H.I. No. 111: Disgusting Wheel of Filth

"H.I. #111: Disgusting Wheel of Filth" is the 111th episode of Hello Internet, released on October 15, 2018.
==Website description==
"Grey and Brady discuss: heatwaves revisited, progress in project Cyclops, The Apple Watch as Black Mirror horror, Brady goes to Peru, being from America, leap year criminals, doggy bags, The Buzz, and C-words."
I clicked on the very first thing that was on the front of Wikipedia, which is the Malagasy mountain mouse. I'm on the exact same article. The Malagasy mountain mouse. It's no reunion swamp end, but it's not bad. I'm now super disappointed that there is no, there's no photo of the Malagasy mountain mouse. If it's related to the Jamaican rice ratten anyway, that would be too much. It is from Madagascar. Yeah. Listen, like some team out there needs to get a photo of this mouse and release it to the public domain and put it up on the Wikipedia. I think this needs to happen. Sorry. So we're both looking at the same page. I'm now googling pictures of that mouse while you can hear it. No, Brady, don't go down the thread. You're getting lost. A couple of shows ago, Brady, you may remember I was complaining about the heat in the UK. Yeah, it was the heat wave. Yes, it was the heat wave. Now the way the timing of recording and releasing our show was, it went up the day a few newspaper articles went out saying it's the biggest heat wave ever in the UK. Yeah. It even has its own Wikipedia page now. It was such a big heat wave. Yeah, yeah, toge. Toge, yeah. Well, you told me and everyone in the world told me. Yeah. Huge amount of comments and tweets and things from people at that point. Great. It was a tweet wave. God damn it, Brady. You just saved me up these soft foes. I think when we're recording the show, you're there ready to pounce at a moment's notice, at some terrible pun because you know that they caused me physically. You're there like a stealthy leopard just waiting, watching, and at any moment, you're going to leap and tell me something like it. Tell me that's not good though, a tweet wave. That's pretty good. Okay, look, I really hate to admit this, but that is definitely one of your better ones. Like that's a good thing. And that's exactly what it felt like. You get hit by a tweet wave of like, oh, God, all these people are telling me this thing. And I don't understand. Everybody wanted to tell me, oh, it really was a heat wave. LOL, you're dumb for thinking that it's always this way. Like no, there's really was a heat wave this time. It's different. I don't understand how if it really was a heat wave, that's an argument against putting air conditioning in the house, but like whatever. So let's go back in time because I did a little googling before today's show. Yeah, we're going to go back back to 2003 when a much younger, perhaps more idealistic gray, immigrated to these fair shores. 2003. If we go into the time machine, oh, look. Here's an article about the 2003 European heat wave summer that I arrived. It was super hot. Yeah. Freakish occurrence. I'm sure. Now we're going to click forward to 2004. Nothing happens in 2004. Just a regular summer. No problem whatsoever. But then 2005, article from the BBC, UK has experienced the hottest summer on record. 2006, we go forward. There's a Wikipedia article about the European heat wave in 2006. 2007, there's a Wikipedia article about the European heat wave. 2008. Now this year, according to the telegraph, it was merely a mini heat wave that struck the UK, talking about temperatures higher than it had ever been before. Right now, we fast forward. 2009, Britain declares heat wave as temperatures rise, talking about how the Metropolitan Office has raised their amber alert for heat waves in 2009. You're not quoting the Daily Express, I hope, because that's a paper famous for hyperbole around weather. No, I'm looking at the Guardian now. Okay. That's right. What says here in this BBC article that 2018's summer is tied for the hottest since records began with 1976, 2003, one of the years you named and 2006, another one of the ones you named. So we have had a little cluster. Yeah, I agree. But we're not done yet, Brady, because now we're at 2010. UK heat wave causes hundreds of deaths. If you're going to Google every time a journalist has used the word heat wave during a hot spell, you're going to win this debate. They all list the temperatures as being like in the 90s. It's the same thing. 2000. I thought you were going to do something quite legitimate here and you're going to call up some met office weather data and make your case. But if you're just googling and cherry picking news articles. Oh, sorry, Brady. What can I do? Am I looking at the news? Like I shouldn't rely on the news to describe when heat waves occur. And in offence, I genuinely did try to pull up like what are the actual Metropolitan Office? Right. Like I was trying to get like the median temperatures for the summer. That's not hard to get. OK, I found it very difficult to find like what I'm looking for, which is I want to like a 30 year period of like the median temperature in August, like that kind of thing. So instead you just lazily went and cherry picked if you just googled the word heat wave. I was looking at the news. I thought I could use the news as a primary source, but I guess I'm wrong. I shouldn't have done that. But OK, if we just go to the second year. Yeah, exactly. You're the one who's Mr. Antony News and now you're using it to make your argument. Is this another bash to the news date? I'm going about the weather. Make up your mind what argument you want to have. Right. Because my heart, you can't use as a crutch the news that you hate so much to boast to your other argument about the weather. My argument is that it's hot in the summer and English people always write it off as a heat wave. And so I think the news is a perfectly appropriate source to see like do people discuss the summer as heat waves? And for 14 out of the last 15 years, I have news articles about like it's a heat wave. There's an amber alert from the Met. Here's a Wikipedia article about like the European wide heat wave. Like it's a ridiculous number of like heat wave stories, which I think totally validates my point that English people just like deny the fact that it's hot in the summer and talk about it as though it's a heat wave. Like that it's a freakish occurrence that heat waves never happen. Oh, what happened was people were talking about the unsazingly hot weather. Yeah. You said this is a bait up. It's not that hot. No, no, no, I was complaining that it's hot. What do you say? I wasn't saying it's not that hot. The whole thing was like, no, what you were saying is you're saying it was normal. You were saying it was normal. Yeah, that is hot every summer. People pointed out to you that the day to show that 2018 was the equal hot summer since records began in 1910 and 2003. Yeah, which bolsters the claim. And then you're like, you're not accepting that. You're like, oh, no, no, it wasn't unusually hot. It was just a normal summer. And people saying, no, this was not a normal summer. It's what the Met Office was saying. I have no idea. I haven't lived in England that long. But the Met Office is saying 2018 was an unusually hot summer. I don't know. Maybe they're wrong. Maybe they're thermometers aren't working. No, no, no. Like, both of these things can be true. Like, it can be unusually hot and also hot every summer and also always described as a heat wave. Like, I just, I don't understand why I received this tweet wave of feedback where people were trying to tell me like, it's not hot. Like, oh, this is a freakish occurrence. It's not hot during the summer and it's hot every summer. Like, it's not hot enough to require air conditioning every summer for the last 15 years, which is totally the case. And like, maybe upon these Emerald Islands back 20 years ago, like, we didn't have summers like this, but spoiler, like, it's hot. It seems like the temperature is going up. And I don't think the temperature is going to be going down any time soon. Like, things are different. CGP grade dot protest too much, me thinks. What do you think I'm protesting too much? I'm trying to tell people it's hot during the summer and you can't say like it's a heat wave every single year. That's what the summer is. All right. Were you not sweltering in your office, Brady? Yeah, I was because it was a heat wave. Oh, I can't tell it. Look, right. I've got English people always exaggerate about the weather and love talking about the weather. We discussed this last time. I think unfortunately for you at the time that you were making this point in a colorful way. It was the week before it was the hardest week ever. Yeah. Unfortunately for you, some data was released that let people do a little bit of a wrong on the internet moment. But I hear you. Yes, yes. British newspapers to sell more papers, love exaggerating about the weather. But this was 2018 was hot. I actually went over, I went to an island in the Bristol channel right in the middle of the heat wave. And it's a island where lots of birds breed. And the island was covered like a carpet with dead birds because the birds couldn't handle all the heat and the lack of water. And the people who like run the island said this is really unusual when it's because of the weather and stuff. So like I feel like I was seeing not just I was hot in my office, but I was like seeing carnage, nature carnage being caused by this unseasonal weather. So I think it's legit that 2018 was a bit unusual. But you know, I'm not saying it wasn't unusual, Brady. You know what I'm not saying? It wasn't unusual. What's your point then? Summer happens. I don't think anyone. You're like, you're about to say you don't think anybody disagrees with like summer happens. But I'm telling you, the English people disagree with summer happens. Like that, that I feel like is my fundamental point here. I can't. English people disagree with summer happens. You remember last episode we discussed the idea of a YouTube without view counts. Yes. An idea that I hope grips the internet, but I'm sure we'll go absolutely nowhere because YouTube will never do it. But when we put up the YouTube version of that episode, I was thinking, oh, you know what? I was also working on this video, which like a mayor may not put up and I wasn't sure. And I was thinking, oh, this might be an interesting time to put something up without view numbers or reactions. Because that's kind of the point. I thought, let me test this with the Hello Internet YouTube channel where we discuss this idea. I thought, you know what? Let's put up that video and not have comments or view numbers or thumbs up and thumbs down. Can you turn off your numbers yourself? Well, so I'm digging around in the settings. Comments? Easy peasy. You can turn it off. Thumbs up, thumbs