H.I. No. 13: Nobody Owns the Facts

"H.I. #13: Nobody Owns the Facts" is the 13th episode of Hello Internet, released on May 28, 2014.
==Official Description==
Grey & Brady discuss when owls attack, what happened with net neutrality and the FCC, and originality. Also Grey talks for far, far too long about the Hobbit movies. Seriously, you're lucky Brady stopped him otherwise it would have been seven hours of the longest, boringest podcast you've ever heard.
==Show Notes==
*Barn owl
*Destin: Smarter Every Day
*Hello Internet Podcast on Youtube
*Pocket Casts
*Digg: What We Heard This Week
*Hello Internet Fan Art
*The Hobbit: There and Back Again
*The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug
*The Wire
*Zero Punctuation
*Minute Physics
*Capitalism and Socialism: Crash Course World History #33
*Hank Green Crash Course Psychology
*Kurzgesagt
*Cracked.com Podcast
==Other==
Please email me if you want a pizza roll. Oh no, I'm being unoriginal. BELL RINGS Did I ever tell you my owl story? No, you did not. What is your owl story? You know, like, barn owls, those ones that look really, like they look like, they look mean and weird. Yeah, yeah. And they're beautiful, but they're also quite mean and weird looking. You know, I know exactly what you mean, yeah. I was home one day alone at my old house, and I was in the kitchen, and I just looked to my left and standing in the dining room at night was one of those barn owls, like, just looking at me. Like, in the house? In the house. And to this day, I don't know how I got in, I think it must have come down the chimney, but like, it looked properly mean, and it didn't look happy to be there. And I was like, oh, what am I going to do? So I kind of went towards it or did something. I don't remember what I did, but it completely spooked it and just started flying around the house, and flew into my office and it was going crazy. And then it flew at Lulu, my dog, who is like the least brave dog in the history of dogs. She's a very sweet dog, but she is not a guard dog. She was terrified. So anyway, like, I took her away and locked her in a room and continued my pursuit of this very scared owl. And it kind of, eventually it kind of cornered itself. And like, I got this big blanket, and I went to throw it on the owl, and like, because I was a bit nervous and being a bit wary, I like didn't throw it far enough and it like fell short of the owl. And I think by this point, the bird was just like sick of it. And it just like, it basically looked me in the eye and said, look, I think you're going to have to do that again. And I just leaned over and picked it up and threw it a second time. And it just resigned itself. And like, then I picked up the owl inside the blanket and took it outside and threw it in the air and flew away. But I tell you what, gosh, I was excited. That kind of exciting stuff doesn't happen to urban dwellers like us very often. No, it doesn't. But I would be concerned about the big barn owl because those things have claws that are no joke. Oh, man, it was scary, you know? Yeah, I think if I came home and there was a barn owl in my house, I might just try to make sure all the windows were open and then just wait. Just think, okay, you will leave eventually. No, you can't put your head in the sand. Why couldn't I? I'm thinking about the current house that I'm in now. There's a door that divides the flat basically into two sections. And so whatever section the owl was in, I would just make sure the windows were open in that section and then close the door and just spend my time in the other section. It's going to leave. There's nothing to eat in the flat. You could go for days without food though. But I just, I can't. Just for the same reason that I think if a wild animal stumbled across me in the woods, the wild animal could reasonably think, well, this is not a creature who belongs in the forest. I'm sure if we just wait, he'll leave and he'll go back into that indoor environment where he lives, I would look at the owl and think the same thing. Yeah, but the owl wouldn't think that if you were like, in its nest, then it would be, hang on a second. I'm going to take action here. This thing's in my nest. Yeah, but it's just, I would wait for the owl is the bottom line. Those talons are big and scary. I mean, we're not talking about like a little screech owl. Those, I mean, if it was a little screech owl, that's different. I would figure, okay, with the blanket, I would be much more concerned about injuring the screech owl. But a barn owl is, I mean, those things are big. I didn't do it well, but I think it was the right course of action. I think locking it in a room with the window open and hoping for the best was not what should have been done. But all I can say is I really, I really hope Destin doesn't listen to this. Our manly country bumpkin friend. Because he probably wrestles owls every morning just for exercise. Destin is an amazing human being and definitely a very manly guy. He would have known what to do. He would, but I almost think that Destin, he wouldn't have to wrestle with the owl. He would just know some barn owl whistle that he could make. And it would fly over land on his arm. And then he would just stroll with it outside and release bird and it would offer would go. And that's how we make slow motion. Yeah, that's exactly it. That is what would happen if Destin had an owl in his house. We forgot last week our like most important announcement. Well, I feel like I forgot. I feel like my one job is to remember a few things. And because I don't have checklists, I forgot. And that is a very exciting expansion of the Hello Internet Empire. Yes, Empire indeed. The Hello Internet podcast is now on YouTube. As I mentioned in my announcement video on my own channel, not only is it on YouTube, it is on YouTube with stunning HD visuals of things. You can't just put audio on YouTube. You've got to have a video to go with it. There are plenty of podcasts that just use the logo, but I thought that's not the way that we should go. And you have provided some excellent footage for the first two with a couple of toys that people can go see on the YouTube channel. I do have to say I was kind of baffled because in the number of the comments, I saw people wondering when we just put the first one up, which is the very famous drinking bird in physics, you have a video explaining about how this drinking bird works. It's everybody knows it. It's the drinking bird from the episode of The Simpsons that was running the nuclear power station for a little while. Anyway, people, I saw people leaving in the comments wondering if this was mine, if I owned this thing. And I found a kind of baffling that anybody could listen to the show and also think that I would own such an object. And also you are clearly the video guy. So just for the record here, people, Brady is filming these things. And I presume that you're keeping them somewhere in your house on a shelf, is that it? I am keeping a little shelf of fact. Now, to be fair, I didn't own a drinking, dipping bird thing either. I am buying these things for the podcast, but because they are becoming internet famous, I am now keeping them on a shelf as each one appears in one of the videos. I'm like, I'm retiring it and I'm hoping to have like a shelf full of all the stars at some stage. Maybe we'll have a big like, you know, charity auction or something. Yeah, or like a private commercial auction, one of the two. Yeah, we'll just like just give them to really rich people, maybe Bill Gates will make us an offer. Yeah. Oh, that's the duck that was in the Hello Internet podcast thing. Yes. You can put a shelf in the house. I expect to see a shelf in the house then if I come and visit. I do have a lot of shelf space in my office at the moment. So I'm all right for shelf space. Oh, yeah. Thanks for asking. If you have empty shelf space, you need to fill it with things. You can't just leave it empty and this sounds perfect. Although you do know, I mean, what are we up to in this is now episode? I think this is 13 today that we're recording. Is it? I don't even know. So that is eventually going to be at least 13 objects. We're committed to season two. So really it's 20 objects. And I can't reuse any toys. It has to be a new toy each video. Yes, yes, we don't want to reuse stuff. That's just lazy. So are you planning? Are you trying to visualize how the shelf space is going to go with 20 objects? I think I should, I'm going to start trying to find and suggest unusually large toys for you to film. I think that would be helpful. I'm trying to find, think of the biggest thing that is also reasonable to film and acquire that can awkwardly fit on your shelf. For anyone who hasn't actually seen the videos yet, obviously, this is just the podcast, but there's this continuous, however long the podcast is video of this toy just doing its thing. It's like a dipping duck for nearly an hour. It won't surprise you to know, Gray, that in my past, actually, when I used to work at a newspaper in Australia, I did start a little collection of little desk toys, like little, you know, liquid things you could turn around and things like that. And I don't know why I did it. I just had them there. And it became a real feature of the office. And people used to stop by at my desk and play with them all and look at them and people really enjoyed it. People like I'm recapturing a part of my earlier life to it collecting these again. That sounds like a productive working environment to have people constantly stopping. Which might have been what you were aiming for. Was it an enjoyable job or was it a job for which you were looking for distractions? No, I know. I was a newspaper journalist. It was busy. I didn't have time to play with them, but they were just a nice thing. That's fair enough. So with the podcast on YouTube, as I mean, you're in charge of this really. So I'm asking you more than anything. What's these are kind of about 10 episodes behind are they so people can watch, listen to them on YouTube. 