Ep. 528: "The Biggest Indoor Building in the World"
John: Hello?
Merlin: Hi, John.
John: Hi, Merlin.
John: How's it going?
John: Oh.
John: Good morning.
John: Good morning.
John: Good morning.
John: Gut Morgan.
Merlin: Gut.
John: Guten Morgan.
Merlin: Morgan Scheissehosen.
Merlin: It's 241 p.m.
John: Yeah, this is late for us to start our show, but we've been doing stuff, haven't we?
Merlin: We have.
Merlin: We started such as, this isn't the show, except it is.
Merlin: We started at the crack of time.
John: We did.
John: We started at our normal time, but now it's an hour and 40 minutes later.
John: And we've been having a jolly old time, haven't we, on the computers?
Merlin: Well, we started at the crack of time because we're utilizing a new method of recording which is should be of no consequence No, no, no, it should be these days when everybody has a podcast these days It should be so easy to John.
Merlin: It seems so simple.
Merlin: It's two people.
Merlin: It's talking We've had phones for at least I don't know 15 20 years now.
Merlin: It seems crazy that Seems crazy I just want to record people talking
Merlin: It does seem easy.
Merlin: It seems simple.
Merlin: It seems like something that I don't know if it's easy, but it does seem simple.
Merlin: I signed up for an account with an application that we're using now, and we had to make sure that that worked.
Merlin: But then then, John, I don't want to talk out of school.
Merlin: No, but it seems to me that then what happened was we realized that you've had kind of a computer mix them up.
Merlin: And we've been working on that for an hour and change.
John: Well, there have been a lot of those lately.
John: You know, I had to get a new phone and I went to the phone store and then I didn't want a new phone.
John: I was being forced to do it.
John: And I said, you know, can't you just fix this?
Merlin: You were being forced to do it because you went swamming with turts.
Merlin: Yep.
Merlin: Or seals.
John: That's right.
John: Both.
John: And now you're forced, compelled.
John: Compelled.
John: Compelled by modernity and by all of our, you know, the fact that we all are leaning super hard on phones, that the idea of me not having a phone.
John: And yet they're hard to record.
John: But, you know, 20 years ago, 20 years ago, I didn't have a phone.
John: Or, you know, 20, well, 24 years ago, I didn't have a phone.
John: And I was fine.
John: Everybody was fine.
Merlin: Look how happy you were.
John: You were so successful.
John: I was happy.
John: And then it was only 15 years ago that I didn't have a smartphone.
John: I had a flip phone.
John: That was fine.
John: I was fine with that.
John: Yeah.
John: uh but ever since i had a ever since i had a smartphone you know but nowadays my god you go you go three hours without a smartphone and the whole thing goes to shit jason the world changed a little too john i mean it did but you know i i can understand like like uh last year jason finn asked me to go to a baseball game and on my way there i was on the train on the way to the baseball stadium i realized i didn't have my phone
John: Did I tell you this story?
John: No.
John: I end up at the baseball stadium and you know, on my phone should be my ticket and I should also be calling Jason to tell him where I am.
Merlin: Did you get tickets on your phone 24 years ago, John?
Merlin: I couldn't do it 24 years ago.
John: Couldn't do it.
John: You couldn't record it.
John: No, but it was in my Apple wallet and I was going to walk up and bloop it.
John: And then I would have texted him and he would be standing on the other side of the gate or he would have met me out by the Ken Griffey.
John: Well, I get there.
John: I got neither thing.
John: And I'm standing there thinking, well, he's going to come out of the stadium and maybe he'll think that I'll be at the Ken Griffey.
John: He'll come looking for me.
John: Well, I waited and waited.
John: And then, of course, I remember, oh, no, Jason, he won't come looking for me.
John: He'll sit in the great seats that he got for us and he'll stew and he'll brood.
Merlin: Oh, because he's, see, see, now we got a drawing room French farce on our hands because there's been a misunderstanding.
Merlin: And the nature of the misunderstanding is that you can't fix the misunderstanding soon.
John: That's right.
John: I'm outside standing next to the thing.
John: The game has started.
John: He's in there stewing about the fact that I didn't come because that's consistent with what he thinks is my personality.
John: Oh, he didn't even come.
John: And so I'm standing there by the Jersey barrier and I say to the nearest guy.
John: That'll become funny in a minute.
John: I say to the nearest guy.
John: Yeah.
John: Hey.
John: Hey, guy.
John: And he comes over, what?
John: And I say, can I borrow your... I'm in town for a job interview.
Merlin: I need $20 for gas.
John: I say, my alternator's broken, and I hold up an alternator.
John: My daughter's in the trunk.
John: And I say to the guy... Yeah.
John: Look, there's a guy in there that's got tickets to the game.
John: I didn't bring my phone.
John: Can I use your phone to call my lady friend who has the only phone number I can remember in my head right now who also will have... Where do you keep all your phone numbers, John?
Merlin: Where do you keep them?
Merlin: Do you normally just memorize them?
John: Well, I keep them on my phone.
John: I used to have them on a 3x5 card.
Merlin: You didn't have your phone with you, though, did you?
John: No, I didn't.
John: I used to have a three by five card where I wrote all my friends' phone numbers down and then I laminated it with tape.
John: I put tape on both sides and then I put it in my chain wallet.
John: And anytime I needed to call somebody from a phone booth or something, I would pull out my tape laminated three by five card.
John: I would look at their number and I would dial their phone number and that's how I would call them.
John: But I don't have that anymore.
John: But I do have like four phone numbers still memorized.
John: And one of them is this phone number belonging to my daughter's mother.
Merlin: If I ever need to call Empire Carpeting, I'm good.
Merlin: Because if memory serves, that's 588-2300.
Merlin: Oh, that's right.
Merlin: Empire.
Merlin: Yeah, but then they put an 800 in front of it, and they kind of jammed it up.
Merlin: 800-588.
Merlin: I also know J.G.
Merlin: Wentworth can get me a structured settlement payoff.
John: I don't know either of those guys, because I've deleted that from my system folder a long time ago.
Merlin: Their phone number is cash now, I think.
John: I don't even think it's recoverable, that stuff.
John: But so what I did was I called her and I said, hey, will you text Jason Finn?
Merlin: Sorry, the Mariners fan let you borrow his phone?
John: Yeah, and he's not happy about it.
John: It kind of feels like a scam.
John: It does.
John: And he's like, so now this woman's phone number is going to be in my phone?
John: How do I know she's not going to call me?
John: And I'm like, look, she's a busy lady.
John: She's not interested in any of this.
Merlin: If I had my phone, I'd show you a photo of her, and you'd feel really dumb you just said that.
John: Yeah, if I had my phone, I could tell you all about it.
Merlin: In your dreams, you'd get a text from her.
John: And she says, okay, fine.
John: So I say, tell Jason I'm out by the Ken Griffey statue.
John: And she goes, okay.
John: I don't know what any of this is, but don't forget your phone.
John: No time to argue.
John: So I hand the phone back to the guy, and I stand there, and sure enough, five minutes later, here comes Jason.
John: He's not very impressed, but he does have the ticket on his phone, and he gets me in, and the rest of the day goes without a hitch, and I thank the man.
Merlin: John, has it occurred to you it still required a phone?
John: It's just it was somebody else's phone.
John: That's right.
John: It required a phone, but you know what?
John: I was fine.
John: It didn't, you know, it took me an extra 15 minutes of wondering what I'm going to do, but I solved the problem.
John: So anyway, I go to the phone store the other day because I can't solve the problem because the problem is that the 50 people in the world that need to contact me on a moment's notice can't do it.
John: And in fact, Jason, Finn, his self.
John: said to me, when I heard you didn't have a phone, I don't even care about you.
John: I got no reason to talk to you, but it gave me anxiety that you didn't have a phone, that if I needed to talk to you, I couldn't.
Merlin: It gave me like three kinds of anxiety.
Merlin: It gave you anxiety.
Merlin: Oh, it gave me anxiety.
Merlin: I mean, the first kind of anxiety is just the whole, like, I get flustered.
Merlin: Because my family is always like, I'm COO, or the CTO at least.
Merlin: Actually, I'm not even the chief anything.
Merlin: Do you think you're at the C-level?
Merlin: I think I'm a director on the bubble.
Merlin: Okay, sure.
Merlin: Just won an Oscar last night.
Merlin: I'm going to write that down on the bubble.