down. Also, very simple. You can turn it off. But I'm looking in the settings. And there seems to be no way to turn off the view numbers. Now, maybe I'm crazy, maybe I'm misremembering. I thought back in the long, long ago, you could turn off the view numbers. I may be mistaken about that. Maybe that was never the case. But I had always had it in my mind that this was an option if you wanted to, that you could upload a video without view numbers. But it turns out you cannot upload a video without view numbers. YouTube requires you to have the view numbers there. So I found this sort of interesting, maybe not surprising, but I would also say I was a little bit disappointed. Because I was thinking, oh, even as like a art project, or as the point of the video itself, it is not possible to upload a video to YouTube without the whole world seeing what those view numbers are. Or if there is a way to do it, I was not able to figure it out. I didn't think it was ever possible. I think you can consider certain amounts of the analytics and data from the public, but not the view count. I always forget this exists, but there's like a little stat box that you can click on underneath the YouTube videos, which has all of this additional information. I never remember that it even exists there, but that was one of the things. Maybe that's what I had confused in my mind of like, I thought that that must mean that the view numbers go away as well. But you can disable that little thing that I think nobody really knows even exists in the first place. So I'm disappointed. I'm still going to hope that maybe one day YouTube thinks a YouTube without you numbers is a good idea. I'm not holding out for that. And when I realized that I did kind of totally chicken out on putting up a video on my main channel. And instead, I was like, I'll get to put this up on the second channel. Because I thought like we were discussing last time, but really didn't want to have like a random video that goes up. That looks really terrible with view numbers. So yeah, decided to shove it along to channel number two. It's not possible to have a video without view numbers on YouTube. Was that pride and vanity or a fear of algorithmic penalty to your main channel? I'd say it's a combination of both. Also in no small part, as we were discussing last time, you can end up having like these weird news stories around YouTubers. And I was thinking like I also didn't want to put up a video on the main channel that maybe makes it look like I'm kind of going crazy and losing my mind a little bit after a long time of not uploading a video. That too was like lurking around in the background. And I was like, you know what? I don't need to become like a news story as like YouTubers lose mind as YouTube destroys them all. So I'll put this also on the second channel for that reason. Why did you think putting it on the second channel would make you immune from that though? Just because it gets less attention, the second channel subscribers, they are probably more likely the more intense subscribers. I think they're also much more likely to listen to the podcast so they have some idea of like why I'm doing this. And so I just think it has much less of a chance of like spreading out into into the wider world. Like nothing secret on the internet. But I just thought like, let me do it this way. But I think in an alternate universe, how'd I been able to conceal the view and thumbs up and thumbs down and comment numbers? I probably would have put it up on the main channel as like an interesting aberration. And that was not to be that video on the second channel. Did you switch off the comments and the thumbs? I think I did. Actually, I don't remember now. Obviously something that weighed heavily on your mind. Look, once Plan A was destroyed, Plan B was like, ah, whatever. Hello, internet listeners. You've heard me talk about fresh books before. The sponsor that helps you save time and get your invoices paid quickly. They've recently hit a pretty tremendous milestone. Over 10 million users have chosen fresh books as their go-to cloud accounting software. 10 millions, a lot of people. That's not something you can really conceive of in your head. But once you give fresh books a try, you'll understand why millions of people have made the choice to use fresh books. Fresh books is just ridiculously easy to use. You can send invoices in 30 seconds, set yourself up to receive payments online in two clicks, and take pictures of your receipts to manage expenses. By fresh books calculation, this could save you up to 16 hours a month. 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So like if this was an experiment from years ago, it would be wrapping up right about now. And my current feeling is like, oh, I feel like I've barely begun. So I'm glad that I set for myself a much longer time horizon to do this. What are you finding easy and what are you finding hard? So dropping podcasts has been super easy, which I was kind of not expecting. Simply just not listening to podcasts is by far and away the easiest thing, which is also the biggest win. I was thinking like, oh, suddenly my whole life is going to fill up with nothing but audiobooks from now on. I'm just going to have one activity replace the other. And weirdly, my audiobook listening has also plummeted. Like I haven't substituted one behavior for the other. So that has been much easier than I was thinking. The harder end is definitely like the Reddit hacker news side of it, which is the like the habitual side. And that is really the case where I just recognize like how dumb your brain is and how your brain gets into these little loops and it just does things. Where all of the little stumbles I had in the beginning of the month were entirely because a machine was not locked down very well. Like without even thinking it like, oh, how does hacker news get open on this homepage? Like I don't even understand how I got here. And suddenly I'm like cruising the thread. It's like it's such a strange behavior. So you have lapsed. Yeah, I've had a couple times where I've like ended up on common threads. It's like not a big deal. This is sort of like when we mentioned at the beginning of this, like this is the difference between you and I where I feel like, yeah, getting back on the wagon is like that's the journey of the wagon. Yeah. And having a couple of stumbles here and there is like, whatever, there's no big deal. Yeah. I will mention the totally funniest one for me that really caught me off guard is I went into an Apple store to check out the new phones. And I was like, oh, look at the size of this new phone. This is super interesting. Ah, I'm on hacker news again. Like how did this happen? Duh, like drop the phone. Like it transmuted into a jellyfish in my hands. Like how did this occur? I don't like, I don't have any understanding. Did my brain wander me into an Apple store? Like just to get its comment thread fixed, like I don't understand, was some part of my brain totally plotting this? I don't get it at all. Like that to me was like the most hilarious moment. I'm like, oh, if I'm touching a device that I haven't locked down, old me is going to read it in like seconds. And suddenly I'm looking at funny animal gifts. Like, where, where, where how did this happen? It's like it doesn't count if you're on someone else's phone. It's just such a funny moment. And it really struck me again about the habitual nature of this. Like the, oh, you just open up Safari and sort of like do this little habit. Hang on a second, Gray. This is not like muscle memory. It's not like you just went and pulled down a menu of favorites and clicked on the one you always clicked on. You would have had to have typed in the URL. Yeah, but I don't use favorites. I always type in the URL. I think it's interesting because what I've noticed is like the computer I'm on right now, like it, you know, I installed software like lockdown, browser access to Reddit and stuff. And it's super interesting to notice that like when I did that, each machine has individually had some sort of half life where I open up the browser and like go to Reddit and then the browser says, you block this from yourself, you idiot. Oh, right. Of course. Like it just takes a little bit of a second to recognize something for behavior change. Yeah. And then with each of the machines, there's been this half life of like, oh, I sort of do it less and less and less and less. Yeah. Whereas in the past two weeks, I haven't had any lapses at all because like, oh, I've been on all of these machines and everything's fine. And I'm not even going to check. But I just thought it was interesting like being in a totally different environment, the old habit came right back. Again, something about being in the Apple Store struck me as like, this is the most absurd way I could have a lapse. In the universe of all possibilities, this is the funniest one to me. It's like, is this way to do it? So. Greg, I've never used that kind of lockdown software. But I think about it a lot just out of curiosity. Can you override it? Is there like a code or a pin number or a password that you can say, no, I really need to look at how can you? It's like presumably you can override this software. How does that work? It depends on how serious you want to get. So like on the Wimpy end, there are things like browser extensions, which are to block visiting websites. I always find those totally useless because they're just too easy to blow past. And it's one of my frustrations with the phone. Like it's very hard to block things properly on the phone. So that's on one end. On the more extreme end, you start getting actual pieces of software that you install on your computer. And the one that I'm using called self-control is pretty hard core. But ultimately, if a man broke into the house with a gun, and it's like, you need to be on Reddit in 20 minutes, or I'm going to kill you. I know how to circumvent the software that's on my machine. But it's just too much of a pain in the butt. But I need software that's at a pretty high level of like, this is a real pain to try to circumvent. But it is possible. Like it's possible to do. Is the circumventing built into the software? Like is it supposed to be there? No. It's like a cheat. No, self-control is the one that it's not built into the software. That's pretty draconian. That's there. The intended use case of self-control is say, like, you want to sit down on your computer, you're writing your term paper, and you really need to work for the next two hours, and you can't goof off. The idea of self-control is to only run for some period less than six hours, and then it turns off. But if you dig around in the terminal commands, you can set it so that it runs for, I don't know, three months. That's what I did, is I went on all my machines and I said it. So I was