10 episodes behind or follow us in the usual ways for the kind of more up to date stuff. For the time being anyway, the YouTube version is going to be about a season behind is what you can assume. And I have to say, we did this partly because I was surprised by how many people requested the podcast actually be on YouTube. It's funny. I'm falling for that same bias that I think everybody does where you assume other people are much more like you than they necessarily are. And so because I listen to all of my podcasts basically on my phone through a podcast app, I assume everybody listens the same way. But obviously from feedback that we've gotten that is not the case. People listen in lots of different ways. And I was surprised because YouTube seemed to be one of the, at least in the messages I got, one of the clear contenders for another option that people wanted. So that's what we're doing for the time being. And yes, I will be relying on you for continuous, interesting toy videos. And I'm stocking up on them. And if anyone's got any toys they want to suggest or see featured or knows any sort of high profile toy suppliers, get in touch. You can email Graham, be ignored, email me and maybe get a reply or put something on the reddit where we would definitely will say it. Email Brady, I like this. But we've actually had this. This has happened a couple of times where you have passed on to me something interesting that you have received in an email from a listener. And I like this. I like this system that people email you. And then you will let me know about a few things that make it for your own filters. I am 100% in approval of this system. Have the ones that have made it through me to you being good enough? Like am I proving an effective filter? Like have you looked at them and said, yeah, Brady was right to pass that one on them. Yeah, no, I definitely think so. You would have heard much more vocally from me otherwise if I didn't think what you were passing on was worth passing on. Or you would have just heard nothing because I wouldn't have replied. But I think I've replied to everything you've sent on so far. So yes, definitely listeners, email Brady. Brady is the key keeper here. I assure you I ignore a lot as well. Put something on the reddit because we both like the reddit. That's true. That's true. Yeah, cool. So how do people listen to podcasts on YouTube? Do they just open it like in a separate tab and just have it in the background? Or do they sit there and watch that duck for an hour? From what I've heard people will just have it on in the background. They'll have it on as a separate tab. Although there was one commenter who said he basically put the duck on loop all day and muted the audio, which I'm not entirely sure how I think about it. But whatever works for you, buddy. He said he found that the video was really soothing to him. And so whatever works, I'm happy for you. The video that we've put on the second podcast, I actually quite like watching. Like I could watch that for a while. The duck gets pretty tired pretty quick. But the second one with that colorful liquid toy, I really enjoy looking at that one. Mm-hmm. The second one is much more beautiful. The duck has drama though. You're waiting for it to take the drink of water. I am looking forward to seeing what you come up with for our future videos. If people are interested, you can go on YouTube and for the moment search for Hello Internet. And it's the one that comes up right at the top and subscribe on there if you prefer to get the show that way. I was surprised in the last podcast. I asked how many people listen to this podcast who don't watch your videos or my videos. Basically, people who found the podcast first. And I kind of assumed that there would be nobody. But there was enough feedback both on Reddit and on Twitter from people who had found the podcast in other ways. And so listen to the podcast. And only then afterwards, worked out who we are because we had no introduction at all in the first episode really. We just went straight ahead. And I was... I mean, now offence to those people and I'm really grateful for them and they've said such nice things. But if you've never watched one of great videos and you've got no interest in my videos, I'm amazed that someone would listen to a single word we said. We're just a couple of videos. That was kind of my feeling as well. I can't believe anybody who listened to this podcast. Who doesn't follow the videos. I think that goes in some ways to demonstrate the strength of the two dudes genre if you like the conversation between the two dudes because there's no other reason to listen. I think as we have clearly established, we are not experts on very many of the things that we talk about. So it's just a conversation between two guys. So I am very, very grateful as well to listeners who don't follow our work on YouTube. That's perfectly fine. I was just completely surprised that anybody would listen for more than just the briefest of moments. As best I could work out, there were two sources most of those people came from. And the first is an app for, I think it's for iPhone and Android called PocketCasts, which is a podcast manager for your phone. And they have a little featured section, which we have been on the front of for a little while. So thank you to whoever is at PocketCasts and has decided that we are worthy of being in the featured section. I appreciate that very much. Yeah, a brown paper bag full of money coming away soon. Yes. And we'll put a link to their app in the description. So if people want to check it out, go ahead. If you don't use a podcast manager, you should definitely check out. There's a whole bunch of really great ones that PocketCasts looks great too. So go check them out. And the second one is apparently the website dig has a weekly, what's interesting and what's new around the internet. And so some gracious editor at dig included us on that list as well. So thank you to that person and those seem to be the main places people found us. There were a few messages. I know this is just anecdotal from people who were saying they were listening just because like a friend recommended it, like someone who probably does watch the videos and therefore listen to the podcast and has said to their friend, look, I know you're down like the videos and stuff, but listen to this and they've had to listen and enjoy it. That really warms my heart, though, it's stories. I quite like the idea of that. Like, like old fashioned someone just recommending something like to you with their mouth into your ears. Like, that still happens. It's so analog. Yeah. But no, I agree with you. And on a similar note, there's one thing, there's, if we're talking about things that have warmed our hearts, there's one thing that I have definitely noticed in the comments, which catches my attention, is the reverse situation of that. People who have said that they basically never listen to podcasts. They never really listened to audio in this form until they either found the podcast from you or from my video, my announcement video. And because of that, they have gotten into podcasts so that they're collecting a whole bunch and now they're listening to a lot of podcasts and they're finding it an enjoyable feature of life. And that really warms my heart because I think we've talked about before. Or maybe even I said it in one of the ads, I can't remember, but I feel that listening to audio in some form is just a huge part of my life. I'm always listening to audiobooks or I'm listening to podcasts. And I've, they're just big spaces in my life where I can't imagine not listening to something while I'm doing something else. It's, I really like that. I feel that it adds a lot to my life. And so I'm very, very happy to hear when other people say that they have, they have been introduced to the podcast world. Even if they don't like our particular podcast and they just, they move on from there and they find other, other shows that they like, that's, I think that's just great. I'm very happy for people who are listening to stuff. That's not good. No, because it's, that's, that's how it works. If I, I would like people to just join the world of things to listen to. Obviously, I would prefer that they listen to our show all the time as well. There's no accounting for people's particular preferences, but anyway, I've gotten just a bunch of messages like that. I've seen a bunch of messages where people say, oh, thanks. I'm subscribed to a bunch of podcasts now I never did before. And I think that's, that's really great. I hope, I hope people enjoy this, this other dimension to life that can be added with listening to things like podcasts. So, and congratulations to anyone out there who managed to warm Grae's heart. That is an accomplishment. Now, in the last podcast, obviously we talked a lot about your net neutrality video and other peoples and, and the net neutrality debate in general. And you talked about this upcoming FCC rolling. Mm-hmm. What happened? The thing that was kind of interesting about this was the FCC does this, this announcement. And immediately afterward, there's a bunch of news stories about the FCC announcement. And it was impossible to tell from these news stories what happened. So I noticed a couple things that the, let's just say that there were technical websites who were covering this, who that wrote articles that that were basically content free. And then within three minutes or so of, of the announcement being finished on two major newspapers. And I think it was the New York Times and the Washington Post. They both immediately posted stories with big headlines that drew the opposite conclusions about what happened. So one of them had a story that net neutrality was defended forever and the other one that net neutrality was just sunk forever. It's to me, again, reminding me of your coming, you know, be first, or is it be, be wrong, but not for long. Wrong, but not for long. Oh, okay, right. That makes it sound even better. But I was looking at those newspapers and I was just thinking, good job, guys. Good job. Some quality workmanship here. Two major newspapers can't agree on whatever it was. But you're going to, you're going to plow ahead anyway and publish your stories. Well done, guys. I really appreciate that. Got to be first. People are looking. They're going to click. Yeah. People are looking. God forbid we try to figure out what someone actually said. Anyway, what I thought, it was kind of an interesting rollout because I'm sitting here then trying to find out, well, what's really happened from this FCC ruling? What's going on? I did say a couple of your tweets. You did seem confused. Yes. And I pointed out the same thing. I was just saying that there's tons of headlines all over the place that aren't being clear. And there was, there was just this bizarro rollout where then the FCC made public the notes that they had handed out to reporters in the room, which didn't say anything clear at all. And then finally, they made an outline of the proposal available online, which I read through. Did you glean anything from this? Well, the relevant fact is that nothing happened. And there's a consultation period, which is going to last four months. Consultation period. Yes. And then the actual law is going to go into effect, or the actual FCC proposal, I should say, is going to go into effect. Because the FCC is in this. But anyway, it was just kind of infuriating. And I thought it was just a great example of what happens with trying to report. On a topic like this. And it was very interesting to see on Twitter, people again on both sides just flipping out and saying, oh, net neutrality is destroyed forever. And I was very consciously trying not to be one of those people because of the confusing headlines and because of the confusing nature of what had actually occurred. We don't actually know people. It's not clear in the slightest. But. Well, if this document says we're going to have four months of consultation, what was being jumped on rightly or wrongly by people for them to draw any conclusions? Was there some word or phrase somewhere that was setting off? Well, and bells or soothing people's worries? No, this was the problem. There was basically this hour long boring conference where different members of the FCC board just said a whole bunch of stuff about their thoughts. And then they at the end made an announcement about what it was. Everybody was talking about their individual thought process leading up to their decision. Their decision to enter a consultation period, basically. So it was you could have gotten out of that almost anything you want because people on the FCC board had contrary opinions. The vote was not a unanimous vote. So I think the story would be. It sounds very anticlimactic. Yeah. It was the most anticlimactic thing that