording and discuss: death (as always), automation, the Hello Internet flag designs, toothbrushes, a new kind of watch, Brady's music, weight check-in, the Olympics, shorthand, and Getting Things Done revisited.
==Show Notes==
*Discuss this episode
*Grey: True Cost of the Royal Family
*Grey: Digital Aristotle
*Brady: Official Sir Martyn
*Hello Internet Flag designs
*Hello Internet State Flag
This is a lot more comfortable because I'm now just in front of my computer and I can't actually see you anymore. Yeah, the pressure of my handsome face has been removed. You are a very distracting man in person. You said distracting. You didn't say handsome. You said distracting. It was high stakes doing something in person. What do you think? I completely disagree. I thought it was easier. After the initial unusualness of the fact we were really close to each other, after 10-15 minutes, I found out much easier. I was able to read your body language and read your facial expressions and respond to it. It felt like a much more normal conversation. Whereas when we do this, I kind of sometimes feel a bit like I'm talking into the void. I guess I'm most comfortable talking into the void because yes, that is exactly what it feels like. I'm really just looking at the wave forms as we talk to each other. That's all I am to you. I had some wave forms. That's exactly right. You had the pleasure of editing the last podcast. How did you find that? I found it quite easy. I liked being able to take out more of my annoying idiosyncrasies. I took more of them out than you tend to leave a lot of things in that I wish you wouldn't. You always tell me, I don't change them because they're hard to snip out. They are not hard to snip out. They're easy. You have no idea how much stuff I take out for the both of us. Well, take out more. I reckon you've got your back and not my back when you do the editing. No, I am keenly aware of every one of both of our little foibles when we're talking. And I try my best to remove them so that the poor listeners don't have to hear them. But it is not always possible. Usually there's something like 500 to 700 cuts on an episode of Hello Internet. So yes, I take out a ton of stuff. I take out a ton of stuff. I have to admit, I probably would have been even more brutal, except I did have to bear in mind the video because the last one had a video as well. There were lots of tricks you can do to cover up cuts and leave a few jump cuts in, but there were a few times where I did leave things in. I would have cut for video reasons. So apologies to anyone who listened to the last episode and thought that could have been a bit tighter. There may have been other factors at play. I think it came out very well. But yes, that is the reason you did the last one is that you are a much more skilled video editor and you are better with those kind of tricks and those kind of cuts than I would ever be. Don't give me that flattery. You're just flattering me so that I'll do more editing. That's like when you used to say to your little sister, will you go and do these chores for me? Will you go to the shop for me? I'll time you to see how quickly you can do it. And then she runs as hard as she can to go and do all your work. You're so good at video, Brady. You should add up all the podcasts. I'm actually very happy to do all the editing for the audio podcasts. But if we ever do something in person again that is that does have a video component, I think it does make sense for you to do it. I'm not trying to grease the wheels here and I'm going to hand over the job of doing the audio as well. That was not my plan. Okay. Okay. Too much of a control freak to let go. Anyway, the thing that I want to know the most right now is how is Audrey doing? Audrey has had her surgery. Her lady surgery. She has been fixed as you like to say. I just said lady surgery just then you said fixed. Fixed sounds terrible. That's a terrible sounding word. Didn't you say fixed last time? No, I always say lady surgery. You say fixed. Which I think is just a it's a brutal sounding word. Brutal. I think fixed is better. Like at the park I've been using it when I'm walking here and explaining why she's on the lead. I sort of have said, oh, she's just been to the vet and they go, oh no, it was anything serious. And I just say, no, no, she just had to be fixed. And they're like, oh, okay, right. Yeah, I'm with you. I'm with you. She was broken before. But then they fixed her. Yeah. But so she's recovering all right? Yeah. When they brought her out from at the back after her surgery, she was like completely out of on drugs. She looked so spaced out and said and she was so quiet and out of it for like five or six hours. I felt like the worst parent in the world for making her go through that. Yeah, it's sad when you see the pets coming off of anesthesia. It's very it's it's a little bit difficult to deal with. Unless it's hilarious, sometimes it's hilarious. But most of the times it's just a little bit, oh, you poor thing. There's nothing I can do for you. But now, you know, she's still healing and is supposed to be taking it easy. But the next day she was back to full, full Audrey mode. And I can't calm her down. I can't stop her jumping up on sofas and I can't stop her doing all the things that she always does. So now I want to give her some more of those drugs. This is a slower down. Oh, yeah. She's good. She's all good. It's all going well. We went to the vet for her check up a couple of days later and I asked lots of questions because I like to know everything. And once I was happy that once I was happy that Audrey was healthy and everything was fine, I then started interrogating him about whether he listens to podcasts while doing surgery. And he says he does not listen to things while doing surgery. But he would imagine on some of the biggest surgery jobs, things that take six or seven hours, like a hip replacement for a cow or something like that, he would he thinks people do listen to music and things like that because it's just such a long boring job. Do they do hip replacements on cows? No, they do that kind of stuff. I kind of made that up a bit, but he meant big things on big animals that take a long time. I'm trying to imagine the scenario in which it is worth it to do a hip replacement on a cow because we have things that we do with cows. Yeah, but what if it's like your favorite cow or it's a prize winning cow? Well, that's what I'm trying to imagine. Is it a particularly valuable bull cow that his genetics are still quite good, but his body is unwilling. Okay, then maybe I can see doing a hip replacement on a bull might make sense. But a regular cow? I don't know about that. It's like hip replacement on racehorses. I don't think that's what they do when the horse needs a hip replacement. I think they have other solutions. That's what I'm just saying. Yeah. Although I do have, I do have from the Reddit new profession that listens to podcasts while doing it. Someone on the Reddit left a comment saying that they do embalming while listening to podcasts. I asked, what do they embalm? And the answer was people. People is what they're embalming while they are listening to the Hello Internet podcast. Wow. How do you feel about that? Not entirely comfortable. Why? I don't like dead bodies. And I don't know. I just don't like to think about it. Like I'm glad they're listening. The dead body isn't listening. The embalmer is listening. I don't know. I just don't like the thought of dead bodies. I remember one time doing a story around Christmas time for the newspaper where we wanted to like warn people about the dangers of drink driving over Christmas. So I had this idea and I found out how many people were likely to die over the Christmas period from drink driving and it was like six people or something. So we organized with the morgue to get out six of the trolleys that they put dead people on. And we were like photographing them empty and sort of with a kind of this could be, you could be on one of these trolleys if you're an idiot type warning thing. And when we went to the morgue and they said it all up for us, I was so paranoid I was going to see a dead body. I was sort of averting my gaze from every direction because I didn't want to see one. And I didn't. You didn't. I'm trying to think. If I've seen dead bodies. This is a weird thing about modern society is how rare it is to actually see a dead body. Oh yes, of course I have. I've seen loads of them in Nepal because there's a place where you can go by the river where they wash them and then they put them on the piers and burn them and the tourists can go and watch from the other side of the river. And I've seen that lots of times. But that was at a distance wasn't it? I mean that was not 30, 40 meters. Yeah, once again we're off to a really cheery start here. It's not a hell of a internet if we're not talking about death pretty quickly. Have you ever seen a dead body? I know that I have seen dead bodies in person in funeral situations but I mean not since I was I was a little kid. You're a little kid and you're being shown dead bodies of funerals. It wasn't like my parents were driving me around to funeral saying, oh let's go tour the dead bodies right? That's not the scenario. I'm just trying to cast my mind back to when have I seen an actual person who was dead and it has been it has been a long time which is which is why my my memory is a bit hazy and of course because you can never trust your own childhood memories. It is quite possible that the funeral that I'm thinking of was even just a closed cast it. Cascot and you know I didn't even see anything but you know because you can't trust kids. Their memories are useless which includes my own childhood memories. But yeah I just I was going to say I read a while back a book called Stiff by Mary Roach. One of the things that that she goes through in that book is talking about how recently it was relatively common in in funeral services to just lay out a dead body at the dead person in the house and people would would come in and you know do a viewing and that seems so so strange like it seems very very bizarre. But it was not that that long ago which is we have we have kind of sanitized and pushed to the edge death in modern society in many ways. Do we have any follow up from our special Royal Society episode? Can you guess which section of the of the various things that we talked about I have a little bit of followup on? I don't know but I'm gonna I'm gonna take a punt and say it's the voting section. Ding ding ding you are correct. There's a little bit of voting follow up that I have which is someone sent me on Twitter a link to a thread which was discussing how in Romania they still use a marble black and white voting system for certain kinds of ballots. So if they want to do a secret ballot they will still use marbles with black and white marbles to cast a vote and because of the kind of person that I was I was like oh I wonder I wonder exactly how this works. So I looked it up and I I pulled up a 45 page long document about the voting procedures in Romania and I found the description of of how they do this. So I'm gonna I'm gonna read this out really quickly to you. You're gonna give me the executive summary you're not gonna read the how 40 odd pages I? The representatives line up and they give each representative a white and a black one and there are two buckets at the front of the room a white and a black one and a white ball placed in the white ballot and a black ball placed in the black ballot means an in favorγ where as a black ball placed in the white ballot and a white ball placed in the black ballot box means against and putting both of them in the in the black ballot box means a null vote and I read this and took me forever to figure out what the heck this actually means because I'm sitting here thinking wait how do they count this if you if you put things in the matching colors it's four if you put it in the not matching colors it's against but then if you put both of them in the black one it's no what does this mean that I was thinking about this for a while yeah but what my guess is is they're basically just dumping out the black ballot box that one doesn't count and they must only be counting the balls in the white ballot box so that's what it means or if you put both of your marbles in the black one you are abstaining from a vote that's that's what's going on here but why why don't you just throw your balls away and not put them in either the the reason they're doing that is because they're having everybody line up and so this is the same thing that the voting machine from last time did that you can't tell if the person how they're voting because they're just dropping marbles into these boxes they look like urns actually I saw a picture of it and they have a place where your hand can be hidden so you put your hand above the white urn but then it becomes hidden you put your hand above the black one and the the other people can't see if you have abstained or voted for or voted against this is just some system that they use in like committees or the parliament versus how the citizenry elects the government no this is used in there I don't know I'm sorry Romania I don't know the correct word off the top of my head here but this is used in their legislative branch okay when they need to hold a vote but they want it to be a secret vote so it is not on record and it looks like this is used for some internal things in the legislature this is not used to pass laws is the impression that I get but is used for internal business yeah because I don't know what I think about a legislature having secret ballots yeah anyway so that that system with white balls and black balls is still used in the world today at least in Romania so thank you Romania providing me with some delightful voting trivia who would have thought I think of one little story as well by the way something I forgot to talk about when we were at the Royal Society you were mentioning how sort of the changing of the guard or the horse parade happened just outside the window right before we started recording and those were pomp and ceremony I actually heard a story about someone who had at another office right near where we were recording and part of their job was doing a lot of sales to the US and having to sort of do deals over the phone and getting the US people to buy stuff off him and he had a clever tactic of always phoning the US around the time of the changing of the guard because in the background that here all the drums thumping and the trumpets and all the ceremony and stuff and that go what's that in the background and they're going oh it's just the queen going past or the queen's changing her guard and all the Americans to get so excited about all the ceremony and all the Englishness of it they're getting such a good happy mood it usually helped him secure the sales yeah I think that would be quite effective I'm always amused by how English people just they cannot perceive how much Americans just love the whole notion of the royal family why is that I don't know I mean part of it is I think just the distance so that Americans this is not part of their government it allows them to just think of the UK as a still kind of magical place like Gamer Thorns yeah exactly whereas if you actually live in the UK there are many people who have beefs against the of against the royal family for injustices perceived or real like like then if you're living in the UK you have to deal with the actual royal family or if it's some other countries you're like oh it's just magical but I remember when I did my my royal family video a long time ago I had just this wall of feedback from people saying how my statement that Americans visit England in no small part because of the royal family was just ridiculous that nobody would do such a thing like I guarantee you that is the case and when I was I was in Hyde Park for the royal wedding a few years ago I swear everyone in that park was American right there were no locals there it was just every single person's voice I heard was an American they've all come over to be here for the royal family wedding it was just crazy we had a street party where I live with they shut down our street and everyone came out and brought cakes and onto tables and kids played games it was lovely that sounds that sounds really nice I had a very community minded street actually I am in touch with there those sort of negative comments you were talking about though because I don't know if you saw the video but last week I posted a video because Professor Pollack of of periodic videos fame actually received his knighthood yes it's official now it's official he got the sword on the shoulder he got Prince Charles he didn't get the quain unfortunately and I tell you what it was a bit of a pilav trying to get the footage for for YouTube but I managed to license the footage of the moment so I've got it all there people can watch Prince Charles doing the doing the thing in backing and palace but yeah there are