Merlin: I'm anxious just because I get flustered because my family's like, let's go, let's go.
Merlin: And I'm like, all right.
Merlin: And like, if there's no blanket to sit on, who's going to get yelled at?
Merlin: And did we bring the recycling or like whatever?
Merlin: And I'm doing all my stuff.
Merlin: And they're like, they love doing this thing.
Merlin: You know how our house is.
Merlin: They like to wait downstairs and yell up at me.
Merlin: Uh-huh.
Merlin: Which is just feels great.
Merlin: And then I yell back, no, I'm just deliberately annoying you.
Merlin: And because if I had done it, I've gotten out to the car and gone, aha.
Merlin: Like I remembered all the other things, but I cannot believe I lost.
Merlin: I forgot my phone.
Merlin: That makes me feel so stupid.
Merlin: But you are jokes have left the room.
Merlin: This is a it's a big deal.
Merlin: To not have that stuff that you've come to depend on, but you also just described something else, which is like take that Jason Finn problem and the anxiety of not knowing if Jason Finn knows you don't have a phone.
Merlin: Now multiply that by a million.
Merlin: If your mom doesn't, well, you're not a quick returner of texts, which helps.
Merlin: But if there is something where somebody who's used to fast responses from you didn't, they're going to think you're dead.
Merlin: They're going to think it finally happened.
John: Well, so, so the, the, the test case scenario was, you know, I pick up my daughter from school unless there are, uh, you know, major extenuating circumstances where I would text and say, Hey, I can't do it.
John: I'm this and that.
John: And then, you know, the, uh, the rest of the team normally springs into action.
John: But one thing we do to eliminate confusion is that every day, even though everybody knows I'm going to pick her up, we all send a text around our little chain and say, are you picking up our daughter?
John: Yes, I am.
Merlin: Picard always says, you've got the con.
Merlin: He says, you've got to say, I watched a documentary about plane crashes last night, as you do.
Merlin: And the flight engineer, the third in command, he's got a little notebook.
Merlin: He's got like six pages of checklists to go through.
Merlin: Do you just skip the checklist sometimes?
Merlin: No, you don't.
John: No, you don't.
John: Checklists save lives.
John: They've eliminated the position of flight engineer.
John: That's part of the problem.
John: That's a lot of extra weight.
John: But it is, you know, my dad, when we were in flying in his airplane.
John: When he would give me command of the craft, when he would say, you've got the con, he would always pat me on top of the head.
John: One, two, three.
John: From affection or aeronautics?
John: No, no, no.
John: That was the signal so that it wasn't just like, hey, you take over.
John: I think this is so important.
Merlin: It's an official changeover.
Merlin: We're not talking about like something ceremonial, but it doesn't have to be hard and it doesn't have to be weird.
Merlin: But this is when you've got a goddamn baby, you do stuff...
Merlin: John, when you've got a lizard, you do this.
Merlin: And here's why.
Merlin: You take out the lizard.
Merlin: And if you're me, you say, hey, dingus, set a 45-minute lizard timer.
Merlin: Because guess what?
Merlin: We will forget the lizard is out.
Merlin: We'll set that aside for a minute.
Merlin: Take it as red, though.
Merlin: Sometimes you forget the lizard is out.
Merlin: He likes to get under some cables and hide.
Merlin: That makes him happy.
Merlin: Yeah, of course it does.
Merlin: It's a form of social engagement.
Merlin: He's introverted.
Merlin: He's playing.
Merlin: But, like, if Madeline brings out the lizard and then is going to go do something, we have a pat on the head, which is, like, usually it's something, like, we try to sound kind of hip.
Merlin: And we'll say something like, you got eyes on Bando?
Merlin: Eyes on Bando.
Merlin: Like, do you have the con?
Merlin: Like, yes, I have eyes on Bando.
Merlin: Tap, tap, tap.
Merlin: Yeah, that's right.
Merlin: Change over, hand off the stick.
Merlin: When you've got a baby, you do that.
Merlin: Like, are you, like, just because you walked out of the room, you're supposed to say to somebody, I'm walking out of the room, watch, can you watch, will you, will you watch the baby?
Merlin: Are you watching the baby?
Merlin: And the other person, like, what do you do?
Merlin: No, you go, yes, tap, tap, tap.
Merlin: I have the con.
Merlin: Tap, tap, tap.
Merlin: I got eyes, I got eyes, I got eyes on baby.
John: Well, in this instance, the five days that I didn't have the phone, one special day early on, I was downtown instead of sitting at my laptop.
John: And from my laptop, I can say I'm on my way to the school, but I was downtown.
John: And I thought to myself, I'm not able to check in.
John: Now, everyone knows that I'm going to get her.
John: I never fail to do it.
John: But I'm not able to check in.
John: Now, what is going to happen?
John: There's a cascading, a series of fail-safe fallback situations.
John: And as I'm driving to the school, I said, there is a very good chance that my mother is there.
Merlin: Because the situation... Because she went into the fallback plan.
Merlin: Yeah, failback plan.
Merlin: They get the order, you know, Major Kong opens the vault.
Merlin: Fella could have a pretty good weekend in Las Vegas with this stuff, right?
John: That's right.
Merlin: And she goes into action because she knows that she's got her orders.
Merlin: It's plan H. She's turned on the CRM discriminator, and she knows that whether or not I've heard from John, the fallback position is somebody needs to be there so this kid isn't picked up by the police.
John: That's right.
John: And it's a 20 minute drive from where she is.
John: So I show up at the school and sure enough, not only is she there, she's there ahead of me.
John: And not only is she there ahead of me, but my daughter is in the process of getting into her car as I pull into the parking lot.
Merlin: That is a tight team.
John: Yeah, it is.
John: But you can imagine as my daughter got out of the car and came back, because they saw me in the rearview mirror and came back and got into my car, my mom, as she pulled out, rolled her window down and said, get a phone.
Merlin: And I was like, yes, ma'am.
John: So when I went to get a phone and I got a phone, it was an entire, it was not an easy handover like it normally is.
John: I didn't just set my phone next to my other phone because my phone was waterlogged and dead.
John: And so I had to download the whole thing from the cloud, but I hadn't updated the cloud because they were charging me.
John: They were extorting me to spend $10 a month.
John: And I was fighting them, uh, to my own, you know, I was shooting myself in the foot in order to make a point.
John: And I had gone around and deleted all these files, trying to
John: To carve out some space so that my storage wasn't full, but Apple wasn't having it.
John: Even though I deleted 121 gigawatts from all my stuff, Apple was like, nope, still not good enough, still not good enough.
John: You need to delete one more video of your child.
John: But I was still going to do it, still going to do it while I'm updating my phone, but it's only updating it back to when iCloud decided I was no longer...
John: able to update to the cloud, which was Christmas of last year.
John: Well, the most recent Christmas.
John: And so it took me two days to get the phone running.
John: Well, somehow in that process, what it also did was log me out of everything.
John: Now, I don't know why.
John: My laptop hasn't changed.
John: It's been sitting here on the desk.
John: Why am I logged out of things on the laptop?
John: Because I got a new phone.
John: Shouldn't have happened, I don't think.
John: That's not the famous Apple functionality.
John: But then, so I'm logged out of all these things that I never use, or I don't even remember that I had a password to them.
John: And one of those things was the program that we used to record our show for the last 14 years.
Merlin: I did not put this together.
John: Yes, for the last whatever, 13 years we've been recording this show, we have used the Skype program.
John: Which we've complained about.
Merlin: You can hear old Skype sounds in the program.
Merlin: You can hear the ring-a-ling-a-ling of the way Skype sounded in 2011.
Merlin: Yeah.
John: And Skype has, we have complained about it the entire time.
John: Mm-hmm.
John: But we have continued to use it despite the fact that our listeners, our German listeners who currently live in Scandinavia have complained about the audio quality.
John: And over the years, over the 13 years, I have heard from people.
John: that they love the show, but they can't listen to it, Merlin.
Merlin: I don't believe them.
John: I don't believe either.
Merlin: I don't believe either of those things.
John: Because of the artifacts, because of the bad sound quality.
Merlin: I especially don't believe the first one.
Merlin: I don't believe they love the show.
Merlin: Anybody can write you about anything.
Merlin: That's true.
Merlin: There's no vetting process.
John: That's true.
John: But we have stuck with this garbage program.