could ever possibly happen. And also, I just want to have an enormous asterisk before this statement. But I read the, I don't know what the correct term for it is, but the formal outline for the actual FCC proposal. And from my reading of it, I came away from the conclusion of this doesn't sound terrible. I'm having a hard time seeing why everybody is completely flipping out. It is both a non-story. Nothing has happened. At least the way this outline is phrased for many things. From my own perspective, I would say it doesn't sound too bad. There are a couple of parts where it does make me wonder a little bit, but it is rapidly getting beyond my skill set here. And I would have to rely on much more technical people to read the actual, it's 100 page, real legal documents. I can't. I even if I wanted to, I couldn't read and understand that in any way. Something that's going to be written both in technical and legal terms. But the outline seemed kind of reasonable, but I think it's also because I have a very narrow perspective on net neutrality and precisely what that means. And I guess I want to get it on the record here. Engineers, if you are talking about asynchronous puring agreements, I am on board with this. I have always been on board with this. I understand why this is necessary. I just intentionally chose not to talk about it in the video because it means nothing to most people. You can put me on that list. I don't know what you're talking about. TLDR for FCC, nothing happened. We'll see you again in four months. Another thing that we just touched on briefly when we spoke in the last podcast was about the name, net neutrality, maybe not being a useful device in the kind of political discourse. And we sort of threw it out there for people to come up with other suggestions. Have you seen or heard anything that you like the look of? I saw some other ones, but nothing grabbed me. I think it is. We're not there, are we? It's very hard, I think, to have a term that is both meaningful and evocative. I think choking and throttling and words like that are a step in the right direction. Yes, someone had a description that was something about talking about ISP chokeholding networks. It's the same thing. It's like, oh, yeah, that's closer. But then it still has to be, there's something clumsy about it. Who is doing the chokeholding under the, I didn't see anything that really grabbed me. I didn't think enough about it. I'm going to give it some more thought and come back to you on that one. You're going to solve this for us. Yeah, well, although, even if I solve it, who's to say you won't stab me in the back like you have over free booting? I have not stabbed you in the back. I have not stabbed you in the back. Because I thought free booting had been born and you were even supporting it and giving me like a pet on the back for this urban dictionary thing. And then last episode you're like, don't like free booting. I think it should be view jacking. That is not exactly what I said. It's pretty much what you said. People's minds can change. It was as I thought it over more, I lean more toward view jacking. Again, there is. Have you now realized that view jacking is a mistake for two reasons, obviously? Why don't you tell me what the reasons are? Well, one is it sounds rude. It sounds like you know, view jacking. Lots of people have said that's rude. That was a very pregnant pause there. Well, I don't know. I don't need to spell it out. And secondly, it only pertains to visual media. What if someone freeboats this podcast and uploads it as a podcast somewhere else? There's no view jacking going on there. That's audio jacking. I will actually, I don't think that the rudeness is necessarily a problem. I think like an evocative word is not necessarily bad. I do agree that it has the weakness that it is related only to visual media. But the biggest, can I tell you why I keep having a problem with free booting? Yeah. Is the way I saw people using it, people almost always used it in terms of piracy, private piracy as in someone downloaded a copy of a movie that they didn't pay for and watched it. And people were saying that they were free booting it. I love how you're talking about it as if it's become this like worldwide sensation. When I've probably three people have ever used it. That's true. I spend most of my reddit time now on my own, reddit, which is a little strange. And that's where I see all the comments. And people using it on Twitter, I think it's great. It's really funny. But I am aware that I rarely see it used in the context for which we were trying to define it, which is somebody else profiting off of the work of a third party without permission as in the newspapers view jack our videos. That I almost never saw that. No, I'm sorry, but I don't view jack it. This is why in my mind it was a problem. This is a problem with the English language in general that all words lose their specificity over time and become increasingly meaningless versions of themselves. And I think view jacking or sorry, free booting has gone through this in just a very fast lesson. Already. Yes. And the time it has taken us to do, I don't know, ten podcasts. It's become such a part of the public consciousness now that it's actually right. It's where we're so dominant in the world. We're already having like we're on episode 13. We're already trying to come up with words to replace free booting because it's just become so old hat. Yes, that's true. That's true. Speaking of words, we had a little talk about aluminium and aluminum last episode. But what we did, and we also talked about the fact that you used to memorize the periodic table, which is sounds like a longer discussion for another day. But we didn't talk about the fact we are going to get a new name on the periodic table. Oh, I didn't know this. Element 117 has been confirmed now. So it was a while. It was a few years ago now that the Russians in Dubner created a few atoms of it. And that's never good enough. And now the other main people that do this, the Germans at GSI and Damschdat have also created it. So that counts as confirmation. And once you've got confirmation, it means you've got to cook up a name. So name, new element. I'm trying to think what the most recent new names have been. Who's going to decide? Well, do the teams get to decide? Yeah, it will be the teams. I'm not sure if it's the Russians and Germans together or the Russians get priority. I would imagine the Russians will get priority. But normally there's a few discoveries at once and there's a bit of compromise. But here we seem to have just one element. So for example, last time we had two new elements named. And one was given an American name that was Livemorium. And then we had Florovium, which was named after the Russian chap. So there was kind of a one for one deal. But here we've got just one element. Oh, that's weird. I see one 13 is still unnamed. Yeah. Or it has that whatever that the un. The placeholder name. Un-un-trinium. Yeah. Whatever it is. It's interesting that they confirm the existence of 117 before 113. Interesting. Oh, and also is it 115 as well, huh? Interesting, interesting. There's a few available still. So this will be the next one I reckon. I did a video for periodically videos and the professor. The professor who's in my videos all the time, because we've gone through this cycle probably four or five times now. And every time I ask him what do you think it should be called, not that he has any, not that he has any sway. But and he's always favored plenkeum. He's always thought Max Plenke, the scientist, should be honoured. And plenkeum is quite a nice name. But he seems to have abandoned that now, because when I asked him this time, he's going for fine manium. I think that's how you pronounce it. I don't know. Anyway, naming it after Richard Feynman. I mean, I'm a very big fan of Richard Feynman. I have always loved the career of Richard Feynman. Yeah. So I would feel that I would want to back this because Feynman is just an amazing, amazing example of a human being. But that said, I don't know Feynman made any real contributions on a chemical level. He was primarily working in physics. And I think that the periodic table should be biased towards chemists. So I would, I'm going to, this is where my knowledge is just weak. I'm not, I'm not sure I could come up with a very long list of people who are not on the periodic table already who had influential impact on the chemical field. So that's, that's kind of why I was curious about who, who gets to decide. Although there's plenty of place names on the periodic table. But if there are any, any chemist, scientists out there who are unrepresented on the periodic table, it feels like they, I love Feynman, but they, it feels like they should be ahead of him on the periodic table. It's like fundamental particle names. Okay, we can have a, a fine maton next for the next particle that we, we come across. That would be perfectly okay. I mean, these, these creating these super heavy elements, which they do by kind of smashing these atoms into each other to make like a bigger one. It's become a real physics game now anyway. Once you get down to this part of the periodic table. So, and there's a lot of physicists, you know, or people that bridge that physics chemistry divide being honored, you know, seaborg, I think bridges the divide, you know, Einstein has an element. Yeah. And recently the Germans named one after Copernicus. So I don't, you know, that's the most recent one I see here. One, one, one, twelve, twelve. Copernicus, one, twelve. Yeah. That's, that's why I was just kind of curious who, who gets to decide, but I, well, I think the germ, I think the Russians and the Germans will decide and they will give a name to the, to IUPEC, which I incorrectly, uh, named last time. The international union of pure and applied chemistry. I think I said, I think I said applied in pure, uh, but they, they, they will, they usually I think pretty much rubber stamp the recommendations. But if it's a group of Russians and Germans, I can't see them recommending a famous American scientist. Could I, could I UPEC veto this? I mean, if there is, let's say the, the team came up with some name that just everybody hated that the Putin, that is exactly what I was thinking. I wasn't going to say it, but I was like, Putinium. Uh, is that what I don't think they would, uh, I, they would never allow it to be named after a politician, surely. So, yeah, I was just, but I'm wondering if, if, yes, they would have, they would have a pair of veto. I'm sure. Yeah. I think if I, if, if I was actually in charge of doing this, I might try to, try to scheme on the silliest possible name that you could think, IUPEC would, would not pass on. I think that would, that would be an interesting, an interesting game. Just have a ridiculous name for an element. Mera, you're not going to put one out there, though. Uh, and I'll see if I could think of something, but not, I'm trying to think off the top of my head. I cannot, I cannot think of anything good. Suggestions in the reddit, please. Yes, suggestions in the reddit. We'll give the best one a mention next week. Maybe. Maybe. One last bit, one last bit of follow up. And that was a piece of, do you call a fan art? They called it a fan art. So I guess, I guess we could call a fan art, but. Yes. Yes. Yeah, we, we've sort of privately discussed this before that the word fan is, has, has awkward