a few comments you know under the video that were not complimentary about the royal family from my perspective I find them surprisingly controversial not not that I find them controversial but the mention of the royal family for for some English people is surprisingly controversial and yeah I still to this day get a pretty large amount of feedback from that video that I made years ago I mean that was like my fourth video ever that was just it was made just so so offhandedly before I even thought I was going to do this as a real thing and I still get emails all the time from from angry people about that one well as I always like to say if you haven't opinion about the royal family tweak gray don't I already get plenty of it thanks there's another filter for your Twitter yeah yet yet one more uh what else we got here in the follow up speaking of things on Twitter I don't need to hear any more about Kindles I love how every single face of follow up starts with a speaking of the thing we just spoke about yeah this is good segue here right yeah um Kindles what do you want to say about Kindles surely there is nothing left to say about Kindles I would think there's nothing left to say about Kindles except again I have received just a huge volume of tweets from people who are telling me about Kindles improved typography engine for their for their next generation machine and every time I get one of these tweets I hate to say this whenever people tweet me about the Kindle stuff it just comes back to the same problem of like nobody understands what I am talking about like I'm complaining about a very particular thing and then everybody goes oh Kindles changed something related to typography like we have to let gray know it's like no have they changed the thing related to my specific complaint and and the answer to this is not really or in just the laziest possible way ever so yes Kindle typography is somewhat improved but again even in their screenshots of them showing off their amazing new typographer engine I can still see like oh yeah you're not doing the left alignment correctly it's better it's definitely better but you know what I'm not really interested anymore because I am now I have moved on to iBooks the ship has sailed Kindle is someone I was in a relationship with a while ago and we broke up because they just refused to improve themselves and maybe they're working on making their lives better now but I've moved on I'm with iBooks now sorry Kindle you can't be wooed back under any circumstances I wouldn't say I can't be wooed back under any circumstances but it would it would take quite a lot because now I have one fewer device in my life I don't use the Kindle and so I use my iPad now for reading and to reintroduce another physical device it would take it would take quite a lot and a minor improvement is is not gonna it's not gonna cut it iBooks is a very good job of rendering typography normally gonna take more than a couple of flower emoji and an apology I've added hyphenation to my words like yeah that was great you should have had that 10 years ago I guess like I you know I'm glad you're I'm glad you're improving have you left justified your books oh we're going through our entire back catalog one at a time to try to add left justification under certain settings now it's I don't want to hear it I'm not interested sorry Kindle now to be fair though the the iBooks did a terrible job rendering the typography and the getting things done book but that was David Allen's fault for including lots of dumb quotes but anyway side note all right you've written here digital Aristotle this was a little question from the red at which I just I wanted to address so last time you brought up the automation website which was how likely it is that your job is going to be automated yes and we were discussing about high school teachers and how likely they were to be automated and it said very low and someone brought up this point which I thought was really good I just wanted to address this so someone asked on the reddit you seem to agree in the last episode with the really low chance of automation for high school teachers but this seems to go strongly against your digital Aristotle video has your opinion changed and if so why I made the digital Aristotle video a while back talking about some changes that I saw coming in the world of education I don't think that high school teachers are going away for the reason that I said in the last episode which was that you need someone in the room with children I think it's going to be a very very long time before parents feel more secure with a robot in the room than having a human in the room with their children that human doesn't have to be a teacher though it could just be a security guard while everyone's got their tablets out yes in the digital Aristotle video this is sort of what I'm talking about and it was something that I was a little bit worried about when I was a teacher is I didn't see teachers going away but I thought this is a job that is vulnerable to what's called de-skilling that you don't need as trained a person to do the exact same thing if you can start offloading a lot of the teaching to machine learning or with computers or with tablets and so you can go from a situation where it's like oh we need trained experts in mathematics and science and English to be teaching our kids to well now if we can offload some of this learning onto the machines then you don't necessarily need such a great expert in the subject so that was what I was thinking is the possible future for teachers is that the job can be de-skilled over time and that you could be reduced to essentially a like a babysitting slash troubleshooting role so that's why I think that I agree that the high school teachers are relatively immune from automation but that's that I can also imagine that the role of that job can greatly change over time and become much less of what I was interested in like the the babysitting aspects of being a teacher were some of the least interesting aspects of that they may be the aspects that survive the longest in that role so anyway no all right well you're gonna get more love from the teachers now the teachers the teachers they love me I'm invited to speak at education conferences worldwide so they can throw stuff at you that's exactly it and it's like me I mean not you're basically saying teachers are gonna become what I think pilots are gonna become in planes basically just people that sit there to keep other people happy not to actually do a job yes and and to have a meet based redundancy in case through some sort of catastrophic problem occasionally I get I get these little insights into why you truly will never be a elected leader of the world you're unelectable I am I am so unelectable which is fortunate that I am also not seeking office if I if I people sometimes ask I go wouldn't you ever want to go into politics like one I wouldn't want to and two like there is I think I was unelectable before the podcast but boy am I unelectable after the podcast now we've said that this stuff in the podcast is not under oath you know we're not gonna hold you to any of this that's true that's true if you run for office you can like tell us a bunch of lies and we won't use the podcast against you yeah I'm sure I will I will definitely have the support of the teachers union if I ever run so hacking back to our Royal Society visit and tying in with what we were just talking about then about occupations that have become automated just today I had a little moment where I thought of a wonderful occupation that that everyone would love to do and yet I think it is practically dead for all intents and purposes oh yeah it has already become automated and a lot of people are going to disagree with me but here's here's an occupation which I would love but I feel like is almost no longer open to me I'm very curious explorer are there still explorers other I think the only people who use explorer as their job description are people who like present TV shows or media personalities who call themselves explorers are there actually any real explorers anymore who are exploring stuff that hasn't been explored I'm immediately thinking of that scene in the Truman show where I think little little Truman little Jim Carrey wants to be an explorer and the teacher pulls down the map and says nope no more explorers we've discovered it all yeah it kind I mean I know people will get all arty on me and say people you know people who are studying DNA are explorers that is stretching the metaphor that is that is stretching the metaphor and there are other people who will say whether people in mission control and NASA are explorers and they're just using instruments and robots to go and look at Mars and yeah it's kind of true but they're not real they're not near Armstrong are they I'm with you on this when when someone says explore I'm thinking of a person with a vessel and a flag right one one hand on the steering wheel the other hand holding the flag looking for something that no one has ever seen before and preferably I'd like them to have a sword as well yes a sword a delightful hat these are explore traits and the vessel has to be wind driven it can't I can't have a motor I know well I think you can look pretty good with your spaceship and your space sword and your space flag yeah okay I'll give you the landing on a new planet and claiming it for you when people say explore that is that is what I am thinking so I think that you can have in theory space explorers but we certainly don't we certainly don't no we just send them up into a tin can to fly around in circles a thousand times a day yes is it that many times that happen many times no no it's nowhere near that many times I just made it up okay it's it's it's sound plausible I don't get me don't get me wrong at being an astronaut still awesome but I don't really think they're explorers anymore being an astronaut is awesome but that yes I will I will back you 100 percent astronauts not explorers and yes when they say people pushing the boundaries of human knowledge this is a good thing this is also awesome but that doesn't mean that it is also an explorer yeah you start studying day and I with a sword maybe we can talk okay internet I have a really good book recommendation for you today oh by the way this is the ad spot for audible.com I've just listened to a book called So You Have Been Publicly Shamed by John Ronson this is an audio book that drew me right in I found myself immediately wanting to tidy up more around the house and go on more errands just so I could have an excuse to keep listening to it it's a nonfiction book and it is about how we end up shaming people for their behavior on the internet. Ronson's gone around and found people who were at the center of various public controversies for example Justine Saka who was the woman who made an off-color racist joke on Twitter and then became the epicenter of just this world of hate on Twitter and Ronson goes and finds her and talks to her about what it was like and he talks to a lot of different people who were in similar situations it's a great book it really really is in particular there's a section with Mike Daisy who was at the center of the big controversy where he had more or less fabricated all of the interesting and salacious details about his trip to Apple factories in China I really recommend this book I have very much enjoyed it and it is available for you to listen to on audible.com go to audible.com slash hello internet this way they know that you came from this recommendation and you can sign up for audible and get a free book to listen to and I'm going to recommend so you have been publicly shamed by John Ronson and once you're there why not check out the 150,000 other audiobooks they have for you to listen to spoken material is a big part of my life I always like to have a good audiobook to listen to while I'm doing errands and this one has been and this one has been quite the experience I would actually go so far as to say this is an important book for everyone who spends time on the internet to read so right now go to audible.com slash hello internet and give it a try speaking of explorers with flags how did you find the follow-up where you asked people to submit all the hello internet flags into one place yes I haven't actually I haven't checked it for a while oh you haven't looked you haven't looked I haven't looked for a little while I looked I looked in the early days but I haven't gone back lately um where's that at what are we going to do next because there was some there was some brilliant designs there for all the right reasons and all the wrong reasons I have the thread up on my screen right now the current state is that there are a hundred and thirty two flag designs that were submitted to the subreddit and yes some of them are glorious in how hideous they are the one that I showed you and that I think is my favorite ugly one is the US state flag version of hello internet oh yeah yeah yes someone picked those those same blue and yellow colors that I have complained about before which just look awful they wrote hello internet across the top 2014 on the bottom and they put a circle with the hi letters and then as a delightful a delightful little touch they wrote seal of hello internet above and below it's the seal of hello internet that really makes it in my mind somehow it's just that it's wanted to make sure they break every possible row yes for good design that is that is perhaps my favorite one that I have seen on the reddit for I want to make something that is ugly there are many hilarious ugly hello internet flags on there but I would say that that one is is my personal favorite what about the good ones because there was some some people took it seriously let's not just sort of sweep them under the carpet because of a few cowboys who made jokes I have no intention to sweep them under the carpet I have already loaded up on my browser a bunch of the flags that I liked would you like to see some of the ones that I liked will you share them with me know how before you do yeah I'm gonna put something else out there all right before I even say these I want this in your head because I haven't told you this before but I actually have some context in the flag manufacturing industry oh yeah and and I have actually had a flag manufactured before for something I did what did you what did you have a flag manufactured well you you won't like the flag but but because it broke a few rules but when I did a series of films about the exact center of everywhere I went and took like a special BBC flag for the BBC program I was working for and flew the flag and had a photograph of the flag at all these locations so I had to have this BBC flag made and I've still got it somewhere in a trunk somewhere so I was thinking we should maybe have the best flag manufactured so the Hello Internet Flag exists hmm what do you say what do you say to that that that sounds pretty cool are you going to have it at your place well obviously it's not going to go at your place is it I don't know we'll do something with it we could maybe we could fly at Hello Internet events like when we do when we do when we do the next kind of you know live show with Darth Vader or a Dazoo or something we'll we'll we'll have like a few seconds to play that really short Hello Internet Anthem and we'll fly the flag you want to fly the Hello Internet flag yeah it could have like a pledge of allegiance to the show oh no pledge allegiance pledge of allegiance is so creepy I can say this as an American doing the pledge of allegiance really creepy experience it is a bit it seems normal for a while until until suddenly in high school you're old enough to do a little bit of medic cognition and go wait a minute what am I doing here it is a bit weird yeah I will I will not support a pledge of allegiance to the Hello Internet flag I did quite a lot the idea of flying the flag though and it could be like a backing and paddler's like when the flag is flying it means you and I are there and and then if the flag is not flying it means we've like left the building uh-huh fucking him I'm not I'm not feeling the love yet oh I'm just I'm just trying to think where we could actually fly it we need now we need to get some sort of Hello Internet corporate headquarters and we can fly the flag when we're there and it won't fly when we're not there maybe Bristol Zoo will fly over the enclosure with CGP greater penguin in it I'll let you get on that anyway there's no point talking about this until we have a flag so show me some good designs I'm gonna send you just a couple that I pulled out that I like how are you gonna send them to me I mean send them on i-message does this work for me okay this one I like because of the imagery that the person chose hmm it is a flag many of these flags are gray colored but it has four light bulbs arranged in the center which that was was a this as far as I could tell was a unique design decision and I thought it was an interesting design decision