Hello Internet - H.I. #112: Consistency Hobgoblins

Episode Date: October 31, 2018

A new Hello Internet artifact is born, American state identities revisited, Banksy's shredding stunt, government and social media, daylight savings time disaster, Scrabble, and First Man. Sponsors: Squarespace: head to squarespace.com/hello for a free trial and when you’re ready to launch, use the offer code HELLO to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain Brilliant: sign up for free to master key ideas in math and science through problem solving -- go to http://brilliant.org/hello to get 20% off the annual Premium subscription Audible: start a 30-day trial and get your first audiobook free by signing up at audible.com/hellointernet or text "hellointernet" to 500-500 Listeners like YOU on Patreon Show Notes: Discuss this episode on the reddit Golden Hotstopper (picture #2) (picture #3) Banksy shredded art Scrabble Final board First Man

Great. I've had something made. I've had something commissioned by a Tim named Sarah, who lives in Brooklyn. She lives in America, doesn't she? She lives in America, in the US of A. Here it is. I'm going to send it to you as a picture. No way, Brady. Introducing the golden hot stopper. No way! I mean, I'm looking at a golden hot stopper atop a red velvet pillow with golden rope and tassels all around. I mean, what a magnificent setting for a hot stopper,

Brady. So this is, Sarah's like a jeweler and we've been talking for a while. We started off with platinum plans, but partly for cost reasons, but not so much for cost reasons, more for appearance reasons. We decided to go with gold because gold just looks more blingy. Platinum could have just looked like silver. Right. That is the problem with platinum. It's valuable, but not so visually obviously valuable you can't beat gold

for looking like oh this is something that belongs in aladdin's cave but i think the special touch also is there is a diamond set in the middle of the nail and gear at the top of the hot stopper oh my god i was just zooming in and i thought oh that's on for i thought there was an indentation from the mold or something i thought oh right in the center of the oh, that's unfortunate. I thought there was an indentation from the mold or something. I thought, oh, right in the center of the nail like that. What an unfortunate placement. But no, it's a diamond. It's a diamond.

Oh my God. So it's like a little mini royal mace. Oh, this is amazing. This is like a founding object of the nation of Hello Internet that I presented here. This is the scepter of power. This is amazing. Well, also because, you know, there's all this talk about how you're not supposed to make things out of plastic anymore because it's bad for the environment. So now we've got a gold hot stopper.

You know, I'm always a little clenched up when there's a Brady surprise coming, but man, this is amazing. I know. clenched up when there's a Brady surprise coming. But man, this is amazing. Wow. So where is it physically now? Is it with you or is it under security somewhere? It's on a shelf about a meter away from me next to our specially waterjet cut nail and gear sculpture. And another thing that I've just got my hands on, the nail and gear flag that went into space. I've only now just got my hands on it, the actual artifact. So I've got three amazing nail and gear artifacts all together on a shelf at the moment. I mean, I know we have joked for years now about the inevitable Hello Internet Museum.

I mean, this really feels like I can see this as the centerpiece of a museum. Perhaps like when you visit the Crown Jewels, you know, it's behind glass in this beautiful setting. There's also a people mover that keeps you moving right along because there's so many throngs of people coming in to see it that you have to give them a subtle hint to go and let more people view this amazing object. It's lovely.

We really are. We really are building this thing. Wow, that is amazing amazing that red and golden cushion that it sits on is also filled with lavender so it even smells gorgeous oh my god it's ridiculous it's ridiculous i mean clearly this belongs in a museum yeah and you would have to take it from my cold dead hand yeah what if i wanted this object really well i have paid for it at the moment so we'll have to negotiate that to start with. But the other thing is, the other thing that occurs to me is the potential for the most wondrous thing that could ever happen.