like, three months from now, that'll be the time where I have to manually tell it to run again. And so that's what's running on all my machines at the moment. You remind me of that stylist character from, is it like angels and demons or or is it the Javinci code or what? You know, the one who like, you know, it's like self-legulation type thing. You're like putting yourself through this ordeal that seems so over the top. This is the thing that's hard to explain. It doesn't feel like an ordeal, and that's part of what I mean by there's this thing where it's so much easier than I would expect. Okay, genuinely, I'm just going to use this metaphor here, but I'm not trying to beat on anything Brady. I just like as a comparison. But it's like years ago when I decided like, I don't think I need to follow the news. Or before then, I decided like, I don't think I need very much TV in my life. You go through this period where you feel like, oh, I'm kind of missing this thing. But very quickly, it becomes this very abstract thing. And I think that's one of the reasons why podcasts were super easy to kind of step away from. Because so many of the kinds of podcasts that I listen to are all sort of like this show. They're continued conversations like they're referencing what happens before. And if you step away for a while coming back to it is like, it doesn't have like this super draw on it. And the internet is the same kind of thing where it's like part of the fun of comment threads and memes is like the live mutation of all of these things. And how they interact and like, man, when someone makes like the perfect meme joke, that's like a mutation on an iteration that you've seen a thousand times like, it's like it's a thing of beauty, like it's artwork on parallel. But you can only really appreciate it if you're there all the time. And so when you step away and then come back, it feels weirdly meaningless. And I was super aware of that. And like the couple times when I lapsed and I was like, found myself looking at the headlines. I was like, I just had this feeling like, oh, I'm here, but I don't care anymore. And I don't care anymore because I have no idea what happened in the last week with any of this stuff. And so that's what I mean. Like, I know it probably sounds from the outside like it's self-flagulation. But from the inside, it doesn't feel like that at all. It feels more like I've let go of a bunch of stuff. And there are all things that when you let go of them for a little bit become like much easier to let go of. Where do you get a sense of community? Like are you still part of any communities or like society? Like you're just pulling out all these different plugs over time. At what point will you no longer be plugged into society at all? Yeah. So this is the one thing that I do want to kind of talk to you about in particular, reading because like of people that I know, like you seem pretty connected with the world. And like, you know what's going on. And I can say that in the past month, I feel like I am the most disconnected from the world I have ever been. Well, I know that because we spent 20 minutes before the show with me bringing up today with like the most massive news stories in the world. We often before the show officially starts recording. Like, oh, you'll mention something and it's like, oh, maybe I haven't heard about that or like, I vaguely heard about it. But this time felt like a really different time. Where you're like, here's this thing and my response is like, I've never heard this word before that is apparently like the most important thing ever. And I would agree like it's an important thing. And so I honestly think that I am about as disconnected from the world as a person who lives in society can be right now. This feels like it's one step away from the cabin in the woods. And I'll tell you, I've been thinking about it a lot, especially because of this show us doing Hello Internet because I don't mind being disconnected even though this feels like, oh, maybe it's a little much. But I am aware like this shows not a like is not a new show. But it is a thing where we talk about stuff in the world. And the previous two Hello Internets were really interesting case because we talked about the Project Cyclobs 1 right at the beginning of September. And then we recorded a show two weeks later. And because I happened to be traveling and then extremely isolated because now it's like, oh, I'm not even talking to anybody for this two week period. We came up to the show and like, I was saying to you, I am basically the exact same person I was two weeks ago. We might as well have been recording a show minutes after we stopped recording the previous one for all the change that had happened to me at that point in time. And thus the episode where we do questions from the book was born. But it's super weird now because a month later, I'm still kind of having that same feeling like, man, I am so disconnected from the world. I'm not any different from the same person I was two weeks ago. And I don't really know anything different about anything in the world from two weeks ago. I think if it was just me on my own, I wouldn't mind. But hello internet suddenly realized has to keep me tethered to the world to some extent. Right? That's what has to happen. So it's weird. I've been thinking about that actually a lot as we've been approaching this recording date and the week is going on. I was like, well, I don't know what's going to happen when we come to Hello Internet. Now, of course, I always feel that every time we go to record a show, but this does feel different because I'm definitely the most disconnected I have ever been. So this just released to something else that I've been thinking about a lot over the past two years, which is, I'll call it this Brady, the importance of novelty in one's life. Like I do a lot of time tracking of how I spend my effort and energy. And in the last two years, I have been aware that because I'm self employed and because I've been able to rest greater control over my environment from the world gradually at peace by peace, it means that so much more of my environment is under my control that I've reduced the amount of like novelty in my life. You know, just the number of like, oh, have you done something that you haven't done before or have you done something that's new? And I've been trying to track novelty in my life. And I think that's sort of just been in the background. But being extra disconnected with project cyclops has suddenly raised novelty to a much more important factor. You know, it's like you can't both be disconnected and do nothing new. Like those two things are not a delicious soup mixed together. It's I think it's a bad idea. I've been trying to think about like venues by which there can be more novelty. And I don't have this well thought out. But I've been kind of thinking like doing different stuff for the show. If I'm disconnected from the world, maybe suggestions from the audience about like, here's a novel thing to do or try. I don't really know, but I just don't think being totally disconnected and also lacking in novelty is a good combination. So you're saying have people from the audience make suggestions like go to a pony painting party or something like that. Right here's the thing, Brady. I was immediately like, I'm not going to a pony painting party. That's ridiculous. But surely isn't that the whole point is like, yeah, this would be something that would be novel. Yeah, yeah, I don't know. It's just a thought. I don't know if it's going to go anywhere, but it is one thing that I'm aware of one month into this project's nightclubs and looking down the barrel of three more months. All right. We'll think on it more and come up with a way to make it happen. I've had a thought, you know, because I'm still not convinced that you haven't misdiagnosed this whole thing, right? And putting all the blame on podcasts and Twitter and Reddit and stuff like that. I'm not entirely convinced that there aren't other things going on and you're just like finding something to blame. Right. Tell me more about it, Doctor Brady. I've got something else to blame. Have you thought that maybe contributing factor to your problems or the things that you're trying to deal with in this way could have been caused by the Apple Watch? Because it does co-inside, like the decline does seem to coincide with the time that you got the watch. It's this new invasive piece of technology. You talk about how, you know, you feel like you can't get away and there's always things nagging your attention on that. And you've got this thing on your wrist. Have you ever considered that the Apple Watch was a contributing factor? I'm actually only half joking. Brady, don't you dare speak ill of my beloved Apple Watch. Just thrown it out there. I know you're very interested in finding anything other than my stated reasons for what's going on, but I think it's an interesting point. I would say no, but if I was a different kind of person, the Apple Watch would have been super bad news in my life. I think for people who get a lot of notifications from their phone and from the internet and who don't do a good job of managing those notifications, the Apple Watch is like an accelerant to that fire. So yeah, I think you're right that for certain people, it could be super bad news, but my Apple Watch is ridiculously locked down. So I do not think that is the source of the problem, but I appreciate Dr. Brady looking for other reasons why what's going on, maybe going on. Just putting it out there. Are you tempted by the Apple Watch app, Brady? You know, there's a new one. I know there's a new one. Do you know what? I feel further away from watching one than ever before. Okay, tell me why. Why? I don't understand. Because my affection for mechanical watches is ever increasing. And I feel so connected to my phone. I already feel like I'm an absolute slave to my phone. It's always in my hand. I'm always looking at it. I'm always taking it out of my pocket or it's not even need to cut some out. I don't see a need for more technology and notifications on me. And it's not because I'm Mr. Hey, I'm too cool for technology. It's the opposite. I'm already too controlled by it. And the Apple Watch doesn't look that good. And it's like a bit samey and you know, everyone's got the same one. And I don't know, I spent a lot of time with people who are wearing smart watches just lately, particularly Apple Watchers. And it just it put me off even more. What because of how often they were getting buzzed and distracted. No, not even that. I just don't you just don't like the look of it. Yeah, I don't like the look of it. And I don't like what it is. I don't like that it's a little black computer on your wrist. Right. There's virtually nothing that appeals to me about it. I love the way you say that you don't