to have the four light bulbs arranged in the center I'm not sure that it's it's my favorite flag but I thought oh that was a good thing to pick up on it it might be a little bit fussy the detailing on the bulbs might be a little bit fussy for my liking but I do like the idea and I assume the white bulbs and black bulbs represent you and I or something presumably presumably yeah yeah the the bulbs are tiny bit fussy with with the the screws but I figure with light bulbs you kind of have to make them a little bit fussy otherwise it's not really clear immediately what it is I like it I hadn't seen that one before and I like it okay so there's that one uh okay now the next one another gray design gray colored design these pictures obviously will be on the show notes for people to go and have a look at yes I will put these in the show notes that's not bad I will try I will try to link them to the reddit comments so that the creators can get credit for it as well yeah so there's this next one I thought was very nice it is again light gray background in the center is a darker gray circle with a white microphone in the middle for the podcasting yes but the thing that I really like about it is that out of the circle are coming two little robotic arms and behind it is a caveman club as well so if you envision it and they kind of and they kind of crossed over each other like a like a skull and crossbones type thing like they crossed like two swords or something yes it basically makes an X through the circle the the caveman club and the two robot arms and then the podcasting thing in the center I quite like that I quite like that as a as a design as well that kind of high tech and club thing was bit of a theme I noticed through a few of them but that one you just sent me was particularly good that's why I picked it out and a number of people were using the caveman club and robot arms or some variation thereof but I thought this was probably the best combination of those two yeah I'll show you another one which I don't think would be great as an actual printed flag but that I just really enjoyed by the way I'm not talking about a printed flag I want to get one like stitched and everything so it has to do other works of stitching now that one you just sent gray I really like I really like it as well but the reason I said that we couldn't get it printed is it is super Soviet I'd use different colors I would use the sort of the gray and white and keep the design so I'll let you describe it I think there's a gray and white version of this one but but what this is is the the one that I'm looking at right now has the the very classic red background with the gold color that is usually the Soviet design not the hammer and sickle time look yeah so they but in addition this is very hammer and sickle E because they have taken the rings of my gear icon rotated a little bit and through the center they have put a nail for hard as nails Brady and I really like it I just I do think that it is it is very Soviet looking but this is quite striking and I also really like it because it is it's using a bold color choice right so many of the flags were gray which is obviously the the because of our our logo for the podcast that's the that's the obvious color to go with but I did like the few of them that were going with different color choices I'll see if I can find I'm pretty sure this person also put a gray and white version of this one I do like that one a lot the the hardest nails the nail for you was also a very common choice and I think this one happened to do it very well I like the fact that they they angled the logo somehow makes it look much better than I think some of the ones that were straight up and down very cool very cool okay there's one more that I don't know what you will think about this but I actually quite like this let me send this over the wise from the Tony your voice is it is it one that's ripping the piece out of me no no it isn't okay take a look oh yeah no I saw that what I like that okay I genuinely like this this person has taken of course the Maryland flag now there were very many there were very many jokie versions of hello internet with the Maryland flag but this one I like because the person actually took it seriously and there are there are four quadrants of Maryland's flag Maryland's hideous wraps around and so hideous it becomes awesome flag which I am now in my mind always think of this as the Maryland point whenever I look at anything that is like so bad it becomes good I think oh it's it's at the Maryland point you can go too far and make it too ugly and you can pass the Maryland point but some things exist exactly in that spot but anyway they have taken the four quadrants and they have made two of the quadrants which were the which were the the squareish quadrants and they have made them black and dark gray and then they have taken the two fancy crest like quadrants and they have made them the number file brown colors and I think it looks really good together yeah now it is good I don't know if this person meant this as a joke but I actually think this came out really well and so I quite like this design I quite like I do too I do too that's that was that that did tickle my funny bone so we'll have to we'll put them in the show now some people can have a look at them and we'll have to put some more thought into actually getting one made and I don't know how we're going to do that yet but I had the thread in what was called contest mode for a while so nobody could see what order the flags were actually getting voted up or down and if you go to the thread now which I will put in the show notes you can see the order that people have voted up and down things and you can comment on them and I would say that that that thread is still open for submission so we will we will take a look and see what's in there and and maybe get one of these actually printed at some point to be continued yeah we'll put some thought into it I'll have to I'll have to I'll have to do a bit of behind the scenes work on Gray ladies and gentlemen because he hasn't he hasn't yet seen the potential of this but I'll make sure he does later I'm not I'm not disagreeing with this oh there's one last one I want to show you really quickly all right we might cut this out we might cut this out but can't want then I had not seen that do you want to describe this flag for the listeners say this this flag it looks kind of German it's basically a black and red a black top and a red bottom it's two sort of big horizontal bars and in the middle is like a golden logo but the golden logo is the outline of Audrey from the Audrey chasing bubbles video where she's like patching at a bubble and that image is so stuck in my head videos being watched so many times I've seen that thumbnail so many times now that yeah that's quite good there we go the Audrey bubble flag I love that it's you know Audrey is so cute and then they they went with some very harsh color choices I think it's pretty good it's absolutely perfect very good I have a little bit of follow-up news for you Gray okay getting back to another of our favorite topics which is toothbrushes toothbrushes yeah I have moved away from the electric toothbrush and gone back to a manual analog dumb brush whatever you call a normal toothbrush I call the the normal toothbrushes now I call them the stick with leaves toothbrushes that's right a twig and leaves wasn't that or something yeah I've gone back to the old twig and leaves really moved or I've moved away from the electronic tell me tell me why in a word violence what I just want to brush my teeth more violently I like sometimes sometimes sometimes you just want to smash your mouth and like you feel like your mouth your teeth need a good brushing and you want to really get in there and and my electric one's all woosey and turns self-off if you press too hard and it's all small and delicate and I sometimes I just want to go I'm gonna just blast my teeth really hard and be really angry and do a really good job and feel really lovely and clean afterwards and I just don't get that from the electric toothbrush the charging thing is also a massive pain in the backside it's not it's so it's I found myself more often than not brushing my teeth with my electric toothbrush dead and just using it like a normal toothbrush anyway so I just sort of thought this is ridiculous when it's charged it's too woosey it's not charged most of the time anyway I'm just going back to the twig and leaves man and I'm happy with it I'm happy I was laughing because I can completely sympathize with this if you get an electric toothbrush it definitely turns your toothbrushing into a much more passive activity that at least with mine I still like mine I'm still using mine I can't imagine going back but it definitely I am now I am now moving like a little robot around inside my mouth which is doing the cleaning and it just requires me to relocate it from tooth to tooth as opposed to oh I feel like I am cleaning my teeth I am no longer doing it now the toothbrushes the thing that is is cleaning my teeth and I can see that a person of a certain type would find it a much more satisfying experience to manually to manually brush their teeth I want to be an explorer of my mouth great right I don't want to send in I don't want to send in you know a bro probe yeah send in the send in the or send in the explorer probe I just want to get in there and smash that stuff out of there I am sympathetic but I will just say my limited experiences now with manual tooth brushing are that the drone toothbrush obviously does a way better job it feels like no matter how much I try to brush my teeth manually it is just not as good as the as the robotic toothbrush so I am sticking with the electronic one but I wish you well and you I didn't think I was going to change your mind I just thought you wanted you'd want to know future teeth hygiene oh yes I definitely wanted to know I definitely wanted to know I find this I find this a very interesting development in in the Brady world I haven't ruled out going back you know you know I'm I'm it sounds like you weren't using a great electric toothbrush I have to I'll have to send you the one that I use yeah I think maybe you're right I think maybe I chose poorly and I need to maybe I'll test me you know maybe I mean you've missed my birthday but maybe Christmas maybe Santa might bring me something great did your toothbrush let you know when you have to charge it ahead of time did it do something like that yeah it has this it has this mode where if it needs charging when you press it on it doesn't work oh okay yeah see that's that's terrible it needs to warn you in advance that's what my I'm sure I'm sure it probably does I just don't know what's going on you just don't pay any attention to it it's a critical feature of the toothbrush recharging well anyway can we talk about another favorite topic of airs when it comes to sort of technology and things yes watches okay let's discuss watches now it's not my intention to talk about Apple Watches because I know people get a bit sick of us talking about them but I will just quickly talk about them uh-huh I feel I just want to point out right now that I think this is the second time you are bringing up the topic of Apple Watches people usually yell at me for talking about Apple too much I just want to point out that you are bringing it up I am not bringing this up I'm just really into watches I just I'm fascinated by watches and watches are cool objects I know I'm really into them and I'm getting more and more into them and the Apple Watches you know on the scene now so on my mind I saw my first Apple Watches in the wild the other day oh really other than you and your wife yeah I don't know I've seen you guys wearing it but I don't count you guys um but I was at dinner the other night and there was a couple sitting opposite me wearing Apple Watches and I and I had a moment I had an epiphany and that was I'm not sure these things are going to be huge you mean huge as in popular is that what you mean yeah because I was looking at them and I was looking at them at the table and they had their identical square faces their cold dead blank faces uh-huh staring at me from in with their BDIs this this coldness and they and I looked at the couple and I thought I don't I don't want to be you and I don't want to be like you like quite often with cool technology and especially a lot of cool Apple technology you know I look at someone with a phone and think if you know if I haven't got it I think that's cool I'd like to have one of those or I look at someone with a MacBook and think that's cool and I either think I'd like one of them or I'm glad I have one of them I think they're really cool I look at the I look at these watchers and I think I'm glad I'm not them I'm glad I'm not wearing one of those on my wrist you look a bit silly and I don't and I actually don't think that when I'm with you so go figure like I don't look at it on your wrist and think gray looks silly but I look at a lot of other people and I do think that I think a big part of it is the fact they're always off and and a big part of it is that they're they're part of you they're on your wrist you know you can have you can have a dead blank screen on your phone because it's sitting in your pocket you know you pull it out and it's and it's not part of you but a watch is ornamental and it's just a it just sends the wrong message having a blank screen on your wrist and and also it sends the wrong message all wearing the same thing I know you can have different bands but they still look all the same and it's like it's like a futuristic movies when everyone's wearing a silver space suit with an identical V on it and you think that wouldn't be funny if we all dress the same this is the star of that and it just I don't like it that's all I wanted to say about Apple Watchers I just I saw them in the wild I'm surprised I haven't seen more in the wild and I was unimpressed again and for the first time I'm thinking you know what I wouldn't be surprised if these don't take off hmm I have yet to see one in the wild not on a person that I already personally know I've been waiting for the moment when I see someone who is not a friend who is wearing an Apple watch and I have not yet had that moment hmm anyway now I want to talk more about watches though as opposed to the dead eyes of Apple Watchers yeah the cold dead face of the Apple Watch right now what do you want to talk about Brady it is not a state secret that I'm a little bit fond of the Omega Speedmaster professional now I don't know if I've ever heard you talk about this before I I have let it slip once or twice on the podcast and it is also not a state secret that I acquired one at the start of this year and have been wearing every day since I had wanted one of these for more years than I can remember it was a it was a it was an infatuation it wasn't infatuation it was love and I finally consummated that love and and got the watch of my dreams but there's a but sometimes you just have been ever roving eye oh do you sometimes something catches your eye that you like the look of it doesn't mean you don't doesn't mean you don't love love the one you're with right but sometimes you just see something nice sometimes you have enough love in your heart for more than one watch yeah that's kind of how it is that what you're saying now just recently something caught my eye another watch and I almost bought it in fact when I talked on a previous podcast about trying to buy something and failing at the last minute because of my ineptitude on the computer that's what this was and then I thought what am I doing what am I doing don't do it so I decided I wasn't going to get this other watch but it was my birthday this week happy birthday thank you and my wife surprised me and got me this other watch oh I didn't realize that the Mrs. Gattie this watch yes she did I I assume that you had purchased this for yourself no no it was it was a lovely surprise from a from a from a very loving wife it is called a slow watch and it's very interesting it's actually a little bit gimmicky for me but I just I like the idea I really like how it looks and I just really wanted it so tell the listener what's different about this watch well let's do with the fundamental difference first the the the reason it's called a slow watch and sort of the unique selling point of this watch is it's a mechanical watch it has just one hand and it is numbered from zero well from zero around to twenty four or zero around to 23 you go zero one two three to 23 and then zero yourself becomes 24 again so every hour of the day is represented on the face and this one hand just slowly moves around the 24 positions and they're a little graduated markings in between each hour but because that's there are so many markings it's a very sort of inexact watch is maybe the way to put it like when you look at it you you kind of immediately tell exactly where the hands pointing like if you ask me the time I'll sort of say