John: Well, I remember at some point in the 2010s,
John: when skype apparently i'm correct me if i'm wrong but they were purchased by the microsoft corporation yes yeah and then microsoft microsoft if i recall this correctly then required that you have a microsoft
John: email address.
Merlin: Or at least like a new account.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: That's Microsoft friendly, perhaps.
John: Right.
John: You couldn't just log in with your Gmail address like every other thing in the world.
John: Microsoft was like, oh, no, no, no, no, no, no.
John: We need a special.
John: It's like when Facebook said, oh, Facebook Messenger is a different product.
Yeah.
John: And you have to have.
John: I remember you talking about that before.
John: Oh my God.
John: I fought them.
John: It's just like the, the cloud thing.
John: I fought them for three years.
John: I'm not going to download your freaking messenger app.
John: Ding dongs.
John: But then gradually they were like, well, then you can't read your messages.
John: How do you like them apples?
John: I have taken Facebook off my phone.
John: I didn't put it on my new phone and I've never been happier.
Merlin: Oh, it's an opportunity for growth.
John: That's not true.
John: I have been happier.
John: but yeah but i get the idea yeah but so when i got on my laptop all of a sudden skype which had just been running in the background for a decade says you need to log in and i was like with what and they were like with your microsoft id
John: And I tried everything I could to get into that program.
Merlin: All the reset passwords, all the... I just want to pause for a moment to just say in passing that the kind of thing you're talking about here, the thing that you were going through, which we have all gone through...
Merlin: This kind of thing is among the most frustrating things to have to deal with in modern life.
Merlin: Because, I'm not talking, like, whatever, you guys, grow up.
Merlin: We live in the first world.
Merlin: But it's really frustrating how much stuff you have to, like, hand crank to get going again.
Merlin: And it also, of course, obviously, once you're into this, you start realizing, I know, when other people are frustrated...
Merlin: It's terrible.
Merlin: But when I'm frustrated, it's the end of the world.
Merlin: That happens to be true.
Merlin: But it is true.
Merlin: And any of you with any sympathy would appreciate this because there's also a certain level of recursion to this stuff where you've, the way I've infelicitously phrased it before, it's like locking your keys into a succession of tinier cars.
Merlin: You need, there is no prime mover.
Merlin: There is no God.
Merlin: There is no one thing to fix everything because you need this to get that and this to get that and you have to become your own personal hacker.
Merlin: to like unearth all this information to answer these questions.
Merlin: Right now, I have to figure out weird ways to pay the electric bill for my office because I use weird answers for my security questions, which I think everybody should do.
Merlin: And I guess I never wrote them down because now it thinks I don't have an account.
Merlin: So I've got to go through a bank or I got to do this.
Merlin: I got to pay this way.
Merlin: And I don't have.
John: Because when you clicked on recovery, it said to you, Merlin, it's your coach.
John: It's your coach from junior high, and you're like, I had three coaches in junior high.
Merlin: And the answer could very well be Frankenstein's fat pussy.
Merlin: Because that's what everybody should do.
John: Yeah, what was the joke that I thought of in 2007 that I'm still tied to?
Merlin: Well, I do write it down.
Merlin: And I have an app called 1Password for managing my passwords.
Merlin: But another one is, like, just use a different part of speech.
Merlin: Like, don't use a noun.
Merlin: Like, at least, I mean, I know this is not the end of the world, but you can at least latch to the screen door anyway.
Merlin: That frustration is so frustrating because, like, I've got my account number.
Merlin: And then they're like, oh, and to recover this, you need to give us these three pieces of information or these seven pieces of information or this.
Merlin: And they're like, what's your meter number?
Merlin: I'm like, what's my meter number?
Merlin: And they're like, no, it's on your electric bill.
Merlin: I haven't seen a utility bill in three years.
John: My computer did this to me.
John: It was like, oh, you have two-factor authentication.
John: Just go to your phone and find the 10-digit thing.
John: And I was like, my phone is with the turtles.
John: My phone swims with the fishes.
John: I can't get into my thing from my own computer because at one point, somebody convinced me that it was better for me
John: if i have this system in place where it's going to send a thing to a thing it is better for you but it's still a very fraught system i've been saying if i don't say that i'm going to get yelled at by a kind of i've been saying i've been saying this uh for 15 years to you specifically which is that all this stuff was designed by ctos and it was not designed by people that are customer facing
John: Oh, yeah.
John: And the CTOs all go to the customer-facing people and say, no, no, no, this is how it has to be.
John: This is what works best.
Merlin: So interesting you should say that, John, because I wasn't even going to mention this.
Merlin: Go on.
Merlin: I took a pair of costly Apple headphones in to be fixed.
Merlin: Very costly headphones.
Merlin: Spoiler alert, they want $299 to fix them.
Merlin: To fix them.
Merlin: Yep.
Merlin: And that's because they've decided, guess what, buddy?
Merlin: What?
Merlin: Because, quote, they have water damage.
Merlin: What happened?
John: Did you sneeze?
Merlin: No, no.
Merlin: They don't have water damage.
Merlin: It's like, unless... Now, John Syracuse thinks it's because I've worn them while it was raining out.
Merlin: But if your headphones can't be under a hood and make it... Anyway, whatever.
Merlin: They want 200... The point is, while I was there, I also got a demo of the new virtual reality thing.
John: Oh, you did?
Merlin: Well, but the point is, I had 30 minutes with my new friend, Shayla.
Merlin: And I wanted to let you know, I brought up what you said.
Merlin: with two different Apple employees.
Merlin: And here's what I said.
Merlin: I said this to Tim, and I said this to Shayla.
Merlin: I'm not trying to get anybody in trouble.
Merlin: I'm just trying to say, I'm out there spreading the word.
Merlin: I said to Tim, and I says this, I says I have a friend.
Merlin: I said I have a dear, dear friend.
Merlin: It's very hard to record his phone calls, especially because he doesn't have a phone.
Merlin: And what I says to him, I says, look, my friend gets the pop-up.
Merlin: about iCloud, buying more iCloud.
Merlin: And here's the thing.
Merlin: I can't get you to buy iCloud, and I can't get Syracuse or Apple to understand your point of view, and I'm stuck in between.
Merlin: I understand what both of you are saying.
Merlin: I understand you saying, I mean, this is my interpolation of it, but my sense is you're fucking sick of getting a pop-up nagging you to go spend money on something.
Merlin: Which, if you're like me, means you create a somewhat – an unintentionally somewhat emotional relationship with that pop-up.
Merlin: I do.
Merlin: Anything that you get over and over and over, at the very least, it can make you – over time can make you a little bit emotional because there's no way to turn that off.
Merlin: One of mine is why is it like – sometimes this happens.
Merlin: Like for the longest time, every morning I would get a pop-up saying, you have 13 Apple shortcuts enabled.
Right.
Merlin: Thanks, buddy.
Merlin: I also have a chair in the living room, but I don't need an update on that.
Merlin: But what I said is like, here's the problem.
Merlin: And this is to your point.
Merlin: First of all, I want to let you know, I brought your case to two different people and they were utterly uninterested.
Merlin: But, but here's what I said.
Merlin: I said, the problem is that the parsimonious, very small amount of, quote unquote, free space that Apple gives you is somewhat farcical.
Merlin: And then it fills up fast and then it yells at you.
Merlin: And I don't think it's surprising at all that somebody like, for example, just for the sake of argument, a John Roderick develops.
Merlin: a somewhat emotional relationship with that pop-up and says, you know what?
Merlin: How about fuck you?
Merlin: How about fuck you?
Merlin: I'm never, ever paying for this because you've bugged me so much and whatever value this thing has.
Merlin: And then I get somebody on the other side, won't name any names.
Merlin: You get somebody on the other side, you should just get it.
Merlin: And I agree.
Merlin: I did just get it.
John: They're giving you a free service and you need to pay.
Merlin: I pay $30-some a month for the Rain Man suite.
Merlin: I've got all the Apple stuff.
Merlin: All my family is on it.
Merlin: Blah, blah, blah, blah.
Merlin: I understand the value of that.
Merlin: But, John, I also understand what you're saying.
Merlin: And how is that relevant?
Merlin: Why was I not going to say it until now?
Merlin: Because here's why.
Merlin: My gut...
Merlin: I don't have a way to prove this, and I don't really care.
Merlin: But my gut is a lot of people in decision-making positions at Apple have never seen that pop up.