like what it is. I feel like I received a real feeling in your expression of the way you said that. That's like, blah, like I don't want this thing. And I was asking and I just find it interesting because this year in particular, I feel like is evidence for my theory that they're going to just keep adding so many health features to the watch. Yeah. That it eventually becomes a device where it seems almost reckless not to wear one. Well, the thing is it's going to become mandatory aren't there like insurance companies now that are including some kind of Apple watches or health tracking as part of the policies and stuff. And that's part of what I meant when I said I don't like what it is. Like it's this increasing like saminess of us all like because as they become more common and more popular, you see them more and more. All of a sudden we're all wearing the same watch. You know, we all have the same phones or they look the same for all intents and purposes. Yeah. And now we all have the same watches like it's this other part of like our expression and our personality and that that's been taken away and replaced with this same thing and all the kind of eels and evils that come with technology, you know, tracking and monitoring and addiction to connectivity and things like that. Like it's like, oh, God, like, and as I see it becoming more and more common, it doesn't appeal to me more. It makes me oppose it more. It's like, oh, I don't want to be wearing the exact same thing on my wrist as everyone else. No, I can really feel that. Like I understand totally what you mean by that. When you say what it is, this little black snail wrapped around everybody's wrist, but this is like, there are these inevitable or at least they seem to me inevitable arrows of technology. And I really like my Apple Watch, but I like my theory has always been like you will wear one eventually because it will seem crazy not to. But I guess it never really occurred to me until this moment that that doesn't mean that you like it. I think in my head, I always assume like, oh, Brady, he'll like it at some point, but that's not a necessary condition for Brady will wear the Apple Watch. Because my insurance is void if I don't wear or something. Yeah. And like the things that they added this year about fall detection and heart health detection, I don't think it would be mandatory in a first world democracy, but I could see that like the insurance premiums for not having it just become too onerous so that it's functionally mandatory. Like I could imagine that happening. I don't know. Suddenly Brady, I find myself having just so much more sympathy for you in this position because again, like when I thought like, oh, Brady will wear one eventually and I thought and he'll be happy, but maybe not. Like, oh, I don't want Brady to be in an unavoidable Black Mirror universe. That makes me sad thinking about. That's what it is. It feels like I'm living in a Black Mirror episode when I'm sitting at a table and every single person's or wearing the same watch, you know, what if they suddenly said, okay, everyone in England now has to wear a Black T-shirt every day. And that's all you can wear. You all have to wear Black T-shirts. I mean, you'd love that. But I'd hate it. Anyway, anyway, I didn't mean to start an Apple Watch discussion. I'm sorry. Hold on to your mechanical watches, Brady. I really just feel like you're the underdog all of the sudden. And I'm really gunning for you to hold on to those mechanical watches. Hold on tight. See here we go. So, Brady, you have been in Peru. I have. I was there for two weeks. It's my first time there. Yeah. What was it like? Very beautiful. Was it hot? Did they have air conditioning? The weather was perfect. What does perfect mean to you, Brady? It means not so hot that you are sweating, not so cold that you have to put on a big coat. That does sound perfect. Basically, sweat is a big like point where I say it's being happy. So I don't like sweating. Yeah, no, it's disgusting. The big thing is you feel I'll do human and meat of meat. Sweat. No good. Sweats not good. So yeah, I went to Cusco, which is one of the highest cities in the world. Very high altitude city, very beautiful heritage listed in UNESCO sort of thing city. And then spent a few days there and then started a big long trek that culminated at the very famous Matchipitu. But I didn't use the traditional Inca trail that all the backpackers use. I went on a different trail called the Salcante trail, which is sort of a longer roundabout way to arrive at Matchipitu that involves going around this huge big mountain called Salcante, funnily enough, over the Salcante pass and then you approach Matchipitu from a different perspective. It was really good. If you go to my Instagram, you'll see just a small collection of the 3000 photos I took while I was there. I'm not lying. I took 3000 photos. Well, I mean, you have to make sure you remember it, right, Brady? You can't have it disappear into a vacation that was amazing and then you just don't even remember it after we're in exactly the point of that. This is exactly true. This is exactly true. Because going to Matchipitu, question, this is such a bucket list place for so many people in the city on the top of the world. It's amazing how many people I saw use that exact term bucket list in like comments and responses when I said that I was there, like, oh, that's on my bucket list. It wasn't on my bucket list. Brady's just incidentally going to Matchipitu. He's passing by, oh, I did this thing. Do you know what? That's kind of true. Jesus Christ. No one just accidentally strolls into Matchipitu. This is the situation. I wanted to do trekking and walking in high mountains and I've done it a couple of times in the Himalayas and basically we were just looking at other places we could do it and Peru seemed like a really good option and most of the good tricks in Peru that we looked at happened to be ones that culminate at Matchipitu because it's such an amazing place and great place to go. So it wasn't like we sat there thinking we want to go to Matchipitu. We were thinking we want to walk in amazing mountains and like stay in nice places then we found this great trek that we wanted to do and it just so happened that the destination was Matchipitu. Okay. All right. That makes sense. And Matchipitu is amazing. Don't get me wrong. It was one of the places in the world that I have been to that looked amazingly like the photos. Well, that's what I was kind of wondering. It's on all these people's bucket lists because it's a trek to get there and it looks great in photos but I can't help but have the suspicion that we're eye to trek to Matchipitu perhaps in a quest of novelty that's definitely not going to happen that I would arrive and go like yeah it looks just like the photos. I don't know why. I don't feel that way about lots of places. I don't feel that way say for example about Antarctica but something about Matchipitu every time I see a photo I think I bet it looks just like that when you're there and so I don't feel that any need to go. The only thing that I felt differently about when I was actually standing there was you have a greater sense of the setting that doesn't come across in photos like all the mountains that are around you and how high all is in the cradle it sits in like you do have a greater sense of the place and the how extraordinary it is that it is in this place like when you see that the typical photo of the ruins and the little peak behind and that sort of thing like you know that's pretty and interesting looking but you don't have this sort of sense of the grandeur of the overall setting and how they got it there. You know I was thinking during the trip a few times about whether you would have liked the trip and whether it would have been a good thing for you especially in the context of project cyclops. I didn't put headphones on and listen to stuff like I didn't listen to podcasts or audiobooks and things like that while I was walking which I have sometimes on other trips I just walked partly because I was with a few other people so I could talk to them but also because I just liked the solitude of just like hearing my footsteps and my breathing all the time and I found a very peaceful, very disconnected and I really liked it and I thought I think this would be good for Gray maybe this is the sort of thing he needs to do like just a week of your own brain and just the sound of your own body and massive mountains all around you. Also the coffee was really good apparently and it was so good that I even tried some because you walked through coffee plantations and we went to a coffee plantation and then they showed us how they were roasted, this woman roasted the beans in front of us and then like cooked it all up and made coffees so I thought I have to try that so I drank my second ever cup of coffee. What did you think? What was the verdict? It was just pretty good. Like my first cup I thought it tasted a little bit like dirt but I liked it. I love that description. I just I really do. I never would have thought that but you're totally right it's like yeah coffee does kind of taste like dirt but more bitter almost like dirt would be better but people who know coffee were telling me that all the coffee we had everywhere was really good. There was one thing about the trip that I think will be a deal break if I tell you okay. So do you want to be put off the trip? Look there's a 0% chance that in my life I'm going to Peru like this is not going to happen. I've looked at a map of the world and I put circles around places I'm likely to go and big crosses around huge swathes of the earth where I'm just like you know what I can live and die and never set foot on this continent and I'll be fine. South America I'm sure you're beautiful. I feel no pressing need to go so you can ruin my trip to Peru. You're missing out on a lot of stuff by doing that but you know each to their own. The thing that you wouldn't have liked and it happened three times two of them in particular is the driving. I have heard stories in the past about some of the mountain drives that you have to do in Peru in cars or buses and how precarious they can be and two of the drives in particular that we did where we were going from you know point eight to point B before we could do the next part of the trek were hair raising to say the least along the sides of these mountains and cliffs and like 30 centimeters to your left is this precipitous drop into a ravine of hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of meters. You in some vehicle that you're not that comfortable with with a driver who you don't know and it's a dirt road and there are trucks and buses and cars coming the other way around blind corners and at least 30 or 40 times on each drive you think we're about to tip over and go over this cliff