it's about quarter past eight it's about the best I can do and I will usually be right to within a few minutes just to make this very clear for the listener this watch though it is an analog watch it does not have the hand in the same position so if I have this right on a normal watch where you would have the six on the bottom this watch actually has a twelve is that right no it has the zero at the bottom actually and the twelve is at the top oh oh god okay oh and in some ways that actually becomes quite natural because if you think of the sun at midday the hand is pointing to the top when the sun is highest in the sky right and the hand is pointing to the bottom when it's midnight I can see why they would design it that way and if you're going to if you're going to change things you might as well change everything yeah but I just wanted to make that clear for people there's a single hand that sweeps around once every 24 hours once a day it's a Swiss made watch it's it's and it actually has all the mechanics in it to have four different things going on three different hands and the date all of that is actually under the hood but they've modified it so it's just got this one slow moving hand it's also just a really beautiful piece of design in my opinion it's sort of very industrial it's sort of a sort of a block of sort of squareish steel and the face is stunningly simple they don't even put the logo of the watch on they're very deliberately they they want they think it sort of should speak for itself the front almost looks a bit like an aircraft instrument in a way except incredibly simple and the one I've got's got a leather strap will put a picture in the show notes yeah when you show it to me what it makes me think of a like a pressure gauge or like on a steam vent that's a pretty good call that's a pretty good call this hexagonal design with a single hand in the middle and then I'm now realizing why when when I see it it's pointing towards the topic is the time is backwards from the way that I was thinking it was that's why I think of it as a kind of steam pressure gauge that's the way it looks I think it looks great by the way just to be clear I have to say when I like I really wanted it and then I got it and since getting it I have thought on multiple occasions although I can see things you wouldn't like about it I really strongly think grey would love this like it just seems the design of it just seems very you it's just so minimalist and simple and it's got a kind of I don't know it's just got a look I thought you'd really like but also I know about you kind of like these fuzzy clocks or whatever and this sort of not having the exact time and this sort of plays to that beautifully that's kind of the ethos of the of the company is you know be slow change the way you look at time so I thought you'd really like it obviously not more than Apple Watch but well ever ever since you mentioned that you got this watch and I've seen it on FaceTime and you sent me a couple of pictures what has actually made me think is I wish Apple would allow customized watch faces because this is an example of something I would be willing to try I would be willing to try to have a single dial that goes around the watch once every 24 hours and you're comment about it being reversed starting at the bottom and going to the top that makes perfect sense I can see how that works and yes because I don't live in a world where I need to be really looking at other clocks and I like the imprecise time better than the precise time this I could see this being compelling now of course I'm not going to switch away from my Apple Watch but if Apple did allow custom watch faces this is I feel like this is what we were talking about last time there's different ways you can possibly display the time and this is the first one that I feel is compelling like oh I could see really getting used to and really liking that and maybe using that as as my main watch in the future obviously I can't do it now though I have to say another appeal of the watch that wouldn't appeal to you but appeals to me massively is that kind of supersimplicity and knowing inside it has this sort of the Swiss cogs and it just does nothing else like this is not only is this not going to do my email and my podcast and things you know this won't even tell me the date I and this one even tell me the seconds I love I love the whole beautiful simplicity of it I really like it and it puts me in a quandary now because I have two watches that I'm really fond of now here's here's my other question have you switched back and forth between this and your mega speed master at all or have you have you just been dating the new watch I'm just sort of it's just the new fancy at the moment but I haven't had it that long to be honest so I've only had it for a few days so at the moment I'm just wearing the new one also I want to get it's got this leather band which is really gorgeous but I want to wear it a bit and get it sort of softened in a bit yeah you have to break in you have to break in leather so I'm breaking it in but once it's broken in I feel like I'm in bit of a quandary and I haven't exactly figured out how I'm going to play it how are you going to keep both watches happy and in use and I know so what I want to know is when you do switch back to your first love you make a speed master won't it break your brain to look at the watch hands in a different position this is what I would wonder is if you've gotten used to looking at your 24 hour watch I would I would feel like I couldn't deal with looking at something else I will be very curious to hear your experience of going back to a traditional analog face after having used this one I'm not I'm imagining it being a problem I mean telling the time I mean I still look at clocks all the time in my life and like I don't think I'm going to forget how to tell time with a traditional clock face so I don't I don't mean that you're going to be some kind of time illiterate when you put on the speed master I can't tell what time it is anymore but I would just wonder if you would notice a delay or a hesitation or some some moment of having to think about it it as opposed to just doing the quick glance oh this is the time and putting your watch out I will let you know I'll let you know when it happens please do take notes there definitely is that cognitive barrier with the slow watch I'm still looking in it going like getting the hang of it but I like that I like that experience at the moment and it's rare that I need to tell the time so quickly that like lives are at stake so you know I think I can put up with it for the time being for the sake of I love the I love the little piece of art on my hand now this brings me on to my next point and I don't know if you're going to help me with this or not I want to talk about watch deals and brand ambassadors okay because I think like for like people who are like movie stars and sport stars and all these people who you know do these big deals I don't think there's anything cooler than a watch if you're like a big famous goal for a Formula One driver or a Hollywood A-lister I think you've really made it when you've got a watch deal especially if it's like you know Rolex or Amiga or tag you know the big ones now I'm open to Omega signing me up as a watch ambassador but I don't think it's going to happen because I think George Kleene's locked in on a long term contract and they probably don't want all the fuss of ditching him for me and it would cause a lot of bad publicity and I understand that and George Kleene seems a nice guy very handsome and I'm happy for him to have the deal you don't begrudge him his success yeah and and I understand the position that puts Omega in when they're considering me adding me to the stable because we look we have a very similar look right and they were definitely when they were going through the paperwork they probably had some files you know I'm Brady and George Kleene trying to try and decide who to go well when they signed when they signed Kleene on originally I also hadn't gone public with my passion for the brand I think I think if they could have their time again maybe they would reconsider but anyway what's done is done yeah it's water under the bridge right but I can't see I can't see the Amiga deal happening for me but I am thinking I could be the man for these slow watches I think I could become a brand ambassador for them if they if they have the vision and if they're willing to do the deal I could be the man and and I've had to think about it and I think I could make a really compelling case if you give me a few minutes it feels like this is what's going to happen like I have no control over this you you you are going to use the podcast as the platform to pitch your brand ambassador ship of slow watch and who am I to stand in the way Brady you have the stage let me run you through why I think this is a no brainer for them all right first of all I like the product and I wear the product and I'm really passionate about it that's a great start and I as luck would have it have somehow for reasons I cannot fully fathom I have an audience of people my my video channels actually just this week past 300 million views oh wow yeah which is a bit of a milestone that is so just just this week plus plus we have dozens of people listening to this podcast so so there you go that's a start and I think the sort of people who pay attention to to me are the sort of people who would like this watch sort of you know anyway there's there's point one that's sort of that's an overarching point mm-hmm now I also happen to as we just mentioned co-host a podcast with yourself actually oh am I on this podcast yes you are you wouldn't tell from the way I'm sprucing myself at the moment but oh hello I happened to co-host a podcast that spends quite a lot of time talking about watches it does in those small part because of you well no I think you've got your part to play I am also interested in watches yeah now I also happen to produce a YouTube channel which is completely preoccupied with numbers and creative ways of arranging numbers called number five and we even do occasional videos about watches I have made watch videos in the past and there are a couple of others in production I happen to have two other channels one of them is a chemistry channel that spends a lot of time making slow motion videos mm-hmm you see slow motion another one is a physics channel which makes loads of videos about time uh-huh you're seeing are you seeing this great I I am seeing this I'm definitely hang on hang on I'm about to close the deal here okay you're ready I have another channel in which the whole stick of the channel is filming my hands and wrist this is the star of objectivity is my hands and wrist this is like prime real estate this is this is product placement waiting to happen this is I'm serving this up on a platter here mm-hmm I also have a little side venture making slow motion videos of my dog okay how does this how does this fall back into the mean the mean question slow they're all about slow oh okay you know that take but here's this is this is this is my killer blow okay this is my sign on the dotted line moment you ready uh-huh my name Brady literally means slow well I think you've got the job do you think let's I guess Brady that pitch was way longer and way more serious than I ever thought you were gonna go for I feel like you are you are really no joke pitching this company on being their brand ambassador look look it's not for me it's not for me to say but if the listeners decide that they want to tweak the people at slow watchers or send them emails put in the idea in their head I'm just saying I'm just saying I'm just saying uh-huh it's an option okay what do you think do you think can you say it happening I can see it possibly happening you think they're gonna go for a movie start aren't you I I don't know really I don't know what they're gonna go for a movie star well I said I said to my wife do you think do you think do you think slow would have the vision to make me one of their brand ambassadors and she said maybe if you moisturize more and do your hair better that's harsh that's harsh man she has a point oh well I don't I don't think yeah I don't think you're feeling it I think it's a part dream isn't it I I hope this comes true for you Brady I feel sorry for you though because I mean you could only be a watch brand ambassador for Apple and there must be a few people in front of the in front of you and that cue I don't know who would be in front of me on that cue no I think I don't even need to pitch it because I've got the brand ambassador ship for Apple just lock down just I've got you for free basically to be fair slow just head me for free as well so I mean what what more can they get out of me yeah by the way when we're done with this I think we need to have a little conversation of if you actually do become the brand ambassador for slow what percentage of that needs to be funded back into the hello internet corporation because this is like you are really pushing for this yeah no I think that's a fair point I think I think they would have to be talks I think they would have to be talks all right I'll tell you what if the deal gets done I'll cut you in today's episode of Hello Internet is brought to you by Harvest Harvest is a beautiful business tool for tracking time spent on client projects with harvest you can start a timer from anywhere your web browser the desktop or mobile device to keep track of how much time you have actually spent on each of your clients if you're running a business that depends on billing people for time you know how important that is harvest will give you tracked hours that appear in visual time reports designed to keep projects on time and within budget you'll know which clients and projects are making you money and which are costing you at the end of the day you need to bill your clients and harvest can do that too creating an invoice that lists for your clients all of the billable hours now harvest has a special offer for hello internet listeners if you go to get harvest dot com coupon code hello internet at checkout you will save 50% off your first month with them so once again that's get harvest dot com offer code hello internet and use harvest to start tracking time painlessly my fine still isn't wrong well the podcast hasn't gone live yet we're just recording that's how this works that's true I have to edit I have to edit down the 45 minutes you talk about how you're going to be the brand ambassador I have to edit those 45 minutes down to hopefully something under 10 minutes that's what are you going to include the song I did if it works I'll include it if it's embarrassing I'll probably just cut it out for you sake that's what I'll do whatever you think's best now you've written something here in the show notes that's got me a little bit intrigued um-hmm race for space album yes because it was two episodes ago it was it was episode 39 I just made an offhand comment yes that's right you made an offhand remark about some album and when I was trying to fill in the show notes I asked you what the heck this thing was and so you said it's the the race for space is the name of the album and then what's the group that doesn't what are they called their code public service broadcasting they're a sort of a British alternative band uh-huh so this is a music album that I was asking you about and that you were raving about and you wanted me to listen to fantastic fantastic and yes you were very insistent that I I listened to it putting headphones on listening to it all the way through I had very special requirements I didn't want you to to do it wrong I did it just like you wanted me to I put on headphones I listened to the whole thing and you remember in our getting things done section you made a remark that you felt uncomfortable reading the book because you were speculating on how much joy and pleasure I would get out of that book which was wrong by the way but that was still the way that you felt about the book yeah I honestly felt uncomfortable listening to this race for space album because I thought the exact same thing there is no more perfect musical form of audio pornography for Brady than this race for space album so would you care to describe for our listeners what this album is all right what what this band has basically done is they've taken lots of audio clips um I think they've actually done it in cooperation with the British film institute and things like that so they've got access to loads and loads of archive from both the uh Russian space program the NASA Apollo space program all the early days of space and lots of news broadcasts as well lots of old school journalism from the 50s and 60s and maybe even the 70s like the early 70s and they've taken that and they've sprinkled it amongst a bunch of songs that are basically inspired by the space race this this famous race between the Russians and the Americans in the in the early days of space exploration and the thing