John: Right, because they were paying $30 from the beginning.
Merlin: Well, and again, people are going to go like, well, not all Apple employees get it.
Merlin: Okay, fine, but here's the thing.
Merlin: If you did, if you were, not even Tim Cook, if you were, like above me, a higher-than-a-director-level person, and you got that every day,
Merlin: and you really super didn't want it and you super didn't want to pay?
Merlin: Well, first of all, you probably did pay because it's Apple and who cares and maybe you get credit.
Merlin: I don't know.
Merlin: But the point is, I don't think the people who make Apple TV use Apple TV.
Merlin: I don't think the people who decide on nagware like that
Merlin: I don't want to be unkind.
Merlin: There's a reason I'm not in the corner office, John.
Merlin: But my gut is, if they understood how people feel about what leads to that pop-up, and I'm putting that carefully, it's not just the pop-up.
Merlin: It is unusual that Apple has a strictly marketing pop-up that they approve of, but we'll set that aside for a minute.
Merlin: They allow lots of stuff to come through and notifications from various things.
Merlin: DoorDash says it's Sunday, so have a fun day.
Merlin: But
Merlin: Whatever, whatever.
Merlin: Hey, I just wonder if my food's here, guy.
Merlin: But what I'm saying is somebody's not seeing that.
Merlin: Because now we're back to the old Ronald Reagan problem, which is you either know about it and you're a piece of shit or you don't know about it and you're an idiot.
Merlin: Honestly.
Merlin: If you don't, if you haven't processed, and maybe they've got numbers on this.
Merlin: I always assume Apple has numbers on things.
Merlin: Given the number of unfixed, longstanding bugs that I still get every day, I get the feeling they're not looking at stuff like log files as much as I assume.
Merlin: That's my guess.
Merlin: But here's the thing.
Merlin: It's a great service.
Merlin: It's totally useful.
Merlin: And if you have bred a or if you have like developed a customer who fucking hates your pop up for your dumbest shit, small amount of like, oh, you're running out of space.
Merlin: You got to get this.
Merlin: Guess what?
Merlin: It's not working.
Merlin: It's really not working.
Merlin: You have not demonstrated the value of that product to the person.
Merlin: You have not told, if you like, in a marketing way.
Merlin: I'm sorry, they moved the bang-bang machine again.
Merlin: You have not told a story about iCloud, paying for iCloud service stuff.
Merlin: You have not told a compelling story of that.
Merlin: And if your main way you think that's really going to make a difference is this really shitty Windows in the 90s style pop-up shit,
Merlin: That's fucking crazy.
Merlin: And I do think my gut continues to be that's because a lot of people in decision-making positions at that company never have to deal with the stuff that normal people deal with.
Merlin: And I think it's harmful.
Merlin: Do you want to use Clippy?
John: It's $10 a month.
Merlin: It looks like you're trying to get your phone out of the water.
John: Water damage.
John: Here's the thing.
John: I identified this however long ago, 10 years ago, 15 years ago.
John: Remember when I first had the thought technology?
John: Oh, wait a minute.
John: I'm an introvert.
John: Do you remember that?
Merlin: I'm going to quit muting.
Merlin: There's no point.
Merlin: I do remember, John, and it changed my life.
Merlin: I laughed at you, I laughed and laughed, and then I said, you know what, John's right, because like John Roderick, I am extremely extroverted to a point, and then I'm very introverted, and that will be my state.
Merlin: Like Ultraman, my light has started blinking.
Merlin: I need to bounce.
Merlin: I need to look at my phone alone and not talk to anybody and have complete control of my environment.
Merlin: what's expected of me and then I'll be ready to go to dinner later but I'm not gonna spend all day having my energy drained by extroverted vampires and what well I think what the big realization for me in that whole introverted thing was was realizing that the world
John: is built by extroverts or extroverts but because they're the majority extroverts speak up extroverts speak up they're heard that's right and they never are they're not aware because normal oh my god is normal it's like it's like the pop-up that's right if you are an introvert then you are never considered it's just like the world is built
John: By people that get up early in the morning.
John: They want stores to be open at 8 a.m.
John: or 7 a.m.
John: The arc of history bends toward early risers.
John: That's right.
John: They got to go build stuff.
Merlin: They got to get up.
Merlin: They got to fill the igloo cooler.
Merlin: They got to make sure everybody's on the bus.
John: They got to run.
John: They got to go running before they go to work.
John: That is normal.
John: And what they don't want is for the museum to be open past five.
John: They don't go to the museum after five, apparently, because they're not retired or they don't want the museum.
Merlin: They might very well say aloud to another early riser, who goes to the museum at seven?
John: Who goes to the museum at seven?
John: Now, there are a lot of us who want to go to the museum at seven.
John: And it's inconceivable to us that the museum of all the things in the world.
John: It's all just stuff.
John: You just go and look at the stuff.
John: You don't even have to have anybody there.
John: Just let me walk around.
John: the thing is i would go to the museum the art museum at midnight it doesn't require that there be light especially if they sold subs imagine yeah if you could go to the museum at midnight i would be there i would be there three times a month you imagine the people you'd meet there you'd meet the coolest people oh my god the my god and that's the thing all of the people that made the art that's in the art museum were up at midnight
John: Oh, interesting.
John: But all of the people that own the art that's in the art museum are up at 5 a.m.
John: You just blew my mind.
John: That's a really good insight, John.
John: The museum is displaying art that the artists themselves would never be up in time to see.
John: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
John: Whoa.
Merlin: It would all be fucking tryhards.
John: it would be sweaty sweaty tryhards who like people that were painting at five in the morning you know who the so what's crazy about the apple thing is that all the people building that are introverts right by by design now the people that are in the coo situation aren't are not they're extroverts you don't get you don't get shot up that ladder by keeping to yourself
John: But the people like John Circusa and the people that work at Apple, they believe that they, in this instance, they're the extroverts.
John: They see the world through a lens of normal.
John: and they think that they don't even consider for instance that i for the last 45 years have been nagged by someone sometimes six people a day to do some bill pay or some garbage thing well you know what you should do is john you should get into my chart
Merlin: Check it out on my chart.
John: No, just download Excel and just put all of your bills into Excel.
John: And then just fax that to us.
Merlin: It's not really that hard.
Merlin: You're going to need your two-factor authentication for that.
John: It only takes 45 minutes to just sit on hold on the phone.
John: So I have been nagged to death since I was a teenager.
John: and one more thing popping up and nagging me to to just take care of this one extorting piece of shit yeah that doesn't bother john is serious red seeking behavior and all of the people that built that into the system think that's normal and when i complained about this online i just like you i got a ton of replies from people who were like well what you just want to use a service for free
John: And I'm like, what?
Merlin: You're missing the point.
John: What are you talking about?
Merlin: This is, as you know, I love my wife.
Merlin: But this is the problem.
Merlin: I happen to live with a person who says things like, why doesn't Larry David just talk to the person?
Merlin: And I say, oh, dear, you're not really getting the point of this program, are you?
Merlin: Well, I understand.
Merlin: It's just a simple mix-up.
Merlin: Why don't they talk about it?
Merlin: And I'm like, don't you understand that Larry David is every human being, including you?
Merlin: You don't get that, though.
Merlin: Because they're always like, well, of course I failed out the form.
Merlin: Or, of course I did the thing.
Merlin: It's like, oh, my God, you haven't filled out the form?
Merlin: And you're like, you're one of these fucking sheep that just fills out every form and is happy about it.
Merlin: I was in the hospital for three days.
Merlin: And I'm just here to tell you, if you're not ready to be a medical sheep, don't go in the hospital.
Merlin: Because they're not interested in your input and your values.
Merlin: They're not interested in any of that stuff.
Merlin: You just do what they say and try not to cause a ruckus.
Merlin: And maybe they won't pee in your jello.
Merlin: But here's what happened to me.
Merlin: You've got this is a huge thought technology, John.
Merlin: I don't even know what to call this.
Merlin: But for now, my placeholder is going to be the world is designed by early risers.
Merlin: Yes.
John: Well, so what happened to me is I bought a phone when they came at that phone store at the phone store.
John: And then I went swimming with the turtles and I saw a seal and she looked at me and I looked at her deep into one another's eyes.
John: And then I realized that I had my phone in my pocket and I'd been in the ocean for an hour.
John: Now, the person at the phone store actually told me that the phone is waterproof and it shouldn't have died.