The golden hot drop. Oh, no, Brady. Imagine that. Because I've been doing my hot drops, you know, around the States lately, and I still like a good hot drop. Imagine the golden hot drop. And it would have to be like a really special one that involved like a treasure hunt and clues and all sorts of stuff. But it would be like the ultimate pro hot drop. People around the world would be searching for this. I think this kind of thing could only be protected by the Ark of

the Covenant. Like that's where I would want to do the hot drop. In the well of souls. Yes, it's there. But you know, maybe it's a thing best left where it is. So there you go. The golden hot stopper, diamond topped. This is amazing. Absolutely amazing. Hello, internet artifact that has been created. Thank you, Sarah, the jeweler. Plus that pillow. Actually, I received it in person from her when I was in New York recently. And all I talked about was the pillow. I couldn't take my eyes off the pillow. She didn't make the pillow. She commissioned the pillow to her pillow friend.

Look, it's about the object and the setting for the object. Maybe I do need to get like a glass case to put it in for my room. Like, you know, like a bell jar type thing. Like, so it is behind glass here just for the joke of it. So people come into my office and go, what the hell is that? And I'll be like, well, this is a long story with many layers. I don't think there's any joke in that at all, Brady. I think that is deadly serious. For sure. You need to have it under a bell jar suspended. So it looks like it's the rose that petals are

falling from. You need to go all out for the mounting of this object. And it should be in a room where there's like lasers all through the room, like those red lasers, like in the movies. So to even get to it, you've got to like do like a Tom Cruise hover from the roof, not touch the pressure sensitive floor. Yeah, see, this golden hot stopper, it really captures the imagination. We may consider a picture in the show notes. Yeah, I think there's going to be a picture. I'm sorry, you can't smell the imagination. We may consider a picture in the show notes. Yeah. I think there's going to be a picture. I'm sorry you can't smell the lavender.

No. I'm obviously going to have to make it the video for the YouTube version too, aren't I? Just like rotating on a plinth. How fast can you get that mounting made? I won't be able to get the glass case sorted. That's beautiful. I love it. Saving times. All right. I'll show it to you in person next time we're together can you can take it in and you can have a big whiff of all that lavender as well i look forward to it i really do brady sometimes you really put a b in my bonnet i knew this this up this upsets americans so no no okay okay i also i want to stop you right there i disapprove of your. This upsets Americans so much. No, no. Okay. Okay. I also, I want to stop you right there. I disapprove of your framing of

upsets. Upset is the incorrect framing, but I'll tell you, like sometimes Brady, we have these conversations, right? And you are a very different man from me. And sometimes while exploring the Brady mind, the fog of war consumes my view of all. And this is one of these moments where I can feel that I have my hands on this Brady-shaped thought, but I can't figure out where the edges are or what the shape of this thing is. It's like, I'm a blind man.

And like, is it a rope that I have a hang of? Or is it an elephant? I don't know what this thing is. And it's, I swear to God, Brady, every day since the last time we recorded, my brain has been running this little loop that goes, what is this thing about the states? I don't understand this thing about you can't say what state you're from. Do you want to recap the topic for first-time listeners? Yeah, first-time listeners. I'm sure there's a lot of first-time listeners here. Who are already very baffled by us talking about some piece of gold. Right. I've been so thinking about it, I feel like I can't even summarize it. Okay, let me try. Let me try. And I want you to disagree with even my framing of it, because I just can't understand the Brady mind. So, when you're in an international group of people and everyone is saying,

where are they from? Brady does not like it if Americans say the state they are from, rather than saying America. Well, Brady has observed that Americans say the state they're from, whereas everyone else says the country they're from. Totally correct. Right. Americans will say the state that they are from. 100% agree. No disagreement there whatsoever. Without saying the country.

So it'd be like, hey, I'm Brady from England. And then the person next to me be, yeah, I'm Sandy from Texas. Right. You'd sound like an idiot if you said Texas, America, right? You'd sound like a moron. And so, yes, Brady does not like this. It bothers you. Is it fair to say it bothers you? It doesn't bother me. I think it says something about Americans.