connotations. I, I think I have on the podcast that the word fan a couple times, but I don't, I don't like to use it. I don't, I don't think it's a good descriptor. But in the URL, the, the person used, they themselves called it fan art. So I think that is, is fair to use these things. But it is a, a deviant art user named, Kitty Ninja Fish, which is a code I mean, it's so. God, I love the internet. I love that that, that can be a thing. Oh, who are you? Oh, just look for Kitty Ninja Fish. That's, that's what you're looking for. And they, they put together a, or this, this person did a very good drawing, a cartoon of, of the two of us. And do you want to try to describe it for our internet listeners? Well, it's obviously riffing on this little craze that has started of, um, where, where I'm depicted as a caveman and you are a robot and people have been like, finding photos of cavemen and robots together, which in itself, I have found very using, but this person is obviously rather than sourcing a, an existing picture has created their own. Yeah. And taking it to the next level. Yeah. And it, I guess it, I would say it depicts me, not very, not a very handsome me, but I pretty accurate me sitting at a computer in my cave, hunting and pecking. And with a little plain, plain crash, ornament hanging above me as a, as a nod to my interest in aviation and sort of a robotic CGP Gray, which I love in the background, looking exasperated at my knee and a thle attempts at using a computer. Yes. Yes. I'm looking very exasperated in the background. It's a very marvel in the paranoid and droid kind of look of just, you know, hand on head exhausted by your hunting and pecking as I would be if I had to watch it in real life. It was very, it's very good. Yeah. I think, can you draw? Are you very, are you, do you have any artistic talent? I have zero artistic talent. I'm terrible. So I wanted to bring up this piece of fan art, because it's so well done. The person who's done it clearly has a lot of talent. And I appreciate that because I have no talent and I understand even for something simple like that, a lot of effort goes into it. And so I thought it would, it just, it looks great. Link in the show notes that people want to check it out. And I don't know what you do on DeviantArt. Can you thumbs up or like, so your hearts or something? I don't know. I couldn't, I wanted to leave them a comment, but you had to have an account or something. I also wanted to contact them. And naively, I was thinking, I'd love to get the original of that. It's a really nice thing. And then I realized he's just done it on a computer, hasn't he, so. Yeah, almost certainly he's done it on a tablet. Yeah. You, you can have the original. And so can everybody, which is why the internet is great. But yeah, so thank you very much to Kidding in Jaffish. Really well done. And it really made me smile. I liked it. I liked it so much. Yeah. All right. Man, our follow ups are getting long. Our follow ups, I'm looking at the timer now. And our follow up is now longer than the first episode was. Oh, it's easy. So you win me chatting. We should just stop right here. Hello, internet. This episode is brought to you by Squarespace, the only one platform that makes it fast and easy to create your own professional website portfolio or online store. Squarespace has been around for 10 years and they're constantly improving their platform with new features, new designs, and even better support. 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Squarespace, everything you need to create an exceptional website. So one other thing, what we normally do after follow up is catch up. Yes. Now, as much as we have segments, this is what we do. I mean, since we last spoke, I've been to a whole other country. This is mind blowing to me because you went to America and came back. And from my perspective, you came back before I even had a chance to miss you, before I even realized that you were fully gone. You sent me a message. Oh, Brady's gone. Okay, for a couple days. And then it felt like the next time I paid attention, you were already back. I didn't even have time to send you a message about how I was away for seven days or eight days, I think I went for. It's very fast on my time scale. That this is fast because I went to California too. So that's a fair distance. What were you, was it the same thing you were doing last time? You felt it. I went to, yeah, Berkeley again for some number of our business. San Francisco again. And yes, Berkeley just across the bay from San Francisco. So I'm getting into it now calling it Byatt's right now. And then I went to San Diego. And I met someone who's kind of a weird kind of hero in a way. Yes. That was a guy called Ron Graham, who is the kind of divisor, inventor, discoverer, user of a famous number called Graham's number. Oh, right, right. Yeah. So for a long time, it was sort of in the Guinness Book of Records, it's the biggest number ever used. I mean, it has since been usurped and it's a long story, but it's this, it's this whopping number that no one can comprehend. I'm sure there's a number of file video I can link to. There is a Graham's number number file video, but they're also, hopefully, in the weeks to come, will be an even more amazing one. I spent like eight to ten hours with him. And we only recorded like two or three videos. And the rest of the time we just hung out and he just told me cool stories and card tricks and told me math stories and went for dinner. And at the end, I was just thinking, I wish I just recorded this whole thing. It was incredible. So it was really good. It was really good. So anyway, that's what I've been up to. But you, I see in the notes, have been watching movies. Yes. You, you have traveled a third of the way around the world. I've been there and back again. You have been there and back again. And what I can only imagine took the same amount of time. I watched the first two Hobbit movies. Are you watch both of the first two? Yes, yes. I watched, it's an unexpected journey and the desolation of Smog, I think, is that. Yes. And before I ask, how many stars do you give each of them? So I know what to expect. That is actually a hard, a hard question to answer. Again, I happen to have an opportunity where I had kind of a whole evening free. And I thought, you know what, let me just do this. Let me just sit down and watch these movies. Yeah. I don't know if you have this experience, but I have often found that if you have a low expectation of a movie, it often improves your experience of watching the movie. Yes, yeah. And the reverse is the reverse is true. If you have really high, there's nothing worse than if everybody tells you something is the greatest thing ever and then you go to watch it. And I was like, yeah, I was fine, but you have such high expectations. I've only found one exception to that in my whole life, which is the wire, which I had been hearing about for years and years with the greatest TV show ever made. And I finally sat down to watch it and it was the greatest TV show ever made. That's very good. That's a story for another time. Yeah. So I have had for, I mean, I guess years now, low expectations of the Hobbit from what I heard about them stretching it into three films and everybody who's ever watched it, who's told me about it, including yourself came back with, you know, meh reviews at best and usually reviews about it being really boring. And so I was walking into this with incredibly, incredibly low expectations. I think there are very few movies that I have on my own turned on to watch that I had lower expectations for than this movie. And you're a big Hobbit fan too, aren't you? You're like the books in that. Yes, I would say I'm a fairly large token fan. So anyway, so these expectations were low. And remarkably, the movies managed to limbo below my already on the floor set expectations of the Hobbit. I was expecting, I was expecting just nothing and it was kind of worse than that. And people's, I don't know, I felt there is, when people tell you, boy, these movies feel really long. There is no way in words someone can explain to you how long they really feel. You have to experience this for yourself. Even Graham's number card, it's unbelievable. And I mean, it was one of these things where right from the start, I felt, oh, we're in trouble here. Well, that opening scene of the first one where they're sitting around having dinner and singing songs. That's not even, you have already skipped at least an hour into the movie before I get to the, let's go through a couple of things here. Okay, so first of all, the first Hobbit movie opens up with the prologue. It's saying about what has happened with smog attacking the city. That little bit was okay. Yeah, it's fine. It's fine. Well, you know, for a few minutes, it's like, you know, it's like, oh, yeah, okay. It was fine for a few minutes, but I remember watching that scene and even that, I think I remember thinking, if I was the editor here, I would have cut this down in half. There's, I don't need all of these scenes of a dragon attacking the town. We get it. We get it. There's fire, there's smoke. I get it. Okay. It then opens, and this is where I really felt, oh, we're in trouble here. In the same way that I remember when the, I'll bring it up again, the first Star Wars movie came out. My father, as always said, he knew that we were in trouble right from the beginning because that opening crawl makes reference to taxes and the trade federation. And my dad said, as soon as he read taxes in the opening sentence, he thought, oh, this isn't a good sign. And my father is a tax attorney. He's just not done. This is no good. He was, I'd be thinking, this is awesome. Yeah. He would have been like, oh, the lights are in this tax law. He would expect that, but he thought, no. So in the Hobbit, after they do this exciting prologue, there is this scene between Bilbo and Frodo, which I'm watching. And it's a little, I had such a hard time placing where in the timeline of the Hobbit is this scene supposed to be taking place. It's sort of Bilbo's writing in his book and he's saying, oh, Frodo, I've told you many things about my trip, but I haven't told you the entire truth of it and Frodo sort of walks in and they have this little discussion. And they're clearly preparing for something. And again, I'm pretty big token fan. I know the timeline of things. It took me forever to figure out when is this supposed to be happening? And then it's, oh, right, this is supposed to be happening on the same day in the Lord of the Rings film. This is Bilbo's birthday party that they're preparing for here. And already, it's so confusing. You're going to start with this thing that happens on the same day in the previous movies, but there's no need for this whole scene. It doesn't need to be there. You could just completely cut it and nobody would notice. I think it was supposed to be like the novel to your Frodo being in the film again. I think that was, because I remember I didn't know he was in the film again and when I first saw him, I was like, oh, he's back. And I think that is did it for the sake of that. I'm sure that's the exact reason it's in there is just so that you have Elijah Wood as Frodo for a few moments. But so I'm looking at this scene and again, immediately, I mean, maybe I was just a little bit slow here, but I was confused about when is this supposed to be taking place. Elijah Wood's in