I love about this album is it's sort of you don't see this much anymore with albums it's sort of something that's gone out of fashion but it really is kind of a journey there's only nine songs but it sort of goes in order and let you start off early with the sputnik and uh Yuri Gagarin and then the problems on Apollo 1 with the fire in the cockpit and all the early ups and downs and it sort of works its way towards um the eventual Apollo 11 landing song number eight which is called go which is a real highlight of the album it's sort of the the showpiece I think and then a sort of a finale song but it's like a real journey it's a real kind of emotional journey and and of course Gray is right it because I'm such a space and Apollo enthusiast this is I enjoy this on a whole other level that some people might not because I'm so intimately aware of what's going on and what everything is but I have to say it was my wife that put me onto this album she completely loves it and I can assure you she is not a space enthusiast but she is a music enthusiast and she she just really likes the music so I think the fact that's peppered with all this audio and it's that's the that's what it's about obviously gives me pleasure but I think on its own merit it is an excellent excellent album and I could talk a lot more about it and hopefully I will go and see these guys perform some of these songs in a week's time because they're playing at Glastonbury and although it's late at night I may stay awake for it because I am going to let the Glastonbury music festival and I'd love to catch these guys what did you think of them okay so I I was listening to this I was listening to this when I was animating the last video so you already break in my roles but anyway go well listen I have never in my life just sat down to listen to music this is the most attention that I could possibly ever give music yeah I I would if you asked me to just sit down and have nothing else to do except listen to a bunch of songs I guess in a in a darkened room with candles or something this was this is not going to happen I just don't do music this way yeah but so I I listened to it the first time through and was genuinely uncomfortable the entire time thinking about how much you like this I was just I felt really weird listening to it like oh I don't know about this but because I I I respected you I actually listened to this through I think probably three or four times all right because it's it is relatively short it's not that long no I know it's short album yeah and after I listened to it through the first time I thought okay I'm going to listen to it again just because I've gotten over there's like oh god I'm kind of creeped out thinking about Brady listening to it moment and and then while I was just while I was working I left it it's on Spotify and so I just said you know repeat album and so I listened to it through a few times it's it's not for me but it is very good and I can I can also recommend that people should listen to it it is worth listening to I I wouldn't probably listen to it again but I am very glad that I have listened to it and that I listened to it a couple times because you do get more out of it when you know what's coming up and you can listen to the voices a little bit more and yes I didn't quite realize the first time through but then it became obvious on on the third listen through like oh this is of course this is going in order there's a little story that's going along with this so I I put it in the show notes because I did want to mention it that you set it off handedly and I thought it was worth bringing to listeners attention that it is something to give a listen to if you can get access to it here's Brady's instructions all right one light candles if you obviously buy the album to support the artist if you want but you can also do Spotify and all your other stuff if you can listen to it all in order that's that's that's my first thing because yeah it has to be an order because because this is journey and also it makes some of the emotional moments more emotional when you've kind of worked towards them so that's my recommendation my second recommendation is don't search the key songs out on YouTube first because the first time one of the the sort of the highlights song I guess is this song called go and it has got a really cool music video but if the first time you hear the song you're distracted by the amazing music video you're not really hearing the song right so if you can resist don't look up any of the songs on YouTube until after you've listened to them once or twice and then and then definitely go onto YouTube because the music video for go is cool and the music video for the one about Gagarin is also weird but very cool and finally if you're only going to listen to one song because that's the kind of person you are I guess I'm going to have to recommend that one called go because that's kind of the that's the famous one and that's the Apollo landing one it's not necessarily my favorite I think my favorite might be one called the other side which is about Apollo 8 when they win around the other side of the moon it's very well done song it actually makes me quite emotional yeah that one is that one is very good I can I mean I couldn't pull out many songs but that one I definitely thought oh this is this is really well done the Sputnik one was also very good because they use the the beat beat beat from the Sputnik very cleverly through the song I quite like that one to but they're all good they're all in my opinion they're all very good just as songs and if it was about something else I I still would have thought the songs were fantastic but the fact is about space and Apollo obviously does get me a bit excited yeah I tell you what though this public service broadcasting guys I mean they're super cool they're way too cool to hang out with someone like me but they would definitely be my mates because they're obviously into all the same stuff I'm into because they've got another song from one of the other albums that's all about Mount Everest and they've got songs about like planes and things so they're obviously despite dressing cooler than me and having musical ability two things I don't particularly have they're obviously sharing some interest with me suddenly I'm wondering though I mean have to these guys have disguises are they like daft punk because I'm wondering if it's really it's Brady under that helmet and he's public service broadcasting oh I love this band and they have to write music about the Apollo missions and Everest and airplanes it seemed a little suspicious all of a sudden oh wow I don't know it is true we've never been seen in the same place at the same time yeah if if you're at Glastonbury come and say them and if you say me down the front trying my underwear on the stage come and say hello yeah and actually I'm just realizing of course you you did just sing the song that I had to cut out about the about the slow time watch people as well I'm suspicious now Brady I'm suspicious yeah well you know there's there's something for you to think about I they're gonna come out with a song about how adorable Chihuahua puppies are soon that's gonna be their next album that would I think my head would explode if they did that yeah they get cover would be blown if they do that I'm trying to think what else they could make songs about that would make them think they like they're my perfect band mm-hmm yeah I've not seen them live yet so I can't apparently they've put on quite a good visual show their live show but I've never seen them live and that's a real that's a real test for a band in my opinion how good they are live so yeah I'll be curious to see how they do it with all the sampling of the Apollo audio I imagine they have it all preloaded on a computer and press all their funky buttons at the right times because apparently I think they mix it live so yeah that's what a lot of the electronic artists do like a girl talk and other people they have it loaded up on their computer and they're mixing it live as things go on or daft punk does the same thing as well I saw the chemical brothers live once and I tell you what that was disappointing because I love the chemical brothers music but seriously they it felt like they were just both sitting up on the stage at their computers and their mausole just pressed play on a quick time and been playing mind sweeper or messaging each other because they may well have been right yeah well there you go I'm really pleased that you listen to that a few times I can't ask any more that's I'm proud of you I would definitely recommend people listen to you ever go and see live music no I I am not a fan of live music I would I'm gonna take you to see live music sometime I'm gonna hand pick something for you I have no interest in seeing live music I don't understand why people like live music that's because you've been saying the wrong live music this is like the album except with errors that make it worse that's what live music is and I have to stand often watch this the standing can be a pain but there are a few there are a few live music experiences you can have that are superior to albums I admit I do get bored standing around listening to music that I don't like and my wife more into music than me and I've been at gigs where I've just thought I can't wait till this is over so I can go home because I'm sick of standing up but there are a few bands and a few things you can see that make you think I'm glad I saw that yeah I'm I'm mentally running through my very limited catalog of of things I have seen live and I remember yes I was I was bored or waiting for it to end all of them I'll give two recommendations because people are going to ask in the red anyway what who I would recommend to the best two live with people to see in my opinion are muse and at the moment a band called Augustine's both amazing and I'll talk with people I'd read it about why I won't bore you with it but I will take you to see one of them and change your mind I think this is very unlikely oh come on it's not it's not like it's unsafe no it's it's the only thing unsafe about it is how bored I will be you sit and talk to me for two hours about watches every fortnight surely you can come and see a band I'll make sure it's in London all right there's so many things I don't I don't like like I will agree to many things Brady but I mean going to see live music it's just it's tedious and it's boring I don't get it I don't get it I'm not mad at you for saying that because I understand and you can have some boring times at that live music shows but you can also get some good ones okay we will discuss this offline what do you got next all right you know the people are going to want to know oh yeah oh yeah okay yeah the the white health thing we have to check in with the weight do you want to go first or do you want me to go first I you go first because you you will have won but because I feel like we're like a couple of house husbands talking about white watches you are so uncomfortable with this I just it just seems like such a silly thing to be doing and but anyway let's do it here you go I thought it was a great idea when you brought it up and and now you you seem intensely uncomfortable but no yeah okay how'd you do how much you how much white have you lost since the last podcast or two podcasts ago I guess yes it's too well it's basically two weeks ago and it is it is not very impressive and my weight loss chart looks pretty funny but the net loss between two weeks ago and now is two and a half pounds which is not very good it's not very good two and a half what's that in kilograms because you promised you doing kilograms oh well a kilograms 2.2 pounds that's like just about one or let me do the exact thing for you sorry I did promise you that I would do it in kilograms that's my mistake okay uh 2.5 pounds is 1.13 kilograms well great I only do kilograms and I've lost 1.1 so that that that 0.03 suddenly becomes a problem I feel like I need to switch to pounds now to try and get that extra I think if we're doing kilograms and we're rounding we have to call that a draw don't we I am happy to call that a draw I think you can claim victory if you want because my number that I was going to give you is 1.1 kilograms so and you're giving me 2.5 pounds let me let me do the exact math then I feel like this is basically a draw because the real thing here is that we're within the margin of error right my scale hilariously measures to the 10,000th of a pound is the number that it actually records awesome it's like you know what scale I'm really doubting that you actually measure to the 10,000th of a pound and even if you think you do like the the amount of uncertainty in that has to be enormous but so let me just do let me do okay so you're not to listen to me type for a second okay because I was I was just doing it approximately at 2.5 so let me get the exact numbers here okay so I'm going to have the data points all on my phone so now now now I'm entering to four dead four ridiculous decimal places it could it could win your point if you can get yourself to 1.2 so it's worth checking no I think you're going to win this hold on a second oh well you're not going to I'm not I'm not going to win it you're not going to get yourself down to 1.0 hold on hold on I thought for a split second I thought you were actually going to win it the the overall numbers and my actual thing came out to be two four decimal places that I lost 2.4251 pounds which turns out to be exactly 1.1 kilogram so we have tied we have tied we have to that's amazing I tell you what I pulled it from the fire at the end because I've had a very bad couple of weeks for various reasons so I'm lucky to have scraped that one my health chart is really embarrassing because I I lost two point I basically lost two and a half pounds in the first two days immediately gained it back and then I've been slowly trying to claw my way back down but those but those first two days I was like this is awesome I'm going to lose all of the weight by the time the next podcast comes around and then I don't even know what happened but all of a sudden it's like oh back back up like you know oh you waited cheeseburger once like oh apparently that cheeseburger everything everything is gained right back and then the weight loss was super slow I had a whole list of excuses ready for when you kick my butt then so I'm really surprised that we tied this was this was not impressive I mean I've been traveling I've had my birthday my sister came to stay and I had to take her at a restaurant so I've been like I've been I thought I'd been pretty naughty but this is the funny thing is I was also getting ready to be like let me explain all the reasons why I have a lot of this much weight and I do I will say that the one the one thing that I have always known that is my problem is that the busier I get the harder I find to keep track of this health stuff and I have been you've been a busy boy lately I have been unusually busy lately and I'm just I am my problem is always that if I get really busy I find that some part of my brain just doesn't pay any attention anymore to what I'm eating that I just like oh did I eat it's like oh yeah we were operating on autopilot and we just ate a bunch of crap and it's like oh okay I guess that's what happened brain it's like yeah don't worry about it you're busy working on stuff so that is that is always that is always my my problem I am I'm being reasonably good sticking to my calorie counting so I think that's helping me I am looking at the numbers going in even when I'm being a bit naughty I'm not doing as well as I should anyway this is where I am I am terrible about it because I'm I'm making attempts to calorie count but God do I hate doing it and I am so inconsistent about it so I thought you'd love that everybody thinks that I would be all over the calorie counting and my my brain just rebels against it I find it interesting here's the thing even though my diet is relatively consistent it's it's not like one of the problems with calorie counting is that you go to a restaurant right and they serve you some meal and then you're just wildly speculating about what the heck the amounts of various things are in the meals my life isn't like that my life is very regular it's very consistent so it's not even like oh I have to expend mental effort to try to calculate I just need to press a button that says yes I ate the same breakfast that I ate the other day or yes I had one of my five normal snacks this time but I for some reason I just can't bring myself to do this consistently I find it almost impossible like if I am really good on one day with recording everything in my calorie tracker it raises the probability 400 percent that I'm going to be just crap about it the next day it's I am I don't know why I am just unable to do this in the way and I really want to but I just I can't it's really hard from you don't worry about the accuracy so much but it might my whole point I just I don't put