it was really quite scary most people in the vehicle were terrified by like a lot of weight nuggles yeah I was quite open to the fact that this could be it you know this could be how I die. Oh wow okay so even toughest nails Brady was like coming to terms with death. I mean in my head I would have just I would have walked out of the vehicle and just let dusted myself down right maybe had a broken phone right you don't need Michael Douglas to save you in the jungles I understand. No but you definitely would have found that unpleasant there are only like 30 40 minute drives but highly unpleasant. No thanks. I think I may very well skip that but you're totally right that hiking in the woods like that is the thing is right at my alley. You got to get the mountains gray not the woods the mountains have got something more there's something more. Brady I love your romantic something more voice does the Pacific Northwest count for you because in it like in a tiny precursor to this current project device elation like this past summer I spent a week in Washington doing exactly that just like going into the mountains and doing hikes you know it wasn't for an extended duration to a particular location but it was hikes in the woods good. They were mountains in those woods. It's good I need to walk more I want to walk and trek more I think it's good for the soil. I totally agree with you I think it is really good for the soil like it's in terms of things that I'm trying to do more of this year that is definitely one of those things I have some hiking boots in the UK finally I've always had hiking boots in America and I've just never bothered to buy any here so yeah walking in nature even though I'm like not a huge nature guy I will totally acknowledge that your phrase is exactly correct it is good for the soul to do that and it's perhaps one of my growing frustrations with London is like there's not a lot within convenient striking distance that's even remotely like that to do you know whereas visiting my parents in North Carolina you know as with much of America you're never too far away from wilderness in most of America as like oh boy in North Carolina in 20-minute drive you can feel like you're in the middle of a terrifying forest that no human has ever seen before but not so much in the southeast of England. No you got to go a few hours out at least or you got to go to Peru yeah so I spent some time with Americans while that was away okay and I have another one of my little observations about Americans that I have learned they did not like having pointed out okay or maybe I just pointed it out indefinitely I can't imagine that very very well but here is here is my observation okay and you explain it to me I have theories but you know I'm sure you have the definitive answer so at some points we were required to introduce ourselves to say who we were and where we were from it was actually for this blessing ceremony so we were saying it to this this shaman who didn't speak English but we had to say our name I am Brady I'm from England and then he would say some prayer in his native language and bless us to the mountains for the trip I am Brady I'm from England I am Jeff I'm from Canada I am Sandy I am from Australia and then it will always be I'm Max I'm from North Carolina I'm Sam I'm from Texas uh-huh why do Americans always say the state they're from and not the country whenever they're introducing themselves hey hey who are you where you're from I'm Bill I'm from California why not I'm Bill I'm from the US I'm American they always say the state you sound frustrated yeah by this I am this is harkening back to uh always it like the letters yes that you get where they would just list the state I think it's the same root cause as well oh you think okay you think it's the same root cause I don't quite remember what you thought was the root cause there okay in defense of Americans don't you dare say America is a big country no look I hate that argument too because there are lots of big countries yeah no there are lots of big countries and this is also where I really hate the argument that many Americans drag out about how they'll say America is a big country but then the the part that really gets me is they'll immediately follow up with and it's so different oh different places that's exactly what I was being told how diverse and I said I've been to lots of countries and I think America is close to the most homogenous of all of them there is totally a narcissism of small differences for Americans but it's like again as someone who is driven thousands of miles across all of the various parts of America like I've been to Alaska I've been to Hawaii I've touched a lot of states I've been to a lot of places in America and yes there are differences like places are different Arizona is not the same as main and Texas is not Hawaii places are different but if you compare them to other nations I agree with you that like for a nation of its size America may be the most homogenous nation on the face of the earth it's like it's very samey everywhere so I just totally reject the cultural oh the south is so different from the north no it isn't it's not that different like it's a little different but it's not that different so I was not going to give you an argument and by the way I should point out that this introduction thing I'm talking about is when you're outside America of course not when you're in America yeah well when I was going to say like in fairness to Americans yes not that America's big but the state determines a lot of like how you actually live in America in theory anyway the state is like the sovereign unit and so what is really different between different states are laws about everything and like what can you do with your property here what kind of taxes do you pay over there so I think it kind of makes sense that people are thinking of in terms of this unit like oh I live in New York and New York has like all of these laws and regulations and these are the things that I follow and when people think about moving in America they're very often like jurisdiction shopping for like what do they want the rules or taxes to be like in other states so I don't know it just seems like it makes total sense to me that the primary unit of identity is the place that like the rules are for where you live and in America that's the states I accept that in America but I think there must be some kind of lack of self awareness to be able to put that to one side when you are outside your country and being asked where you're from when the shaman in the mountains of Peru says where are you from surely you should have the self awareness to say well he doesn't care what the difference is between property taxes in North Dakota and New Jersey I'll just tell him I'm from the United States I think you should be able to put that to one side I don't know like I always feel like I told a mess when people ask where I'm from because I know again I never know how to answer this like well I grew up in America but I've lived in England for a long time like you don't want my life story and I always try to triangulate based on the interlocutor what is the answer that is going to get me the least number of questions but I will never say America I will say New York I will always say New York every time and I don't think it's it's unreasonable to say New York because that gives people some kind of sense of what it is in the same way that like you know listeners right now when I say the word Arizona you have an idea in your head of what Arizona is there is a presumption going with all of this admittedly usually a correct presumption that people know all the states of America you know if you say I'm from North Carolina okay well where's North Carolina I don't know where there is is it's north of South Carolina like correct yes there is a presumption that we know all the like I know New York I know California but like not everyone knows all the states of America or where they are or what that means and yet people will use the state I do think there is a vanity about it I think the defense of it is and you did touch on it inadvertently is minimizing the number of questions you have to answer because America is so famous yeah when someone says I'm from America I'm from the United States there will often be a second question I really whereabouts because I've probably heard of it yeah they're immediately gonna ask where yeah so that's fair enough but I think they should almost be like a social norm or a humility to wait for that question to not just assume it's gonna come maybe it's the English like a stateness coming out like sort of the over the top humility oh people surely people wouldn't care where exactly where I'm from I'll just use the broadest possible answer so that you know because I who would care about me no one would care about me I'm just an Englishman so maybe there is that kind of that aspect of it but just to presume that people want to know your life's to yeah I'm from Wisconsin one I enjoy your sort of Texas was constant there that was entertaining to I'm enjoying that you're an Englishman in this conversation here the Australian I meant the English part of me yeah right the English part of my personality yeah but what I'm thinking of because I actually think that the best comparison to this is the United Kingdom it's the only place I can think of off the top of my head that has what feels like a similar jurisdictional division between the sub entities and like I'm pretty sure that Englishman scots and the Welsh and the Northern Irish like they're gonna tell you which country they are from they're not going to say the UK they're going to say I'm from Scotland no that's fair enough that's fair enough but do you think that's wrong no I don't I think that's a higher tier up myself like the difference between Scotland and England is a bigger difference than the difference between you know Texas and California even I think they are countries I don't know maybe I'm being biased I think that's fair enough but I think if you met someone from England and they said I'm from Somerset or I'm from Nottinghamshire or I'm from Liverpool or Newcastle I don't think that should be their first answer yeah but that's like instead of saying oh I'm from New York it's like I'm from Suffolk County you know nobody would say that like that's a crazy especially at the county level is like nobody cares at all maybe if you say the town then some people would care but like the county who has loyalties to the county level of government no one no one cares about that so I don't I don't think anybody would say they're from Somerset County like that's weird if nothing else you have confirmed my belief that Americans are very sensitive about having this pointed out no I don't think it's sensitive I just I think it's weird of you to say that Americans should