here. And there's this problem. Oh, God, this is problem. With Bilbo, Ian Holmes, the character, the actor who plays Bilbo, I believe he has to be 120 years old now. He is very old and he is noticeably older than he was in the Lord of the Rings movies. And this is always a problem when you're filming sequels. This is just, our prequels, this is always what's going to happen. Except a fundamental property of this character in the stories is that he does not age. This is something that everybody has to comment on. It's one of the opening things in the movies that they comment on the fact that Bilbo doesn't age. It's just, it's very distracting and especially in a scene where you just don't even need it. This doesn't need to be here. And the same thing, oh, God, the same thing comes up with Legolas, Legolas, the same actor, Orlando Bloom, I think. He is so noticeably older that it's impossible to look past. It's, you're so aware of it in every scene because it's almost like I don't know, I don't know how old he was when they filmed the first movies. I should just look it up. But it's almost like you take someone who's in their early 20s and then 10 years later in their 30s. They're the same person, but he looks like a real grown up man now. And it's just so distra, like his face is wider, he's broader, he's just the different person. Not a pretty boy anymore. Yeah, he is less selfish. And it's the same thing. Oh, you're immortal, okay? Or maybe not. All the, all the elves age in reverse, is that what happens here because that's the only thing that makes any sense. I mean, I just, I don't, I could go on forever about how much I just like. Clearly, clearly you were not a fan then. Sort of, and obviously it sounds like you could pick on little bits and pieces for quite some time. And I'd be quite happy if you'd do that. But if you were going to give an overarching problem, you think it's duration. As I suspected, and as I heard from other people, it's just they're trying to turn something into a trilogy, which cannot possibly be a trilogy. It should be two movies at most and two relatively short movies to begin with. And there's, there's three or another example. So let's say there's, there's two kinds of issues where I see this, this pop up. The first is the, I don't know how to put this. This was the thing that, that I could pick apart the movie forever. But if there's one thing that I found, I found personally offensive in the movie is the, there's the whole addition and expansion of the character of Radogast. So Gandalf. Who's that? Okay. So Gandalf is a wizard. And Radogast is in the movie, they show him as this, this nature wizard. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Kind of hippie type one. He's the guy in the, in the forest. Yeah. Yeah. That, this drove me crazy because in, in the original Hobbit books, there's, there's none of this. If you've, if you've seen these movies, any scene where Radogast is in the movie, none of this happens in the original books. This is all brought in to extend the storyline and to make it bigger. And it, it doesn't, it doesn't make any sense in the whole, in the whole, in this whole world. It's like, this character is supposed to be a wizard, just like Gandalf. He's supposed to be a powerful magical wizard and their introduction scene of him shows him not being able to, to fix a hedgehog who's sick. It's so infuriating because in this world, he's, he's, he's, he like Gandalf is a lesser angel. They're, they're basically like tiny, tiny, demigods. And they play him off as this, this joke character. But so all of this stuff was brought in and all of these scenes with him. Everything you see Gandalf do going off in his other adventures. Like, none of this is in the habit. And I feel that all of that, that stuff is trying to make these movies into this big dramatic, oh, the necromancer is coming and Gandalf and Radogast are dealing with this whole problem. And it just, it doesn't, it doesn't work. It's, it distracts from the main story of, of what is Bilbo and what, and the dwarves. What are they up to? What are they doing? Like that you have this central story that you can tell. But the movie keeps going all over the place and it's just, oh, God, so many things were just awful with it. But it was, it was, it was really just just stretching it out for, for length. And I think the other, the other, just, I, I will stop, I promise, I promise. But if I can give an example of the, I have never seen more boring fight scenes almost ever. And the, and the one that I was waiting for that I thought, oh, I know it's, I know some scene that going to drag out now. I was waiting for it was the scene in the second movie where all the, all the dwarves escape on the barrels. And the, in the book, this is two sentences, the escape on the barrels. They're in the barrels. Nobody can see them. Oh, God, that was, that fight scene. I want to go back in time it. I swear it must be 20 minutes long and it is the most boring fight scene and most implausible fight scene I may have ever seen. I mean, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's slightly more implausible than the mutt fight in the Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull movie when he's doing sword fighting and there's monkeys everywhere. It's in that kind of league. Um, yeah, the thing that, that kills me about that one is just, I don't know, I don't know. I, you know what I feel sometimes, but I, I want to be in a different life. I think I, I would want to be a second script writer in Hollywood. I couldn't write an initial script, but I think I could do a lot to improve existing scripts. You need a good newspaper, Saberita. You've got your born to cut. Yeah, maybe. But one of the things with that scene that just drove me crazy is, is, okay, so you, you have these three, you three characters. Because the dwarves who are in the river and then there are orcs and elves fighting on either side. The orcs are trying to kill the dwarves and the elves are trying to kill the orcs and maybe the dwarves as well. It's, it's also unclear. But you, you see the elves just taking these just amazing, perfect shots every time and killing orcs by the hundreds, so it just gets completely boring. But then as soon as the elves are trying to stop the dwarves, the main characters, they're protected by this main character magic in a movie that makes the elves suddenly incompetent every time they're trying to get hands on the dwarves. And you, you can't have it both ways movies. Either the elves are amazing at everything they do or they're not. They can't just be amazing when they're fighting the orcs. But that scene just went on for so long and was so boring. I couldn't, I couldn't believe it. And like childishly ridiculous, like the sort of maneuvers they were pulling off, you know, bouncing off this and jumping onto that life. Yes. The one shot that I really just rolled my eyes and thought I cannot believe this was both for the fat dwarf. He's in his barrel and he rolls, he rolls off onto the side of the river and knocks down a hundred orcs. And then there's also this weapons inconsistently. There's supposedly unarmed. But then he pops out of the barrel with two axes. I mean, I guess he got them from the orcs and chops down all the orcs. This is the tiniest thing that I'm about to say, but this, I can't believe I'm about to nitpick on this. It just bothered me so much. So he's on the side of the river in his little barrel. He breaks open the barrel and he's fighting all of these orcs. And then he jumps back into the river into a waiting open barrel. Which it's like that just bothered me because they clearly showed that there was one barrel per dwarf. That dwarf just broke his barrel. He's jumped back into the river into a waiting open barrel. Where did that additional barrel come from? Man, don't do it. I could go on. I could go on forever. But you know what the worst is? You know what the worst is? I know I'm going to watch the next movie. Now that I've seen the two, it's just like Star Wars. It's like, well, I guess we have to get this over with. So maybe we'll have an episode where I can complain about everything even more when we do the third one. But it was just, it was more awful than I ever imagined it could have been. So we've been going so long that we should probably leave behind a few other things and crack onto the main path. If you are working in any kind of creative field, how original does your work need to be? Or how much can influences influence you? How much do you need to do your own thing? So I think it's an interesting... I'm not sure necessarily given the nature of your work. If you think about that as much as I do, but it's definitely something that's on my mind a lot, is worrying about that or thinking about that. I don't know. Do you think about it much for what you do? Yeah, I guess. But I mean, do you worry that somebody else, if somebody else already has a Graham's number video? I mean, does it cross your mind to worry about doing a video on Graham's number if somebody else already has? I mean, the thing that you've got to come to realize is that there's almost nothing is new. It's so rare that you will do something that no one has done before because we aren't like explorers or discoverers. So it's not like we're going to discover a new element or a new country, ourselves. We can only talk about what other people have done or what exists in the world. And there's just so much stuff, not just on YouTube, but so many books have been written and TV shows and movies made and to do something that is completely original in that respect. It's quite rare. You can only bring original treatments, original interpretations, fresh perspectives or little clever twists to things. It's very rare that you're going to say something or do something or make something that is entirely unique in some ways. You try to and you strive to, but is that what you mean? Do you mean originality of style or originality of content? Well, I think it's sort of both. And I think my start in YouTube is an interesting example of this. And so there's three things that came together for my initial YouTube career. And it's fine. You brought up the art thing before. It's a certain kind of, I don't want to say artistic style, but a certain kind of way that I draw things, a particular topic and a particular influence, kind of was the beginning of my own YouTube career. So this is your UK video. So the UK video is the start of this video. And I don't want to get into the Y of this video. Let's just put that to the side for the time being, but kind of how did it come into being? And I would say that I was very influenced by one particular creator on the internet that made me start to think, oh, I might be able to put together some kind of very simply animated video that would still be good. And that creator is someone I still follow today. And he's Yatsi who does zero punctuation, which is a series of very fast talking, much faster talking than me video game reviews. For those who haven't seen his videos, he has kind of a, not a stick figure, but a little blocky representation of himself. The videos are almost always done just on a yellow background. And the animations are so simple. He uses the same couple stock images every time to represent a few things. If you've watched a lot of his videos, you can almost always recognize 80% of the things that you're going to see because he's used them