John: And I said, well, you get it running then.
John: And it was bricked.
John: Dummy.
John: It couldn't even turn on.
John: And they were like, huh, okay, well, maybe it's not waterproof after an hour in the ocean.
John: And I was like, maybe.
Merlin: Let me put it differently.
Merlin: Discovering a seal is not something one does quickly.
Merlin: No, or being discovered biased.
Merlin: Also, how many extroverts have ever discovered a seal?
Merlin: You know what I'm saying?
Merlin: They're so busy out there getting Mai Tais for the table.
John: When I bought the phone, I did not know that I was getting 500 gigabytes of cloud storage for free.
John: I did not know it.
John: If someone told me that, I did not remember it or mark it in my brain as being important.
Merlin: It used to be.
John: Because I don't know how much 500 gigabytes is.
John: I have no sense of it.
John: I can't put it in my hand.
Merlin: I bet you used to know what megabytes were.
Merlin: I knew what a megabyte was.
Merlin: Then they started fucking around and changing the numbers and adding zeros.
Merlin: And now you've got an order of magnitude problem is what I'm going to call it.
Merlin: I don't know how many bytes I'm dealing with.
John: I just want my shit to be there.
John: look out the window of my house and i go how many how much of my backyard would be filled by 500 gigabytes if it was real if it was physical would it be my entire backyard would it be a coffee can in the backyard i don't know how much context yeah yeah yeah there's no way to to physically know it and when i look at how my computer is being used
John: it says you have 500 gigabytes but 200 gigabytes of it is being used by system files that you cannot access you do not know what they are we got to look at a few of those this morning didn't we we did and so i don't so to me it's like it's like taxes right you you make fifty thousand dollars a year but uh but twenty thousand of those are taxes and you never somehow that money
John: The way the system works, that money has to go to you and your bank account, and then it has to go out of it.
John: You never owned that money.
John: It didn't belong to you at any point in time.
John: Really, they're just letting you hold it for a while.
John: You're just holding it in order for it to feel frustrating when you give it away.
John: But you better not get it wrong.
John: And so, and that's right.
John: And for myself, who is a, uh, who is a independent business person, that money comes and it sits in my bank account and I look at it and I go, wow, look at me, look at me.
John: I've got adult money.
John: And then at the end of the quarter, it all goes away.
John: I can, I can see you.
Merlin: You're like the guy on the community chess card with his, with his pockets turned out.
Merlin: Yeah, that's right.
Merlin: And then I'm like, oh, I have no money.
John: I have no money.
John: That's right.
John: I'm independent.
John: The fact is, I never had any money.
John: That money never belonged.
John: It was ghost money.
John: And so the 500 gigabytes, which means nothing to me, also some very large portion of that doesn't belong to me at all.
John: And I don't know what that signifies.
John: And then the computer says, you're running out of it.
John: And I go, uh, uh, uh, I, I'm just using it the way you intended me to use it.
John: Or I think I'm not doing anything special.
John: I'm not downloading.
Merlin: You're not like trying to leverage the system.
Merlin: You're not trying to like host files for Napster on it.
John: Oh, I got nothing like that.
John: I'm not part of SETI.
John: I'm not searching the universe for anything.
John: What I do is I record podcasts into GarageBand.
John: That's all I do.
John: But apparently they're very heavy.
John: You think they're recording.
John: These things are heavy.
John: If I filled the ravine with podcasts, it would be... I don't know what.
John: It would be a block the size of a blimp of podcasts out there.
John: Because even compressed into my phone, it's not...
John: And then Apple says, you owe us money, basically, is what they say.
John: And you're like, hey, wait a minute.
John: Tony Soprano, I just let you invest in my bar.
John: I let you invest in my bar.
John: You said it was good for me.
John: And then Tony Soprano's like, yeah, but we're taking all the bottles of liquor out because we're having a party.
John: And it's going to cost you because you got in bed with the wrong guy.
John: And then they bust the joint out.
John: You'll add a match.
John: And it triggers me because I think back to being 15 years old and somebody saying, look, all you have to do is do the assignment and turn it in on time.
John: How hard is that?
Merlin: That's so not true.
John: And all the other kids in my class are like, well, we did it and I don't see what's so hard about it.
John: And I go, for some reason, it's extremely hard.
John: Doesn't it seem extremely hard to you?
John: Why doesn't the school open at 7 p.m.?
John: Why do you have to be at school?
Merlin: John, first building my high school was 7.15 a.m.
John: 7.15 a.m.?
Merlin: 7.15 a.m.
Merlin: When I was 15 years old, I had to be at school.
Merlin: Well, when I was 18, I had to be at school with my guitar and amp at 7.15 a.m.
John: School should start at noon, just like everything should start at noon.
John: And you should have a very long siesta from three to five.
John: And then it should go from five to eight.
Merlin: It should also get time for a nice lunch.
Merlin: A nice lunch.
John: Like a nice lunch.
John: Right before the siesta, right?
John: Yeah.
John: So anyway, so this morning...
John: I got a text from my guy who edits one of my podcasts, and he said, I'm missing two episodes.
John: And I went, oh, well, okay.
John: So I looked in my... That's okay.
Merlin: Take your time.
Merlin: I'm not worried.
Merlin: I trust you.
Merlin: Go.
Merlin: Go be editor.
Merlin: Have fun.
Merlin: I'm not worried.
Merlin: I looked here, and I looked there.
Merlin: Thanks for letting me know.
Merlin: Take care, buddy.
John: And I got another text from a different person.
Merlin: I'm sorry.
Merlin: I'm making a joke here.
Merlin: But was it clear from the beginning?
Merlin: Because I know your editor and he's a nice and very competent guy.
Merlin: And I don't think I'm imagining him.
Merlin: I'm trying to imagine him.
Merlin: Was it clear from the outset that what he was actually trying to say was you never sent me the files for this?
Merlin: Or was he approaching it gently?
John: The problem is there are a lot of things, right?
John: That's true.
John: There are so many things.
John: It should have been in the Dropbox.
John: Yeah.
John: But it could have been on my desktop.
John: It could have been misplaced in a file.
Merlin: Oh, I won't put the listener through all of this, but I have been through this.
Merlin: And what I know is that John has a place where those files get saved.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: that would put it in a place where the editor would have gotten it.
Merlin: And then you start exploring things like, well, could it have been someplace that wasn't that because I didn't do anything differently.
John: I didn't do anything differently.
John: Yeah.
John: The, because the location, the save location of the Dropbox is auto filled in.
John: When I save the, it saves directly to the Dropbox.
John: Now it doesn't save to the desktop.
John: It saves to the cloud, but the Dropbox cloud, not the Apple cloud.
Merlin: and so i oh my god you don't even want to know what that would cost so i'm keyword searching it's not there i'm date searching i'm file searching i'm looking everywhere wait this started this morning it's all started this morning yeah oh gosh so i got you when this was fresh huh
John: You did.
John: So then you and I trying to use a new program because Skype doesn't work for me anymore because I don't have my Microsoft.
Merlin: Yeah, the program was like 45 minutes into trying other things, but yes.
John: So we were trying that and then they're tearing up the road in front of your office again and they decided that the trolley's not gonna go out there anymore.
Merlin: It's a mess.
John: And then I mentioned this to you and you said, well, let's get to the bottom of this.
John: And we tried a lot of things.
John: We looked around, couldn't find anything.
John: And then I said, wait,
John: When I was in Hawaii, after I lost my phone.
John: I sat on my computer and I tried to delete things in order to save space on iCloud.
John: And the way I did it was I went in and I searched for the big fat files.
John: Like every American, you sorted by size, right?
John: I sorted by size.
Merlin: You can always hit it so you all know.
Merlin: And finally you hit Command J and you can turn on Calculate All Sizes.
Merlin: And that will tell you what's inside those baby directories.
Merlin: And that is a great way
Merlin: to find big files.
Merlin: And if you're in a big, panicked hurry, which I'm not saying you were, except you obviously were, if you're in a big, panicked hurry, it's also a great way to accidentally delete some very important large files.
Merlin: I mean, it's how people use the dating sites, right?
Merlin: They sort by size.
Merlin: In terms of like, like weight?
Merlin: Or by like impact.
Merlin: Environmental impact?
John: How do you search dating apps?
John: When people talk about dating, the one thing we never say is generally we sort by size.
John: Right.