say the top level jurisdiction they should say the United States then how come everyone else in the group did the Canadians didn't say what province they were from look I don't want to hurt the Canadians feelings here Brady don't make me say things that I'm going to regret okay but look part of the reason as well the rest of the world does get touchy about it but America really matters like it's a really important place that lots of people know a lot about like it's not just important on the world stage but it's just it's hugely important culturally in the English speaking world so it's like yeah if you're talking to like a shaman in deepest darkest Peru guess what he's probably going to have seen movies that take place in New York and LA and San Francisco and Atlanta like he's probably seen these things so as an American as you stride upon the world right people know the concept of America and they also know the concept of the subdivisions of America and it's like sorry Canada you're a lovely nation but people don't have a concept of the subdivisions of Canada in the same way that they would have a concept of the subdivisions of America yeah so I think that's the reason why it's like America is not going to be so polite as to pretend that it's not like a big deal on the national stage I definitely agree with that statement America is definitely not going to be so polite as to do that I don't think it's polite it's just it's natural people know it's humble it's humility it's all right I'm happy now you've said everything I wanted you to say as long as you leave that in I'm happy that that's exactly the attitude that I think they have and they're not wrong about it but it's not very humble I'm glad that I could confirm for you that non-humble nature of saying the stupid truth from it is interesting after I had the conversation later on on the trip like because I made some great friends on the trip of Americans people were coming up to them and I heard one of them someone said to them where are you from and this woman answered I'm from New York I mean the United States what were you bullying the Americans on this trip were they touchy or were you a big bully you're like no you've got to say America I didn't say they had to say anything did you say you were from England Brady I did yes just poke you little England that isn't famous on the world stage it was that's why people know what England is at one time England bestowed across the world yeah but no longer give it another two or three years now to say I'm from Europe although I won't be part of that anymore either no you won't be part of it and also look give it another 20 years and we'll all be knowing the different provinces of China yes and so you know things come things go this too shall pass hello internet this episode is brought to you in part by fracture like Brady on your most recent trip you may have taken one two perhaps even three thousand photographs that's a lot of pictures but how many of them are you going to look at again they're just going to get lost into the digital void enter fracture fracture takes your digital images and prints them directly on to glass to display in your home or office so if you've just finished that hike through the mountains or you've been at an important family engagement take a look through those photos find the one that is special and get it fractured fracture prints are handmade in Gainesville Florida from US sourced materials and they'll arrive in a sleek, frameless design that goes with any decor and it even comes ready to hang right out of the box with a little wall hanger for you just in case you don't have one so make the meaningful moments in your life more memorable by getting them fractured and displayed to do this go to fracture me dot com slash hi for a special discount on your first fracture order that's fracture me dot com slash hi and don't forget to pick hello internet in their one question survey to make sure they know you came from us thanks to fracture for supporting the show and thanks to fracture for making everyone's vacations and special moments more memorable check out this new story gray okay this is just a little new story but absolutely intriguing from Australia of course basically the nub of the story is there was a girl who committed some offense some crime and they didn't know whether to treat her as an adult or a juvenile because of leap years she says what like what is this pirates of penzance like I don't understand what kind of courts you're running down there in Australia yeah I think her birthday was February 29 okay and she committed an offense on February 28 on the day before or the day of she would have turned 18 so does she turn 18 on February 28 in which case she would be tried as an adult or does she turn 18 on the 1st of April in which case she was still a juvenile when she committed the offense because she was 17 so because she was born on February 29 and she committed an offense on February 28 in a year where there was no February 29 so there was no 18th birthday to celebrate they couldn't decide whether to try her as an adult or a juvenile has Australia not run into this problem before of leap day criminals do you know what I'd be surprised if they had do you think there are that many criminals born on February 29 who commit a crime on February 28 the day before the 18th birthday that's a pretty rare problem maybe leap day babies are especially criminal I don't know surely this has to be resolved just for things like drinking yeah you know not like crying yeah but drinking driving like surely leap day babies want to get driver's licenses when they can and leap day babies want to drink as soon as they can or serve in the military or run for office or any of these things that require you to be a certain age like how has this not been settled in Australia although I am very much wondering how it settled in other countries but like there must be legal precedences for this kind of thing you right there must be a precedent for when you can get your drivers license and is it the 28th of February or do you have to wait till first of March sorry I should have said before not first of April now first of April that's how that works with leap day baby you have to skip a whole extra month first of March that would have been driving people crazy sorry sorry people who were currently thumping a message into the reciprocated quick quick catch your breath Brady there's a tweet wave of a comment you're gonna be under for a few moments but just hold out man you can make into the surface I am aware that March is the month after February and not April are you sure Brady because you said the other thing I did I did I you said that you said I just I replayed it back and I listened and you definitely said first of April so you were wrong you were definitely wrong and now I'm wondering like was my pirate pen's answer reference even correct I don't know like oh god the internet it'll come I'll find out four months when you log onto Twitter and go through all those ads that you've missed over the last four months that is something I am not doing if and when I come back boys it's gonna be a clean slate thing I don't need any of that you start and you Twitter account or something yeah I'll burn it all to the ground right I was just trying to look up is there anything here I can see precedence for in the united kingdom the status is your birthday counts for March first and the Supreme Court in Australia determines that this go was 17 at the time of her offense well isn't that convenient yeah it looks like New Zealand goes the other way they go February 28 yeah so it looks like there's a few countries I don't see the United States on here maybe the United States has not yet run into a leap date criminal well it'll be different from state to state in the United States obviously right oh yeah theoretically yeah unless they're committing a federal offense that's true it will be different from state to state yeah if you're a proud South Dakota you know you can drive at 14 you know the all these different things so I should be looking at the state by state rules it's an excellent point they're braiding I mean obviously nobody would ever do this but you should actually be counting 365 days from the February 29th so that that person has like a rolling birthday right they keep sliding sliding backwards in time I guess it would right that's how that would work it would slowly go like the 28th and then it would eventually be the 27th and then the 26th I think if it was me that's how I think I would handle the leap date birthdays but then all that birthdays would slide every four years like every person's birthday would slide yeah no actually that's a good point all birthdays are sliding birthdays yeah this is obviously the most sensible way to solve this problem in the kingdom of gray all birthdays are sliding birthdays I have declared it as such because you have firm on the 365 days being exact yeah 365 days that's what we're doing people all right so great tell me in a restaurant how do you feel about doggy bags if you've got left over food oh see now when you said doggy bags I was thinking something different you were thinking of poo bags no that's not what I was thinking of I was I was thinking of when I was growing up and we had our little yorky and she loved to be with the family and we had a little handbag a little stealth doggy bag one could say in which she could sit and come to the restaurants with us and so when you say doggy bag and restaurant that is where my head went to immediately was okay how do I feel about doggy bags and restaurants and the answer is if the dog is well enough behaved to be stealthy nobody needs to be the wiser this is perfectly fine now obviously I'm talking about the bags the restaurant will supply or a box to put your leftover food in so you can take home and nibble on it later on because I was at a restaurant the other day and we were we had some leftover food and the restaurant person asked us if we wanted a doggy bag and one of the people I was with was outraged by the whole notion of doggy bags and thinks they're a barrenton a bit gross and no I would never I would never do that other people I know do use them they obviously avoid food waste which is not a bad thing I don't understand what is the objection like you own the food like you've bought it from the restaurant I mean if you wanted to you could slide it right into your purse just take it out if you're at a restaurant and you order a pizza and you only eat half of it will you take the other half time no never but I mean that's mostly because I'm just lazy but you're you're really like I always think if you was being you're definitely at one end of the hygiene spectrum and I would have thought the idea of taking home food like would maybe not appeal to you for hygiene reasons but I mean I get