before. He's just recombining them in different ways. But I think that they are an excellent combination of someone with something that's interesting to say. He has a great editorial voice. Again, a bit like Red Letter Media. He's going to be divisive. Some people will not like his presentation. And a good visual style. And I had been watching him for a little while. And I would say that I was very much influenced by him, just by realizing, oh, I've always thought that animation would require an enormous amount of drawing skills and familiarity with digital animation, which is something I didn't have any familiarity with in the slightest. But I could see, oh, these are basically just some drawings. These are basically just a couple of screenshots that are played one after another, where things change in a very basic way. And so that was a big influence. And then I had had a little bit of a visual style that I've been developing for years as a teacher through my own stuff. And that was somewhat original. And I had this topic idea, which was to do the United Kingdom versus England thing. And the question about originality, I think, is very interesting here because I searched around on YouTube for other videos that had done this. I was looking to see how anybody covered this topic before. And the answer was plenty of people had covered this topic before. I was by no means the first person to do a video on YouTube about United Kingdom, England, and Great Britain. And so my whole career started off in covering a topic that was not original by any means. But I looked at those videos and I thought, oh, I think I might be able to do a different kind of spin on these. And I thought that there were things that I didn't like about those other videos. And so I thought I could make my own that I would at least think was better. But ever since that, even though I know my very first video started off this way, I still worry about originality. And it's partly because I see sometimes commenters expect originality. Or what I see people do sometimes is on, if somebody else covers a topic later that I have covered, people will leave comments on that video saying that that person has ripped me off. And I think that's always terribly unfair. That's not the case at all. But people tend to think that whatever thing they saw first was the original thing. And then somebody else came along and just ripped somebody else's work off. And so I guess part of the reason why I wanted to talk about this is I think people shouldn't leave these kinds of comments saying that, oh, somebody ripped me off or in the reverse which is bound to happen sooner or later. Someone saying that I ripped somebody else's video off. It's correct. I mean, the place I see that the most is probably with my math videos, the number five videos, where a lot of people leave comments saying quite often something like, ViHart's already done this. And it will be something that kind of like, you know, oil or someone discovered. And I'm sometimes tempted to write, well, actually, a few people have been doing it for a few hundred years before myself or ViHart did it. So unusually, and usually I haven't even aware she's done it, you know, because I haven't seen all her videos because I only started following her more recently. And it is a bit frustrating. Well, I don't know. It used to be frustrating now. I'm just like, whatever. When someone says, oh, this is already, there's already a video about this. It's like, yeah, they probably is what's, you know, what's your point? It's a strange, it's a strange thing to deal with. And nobody owns the facts. And as you said before, we are not, we are not original researchers. I didn't go out and discover the difference between the United Kingdom and England. This was well known. This is well-trodden area before I came along and did this. And like you said, your mathematical form is, nobody owns the facts. So if anyone is doing an educational video on any topic and presuming that they are not an original researcher, they are building upon the work of somebody else. So by that way, something is not, these kinds of things can't be original. And with with with my own videos, it's it's all, it's interesting to see like it's not difficult to predict topics that I might cover in the future if you watch my videos. But that doesn't mean I own those topics. And it doesn't it doesn't mean that somebody is stealing an idea from me if they cover those topics. Like these things are just out in the world. There are there are topics that people can talk about. And you can end up having videos that cover the same thing in slightly different ways. And kind of going back to the zero punctuation, Yachtsy example. And thinking about, I get a lot of questions from people who want to know about how to start on YouTube. And I sometimes sometimes people send me clips of their of their early stuff saying, Oh, I'm trying to get a start on YouTube. You know, what do you think? And what I often see and you watch that stuff. If people catch me in the right mood, I do I do watch those things. This is anyway. Anyway, go on. Well, here's the thing. I have almost I have almost never responded because it's sometimes it's hard to know how to respond in a way that is helpful. And I often come across people who I think are doing just great on their own. It's very strange to see stuff that people might be having at the start of a career. But it's interesting because I think one of the things that strikes me is almost universally a bad sign is someone is trying to be another person. I'll see a video and say for example, this person is trying to be obviously a well-known vlogger, for example. They're using the same style or they're using the same language. Or I see this with, again, I don't want to be specific here. But I see some videos where people are clearly down to lots of the details mimicking the style of somebody else. Yeah, they're epping something they say is like a formula for success. That's a good way to put it. The thing is because those things are successful, that stuff can give you an initial boost. But my piece of advice is that if you really want a long-term career in the arts in general, I don't care if it's writing or making videos, you really do have to find your own style. I was trying to trace it down earlier today, but there's some quote that I really like that says the world advice to starting writers. It's something like, the world doesn't need another Stephen King. You shouldn't go out and try to be Stephen King. We already have a Stephen King. He's very good at being Stephen King. He's going to be better at being Stephen King than you will ever be at being Stephen King. You can write horror novels, but you should develop your own style. Your horror novels can even cover the same kinds of things that Stephen King novels do, because horror novels like everything else, they have similar themes. Authors are naturally going to come across the same kinds of stuff, but you need to have your own style to it. I think a couple of exactly called them horror, but Neil Gaiman, for example, has written a couple of books, which are sort of scary books. He has such a different style, but you could imagine Stephen King writing that book, or I could imagine Neil Gaiman writing a Stephen King book, but they would be such different experiences because of who those people are. That's one of the things that I see very often that is not necessarily a good sign for a long-term career for people starting out. The reason I wanted to bring up a zero punctuation and Yachtzi, and my own influence in that is because I was looking at his animation style, and I think if people watch his videos and they watch mine, I think you can see some influence that he's had on me in the way I animate things. The important thing is I didn't watch his videos and then try to also become a fast-talking video game reviewer. I might have gotten some initial attention if I had done something like that, but it would be just death for a long-term career. You have to develop your own style, I think, to do things in the long run. It would strike me as a very hollow existence, a very hollow victory. Like say I completely ripped off a minute physics style or a ViHart style or something like that, and made videos just like that. And I got five million subscribers and earned a fortune. I wouldn't enjoy, like, I don't think I would enjoy work and enjoying work is really important. There's something very satisfying about doing your thing your way. These people that just knock things off and sort of live by copying, I don't know, I guess if it makes them money. But it would just seem really unfulfilling. But I do also think there is a lot to be said by being positively influenced, like you talk about, like, I will see a camera shot or a way of doing something and you will always be influenced by that and think, oh, I really like how that thing looked and it can feed into what you do. But if you're just going to say, oh, I'm going to make a... If the way you would describe your channel would be, it's kind of like a CGP grade, but you know, I think you're already on a loser if the way you describe what you're doing is directly referencing someone else in that way. Isn't that how Hollywood movies are pitched? They say, oh, it's... I imagine you take Jurassic Park and we're going to cross it with love, actually. They pitch every single movie, I think that's the way that works. I don't really like that. And I don't... I don't know. I'm sure I've been guilty of it because it's a helpful way to sell things or make people understand things, but I don't think I could describe anything I do in that way. Like if you said to me, okay, describe one of your projects in those terms. I don't know. It doesn't immediately spring to my mind and it doesn't spring to my mind for you or for a lot of the other guys and girls we know who are successful. Like they're just their own thing. I could describe what it is. Like if you said to me, describe minute physics, for example, by Henry Wright, then you could say it's stick figures and this happens and that happens and this is how he does it. But you couldn't say it's this meets this because it's kind of its own thing a little bit. But there have been subsequent channels that you could say, it's kind of like minute physics, but with color or it's like minute physics, but you know, but thing. Yeah, it's funny. He bring up Henry because I saw it. He's got a very mimicked style now, hasn't he? Yeah, I mean, he didn't invent doing that style himself, but you know, and he'd be the first to say that. But in this kind of field, he's become very mimicked now. I saw a TV commercial that I thought whoever made that TV commercial, I can't remember what it was for, but they had to have have intentionally made it as close to a minute physics video as possible. There are a lot of little details about Henry's work that if you pay attention to them, you can notice about particular ways things are done. He thinks very consciously about like how the hand is represented on the video. And I watched something and I thought, man, there's no way that person. Didn't didn't. The advertising agency didn't just say, oh, we're going to run with this because it's a cool style. So it's a strange. It's a strange world to be in. And again, it's where things get so hard with influences and, you know, where do you draw the line? And I think that's why everybody who works in