John: Because there are people that like people of every size.
John: I generally leave a date modified.
John: Well, I mean, okay.
John: I want to know if they're changing.
John: For me, it's like piercings and tattoos on the upper body.
Merlin: That would probably be by kind.
John: And that is by kind.
John: And you can usually, you know, you can sort by a lot of things.
John: A lot of people don't know you can sort by tags.
Merlin: Again, Command J. Don't sleep on it.
John: Oh, yeah.
John: That's right.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: I'm happy to help if I can, John.
John: I'm always happy to help.
John: And then you say, in your best Merlin impression, you say, well, I'm happy to help.
John: And I said, well, okay, I'm at my wit's end.
John: And you said, that's how I like you.
John: At your wit's end.
John: I don't remember saying this, but it does sound like me.
Merlin: And then you said... Excellent, excellent.
Merlin: I love it when you're vulnerable.
John: Let's take an hour and a half to fix your computer over the phone.
John: Can't record it.
John: Let's get the one place it could be, because we tried everywhere.
John: You said, let's download a file drilling deleted file finder.
John: Yes, there will be files, it's called.
John: We did it.
John: And it is, right now, it's been working on my computer this whole time.
Merlin: Yeah, but I think it's getting closer and closer to good stuff.
Merlin: You can tell it got through all that garbage that the computer needs.
Merlin: I think it's, just out of curiosity, because this is, of course, a live-streamed episode.
Merlin: Where are we right now?
Merlin: Do you have a percentage?
Merlin: Because it was at 11% left before?
John: It says there's only 13 minutes remaining.
Merlin: Yeah, but 13 minutes, like 11 of what is the question?
Merlin: Like, how do you even have a bar for that?
Merlin: Because does it even know what it's not found yet?
John: That's right.
John: I mean, based on how long it takes me to go through boxes in my storage space.
John: Okay, okay.
John: I am getting a picture of how much 35 gigabytes is.
John: You start by picking up the large ones, the heavy ones, right?
John: That's right.
John: And 35 gigabytes takes an hour and 45 minutes to go through.
John: So I know how many storage boxes.
John: If you put all those in your yard, how many bytes would that be?
John: That's exactly right.
John: Context, yes.
John: It's not a whole storage space, right?
John: No, no, no, no.
John: What would you say?
John: It's like four.
John: What about yay?
John: It's like four book boxes.
John: But here's the problem, Merlin.
John: This whole time it has recognized there were 35 gigabytes in that folder, which does not seem like enough.
John: And you were saying, well, there's some stuff that's behind an encryption.
John: And I said, I don't remember ever setting up an encryption.
Merlin: Just for our listeners who have computers, can I also just say that John is currently on an operating system from 1978.
Merlin: That's right.
John: Okay, there's that too.
Merlin: Which is not a problem except insofar as I don't know what to call things.
Merlin: If I say I have to translate settings to preferences, I have to say go here to there.
Merlin: And yes, this has involved, for those of you who have a Macintosh computer, this has involved full disk access.
Merlin: This will involve, when we're done here, doing a restart to install an extension, which I love doing.
Merlin: I feel so great.
Merlin: You know what I mean?
Merlin: Whatever you want to do to the kernel, just go have fun with it.
Merlin: He's retired.
Merlin: Have fun with it.
Merlin: The kern.
Merlin: Yeah, we call him.
Merlin: Yeah, so it's been an adventure in remote computing.
John: Well, and I, you know, continued to use a dial phone.
John: Long past the point that everybody else's phone went.
Merlin: My mom wouldn't pay extra.
Merlin: He had to pay extra for touch.
Merlin: And my mom wouldn't do it.
Merlin: Never did a girl with nines in her number.
John: You know what I'm saying?
John: Until there were so many functionalities on the phone that required that you go beep, boop, boop, boop.
John: You want to access your voice mail?
John: Well, that's a really good point.
Merlin: It's a really good point.
Merlin: I had a digital, I had not a football phone or a hot dog phone, but I did have a free phone from subscribing to a magazine and it had a mode.
Merlin: The main mode was act like a regular ass modern phone, but it had a switch you could flip that would emulate touch tones over your, so it would basically go for you.
Merlin: And it was still, it was slow, slower than regular touch or whatever.
Merlin: I don't even know what it's called anymore.
Merlin: We just do it now.
Merlin: But yeah, it was slower than regular touch.
John: I was at Rick Springfield from 1984.
John: That's also something you can search for.
John: Yes, the human touch.
Merlin: You can search for in the dating apps too, regular touch.
Merlin: That's right, yes.
Merlin: Yes.
Merlin: It's from his hit album, Dow.
Merlin: But it would do that for you.
Merlin: Yamamoto.
Merlin: Science.
Merlin: Wow, we just conflated three different things.
Merlin: We have conflated Thomas Dolby, Rick Springfield, and believe it or not, believe it or not, the Tommy Shaw non-hit Girls with Guns is what I was doing.
Merlin: I love Tommy Shaw.
Merlin: Baker, Sean, Aronson, and Shreve.
Merlin: Lies!
Merlin: Wait, now that's Shone and Hammer.
Merlin: Shone and Hammer?
Merlin: What was theirs?
Merlin: Oh, they did a Water Shade of Pale cover, right?
Merlin: That's right.
Merlin: They did a Procolorum cover.
Merlin: And welcome back to the things we don't know about, which is computers.
John: See, this is all tears and rain.
John: Tears and rain, John.
John: When I bought this computer, here's what I said.
John: Yes, you may.
John: Here's what I said.
John: I said, I'm using this as a typewriter and a four-track tape recorder.
John: Yes.
John: And I'm only using two tracks.
John: And so why should I upgrade it?
Merlin: You're keeping it real simple.
John: Yeah.
John: Why should I pay $2,000 every two years to get a new typewriter and a new four-track tape recorder?
John: Because I still have typewriters and four-track tape recorders from the 1950s.
John: You still got that Tascam.
John: You love that.
John: They all work.
John: And every two years, Apple says, oh, the operating system.
John: And I'm like, whatever y'all are doing with it.
John: Downloading Napsters and jumping up to the next level and searching for alien life and playing Star Trek video games.
John: I'm not doing any of that.
John: I'm using it as a typewriter that I now can send messages to Jason Finn into his wallet.
John: Yeah.
John: And I can use a four-track recorder where I only use two tracks.
John: And so, yes, I have a laptop from 2015.
John: I'm trying to get to 2025 just because it's a victory over everybody.
Merlin: But, you know, John, how are you going to do it?
Merlin: I'm sorry, John.
Merlin: How are you going to fucking do anything if you don't have a phone?
Merlin: Got to get a phone.
Merlin: Got to get a phone.
Merlin: Get all the stuff on.
Merlin: But you got to get the stuff.
Merlin: How are you going to get the stuff on?
Merlin: How am I going to find out?
Merlin: I'm going to find out what I got to find out.
John: You got to get all of that.
Merlin: You got to get all of that.
Merlin: You got the phone.
Merlin: You don't even have a picture of your turret or seal or whatever.
Merlin: Talk about tears in rain.
Merlin: How about tears in the ocean?
Merlin: Look that up.
Merlin: No, you got this guy over here.
John: You got no soup.
John: You got a dinner on a garbage can lid.
John: It's not a problem.
John: And what I'm saying is, every time I do not upgrade, I am dunking.
John: on michael jordan i am over the top and i'm dunking on him because michael jordan is standing there with a list of upgrades and a list of bills i need to pay eels he wants to stick to me and i'm like booyah yeah and
John: Then the problem is John Theracusa has absolutely no sympathy for me because he's the extrovert in this situation.
John: Well, you're not alone, so.
John: And here I am.
John: No, he has no sympathy for you, even though you deserve sympathy.
John: And I do, too.
Merlin: I've told him that I love him, and he's still like that.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Can you imagine that?
Merlin: I told him a week ago tomorrow, I told him that I love him, and this is still how he is.
John: He must have squirmed.
John: Squirmed.
Merlin: He mutes, so I can't even tell if he's squirming.
Merlin: What did he say back?
Merlin: I mean, like, I don't have a bit for this.
Merlin: Did he make a fart sound?
Merlin: No, I don't think he even made a noise.
Merlin: I think he returned null.
John: Yeah.
John: He didn't hand solo you and say, I know.
John: Yeah, we watched that last week.
Merlin: Did I tell you I printed a Rancor?