food delivered to the house isn't that the same like food is in transport across the city yeah I don't think that's any different yep I just don't do it because it's a lazy factor I know future me is never gonna heat up that food like it's not going to happen right now I am sitting 10 feet away from a refrigerator that has been stacked full of easily heat upable food by my wife who is gone for a while and she was of course concerned about what am I going to eat and has gone through great efforts to make sure that there are supplies in their refrigerator yeah and like everything is as simple as it could be but I know there's a higher probability that a lot of that food will not be consumed because it's like I have to heat it up this seems like it no I don't want to do this it's like it's extra step when you could just co-five guys for delivery yeah it's like boop boop I compress a couple buttons on my phone and a delicious burger is delivered straight into my mouth you know why I have to turn on the oven and then I don't know this is not gonna happen so that's what the doggy bag feels like to me I didn't come to a restaurant so that I would have to cook later I came to a restaurant so that food would be prepared but I don't have any problem with people taking a doggy bag home I can't really conceive of what the problem would be like it's again you own the food now you can do with it as you please I think it was more like a snobby attitude like oh this is I mean the fact it's cold a doggy bag like this is because this is food for the dogs if you want to give it to your dogs they would enjoy it greatly and I though I would have no problem with that at all I think that's perfectly fine you can't be giving Audrey that much human food no I've got to watch her wait such a tiny thing the big human portions they're not for her I mean I know I haven't actually been to one but I know there's restaurants in America where when you order they don't have a doggy bag for you they make a second copy of whatever you're ordering for you to take home is that a doggy bag I don't you know it seems that seems fine it's an interesting thing they're just dealing in bulk and the idea is like oh you ordered lasagna in the restaurants and we're also going to make a lasagna specifically for you to take home to have later it's like look at this economy of scale we're taking advantage of here so I totally want to lasagna now I'm a bit hungry I'm sorry Brady I shouldn't have I shouldn't have mentioned it okay anyway I'm seeking no answers from you it's just one of these issues where I thought I wonder what gray thinks about doggy bags it seems like something you may have interesting views on turns out not so much but do you have thoughts like are you pro or anti doggy bag I tend to not get them but that's because I would have concerns about the cooling and the heating of the food and that sort of thing I'm not opposed to them the simple fact is if I'm enjoying the food enough that I'm going to take it home I've probably finished it anyway and if I haven't finished my meal it's not because I want to take it home it's quite a lot like it very much that's an excellent point that's an excellent point Brady I'm not a big left over kind of guy at a restaurant yeah I'm totally ordered something so yummy that it's gone in seconds I'm trying to run over the catalog of meals I have eaten in restaurants that I would have enjoyed enough to bring home and you are correct I will enjoy them enough to finish it no matter how much there is yep and then have dessert look we haven't done the buzz for a while oh yeah we haven't done the buzz for a while there's just a story I liked because it was bit of a perfect hello internet storm because this combines the buzz and playing crash corner oh Brady you're not going to ruin the buzz for me are you like I don't want to hear about bees getting injured if that's what this is about to be a swarm of bees flew into the engine of a mango airlines plane forcing a delay in flights at the main airport in South Africa's coastal city of Durban B experts were called in and they safely removed the estimated 20,000 bees from the engine the low budget airline said if you have a look at the picture and then if you scroll down a bit further to the picture in a tweet there's a picture of two I'm assuming they're beekeepers or their arrow engineers dressed as beekeepers removing the bees from the engine of the plane oh I'm going to assume there's a professional beekeeper I don't think you can you're not going to mess around with just getting the ground crew to put on a beekeeper suit and try to extract some bees I think it's going to end really badly a tweet from mango airlines two beekeepers were called into remove a swarm of bees that had started building a nest in the engine of one of our aircraft this unfortunately meant delays on three of our scheduled flights the bees were safely removed I'm pretty impressed that bees went for a plane engine I would have thought there'd be things about a plane engine that would have been deal-breakers for a swarm of 20,000 bees but obviously not I think it would smell like gasoline I don't know if it actually wouldn't yeah that's the way I would just imagine I am genuinely relieved that no bees were harmed in this story that this is not I thought you were going to tell me about like some plane crash where a whole swarm of bees got sucked through the engine so these have just been safely removed I'm very glad about that within 25 minutes these bees are decided to make the engine their home presumably after the engine a bit shut down they got in there quick didn't they bees are busy like that's the way of this work really the thing that concerns me most about the picture and I know this is a weird thing to be concerned about is the fact the beekeepers among their tools they seem to have a huge palm yeah I'm looking at that I don't quite know what the palm frond is for is that for tricky bees it doesn't seem very technical like when they're middling around with like aircraft engines I don't like the fact that they're relying on part of a palm tree to make the engine safe yeah and like I know this has come up many times when we discuss engines but would I want to imagine an airplane engine is it is a ma that will destroy anything that enters it and still keep working just fine that's how I like to think of the engines like a black hoe yeah you know like in the movies you can send a man right through an engine and the plane keeps going and it's fine right whatever yeah but you show me these stories and it feels so much like what an engine actually is is this incredibly delicate piece of machinery that a single bee in the wrong spot can totally destroy you know it's like like I'm happy the bees are removed but part of me really wants to know where they removed because someone running that airline really likes bees which would be fine or where they removed because the engine would not be able to survive a bunch of bees so you're saying really they probably could have just started the engine and the base would have just been mashed up and everything would have been fine but they were being like politically correct I don't want the bees to be hurt I hope they were doing this to save the bees especially like here's the thing that calls us into question from me Brady the line that you read there 20,000 bees removed from the engine the low budget airline said yeah and like you say that and that to me sounds like when a low budget airline really cares about this delay for the bees or is the low budget airline worried that the bees are going to destroy the engine oh so chodalistically Gray why do they have to say that it's a low budget airline like we already do that with airlines do we we wouldn't say like the low budget food or maybe we would yeah I don't know I don't have familiarity with the style guides here I find it weird that articles will always mention a person's age when it doesn't seem relevant right they'll be like oh you know Tim McGinnerson 41 from Minnesota I always found that annoying especially as a journalist who sometimes would get told off by the sub editors for not having an age sometimes sometimes it's to do with identifying the person so they can't be confused with someone else particularly if you're reporting like you know a crime or something so the other Tim McGinnison or whatever doesn't sue you right but generally I think yeah they do go a bit over the board with ages tell you what though this is a good piece of journalism this bee piece because I'm reading further down and they go into great detail says here it took a while for the removal team from the privately owned ABC company B spilt B double A very clever to get approval from the airport authorities to get on the runway so obviously these beekeepers had to like you know get security checked before they could go on with their palm for on and start poking around in the engine yeah what is that probably for I just keep staring at it in this photo he's holding it like it's important look at this this is so thorough the bays and now at the home of his brother a beekeeper and would be taken to farms mr. Dawson said so they're even like reporting on like the future of these bays I like the idea that the author of this article 20 years from now he's going to have a podcast and he's going to be following up his own his old bylines and he's going to be thinking I wonder whatever happened to that hive Mike vials the chairman of the South African Bay Industry Association said the bees were probably just taking a break in the engine normally those places a greasy smelly and hot and not at all ideal as a permanent home for bees bees prefer secluded wood cavities this is very unusual he was quoted as saying is that a thing bees do they're like oh we gotta sit down for a little while ladies like this is better a flight it's them migrating they're migrating from one side of the airport to the other and they thought oh there's a nice big warm round dark area that we can take it I love that the chairman of the South African Bay Industry Association has now been quoted on Pallew Internet the buzz takes you to places you'd never imagine that's very true thank you for this update on the buzz Brady I really appreciate it listener are you a little sleepy right now do you feel like you're not as rested as you could be well then you need Casper in your life Casper makes amazing mattresses I sleep on one and they use multiple supportive memory foams for a quality sleep surface with the right amounts of both sink and bounce they really are fantastic mattresses and I don't know if you're like me but I often find that I get very hot during the night I'd much rather sleep in a cool environment and the Casper breathable design helps you to sleep cool and regulates your body temperature throughout the night now there's two different