this field worries about that. To some extent, I think you worry about maybe mimicking somebody else too much or just becoming your own thing. I don't know. How do you feel when it goes the other way when you are mimicked or you are the inspiration or the influence? Does that do you feel flattered by that? Do you sometimes feel a bit offended by it? Where do you stand on that side of things? It's tricky. That's one... Okay, so the longer I have been doing YouTube professionally, the less I have actually been watching YouTube videos as a general statement. That's a very conscious decision on my part is I used to watch just a ton of YouTube. And now I almost never really watch YouTube unless it's one of the conferences where we're getting together. And then I binge watch everybody's stuff to see, oh, what's everybody enough to you in the last year and watch it all at once. And then that's also great because it's fresh on my mind so I can talk to everybody about what they've been doing. And it's like, yeah, well, Gray just remembers all my videos. So he's awesome. That's just much more than I before. Yes, although I think in the last one, I didn't quite work my way through Derek's back catalog. I think Derek was here to date it because I was coming up short for very tasking videos, so it was only because I ran out of time. I didn't make that go with the beard. But so this is, so I'm getting to a roundabout answer to your question, which is I partly do that because I don't kind of want to be influenced by other people's stuff. I totally relate to that. I say that all the time and people think I'm crazy, but I think it's a really, I do it too. It's going to be influenced and know what other people are doing in some ways. And people tell me that's crazy. If there is a topic that I know, I'm very well maybe covering at some point in the future, I will never watch anybody's video if they cover that same thing because the problem is, I'll give an example because this is probably a video I'm not going to make. But for a while, I was thinking about doing a video about capitalism versus communism versus socialism. Around the time I was thinking of doing it crash course with John Green did a video on capitalism, communism and socialism. And I am not going to watch this video. And the reason I cannot watch that video is because the writers and John, they're going to come up with some clever little way to describe something or some funny little joke. And the problem is, if I were to ever try to write my own video, it's impossible to get that out of your mind. If somebody has thought of a clever way to describe something, you can't not hear that in your own mind. So if my own videos are going to have anything remotely unique in them, it's going to be sometimes the way I describe things or the way I put things together. And so I have to preserve that and not watch videos on things that I may cover. And an even more extreme example, I happen to notice that Hank on crash course recently started crash course psychology. And there is a topic that I'm working on now, which is vaguely psychology related. And I don't even want to know what topics crash course psychology has covered. Because even if I know that they've touched on things that are similar to what I might work on. They know that that will inhibit me from wanting to work on it. It will feel like, oh, the Hank's already done it. And there's no point in me doing that. Even though as I said at the beginning, I feel this same feeling of, well, none of us own the facts and all of us are covering stuff that people may cover before and cover again in the future. And that's fine. What matters is a person's individual take on it. But I do, I'm aware of constraining my YouTube intake. And that's, it's a little, that can be a little bit weird professionally sometimes. But so to answer your original question about what happens when people send me videos that are much like my videos. And when I first started out in the first year, I would watch everything, particularly things that that looked like my own. I wanted to see what people were doing. But I would say in the last year, as I've also cut down my YouTube in general, I especially don't want to see the videos that are like my own videos. Because it's just, it's a similar kind of thing. It's like, if somebody is doing something in a similar style, I don't want to see at all what twists they put on it or how they've done it slightly differently. Because there's, you can't help but be influenced or affected by that kind of stuff if you see it. So, but if those influences not be positive sometimes, could you not like, like if I see someone who does something really clever with a camera angle or a bit of lens flare or something, and I think, oh, well, that's a nice thing. I should try and incorporate that one day. And maybe a year later it will start appearing from time to time. That can like improve, improve what you're doing too, can't it? That can, but what I'm talking about in particular is people on Twitter will straight up send me a link that says something like this video looks exactly like a CGP gray video. And then they send me the, I don't click on those links. I don't want to see those in particular. But what you're talking about general influences, oh, that's completely true. And that happens to me all the time. I'm really aware of when I'm watching, for example, documentaries or let's just say informational TV programs. I can't help but be just hyper aware of how either the editor or the person on camera is choosing to talk about whatever information they're talking about, how they're choosing to walk through an explanation. And most of it, that I'm very aware of and I'm keenly paying attention to, oh, this person does a really good job of talking through a complicated explanation. Or what is honestly more helpful is, oh, this person does a terrible job of walking through this explanation. Why is it bad? What has made this a bad explanation? And that kind of stuff can definitely filter through and can show up in later videos. But that's a whole different thing from seeing videos that look just like my own videos. Although, I can do, hold on, I want to find one example. Which I think is an interesting example. Hold on, let me see. Is it moon? Moon month? Will that pull it up? Curgisats? Yeah, curgisats, I don't know exactly. You may have seen some of their videos. They're very slickly animated videos. And they're covering sort of sciencey topics for the most part. And I think this is a great example of someone who's come along, they're doing very well. They're currently at 120,000 subscribers. And I think they're a great example of someone who is entering the educational space. He's covering topics that people have covered before. But has a real style. And the style is definitely a very, very slick, very visual, very animated style. And you can see that this person's been influenced by the pre-existing YouTube channels. And he has other channels listed in the sidebar. Like Crash Course is listed. I'm listed there. There's the brain scoop with Emily. They're all listed there. Like this person obviously knows that they exist. But it's just such a good example of finding your own way. And so I think slightly awkward name aside, I expect to see this channel be growing in the future. So I'll put it in the show notes. It always sounds like daft advice to be telling people to be original. Like that seems like the most natural thing in the world to do. Do you think people will shy from it because they don't have original ideas or they don't have the courage and the confidence in their ideas or because they think knocking something off is more tried and tested and therefore more likely to be successful? I mean, what's time is originality? Well, I'm not double-sire. Yeah, probably some kind of parts to your question there. I think it's probably I'm not sure. I love it when you say you're passing my question. It makes you sound so robotic. Well, I really, I really am going to need you to rephrase that question again because I'm not quite sure what you're going for there. The originality of ideas or originality of style or... Why? What style is originality? When Joe blows says I'm going to start a YouTube channel, why aren't they doing something original? You kind of need to start by mimicking stuff that you've seen. It's very hard to just sit down and create from whole cloth something brand new. Everybody starts out by mimicking other stuff. In a past life, I kind of wanted to be a non-fiction writer and I definitely, very consciously mimic the style of some authors that I liked. That's why this quote about the world doesn't need another Stephen King. It already has a Stephen King. That really struck home with me and it's okay to have this initial period where you're just trying stuff out and so you're trying to find your voice, but you really should find your own voice in your own style as fast as possible and do things on your own. It's not possible for someone to make something that's just completely brand new and original. Just right from the start. That's quite a tall order. Even just being original at all is quite tricky. There's a podcast I like. It's almost so good. I don't want to listen to it. It's the cracked podcast. I don't know if you listen to this one or not. It's with JunoCrack.com. It's that website and they have a bunch of their writers sometimes get together and they're basically doing audio versions of a bunch of the articles they've written on the site. I really like hearing the authors talk about it and just mention a whole bunch of other stuff. Really good example of how you don't need to have brand new stuff all the time. I am happy to listen to those authors to talk about their articles for an hour. But they did one episode recently where they were talking about submissions to their website. This is an incidental thing they mentioned, but how they're just always amazed by how many times they will get basically the exact same article or video skit posted to them by people who are on the other sides of the country, but they get the submission on the same day. So even though these individual groups are thinking that they are being original, in the massive humanity, it's hard to actually be original, to come up with an original thought. This whole episode was in the broader context of all kinds of things that just are remarkably similar. I'm going through examples like how many books are exactly like Harry Potter from all of these lawsuits that JK Rowling had at the time. Because people say I wrote a book and it too also has a 12 year old wizard who goes to wizarding school and he has a scar on his head and he has black hair and he has a pet owl. They go through all the interesting reasons talking about why. No matter how original you think you are, if you're going to write a story about wizards, there are some story decisions that are going to lead everybody into the same conclusions. How old does the boy need to be? What do you need to make him look like if he's going to be an anti hero? And so the very notion of it being original is not necessarily the case in the beginning. And I really good day to day example of that that you sometimes see is when someone very popular like tweet something or does something on social media and a funny little line or come back or witty remark comes into your head and you think, well, should I post that in response? How within a minute