the products in at all I just put numbers in so I just put all right 250 breakfast 250 I ate that I ate that sandwich and I looked at the box and it was about 400 plus I had some that so I'm going to put 600 on and and just slightly overestimated it to so you don't cheat and just put rough numbers in and then you won't get all funny about it so I am using this app which I really like which is called life sum and I can I can pre-build in the meals that I normally eat and I have already gone through the trouble of pre-building in the meals that I normally eat so they're there all I need to do is just press the button that says record that I had normal breakfast and something something in my brain rebels against this and finds it tedious beyond belief and wow I am shocked at this behavior of of my own it's it's so counter to almost everything else that I do and for some reason the calorie counting is I just can't I just can't bear it it's interesting yeah I don't understand it anyway so there's our there's our update for the people who wanted to know here we go I saw an article should chess be in the Olympics what's your opinion on that because you know every few years they or the Olympics are every four years but every Olympics they check in a few new sports and demonstration sports and things like that and there's a few sports people are mumbling about at the moment for a future Olympics and chess has come up and I'm a bit obsessed with chess I'm not good at it at all anyone with any experience playing chess would wipe the floor with me but I'm just obsessed with it as like the culture of chess and the mystique and the stories and it's just it's just a game that fascinates me it's a whole I love reading books about chess and Bobby Fisher I've talked about it before so when I when I saw and I know that you used to be okay at chess didn't you back in the day I was one of those nerds who was on the chess club that's the kind of nerd that I was in high school okay so what do you think what would you think if it was announced that chess was under consideration for the Olympic Games well aren't there already a bunch of just weird sports in the Olympics yeah but all of them none of them I would describe as purely mental they all of them no matter what you think about them I would say have a physical component to them even even if it's something like you know shooting whether where the people is quite stationary and sometimes don't look like amazing specimens it's still quite it's still a physical thing they're doing chess is chess is different unless you can't moving pieces on a board as physical activity but it's not how have you other pieces yeah so I think chess would be a departure I can't think of another sport currently in the Olympics that is comparable to chess I'm looking at the list like I basically just googled for weird Olympic sports and they have the ones from the 2012 London Olympics and yeah you're right shooting wait what's dressage I don't know what dressage is dressage is horses it's called like sort of dancing horses in a way dressage oh dressage sorry dressage okay yeah even that's physical oh they have the the speed walking which Henry did an excellent video on for the 2012 Olympics which was good I'll put the link in the show notes I used to be pretty good at that speed walking as a as a junior I used to go to that little athletics and I once got the state qualifying time in bead walking and if I got it a second time I would have gone to the state championships yeah but you would have just failed on the more glorious stage had you got to the stage championships exactly well my second attempt to get a qualifying time was I really hyped it up and then I failed so you are correct even the weird ones trampoline is on here trampoline for some reason they are all some kind of physical thing also the Olympic motto is faster higher stronger oh yeah so I don't know you could have like faster maybe you could get bit of chess maybe you could have a pretty owner's clock on the maybe or speed chess is really fun speed chess is very fun that is that is the most enjoyable way to play a game of chess but I don't know I feel like the Olympics are just so arbitrary anyway I can't get worked up about this if they would say oh yes we're going to put chess in the Olympics like oh fine whatever you're just it's all all of these sports are arbitrary assumptions and limits what difference does this one make I think it would diminish the Olympics if they made chess a sport in the Olympics and I love chess so don't think I'm anti-chess why would it diminish the Olympics though it just doesn't feel right it doesn't doesn't feel like what the Olympics are don't get me wrong some of the other sports that have been getting into the Olympics from time to time have been pretty questionable in my opinion as well the chess chess would chess is over the line it's a it's a bridge too far but I don't know I just wonder what you'd think and it sounds like you're indifferent well again it just all sports seem really arbitrary to me I mean even even the things this could sound awful even the things like when when they go oh athlete x is in trouble because they used steroids to compete in the sport I often think why are steroids not allowed are we trying to see like what what can you push the human body to it at the absolute maximum I don't understand why steroids aren't allowed if that's what we're going for we're trying to see how fast can a man run around in little circles yeah you know what why aren't steroids allowed well I can think of two reasons but yeah what are your two reasons well one is it could become an arms race of sorts and it would come down to of course it a race of technology and you could argue like it's like that now we're training methods but that's one reason that's the second reason I would say yeah the second reason I think is the safety of the competitors if you open those floodgates they will start pushing their them to themselves to very limits and people will start dying for their pursuit of Olympic gold medals and I don't think we should have rules that encourage that I understand the argument I mean I you know when I'm being a devil's advocate and and mischievous I'll say exactly what you just said but in reality you know come on no I'd be fine with it actually okay what they should do here's my plan for the Olympics you listening Olympic Committee we should divide the Olympics into two groups augmented humans and then it then like a Greek style no augmentation whatsoever Olympics and would they have to compete naked like in the Greek times yeah because you're a little you're little sports shorts if technology cues progressing far enough well those are going to be nano shorts you can't trust them so you'd have you'd have you'd have nude chess you could have nude chess at the Olympics yeah yeah that's right you you break chess into two to two tracks yeah one of which is you can use as many new tropics in your brain you can you can do whatever you want to try to augment the human physical form and can they use the internet to look at moves and stuff yeah why not let's try to make this the best chess game that's ever happened between two humans well it would be competitive to a computer said wouldn't it but yeah all right no limits the two of you are sitting there this is a chess game this is going to be the best chess game that can possibly occur and then the non augmented track the node chess yeah the new chess they'd have to be sitting there naked yeah moving their rooks yeah they couldn't they couldn't use any steroids or anything but that says this is this is my this is my plan all right I think this works well for all sports you have people on people on steroids for you know running races or whatever and then you have people without shoes running races I think this is this is the future for the Olympics all right yeah all right I hope to see this implemented well I don't know with these with these like IOC and FIFA and stuff like that you got enough money anything's possible yeah I guarantee you'd get higher ratings if you did this Olympic committee maybe I don't know how could you not have more people would tune in for one naked Olympics of just here is what a human body unaugmented can do and then think of how spectacular the Olympics would be if you allowed all kinds of craziness just whatever you can do we're just trying to make a human like me just as yeah that's exactly right yeah yeah you can you can genetically breed creatures to just be the perfect sports people I don't see how this could possibly go wrong I think it would be an amazing spectacle it would be an amazing spectacle I'm not sure that the new Olympics would rate it would write better in a lot of European countries I think Americans would have problems with it well you know American Americans are a bit funny about nudity whereas in Europe it's like you know say the V you know Americans are a little prudish that's true yeah anyway with naked chess I guess that's where this is going yep I'm totally up for it I will not play naked chess with you really I'm thinking of also it's a cool joke but I'll let it go for now all right thank you thank you for that I didn't expect I didn't expect to go down the node chess path but hey that's what it's all about there we go what do you got for me what's next I had a a brief question for you a brief follow-up for you because on our previous episode when we were looking at Isaac Newton's princibia you made a comment that many people were interested in that your handwriting is all capital letters yes so you just you just close your little fist around that pen and you write in all caps yeah and I saw you you talking to a bunch of people on the reddit about it yeah but there was one comment that you made that that you you also know shorthand is that did I read that right you did you did and I do I as part of being a newspaper journalist as part of my cadetship I wasn't allowed to become a fully fledged journalist with my my wings until I passed two times I had to prove that I could do shorthand at 120 words per minute for I think it was three minutes so I had shorthand training and got faster and faster and eventually I passed my 220 words per minute and I used shorthand all through my journalistic career especially in court because you're not allowed to record anything in court so I had to furiously take down what was being said in court in my T-line shorthand and then decrypt it back in the office to write my stories and I still I still use it a little bit like if I'm writing things down there are some words that I'll still write in T-line if it's just for my own consumption because it's quicker so certain words I'll just do the funny little squiggles is T-line a particular brand of short hand yeah yeah it's like a brand that there are two that I'm aware of the old the more old-fashioned one was called pitmans and then T-line became the new bright young thing around the time that more it was certainly the new thing it was certainly a newer thing when I was learning shorthand and that's the brand I learned. Explain to me because I only know dimly about shorthand but is my understanding of it is that when you're writing shorthand you're writing down the sounds you're not writing down letters is that right? No it's it's a lot more along the lines of letters and words every letter has a shortened form and then those letters can join together in various ways and then and then certain combinations of letters can be shortened further and then other words can be shortened further and everything becomes more and more condensed. I was never particularly good at it some of my fellow cadets were very very talented at it and got to some insane speeds I was I didn't have an aptitude for it the funny story actually I can tell it now because I'm not but my shorthand teacher at the newspaper gave you these tests when you did your 120 words per minute test it was a big deal because you know you had to pass two of them to become proper journalist and get them from the pay so you really wanted to pass it and the examples that we used that she would read from that you would have to take down in shorthand for three minutes and then read back to her correctly were taken from hand side the recordings of the south Australian parliament to sort of the written the written transcripts and she had two or three sections of hand side that she kept specially for our 120 words per minute tests because she thought they were easy so because you weren't allowed to do the same piece of hand side twice and you'd be crossed off it'd be crossed off if you'd ever done that piece before and she had these special ones that she saved so when it was time for your 120 words per minute test she said all right we're going to do the easy bit now and it was really funny because the part that was easy involved a huge argument in the parliament because when there's a huge argument in the parliament there's a little term that gets written into hand side which is members interjecting which means that all the members of parliament are shouting and then and then the speaker of the parliament says order order and then the and then someone starts speaking again then the members get upset and we get another members interjecting so this is one section of hand side which is littered with members interjecting the speaker order members interjecting the speaker order order members interjecting and there is a bit of talking in between but it's just full of that this huge banny that went off in the parliament and that's what helps you get your 120 words per minute in short hand because it's it's really easy to take down because you make all these little shortcuts so I wasn't particularly good but I got my 120 words per minute and I did use it for many many years and I still use it a little bit now I'm looking at a little picture here of the letters in T-line short hand I just wanted to pull it up it's got so I was entirely wrong I was thinking you were doing it by sounds but there is an alphabet yeah there is the thing that this reminds me of is my old palm pilot days where palm pilot had a special alphabet that you had to write on the palm pilot in because it wasn't good enough to do true handwriting recognition you had to write simplified versions of each of the letters and the the T-line short hand is reminding me of this that I used to be really good at writing at what was called graffiti which was it was a simplified version of each of the letters and since I used a palm pilot all through college I ended up writing lots of my notes in graffiti as opposed to writing them out in regular letters because I got so used to constantly on my palm pilot doing the simplified alphabet and like I'm just looking at the letter A for example is exactly the same that in graffiti you just do it as the as a quick up down you don't bother with the with the across stroke or anything the thing with T-line though is that A you're looking at in the T-line alphabet like when you're a beginner you use A but you very quickly learn that almost all those letters you never really use like that they become parts of other things so the alphabet is kind of like it's a bit like Mr Miyagi getting you to sand the floor and paint the fence and you're thinking okay I've learnt the alphabet and then later on Mr Miyagi says well you're not actually going to use that alphabet but it has taught you a whole bunch of skills you are about to start using so it's quite it's quite an interesting thing I'm funny really interesting looking at all these Google images of other people's T-line because I can I can read a lot of it it's quite funny so there you go I do do a short hand and I don't do my short hand in all capitals next time we're in person I want to see you write out some short handle yeah definitely I'll be very curious to see that I'll do it I'll be a performing monkey for you thank you that that is exactly what I want yeah performing monkey just don't talk too fast I probably could I could probably do about 80 to 90 words per minute now I reckon I'm going to practice my 120 words a minute speaking that's what I'm going to do all right I'll play my old UK video and see if you can write that down I definitely couldn't do any of your videos I couldn't do your Henry you guys know fracture right there are regular sponsor here on how I went to that and I have to admit I'm becoming a little bit obsessed with them what fracture do is take your pictures well they don't take your pictures you give them your pictures but these pictures may have ended up forever buried in a folder on your computer or deep in some Instagram feed and fracture print them onto glass not behind glass onto glass you end up with a super clean and elegant piece with a special thin phone backing that can be hung on your wall in seconds now anyone who's tried to frame their own pictures or paid for someone to do it we know this is either a tricky or a pricey process ease your pain give fracture a try now I've been looking through the FAQ on their website that's