kinds of Casper mattresses that you can get the wave and the essential the wave features a patent-pended premium support system to mirror the natural shape of your body and the essential has a streamlined design at a price that won't keep you up at night and to 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me Brady if I couldn't handle Brady Moans we would not have a podcast together look Brady Moans they're beautiful things in their own way right this is what the podcast is for it's for moaning so of course okay I want to hear another Brady Moan a little behind the scenes secret people here I've actually got another six or seven moans written here so great I want to talk about the seawood okay well in fact I want to talk about two seawoods oh I want to talk about the word content and creator yeah so I know this is a little bit inside baseball but obviously people that do our kind of work often referred to as content creators and I don't want to put any noses out of joint of people who use it including many of my friends and you and me I use the term all the time as well I use the word content for what we make and creator for what we are so I'm criticizing myself as much as anything but I hate the term content creators and I hate the term content in that context and I hate the word creator in that context I'm wondering how you feel about being described as a content creator I'm with you 10,000 percent I'm with you so hard on this topic okay I hate the way this word is used I hate the description I'll give you another comparison that is another seawood which is at some point in time people who went into stores and purchased things they would be called customers yeah and then this transmuted into consumers but this is what people became and I think this happened sort of the same way that content creator has become a thing because customer feels like you're going into your local Haberdashar and you're handing the money for a product but when you go to Netflix it feels like it's a different thing you're consuming their content that has been created for you yeah but I find the word consumer revolting it's more visceral isn't it yeah like you're eating it yeah it's like Netflix is pouring slop down your throat and you're gonna consume it that's what you're going to do it's like oh look at these iPhones consume them right just like it's disgusting yeah and it's dehumanizing and I think content creator it's not quite as visceral but it's it's the same feeling to me where it's like what do you make oh you make content to be what consume that's what you make like we're all in this disgusting wheel of filth together it is looped human centipede of consumption and content creation exactly I for funnily enough the reason I don't like content is the opposite reason that I don't like creator okay content I don't like for the same reason as consumer I feel like it depersonalizes and dehumans what's being made because I've heard my work also previously described by people in the advertising world as inventory yeah and you can have any inventory this month that we can advertise against it's like for God's sake like I don't think I'm making like the Mona Lisa here or anything but just calling it content or inventory does it just makes it sound like filler just something that's going to fill the void on YouTube so that the advertising has a reason to exist like I hate it I hate it being called content I know they need a generic word that will cover all the different kinds of content say like videos and podcasts and all the different things that one may create but I just wish it wasn't that I don't know just call it what it is a video or a podcast or something but oh this generic content it's just there to fill a space isn't it's like YouTube is this void that needs to have poly filler put between all the cracks so that it's complete so that it can have its ads and where does the people filling in the cracks don't like that and creator I have the opposite problem with I think it makes people who do jobs like AI sound like too grandiose because only people like us are creative and can have ideas and make interesting things or I think of like you know God is often referred to as the creator whoa going right to the top exactly well that's it like you know the creator I think creator is such a grandiose title and I don't like it when you're referring to like oh look over there there's a group of creators are this meeting here is just for creators I think it's a bit self-important so content creators is this perfect storm of absolute slop combined with this grandiose god-like status and neither of which I think anywhere near appropriate I like that okay I now I really understand your your reaction here because yes it's content creator it's a self-proclaimed god producing slop oh man you're really making me laugh referring to advertising slots as inventory I can't remember if I've mentioned it before but I have I have really settled on my perfect description of my job when people ask what I do they get zero follow-up questions is I say oh I'm in advertising inventory management right like perfect no one ever asks another question because it's just like oh right that sounds terrible nobody wants to know more I was like I was seeking out like terrible words and yeah referring to advertising as inventory is just like oh nobody likes that there's a mutation on creators which I also really don't like and find it even a bit it's a bit grosser because it's it's low again but companies will talk about needing more creatives right those things like oh we need to hire more creatives and I just like that is also just somehow going from creator to creative does the flip in my mind as well where the company's like we just need like we need a bucket of creatives and we're going to put them in this room so that they can produce content like their paper clips you need to buy more paper clips and we need four creatives that's how it feels and it's a thing to complain about like oh we don't like these words but I really don't like this I guess it's natural like it's a natural phenomenon but this trend over time that words become like de-personalized or job descriptions become longer like as you wind back the clock you have clear words that exist in the english language to describe professions and things that people produce but as technology marches on and things become more abstract and also the rate of change happens more quickly I think it's kind of inevitable that you end up with these sorts of bucket words as a different example it's like the word engineer has been stretched to encompass so many things in the past 15 years yeah that to say that someone is an engineer tells you barely more about them than to say oh this person is a content creator it gets it's the same thing like it's such a broad word and content creators even more vague like at least if I met someone and they said they're an engineer I would think well okay you're probably quite technically smart and you're probably like now a little bit of mathy stuff or a bit of sciencey stuff maybe yeah I feel like I'd feel unsafe around it but if someone says they're a content creator they could be a youtube video maker or they could be a nitter the creator thing gives you the same level of information that we're usually like oh someone says they're an engineer you know they're probably mathy and you know someone's a content creator it's like well they have to have some level of creative skill to make things I guess like I think it's almost the exact same level of thing I find creative such a vague word as it is because you can be creative in so many different ways that aren't necessarily artistic or visual anyway I understand the utility of the words and that's why I use them because we've we now live in a world where saying that you know helps you convey some meaning in some contexts if you're at a youtube conference and someone says what are you doing here and you say I'm a content creator they're like okay I know how you fit in now you know yeah but I still don't like it yeah and I've totally done that but the scenario in which it's effective is exactly the one that's so gross it's it's the oh right you fit into this machinery you're making the things you're producing inventory with your creative content that then advertisements are being slotted into it's like oh we're we're all discussing this in the level of the machinery of how this system works and yeah of course for any of these kinds of systems like you're gonna end up with lingo and ways to just convey things quickly and that's fine but you do end up in this weird position where like such a big class of people end up with the like the jargony way to describe what they do and we just we just don't seem to be inventing new words fast enough to talk about all of the different kinds of things that people do I'm trying gray you know I'm trying oh I know no you're the best at it but we're also in this situation where you'll end up with words that then relate to a particular company which I don't like and it's one of the reasons why I try very hard never to say like on a youtuber even though like lots of youtube people love to say that but I always feel like how work at youtube I make things that fit in their system you know the content that has been produced but I don't like that either as a description where it's like oh this company name becomes a description of of what you do that does have utility that description though I think when you say that to someone in the normal world or from youtube they don't think you work for youtube they understand that you make youtube videos yeah that that has totally happened now yeah I don't say I'm a youtuber but I do say I make youtube videos yeah that's a better way to phrase it also someone a couple years ago pointed out a thing to me which I cannot unhere and now I'm going to pass this mind virus on to everybody else but when you say the word youtuber they're always thinking like a like a tuber like a potato and it's a it's a you tuber and I can't get this out of my head I can't not hear it that it's it's not youtube or it's you tuber that that's that's what the person is so anyway mind virus passed along it's not the reason I don't really like the word I don't think that one's gonna spread like a bowel of my and I think you'd worry I just like a weird one that I can't unhear it I hear it every time and like now I'm just I just got to pass this along but I don't know there's no good solution to it but I hate the words I hate the words they make me sad and I still end up like you do having to use them because there is no clearer way to talk about the situation sometimes they are a necessary evil they are the c words we have to say
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Category:Hello Internet Episode
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