or two, 20 other people will have written the exact same thing? Yes. Yes. And you're like, ah, I guess I'm not so witty. Or it's, it's, it's, I see the same thing on Twitter if I say something, it's weird to get back the same joke sometimes for four or five people within a very short period of time. I'm usually one of them. Sorry, back. No, you are not. You are not. So yeah, it's, it's, it's, I think that can just be interesting just to see the where, or there are certain constraints that push people towards certain things. I'll give you just one more example that I was really aware of is when I made my video a while back on the, the nocebo, the one that starts with the, the fake headache in the beginning, it's the opposite of the placebo effect. Yeah. When I was doing research for that, I came across, I was like, I'm not sure if I was going to be able to do that. I came across a whole bunch of just, um, just articles talking about the nocebo effect just in, in the popular press and article in the New Yorker or, or, or whatever. And the thing that really struck me with that was almost every one of those articles about the nocebo effect sounded exactly the same. All of those authors made the same structural decisions about, okay, we're going to start off with a paragraph that gives an example about how the placebo effect works. Okay, paragraph two, we're going to reverse that and introduce it. And it was, it was, it was remarkable how similar all of these articles sounded. You would have assumed they were all written by the same person. Many of them covering the same examples going into the same stuff. But these, these articles were sometimes decades apart in, in different newspapers written by different people. And one of the things was I was looking at my original script and realizing I had done the exact same thing with my outlines. And that's an example of sometimes when you're explaining something, there's a very natural progression for how you're supposed to explain something. And I think it can sometimes help with originality to fight against that intentionally. And in my nocebo video, I set myself a challenge, which was to not be allowed to use the word placebo in that video. And so that structurally made me write it in a different way that it couldn't follow the same kind of script that other people did. But it's interesting just to see sometimes that that that happened. Like, have you, have you, have you reached the point where you don't need to be original anymore because you've kind of got a thing? Like if you were to do something really original and different, it would really throw people. That's actually, yeah, that's something I worry about. Like if you were to do CGP Gray, the song? Yeah. I worry about that because the way I view it is that my channel is CGP Gray. It's not CGP Gray's five minute explanation videos. And I have always been intending to put more different stuff on there, but it all hasn't worked out for various reasons. The primary one of which is it almost always makes sense for me to work on the main thing that pays my bills, which are those videos. And so doing something different is risky, but it's something that I really want to try to do on purpose because I don't want to be constrained into always making videos that are very similar to each other in a way. It gets harder. It gets harder the bigger you go. It does. I mean, you sort of, no, I've mentioned it to you a couple of times. And I alluded to it in my original subbable video, but there are a couple of projects I've been trying to work on which are different, like 20-minute, long, little mini documentaries on a particular topic that's interesting to me. I have been trying to work on those for almost a year now. And this is a total disaster. And part of it is, I'm very... I know how to do these little five-minute formats. And I can feel that this longer, 20-minute format is something that I don't... I'm not as familiar with, and I don't have as much confidence in how to do it or how to present it. And it's also... It's a topic that I'm afraid of getting scooped by one of the other people eventually. So I really need to get my acting gear on this. But... It's not about Graham's number, is it? No, it's not about Graham's number, okay? This is what I am very glad that of all of the people in our little group, that I am the relatively least sciencey of them, because science seems to be a central focus for a lot of the people that we know. And so at least when I'm covering stuff that's not directly, directly science, I can feel like I can take a little breather and not worry about someone scooping me, because whenever I work on... Whenever I'm working on a topic, I do get really worried that somebody else is going to come out with a thing that I'm working on right now before me, which would be kind of a disaster if I have a particular topic. And then somebody else has a huge video, two weeks before I'm going to put mine up. People are going, oh, did you just copy it? And it's... No, I've been working on it for three months, but that's just the way it's going to look. And the worst thing ever happened to me once, which was I was... I usually think, you know, just calm down. Nobody else is probably working on this. Everybody else has their own projects. When I was working on my video about Pluto not being a planet, I had the same feeling of, okay, I got to... I feel like, at the time I was doing this, this was already a 10-year-old news story, but I was still worried that somebody was going to put together a big YouTube video about it. And so I was rushing, rushing, rushing. And I thought, okay, let me get this out. I know someone's chasing me. Let me finish it, publish it, get it out. Great. And Henry actually sent me an email saying, I can't believe it. You totally scooped me. I was working on the same thing. And I thought, oh no, this was the worst thing that could happen to me because it confirmed my paranoia about working on something at the same time as somebody else and not being aware of it. And that's... That haunts me. I mean, I can say, as I said earlier in the show, I can say as much as I want, nobody owns the facts and everybody can do their own stories, but you still don't want to release a video about the same thing just after somebody else does. Especially someone like you who's a bit more, because of the infrequency of your releases, you're a bit more dependent on them becoming viral. It's a lot less likely to be viral if there's been another video about it the week before. Yeah, that's a structural problem that I do face. That most other people don't. But even if that was the case, I still wouldn't... I still don't want to release something that someone, that sort of a colleague released a little bit earlier. That would just feel kind of bad. But to answer your question, I do feel constrained sometimes to continue to release videos that are like the videos that I have released before. And I'm aware of this as a problem. And I have... Sounds that may be your different originality. Black hole. Well, I think if this is a question here of style, you develop a style and that's perfectly fine to not necessarily develop on that style. But it's different running a YouTube channel because some YouTube channels are very well known for just releasing completely unrelated stuff. And because I haven't done that very often, I'm not sure how well received it would be if I released a video on my main YouTube channel that was not like the others. But precisely because of that, it really makes me want to. It makes me want to establish the fact of I can upload anything that I want on this channel. And I know that it's mostly educational videos, but maybe sometimes it's going to be something else. And I hope that's okay, everybody. I think it will be. Just like with everything, you overestimate how much other people care in some sense. Or most people are not really worried about what kind of thing is going to appear on the CGP grade channel. There's only one person who's really worried about that maybe and it's me, I think. That was saying. That was saying something about it. But then you sit there looking at the comments thinking, oh, I've made a mistake. I know where they've written that comment and then gone off and had a cup of tea and walked their dog and thought about it again. So the next video would. Yeah, so forgotten about it immediately. Although I will say that I pretty much ignore the YouTube comments completely at the stage. And I like the Reddit comments are much better and they're much more serious and I feel that the Reddit people would much more understand if I put up something that was different. But if it was poorly received on my own subreddit, that would be a little crushing if I did something different. So we'll wait for that day. I'd love to watch a 20 minute video by you. I'd be well up for that. I hope you do it sometime. I'm interesting. I may at some point in the near future ask you for some advice on longer form stuff. I'm having some troubles with that. And you produce a lot more longer form stuff than I do. Yeah, but that's more from lack of discipline than any expertise in the area. I'm so hard on yourself. Well, I don't know. I don't know. I haven't. Yeah. You can ask me anything you like. I'll tell you what I think, but it would be interesting. There wasn't really the originality discussion I was expecting. Have we covered the things you were wanting to talk about? Well, what were you expecting? I don't know what I was expecting. I think when you told me half an hour before the podcast in your usual style, I told you yesterday. I told you I said something yesterday. Yeah, you told me I'm thinking of originality. And then I see you put a tweet out an hour before the podcast going, hey, everyone, I can't decide what to talk about. No, I didn't. That is not what I said at all. That is not what I said at all. Now you're making me angry. I have to pull it up here. I said, I said, tell me what you think we should talk about, which is very different from how I haven't. I'm an indecisive person. I was unable to think of anything. No, I already, I perfectly knew. I just thought maybe there'd be something in the follow-up section to talk about if people said something interesting. So that wasn't a call for a main topic. No, I have sometimes said a main topic. I've been very clear with my tweets, I think. You're making me angry. It's great to see that little r-motion. But so what did you do? Your emotion chip is obviously set to high sensitivity. What were you thinking when I told you five minutes before the start time? Yeah, you told me after the first ad, which later and later. I think I was expecting something a bit more about scammy, rip her off a free-booter, copy her types rather than quite a wholesome discussion about how we should start and let's hold hands and be original together. Awesome. Which is good. Which is good. I thought it was going to be more about what do you do when people rip you off and they're not original. But that's not what you were discussing at all. And I don't think my conclusion was let's all work together. I think my conclusion was that topic originality is almost impossible, but that style originality is what people should aim for. I think that's the conclusion from this. Yeah, I'm going to have to cut down that boring section about the Lord of the Rings. I'll tell you that.
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