fracture me.com and I have to say I was mightily impressed it's one of the better FAQs I've seen a few things I learned included the meaning of fracture which apparently is a hybrid of frame and picture and I'm a bit dumb but I actually hadn't figured that out yet I also learned they ship internationally which is great news if you live outside the USA where fractures are made I don't know what they call the making of a fracture like a fracturization or just fracturing I don't know anyway I also learned in the FAQ all about all the different types of file sizes that you can upload for this process I won't go into that now but it's all there on the site really simply explained and they pretty much take everything you're going to want to upload but here's the best bit of all you can order your very own fracture or fractures and let them know you came from hello internet which is great for us and get 15% off your order all of this in one task how can you do this simple go to fracture me.com and when you check it out use the coupon code hello internet 15% off that's not to be sneezed at fracture me.com and our thanks to fracture for supporting the podcast just before we started to record I was listening to our old podcast the one from two episodes ago I listened to that today as well that when I was out on my run how do you think we did I don't know it was alright I obviously didn't like the book and had a bit of a rant and you kind of had a bit of a chuckle and basically it turns out a really good friend of mine is a fan of the book as well oh you're a good friend of mine you're a fan of the book another good friend of mine is also a fan of the book I should say and as he said to me when I was having a bit of a winge about it he said yeah the problem with that book is basically the whole book just can be written on index card you know it's two or three sentences that has been puffed out to an entire book so I found that quite quite gratifying because maybe that was the problem for me I just want just cut to the chase buddy give me your two tips and I'll decide if I like them or not but that I thought the podcast was fine I'm glad you were entertained by it you seemed to you seemed more entertained by it than than anyone that getting things done section particularly at the start when you really lay into me that has to be my favorite thing that we have done on the podcast thus far I thought that was that was just great I really enjoyed that section the listeners clearly enjoyed that section I just happened to check today our download stats and we are over 150,000 downloads on that episode so I think the I think the people liked it as well I really enjoyed that section well maybe I should give you a 20 minute section next podcast where you can tell me why the moon landings were faked yeah we need to find more things that you can get you can get really live and up about no if you do the why the moon landings flaked that'd be like your revenge on me laying into my passion no no no I would only bring up the moon landings being fake which they obviously are simply to get you riled up to defend it that's the only reason I would I would do something like like mention those totally bogus moon landings but we'll have to do that next time we'll do that next time right do you feel like we have unfinished business because obviously we didn't talk about everything in the book are there are there things still nagging at your mind okay so here's here is one of the things that when I was listening to the episode I was thinking for first a broader point which is that the the longer that we do this podcast the more I have this feeling of how of how impossible it is to communicate with other humans even like I think this this is this is a perfect example of of we are we are not adversaries we're doing this thing together we are listeners who give each other the benefit of the doubt but even when we talk about stuff it is very interesting to me how hard it can be to communicate ideas to another person and then of course as soon as it gets on the internet it gets wildly distorted even in just in the reddit comments yeah and listening to that that GTD section to me was was another example of this of of listening to myself just failing to communicate thoughts inside my own head I won't I'm not planning to go through this on like a blow by blow but it's it's just something that I have noticed over time with the podcast and I've also felt from you sometimes we've talked about later like it's it's hard for you sometimes to feel like you're explaining to me like a thought that you have yeah I mean I've I understand that but I have to say I didn't get that from the reddit like looking at the reddit it seemed pretty cut and dry to me it seemed like there were portion of people who sort of shared my thinking insofar as they thought the book was insufferably boring and therefore struggled to read it and then there was another portion perhaps a larger portion because there were more vocal of people who think the book had tremendous value and it has done a lot for them or they think it has the ability to do a lot for them and perhaps they wanted to know even more about it but I didn't feel like there was I didn't see a lot of stuff in the reddit where I felt like people didn't get where you and I were coming from people's reactions were very cut and dry but if this phenomenon of time implementing the system versus time that is working okay this is the joke I always make about you spending more time coming up with systems than actually using the systems to help yourself I don't think that there is any way that I can give an impression that I do work as opposed to creating lists about work because because when we talk about something I'm always talking about the systems and the lists right and I don't talk about the hours that are spent actually working because there's nothing to talk about it's just boring like I'm just sitting down and I'm doing work and so there's a simple fact you think that's boring is the whole point to me that's the most interesting part of your life but to you that's the most boring part of your life well but let's just see again we're immediately we're coming to the zimpast but it's just yeah if it's just interesting that there's always going to be this imbalance about like what you talk about versus versus your daily life and the similar thing the only thing I can think to relate this to is like talking about things on the podcast that either annoy me or things that aggravate me or times that I'm stressed out and when I listen back to the podcast it's like I can see how a person has this image of my life is being very high strung all the time when that's not even remotely the case but the thing that you talk about on the podcast are those moments and so you're always going to end up now this I'm not even just talking about it in a podcast in particular just talking to anyone in general there's this imbalance between the things that they spend time talking about and the actual time of their of their lives and so with the with the getting things done I feel like we didn't even touch on the whole reason why that system works really well for me is that I I spend a very small amount of time each week pre-planning the work for the rest of the week and the rest of the week I'm just doing it and it's like a chef getting all his ingredients out for 25 10 minutes and then spending an hour to making the actual meal this yeah this is this is a good comparison but it's also why you can imagine that two chefs getting together could spend forever talking about the preparation phase even though it is vastly less time than the actual working phase what I wanted to just specify when you ask like why did this system work for me as opposed to other things this was the big deal was was creating this separation between working me and planning me and I know I'm always talking about like future me and past me like like these this I think is useful to think about yourself in these different terms of present you future you and past you and trying to set up the notion of deciding what you're going to work on in the future and trying to stick to it as closely as possible is an extremely helpful notion of I already decided what I'm going to be working on today so that when I get up I'm not thinking oh what am I going to do today let me look at my lists it's already it's already set it's already clear for me because this is what now in my life I usually do this on Sunday mornings I do my little bit of pre-planning for the week and then the rest of the week I shouldn't be doing that stuff and that separation is surprisingly helpful to me that's that was that was I think the the biggest thing that was missing from the conversation last week that we didn't really get to get to talk about do you long for spontaneity and sometimes not knowing what's going to happen during the week or that sends chills down your spot and you want you like that even the way you're framing it I always find this so interesting because you will imagine that my life is is this life of of boring gray boxes that are all perfectly pre-planned and set up I'm going to open all of these boxes in exactly this order and I've decided and they're like this is not my experience on a daily life it's it your question is so far off I feel like I don't even know how to how to answer it and it also presupposes that I am I am able to 100% of the time just just sit down and and magically work through all the things that I have planned I don't always do that days go wrong things don't go according to like this happens all the time in in in my life all right great well I'm aware that you have this suite of programs and software and things that I don't fully understand made by this group called the Omni group and you've got Omni focus and Omni planet and Omni do up your shoelaces and Omni diary and whatever I don't know what they're all called let me ask you this how many times a day do you catch or open an application with Omni in its name Omni focus is almost always visible to me in some some way and the reason why I like it is because I do the pre-planning on on Sundays normally yeah right and then what happens is during the week I've set aside times for various activities and I have a little list for each of those activities and so for example on my Omni focus right now I'm looking at it one of those activities is writing so there are times that are set aside for writing which are happened to be times that I find unusually productive yeah and so I don't really need to look at that list but I do just open it so it's there and I see it that list has on it the stuff that I should be working on right now well great I've I was following you on Twitter the other day and and you famously like you know live tweeted during the day as this list you were doing with a red badge had like 80 odd items and the number was getting lower and lower through the day that doesn't sound to me like a light Sunday morning planning my week over eggs and then don't look at it again this sounds like a list with a number counting down that was dominating your day that was the day where I was intending to upload two projects and I've just uploading one project but what I have yeah okay so one other one of the lists that I have which is what I was going through that day was there's another list now is there I have a list for each activity right sort of lists within lists the not within lists it's a flat layer there's no there's no list within lists I have the writing I have the Hello Internet podcast I have videos I have errands these these are like the main main lists yeah and so on that day when I'm intending to upload a YouTube video I can open up the YouTube video list and I can see here are all of the things that I need to do today if I'm going to upload a video right and so that's what I was working through now the now the the omnifocus list happened to be over 100 because I thought there's actually two things that were supposed to go up that day a video and a podcast right and so what I was doing was I was just grinding through basically a long checklist that I have set up of here are all the things that I need to happen when I upload a video and I was finishing animating that morning which is why I was an unusually long day but so I'm just going through that one one item at a time and I'm not like focused on the list the list is just there so it's like okay I've finished the rough animation click I tick it off what's the next thing on the list okay great now I need to synchronize the audio with the animation then once I do that click tick it off okay what's the next thing on the list clean up any animation work that needs to be done click tick and that's all I'm doing like I'm just going through that thing to get to the end of the day and then I was also doing that with some of the podcast stuff which is okay I have the audio the audio needs to be processed once the audio is processed you know tick click that box what's the next thing that comes up now I need to do this so that I find that extremely helpful and that's that's the way that I I use this but the the idea that I'm sitting there thinking about the lists constantly is couldn't be more wrong it's it's not remotely what's happening when I'm actually working but I do think about on Sunday mornings okay what what's going to happen in the next week how how does this system need to be set up so that during the week I don't have to think about it I just have lists of things that need to get done and I can just go through those lists that's that's the way this system works and that's why I find it really helpful separate the planning from the doing you never find yourself day dreaming about oh I wonder if I could make my list better or wonder if I should use a different list system or oh I definitely think that but one of the things that I have I have learned and I meant to follow it up with you last time but the conversation moved away really quickly is you mentioned the term productivity porn and that that is like a standard term on the internet which is the thing that you need to learn to be careful of which is if you're just thinking about your system you're not really working right you're not you're not doing something this is the equivalent of looking at pornography if you're just thinking about your system yeah and so I'm aware that at times when I when I think about how something can be done better this is again where the note system comes into play I make a note of it and then again when Sunday rolls around that's my time to look at that stuff and to think oh this crazy thought that I had in the middle of a Thursday afternoon is this still a useful thought or is this something that I can just just delete as opposed to like that is not the time to start really getting into it because you should still be working now you shouldn't be tinkering with your system and you have to learn how to not be trying to tinkering with the system all the time so that that's that's how this actually works for me and it is extremely helpful to me to be able to do stuff like this as opposed to just feeling like I'm constantly in the wilderness and trying to decide in the moment what I'm going to work on that that's that I find is is not very helpful does your system have any flaws is there anything wrong with it what's that you tell me it's good for you and it works is there any downside here I mean the biggest problem is me following through the more problems with me as a as a human being than I think there are with the with the system really like I always try to improve the system because that's the part that you can improve but sometimes I just I'm not working very well or I'm working at a really low productivity and particularly with I always mention it but particularly with the writing is always the thing that feels like it is the most out of my control but it's it's I don't know how to work on those things directly so that's why I focus on always trying to improve the system I we talk last time about some of the problems that I have with getting things done in a modern world with computers I still don't quite know how to fix that but my my system is something that is adapted to me over years now of tweaking and trying to make it a little bit better at a time so I think it's for me as a person this is the best thing that I I have without going into details obviously because it's it's not my business but does your wife use the system I'm not I'm not being mischievous it's just you know you share a house with her and I just wonder how how how how she fits in with you because she's obviously the person who you know you spend the most time with just she use a system like this or is she more of a pre-spirit or so yeah she I mean she doesn't use anything remotely close to my system right I know that she keeps lists of things that she needs to do but I think she does it in the much more informal way that most people do it where they have they have lists like a checklist in a fine or in a diary or something yeah