John: Oh, you did?
John: I'll send you a photo of it.
John: 3D printed of him?
Merlin: Yeah, 3D printed of Rancor.
Merlin: But his hands broke off, so I made him Hulk hands.
John: One of the problems with using this new program is that you have an avatar, which is some kind of superhero with scary eyes.
John: Yeah, a little comic face.
John: But the thing is, to you, it's a comic face.
John: To me, it's a demon face.
Merlin: He is a demon, but he's very sweet.
Merlin: He's a fuzzy, blue, Catholic, German demon.
John: Yeah, but in order to talk to you, I had to look... When he teleports, it smells like a fart.
John: See, but this is the thing.
John: You like him.
John: I had to look at him for the first half of this call, and I don't like him.
Merlin: He scared me.
Merlin: He scared me, and I didn't want to look at his face.
Merlin: That was...
Merlin: Yeah, that was colonial of me.
Merlin: I'm going to change it right now.
Merlin: It should only take a second.
Merlin: I also sent you the video first.
John: Because you're like, I love Blue Penis Man.
John: I want him on top of my computer.
John: This is a different Blue Man.
John: This is not Blue Penis Man.
John: I don't want to see him.
John: He's got scary eyes.
John: That's not DC.
Merlin: He's got those dead eyes.
Merlin: They're not dead.
Merlin: They're yellow.
Merlin: He teleports.
Merlin: He's got no pupils.
Merlin: In the Munich Circus, he was called Nightcrawler.
Merlin: Okay?
Merlin: Giant-sized X-Men, number one, 1975.
John: Nightcrawler sounds scary.
John: He's nice.
Merlin: He knows how to sword fight.
Merlin: That little guy in the back is called a bamf because that's the sound he makes when he teleports and it smells like a fart.
Merlin: See, in this situation, you're the extrovert.
John: I'm the extrovert.
John: I did that.
John: You're the COO.
John: You're the one that's like, I never even see the pop-up menu because I have a little demon over here.
Merlin: You don't have a picture at all.
Merlin: All I see is your name.
Merlin: with no spaces in it.
Merlin: That's how God intended, because I probably don't have an operating system that's even allowed me to have a picture.
Merlin: You know what else I see?
Merlin: I see, because I can, I don't like to, you know, for OPSEC reasons, we're using the application Zoom, and what I can say is I'm in a window right now that says Zoom meeting, and I see my Nightcrawler, and it's BAMF, and then I see your name, and I can also see that we've been recording for two hours and 21 minutes.
John: Oh, because we've been, because we also recorded... Because we did some troubleshooting, so we should probably wrap it pretty soon.
Merlin: I've got to still...
Merlin: I got an image of the Empire TV commercial to use.
Merlin: And we need to fix your computer.
Merlin: Plus, I would like to clean the kitchen before my wife gets home from jury duty.
John: Now, wait a minute.
John: Are you going to put up the hour plus that we spent trying to troubleshoot my computer as a bonus episode for the Patreon users?
John: Um, I certainly, I certainly could.
John: I, I, I, and now right now there are people excited about it and there are people who, yeah, some, someone just almost came and it was definitely a man, but somebody else is hovering their, their cursor over unsubscribe.
John: Yeah.
Merlin: Well, I don't know what I said in that.
Merlin: And I probably, cause you know, I'm no John Syracuse, but I am kind of how I am all the time.
John: Did you curse God?
John: Do you think?
Merlin: That's not like you.
Merlin: No, but I might have said some unseemly things about Apple.
John: Oh, yeah.
John: I know.
John: You've got a lot of friends over there.
John: I don't know about that.
Merlin: I don't really have friends anywhere.
Merlin: I sent you the video for Tommy Shaw's song, Girls with Guns.
Merlin: I see that.
Merlin: It's HQ, which usually means it's upscaled, so it might look a little greasy.
John: This says I have three minutes remaining.
Merlin: Well, three real minutes or three computer minutes?
Merlin: Because if it's three real minutes, we should hang and see if your file's there.
Merlin: Well, this is the thing.
Merlin: This is another thing that I don't understand.
Merlin: I cut you off a lot because I'm trying to scream over the Bang Bang machine.
John: If you have a five-gallon bucket, does three computer minutes fill it or is three computer minutes only six inches at the bottom of the bucket?
John: Sometimes it seems like it's a full five-gallon.
John: Sometimes it seems like it's just a little bit of dregs at the bottom.
John: Three computer minutes is a meaningless amount of anything.
Merlin: This is a five-gallon bucket.
Merlin: It's got a handle.
Merlin: It's white.
John: Now it says two minutes.
Merlin: It's got like five minutes left in it.
Merlin: Okay.
Merlin: Well, then I guess we should probably keep visiting.
Merlin: Okay.
Merlin: As somebody who used to nominally be a performer, there's a part of me that thinks you can't just put up all your bullshit.
Merlin: I don't know if it would be very entertaining to hear us talk about where you should click in a different operating system, but I'm looking for it.
Merlin: Anymore, I don't know.
John: I don't know either.
John: I don't know.
Merlin: I don't know.
Merlin: You know, you've got to be careful.
Merlin: Can I also just say extroverts and introverts?
John: Yeah.
Merlin: A lot like Germans.
Merlin: Now, Germans are not afraid to tell you what they want in a podcast.
Right.
John: Sure.
John: Northern Germans and Southern Germans, different Germans.
John: Eastern Germans, Western Germans.
Merlin: The Southern Germans are more into states rights.
Merlin: But would that be Bavaria?
John: Mm-hmm.
John: Yeah.
John: That's what they do.
Merlin: And that's where the wolf, is that where the wolf stand was?
John: The Wolfsten.
Merlin: Oh, sorry, I'm from Ohio.
Merlin: The thing that Albert Speer... Yeah, yeah.
Merlin: Have you watched any videos on Albert Speer in the making of that?
John: I mean, not recently.
Merlin: Oh, shit.
Merlin: I watched one last week.
John: I had to wean myself off Hitler content.
Merlin: Well, I'm bad right now.
Merlin: I'm deep.
Merlin: I am...
Merlin: I am jodhpurs deep in Hitler still.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: You know, here's the thing.
Merlin: This is how Albert Speer, he weaseled his way in.
John: Weasel.
Merlin: So there's this thing on Netflix.
John: Wait a minute.
John: You're saying that there was a member of the Nazi party that was also a weasel?
John: Well, he outweaseled a weasel.
Merlin: Because you can check this out on Netflix.
Merlin: It's called Hitler's Inner Circle.
Merlin: One minute remaining.
Merlin: Oh, wait, wait.
Merlin: Something just happened.
Merlin: It threw up a menu.
Merlin: That's how he got into Hitler's favor is because not Hess.
Merlin: Is Hess the Auschwitz guy?
John: He's the other one.
John: Yeah.
John: Speer is the one with the buildings and then the Hess is the other one.
John: But one of the guys was like, who's the guy with the eyebrows?
Merlin: Oh, that's Spear, I thought.
Merlin: No, anyway, one guy was kind of sloughing it off and going, oh, this is beneath me.
Merlin: I'll just give it to that fucking Albert Spear.
Merlin: Albert Spear knows how to ingratiate himself.
Merlin: Like Dr. Morrell, he understood, like, get into something Hitler cares about.
Merlin: Dr. Morrell, he understood.
Merlin: Hitler likes him some drugs.
John: Wait, is Dr. Murrell the blue-eyed monster that's on the front of my computer?
Merlin: Dr. Murrell?
Merlin: I was trying to make a Mario joke I didn't understand, I think.
Merlin: Dr. Murrell was his personal physician who designed his own uniform.
John: Oh, that's nice.
Merlin: You know, Gehring did that, too.
Merlin: Gehring made up a lot of his own medals, you know.
Merlin: All right.
John: This is saying less than one minute remaining blocks.
John: I'll finish it quickly.
John: Nine, six, seven, eight.
John: Okay, go.
Merlin: So Spear said, oh, sure, Meinherr.
Merlin: I'm more than happy to take over this thankless job of renovating Hitler's Bavarian paradise.
Merlin: And Spear went happy-go-jappy, if you pardon my saying.
Merlin: He went in there.
Merlin: He bought out land in the area.
Merlin: He turned it into more than just a little Airbnb fix-up.
Merlin: Is it called the Wolf's Den?
Merlin: Is that what it's called?
John: The Wolf's Lair.
Merlin: Shit.
Shit.
John: No, it's the eagle's lair.
John: It's the wolves.
John: But that was in Poland.
John: Is the eagle's den a kind of whiskey?
John: Eagles don't have dens.
John: What about... Oh, but anything can have a lair.
John: They're not a denning animal.
John: You got lairs?
John: I don't know if eagles have lairs either.
John: I think they have nests.
John: It depends on if you go where eagles dare.
John: Oh, okay.
John: All right.
John: Which I believe is an Iron Maiden song.
John: No, I think the wolf's lair was in Poland.
John: Okay.
Merlin: Spear gets the job and goes crazy with it.
Merlin: And he's like, not only obviously then it's going to kind of make his boss look good, but also like it totally ingratiates him with Hitler because he's like, hey, Hitler, pardon my saying, you want to pick the drapes?
Merlin: You want to like do the thing?
Merlin: And he did a really good job on renovating what was a fairly modest book.
Merlin: place into this entire estate and compound um i'll send you the video um but that's how spear ingratiated himself and that's how spear ended up designing that crazy berlin plan we all love can you imagine how pretty that would have been all love would have been the biggest indoor building in the world
Merlin: I think it just made up a new... It would have had its own weather system.
Merlin: John, it would have been the biggest indoor building in the world.
Merlin: I guess technically it also comes with a free outdoor building.
Merlin: Write that down.
Merlin: Biggest, how much time we got left?
Merlin: Why do we do this?
Merlin: It's fun, right?
Merlin: Are you having fun?
Merlin: I guess.
Merlin: Yeah, yes, of course I am I'm confusing my I'm confusing my Nazis There's the one guy who was the only guy in the prison in the 80s.
Merlin: Remember him?
Merlin: You'd hear about him.
Merlin: Yeah, I'm confusing their spear there's Hess So there's the guy I just you should watch if you watch the Ed zone of interest It's fucking incredible turn off everything put on headphones the sound in that movie is very upsetting and
Merlin: Zone of interest.
Merlin: So that's whoever that was the guy the Auschwitz guy There's the spear guy and who's the other one?
Merlin: I'm thinking who's the guy?
Merlin: Wait Hess who's Hess?
Merlin: I gotta look this up.
John: This is gonna drive me crazy I wouldn't normally do this but we're waiting for John's computer to finish well But but I'm but I'm confused now because it is it is finished.
John: Okay.
Merlin: Hess is the guy with the eyebrows That's not the guy from Auschwitz
Merlin: Who's Auschwitz's guy?
John: Vanity Plates, Food Pyramid, Naturism, Einstein's Brain.
Merlin: Yes, okay.
Merlin: None of this is what I need.
Merlin: Auschwitz Commander Rudolf Hess H-O-S-S Hurst
Merlin: Herz.
Merlin: Rudolf Herz, which is different.
Merlin: Okay.
Merlin: Wait, wait, wait.
Merlin: There's Rudolf Hess and Rudolf Hess?
Merlin: No, this can't be right.
John: That's how it goes.
Merlin: That's how it is throughout Germany.
Merlin: Am I confused?
Merlin: Who's the other one?
Merlin: All of Germany does this.
Merlin: Rudolf Hess and Rudolf Hess.
Merlin: Well, you know how there's Goering.
John: I do know that.
Merlin: Where sometimes it's glaring and sometimes it's goring with a diuresis, as you say.
John: Yeah, that's just how I do it.
Merlin: I've got to look this up.
Merlin: So I'm going to send you, you should watch Hitler's Inner Circle, and I'll send you the video for whoever the guy was that designed the wolf's pad.
Merlin: The wolf's pad.
Merlin: How's it going with your computer?
Merlin: Well, there's a lot of files here.
Merlin: See, this is that thing.
Merlin: This is that thing that's happening.
Merlin: Remember I said that a minute ago?
Merlin: Like, it's kind of a denominator problem.
Merlin: It's like, what percentage of what?
Merlin: Like, does it know how much?
Merlin: Does it even know how to make a progress bar?
Merlin: Does it know how big your backyard is, or for that matter, any of the boxes in it?
Merlin: How do it know?
Merlin: You can't land on a fraction.
John: No, that's right.
John: It's the scuttling across the... There are a lot of files in here from 2020.
John: I don't need any of those.
Merlin: That was a bad year, yeah.
John: I don't need those.
John: I don't need that one.
John: I don't need those.
John: Wait, there's, but that's, what is a DR file?
John: That's not even, is that even something I'm looking at?
Merlin: Dot DR?
John: Dot DR something.
John: Dot, dot directory dot Dropbox cache.
Merlin: See, remember we talked about this.
Merlin: We talked about the cache.
John: Yeah, shared read only.
John: These aren't things that I'm not supposed to look at these.
John: These are dangerous.
Merlin: It looks like it's a .doctor.
Merlin: I don't think that's right.
Merlin: Department of Retirement Systems.
Merlin: I don't think that's right.
John: There's stuff in here from 2004.
Merlin: That's not even... But when you search by size, what do you get?
John: Well, now I'm into pictures.
Merlin: Act like it's a dating app.
John: Sort by...
John: I'm in John Roderick.
John: Okay.
John: It was last edited.
Merlin: Thank you all for listening to Roderick on the line for all his years.
Merlin: We appreciate it.
John: And so what are these?
Merlin: And as John's doing that, I'll just say to you, if there's one thing, one fucking thing you know about this program, whatever's in the show is in the show.
Merlin: If you prefer something where there's things that aren't in the show that are in the show or the things that are in the show that aren't in the show, may I, to paraphrase John Hodgman, may I please direct you to the rest of the entire culture and world?
Merlin: But here, if there's a show and there are things in it, it's because I just paid a bunch of money to the company Zoom, whom I despise.
Merlin: I despise Zoom.
Merlin: I despise their website.
Merlin: Which is made out of pain and radio buttons.
Merlin: It's a terrible, terrible website.
Merlin: And I don't even know if this recording is going to work.
Merlin: We did do a test recording because we started on time at 11.
Merlin: It's got to work.
Merlin: It's got to work.
Merlin: I don't know if it's got to work.
Merlin: I hope it works.
Merlin: But, like, I feel good about this.
Merlin: I think here's the thing.
Merlin: You know, I'm like an oncologist.
Right.
Merlin: I always say that.
Merlin: You do.
Merlin: You always say that.
Merlin: You say, like, I get you at a cellular, truly, ultimately cancerous level.
Merlin: I mean, at the top level, you're a ceramicist.
Merlin: I am.
Merlin: And, like, I'm just grateful to have a platform.
Merlin: But, you know...
Merlin: It's in the show, and we'll have files.
Merlin: Is there any end in sight for this?
Merlin: I see a lot of things.
Merlin: Oh, you know, I'll change my image while we're talking.
Merlin: People like long episodes, right?
Merlin: This isn't even a long episode, really.
Merlin: Oh, well, it's long to me.
Merlin: Right?
Merlin: That's what she said.
Merlin: But it's long because we've been talking about computers the whole fucking time.
John: I have a lot of files here that are A...
John: files I didn't lose, and B, they're files I didn't delete.
John: These are not all deleted.
John: These are archived.
John: They're not deleted.
Merlin: Remember earlier we used that phrase, John stuff versus computer stuff?
Merlin: Are you seeing more of John stuff showing up?
Merlin: Are you seeing things like from the desktop in the last month?
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: That's encouraging.
Merlin: I still think it might be an encryption thing.
John: Why does that only have 8,000?
John: No, that's wrong.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: And for everybody out there listening, thank you so much for listening.
Merlin: I think I said that a couple times now.
Merlin: But I would also like to say, shut your fucking whore mouth.
Merlin: Because a lot of you are going to say, why didn't you help John with this?
Merlin: He's been helping.
Merlin: To which I say, well, why am I not a potted fern?
Merlin: Do you understand what I'm saying?
John: Sure.
Merlin: I can't tell you why I'm not something, so don't ask.
Merlin: And I often can't tell you why I am something and why are you even interested.
Merlin: If you want to help John, reach out to him.
Merlin: I don't know if he has access to his email anymore.
Merlin: Do you get an email on your phone now?
Merlin: How's your phone?
Merlin: I forgot to ask you, how's your phone?
Merlin: I hate it.
Merlin: I wish I didn't have it.
Merlin: Full circle.