and I'm aware that that my that my wife does things that when she's feeling overwhelmed she makes a list of stuff and then she sort of goes through it but she doesn't have she doesn't have a system like mine I don't I don't know very many people who have a system like mine does that create friction or problems or is it better like the fact that you have this sort of quite regimented system and the person who you share your home and your life with doesn't does that have a cause problems or is it completely easy no it's it's nothing but great and this is where again I I have independent evidence that I am better now than I used to be because my wife she knew me just around the time when I was starting to do getting things done she I would have met her yeah almost exactly the time I would have read that book and I started to put all this stuff in place and she is the first one to acknowledge that I am a way better way more reliable person than I ever used to be and she is fully aware that it is because I put these systems in place for myself and that when she first met me I was not a very reliable person I was not very good at accomplishing things so this this doesn't have there's no friction here she is thrilled that I am this way because she has seen me build myself into a better person than I used to be but you don't try and voice to upon her no not at all in the same way that I don't try to voice this upon you and I didn't even really think that you should read getting things done you're a you're a natural you I don't think you need this stuff and I also don't think that this is the kind of thing that you can voice on another person someone has to want to do this and again was I sort of made reference to it in the past but like I used to I used to work with people who wanted to build systems like this I you have to want to do this and you have to be the right personality type which is one reason why when when we talk about productivity systems I can sometimes see in the red that people react in very opposite ways and and some people go yes I totally understand this like let's talk about the details and some people go I don't understand at all and I don't think that they're I don't think that that you can force a person to be one way or the other so that's why I don't force this on anybody I just talk about it because it's a thing that I think about but I'm not I'm not evangelizing oh everybody should adopt my system not not in the slightest why do you think people are so fascinated with your systems and your way of working because I mean you're the first to admit this too you're not a massively productive person like I could imagine someone saying oh my goodness I have to know how destined works because he's so productive and he has eight different jobs in a huge family it has all this different stuff and yet he still churns out stuff or I could see someone saying how does Henry do it he's got minute physics and he's got minute earth and he's got all these are how does how does Duke from the Vatican do it he's got he's traveling all over the world and he's making all these awesome videos and that and yet the person they want to know about the person whose productivity system they seem so fascinated by is the guy that puts out one video a month maybe and like why is this why is this come about do you have a I guess it's a high question for you to answer I would take slight issue with your statement that I am not productive sorry yeah yeah I know we've discussed this before yeah you are you are above average my my answer to to that is partly why I think people are interested I may just be please let me know in the reddit the actual reason I'm just speculating here yeah but I've always been I've always tried to be really clear about it that I I am interested in getting the most amount of work out of myself but that is not the same thing as being interested in in working constantly I am not interested in working all of the time okay but I I am extremely interested in when I am working working as effectively as possible and one of the things that I think is is a is a real like something I think about a lot is what in my brain I think of it as as the disease of busyness that it's really easy for people to be busy all the time and I think some people like to feel that they are busy with work they're busy busy busy busy busy but what are they actually accomplishing with the busyness and so I I have very much tried and been successful of removing an enormous amount of busyness from my life because I try to be really ruthless and say if I am working I'm really working and what have I really done I have written another draft of a video which is the best kind of thing that I can do but you know what like if I open it I've been really terrible with email lately if I open up my email lately I actually now have a like a couple hundred email messages that are just totally unread I haven't even looked at them yet and I'm not concerned about that because the best kind of work that I can do is bringing a video closer to release which is what I've been focused on for the past couple weeks and it's why I have another video out now so I guess that's why people are interested because I care a lot about when I am working working to maximum efficiency so the appeal of you is that you are a successful non-workaholic I am increasingly convinced that I am some kind of freak because all of the people well let me let me back that up I won't say all of them because there are there are some there are some people who are somewhat secretly like me but the vast majority of very successful people that I meet they seem to me to be total workaholics like they are working all the time and I am not that kind of person that that is not who I am and I am almost always like the least interested in working person that I know who has still achieved some level of success and I'm guessing that might be why people are interested my other guess is also just just like I try to be really really free in admitting like I used to just be terrible and I've made myself better and so maybe that's why people are interested as well like a story of hope yeah no I great I often forget this because I don't spend a lot of time with this sort of person but I forget that the majority of people consider their ideal job to be one where they have a lot of free time to go on holidays and play computer games and go shopping and spend time with their family and to me that's like it's a strange thing and I know it's a good thing but to me it's a strange thing and I forget that that's what most people want in life they want to be successful and have a great career and earn lots of money and have a rewarding job but they want lots and lots of time to themselves yeah and I guess people are seeing that in you and like I have no aspirations like that I want to I actually enjoy working too much if I have too much time away from work I start getting antsy and unhappy and oh because it's I want to be doing it yeah I want to do it everyone has that threshold that I I can't not work that if I don't work I also start to feel just kind of depressed like oh like what is the point of anything so my threshold for work is not zero I have to do something I will always have to do something but I think most people who have that feeling have it much more like you do where they feel like they want to be working much more than me if my threshold is something like 25% your threshold is somewhere around 95% that that you you do want to be working quite a lot and I feel like I can satiate that need for work much sooner than you can if you were able to peer into our brains that is the difference whereas I I am very happy to to not work and I and I really focus on trying to keep those edges crystal clear of am I doing work now because if I'm doing work I want to always be working on the most important thing that has the most impact to my business and then if I'm not doing the most impactful thing well then I'm okay just now I'm not working now I'm just going to relax now I'm going to play a video game right now I'm going to read or now I'm going to explore some place like that that's how my life is is divided up okay the very next bullet point that I had here which I wanted to ask you about as a follow up to the GTD which I'm not even sure you'd be able to answer this but like I would want to know what is your system for for working like we we've spent some time talking about my system but but I have a suspicion that you wouldn't be able to even articulate what your system is that your system is you sit down at the computer all day and you just work I mean that's kind of right I did say that note I did say you'd written in the show notes Brady system question mark before I went for my run and I made me think what is my system and I mean in some ways you're right and then I'm very scatty and I just jumped from thing to thing whatever takes my fancy and I do have a weakness that you will not have and that is stuff does fall through the cracks a lot more with me because they don't get written down as much I mean I put I put all important things into my calendar so I don't miss appointments days I have to pay my tax and things like that hello internet podcasts of course yes thank which you seemed which you seemed to have taken control of in my calendar which is amazing yeah do do which craft but if I had to define my system in a on an index card I would say it goes along the lines of I get up in the morning and I do the thing that I'm most excited about and the thing I most want to create and the thing that I'm most enthused by and things that I'm not enthused by but have to be done get done at the last moment they can be done and still be finished in time so a cool video about a mile of pie will be edited the day after I film it because I'm so excited to make that video whereas doing my tax will be done the day before my meeting with the accountant because that's the last day I can do it before it has to be done yeah so everything so cool things go to the top of the list boring things get pushed down as low as they can possibly be without being so low that catastrophe happens which I know is not a good system when you just describe it that way at least at least the part where you're talking about things getting pushed down to the bottom I do the same thing things don't fall through the cracks because I write everything down so it's all in my system but I'm I'm much more aware of making conscious decisions to not do things now because there's always an infinite number of things that can be done with a business and so yes something like taxes definitely gets pushed off until the point when it becomes urgent and important like oh this needs to be done now this is a problem that stuff gets gets pushed away but it's usually because I'm pushing higher priority tasks to the front but there's always an infinite number of business stuff that can be done and and lots of lots of tasks which are very low value tend to just not get done in my system because I'm making a judgment that they're very low value but I leave them in because I want to still have I want to be able to survey the field of all of my possible options and make decisions about what needs to happen but the only other thing that I would say is I have learned and I think this is partly just because my projects take longer than yours do that I cannot rely on interest or motivation to direct my work that is deadly for me because I will always become more interested in a new project faster than I can finish the old one and so part of this system for me is trying to make sure that I keep working on something longer than the point at which I am just naturally interested in it but don't you get the payoff from the moment it's created like that really drives me like if I have some idea for a video and it involves a really really tedious animation because I sometimes do those things too that take like two days in Photoshop of just moving things around what was the the night one the the night on the board you spent forever yeah yeah the night's too a video took a really long time to make but but I was so motivated by seeing the finished product that I would have spent a month doing it because even though that's boring the the payoff at the end really motivates me so of course I'm always more excited by a new idea but I also get a real impetus from wanting to see something finished for me very often the reward is in figuring the thing out right and then I have some there's like a half-life of interest in the thing which I often feel like I'm racing against to finish to finish the drafts of the video and then to get it animated as quickly as possible after that but what about the thrill of the review you you mentioned this before and this this again I I have much less of this I think than you do I'm I feel much more just a sensation of relief when I put a video up of like oh thank god that's over and it is up it is done and now I can relax a little bit I don't I don't have the same kind of like everybody take a look at this thing whoosh whip away the curtain feeling that that I think you obviously do and that is clearly able to motivate you much more to work on things again I think that you will you benefit from being able to have much shorter turnaround times than I can yeah that if if I was able to figure out a thing in a couple of days and then also get the video out in a couple of days I bet I would probably feel a lot more like you do like boys and this exciting but because my my process is just longer by the time it's done it is mostly just oh thank god I have I've been pushing this boulder up the hill and I've made it to the top of the hill and now it's whoosh you know down the other side it can go and I'm going to sit here on the top of the hill and either sandwich and watch it roll away well how has doing the podcast been for you then because this this doing this podcast is for you an insight more into my way of working I mean we're recording this on a Saturday and it'll be out at the start next week it'll be out within days so this is an example of you you having less time to become bored with your product do you find doing the podcast different from the videos in that way I have often thought that me doing the podcast is way more like your videos yeah and even though the the videos are my main thing I I would say that the podcast from start to finish is just way easier and it's way more fun because it does have a much more immediate reward and I find myself getting a little antsy about how fast can I get the podcast up so the podcast has been a really interesting experience for me to work on the other reason why I think it's it's me getting a tiny bit of insight into your work is that the podcast aside from the live recording which I always find exhausting but after the fact it is it is the editing and there's a there's a way at which I can do the editing at any time and I can really sit down and spend a long amount of time going through and editing the podcast in a way that I could never do with writing I have sat down with the podcast for four hours straight and edit and then I get lunch and then I go right back at it and I can do that on a weekend in a way that is just impossible for me to do with writing so it is a very different kind of work and it has been a really interesting experience and I think yes it is it is much closer to to your work or as at least as close as I'm ever going to get to the kind of work that you do I guess with the podcast like once we've recorded you've got your clay and that's all the clay you're ever going to work with whereas when you're writing sometimes you're just sitting there waiting for clay to fold down from heaven and sometimes it just doesn't fall yeah that's that that's the frustrating thing with writing whereas with the podcast there's only one way things go which is cut and the question is what is the point at which you don't cut anymore and it's it's just a much more straightforward task and it's and again the thing that it's amazing it's a task I can do with any time whereas I'm I'm I have learned and this comes back to my obsession with being productive when I'm working that between the hours of one p.m. and five p.m. I might as well just never write anything because nothing I ever write during those hours is good if I'm going to write I need to write in the mornings or in the evenings but afternoons are just death whereas I can edit the podcast at any old time I can edit it in the afternoon I have a case as you know I have occasionally I wake up really early in the mornings like I don't know why sometimes my brain just says oh three in the morning is time to get up and I'm really happy when I have a podcast that we've recorded and I wake up early in the morning because it's like right okay this would normally be a waste of day but I can just sit down and start getting to work and it's it's nice to have something like that to work on. Hmm well that great you've got it to work on now.
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