Right. When I brought this up in person with the people I was with when I was in Peru, like it almost caused a riot at the dinner table. Whoa. Okay. I know how much this picks at American people's minds to the point where I almost didn't bring it up on the podcast. But that's why when I brought it up last episode, I said, look, I know this is going to upset people.

And I'm aware that I also, by the way, set up one of your beloved Kafka traps here because it's almost like the more you bring it up, the more you play to my argument and the more you argue about it, the more you're sort of, again, playing into my belief that it's like this sort of self-important American-centric attitude. So you kind of can't win in a way. I don't feel that way at all. The reason it's been sticking with me is I think there's something very interesting about it.

And it hits one of these points that you you feel like it's a delicate point in society around identity and if you hit this point too hard like the world shatters that that's why people get really riled up about it and i know that it can sound like i'm playing into your idea of this when we have the conversation. What makes that extra interesting to me is when you get to the concept of identity is I could barely care less that I'm from America or from New York. Like if I'm trying to think about the things that matter to me in ways that I would self-identify, like American or New Yorker would not be very high on these lists, right? And when I'm being very careful with my words i would

always describe it as like oh i feel like someone who grew up in america but i wouldn't say something like i feel very american but it's nonetheless super interesting because i kept thinking about like why do americans do this and like and i do think there are a bunch of interesting reasons that relate to regional rivalries about how like people want to distinguish that they're not from the other place. Like a thing that I had totally forgotten about until I started to think about it a bunch is if you do grow up in New York, the fact that you don't live in New Jersey is somehow very important, right? That there's like a real New York rules, New Jersey rules rivalry between the two states, which, again, as an adult is like, why did I even think that as a kid? But somehow this is like an important piece of information to have is be like, oh, thank God we're not from New Jersey. And it's like, I've basically never been to New Jersey.

Like I've been to the airport once as an adult and never again in my whole life. But nonetheless, like where does identity come from? Identity comes a lot from who you aren't just as much as like who you are. Look, Gray. Yeah. I'm happy to hear you talk about this some more, right? But just let me cut in at this point, because this was one of the more common arguments, right? And almost all the arguments, and I read them all on Reddit, right? And almost all of them we either spoke about or were quite obvious to me. And the one that you point out there is a really common one. But that again, misses the point I'm making. I understand that. But it's Americans thinking that that's so important. Do you think that

someone from Liverpool, a Scouser, doesn't think that's the most important thing about them? You know, anyone that's from Manchester, you know, very close by, they completely despise, they completely identify as Scousers. They're Liverpudlian to their core, way more than almost anyone from any American state I've ever met. Oh, yeah. And that's how they carry themselves in the UK. This is all about how you present yourself to someone not from your country. And it's having the self-awareness and the humility to realize this is really, really

important to me in my American context. But today, I'm not in that conversation. And it's not even that people won't understand. It's a politeness almost. Yeah. I just want to say quickly, I don't disagree with you there. Like, I understand that point. Yeah.

Well, let me, the best example to make my point before I let you have the floor is I was trying to think of someone really famous and I decided I'd pick David Beckham, who is very, very well recognized around the world. Most people I think would recognize him, right? Yeah, I recognize David Beckham. If he walked into a car dealership to buy a car, for example, he was going to buy a new Land Rover or something, and he walked in and the salesman came up to him, that salesman is going to know who he is.

And David Beckham is going to know he knows. But he will still shake the person's hand and say, hi, I'm David. Because that's like the norm and the convention. And it's the humble thing to do. And the guy's thinking, yeah, buddy, of course you're David Beckham. You think I don't know who David Beckham is. But he will still have the humility to say, hi, I'm David. That's what it should be on this international stage as well.

You know, hi, I'm from the United States. Yes, I'm from the big famous country. Yes, you've heard of all my cities and states. Yes, you're probably going to ask me about it. But I have the humility at the first introduction, at the first step to follow the social norm that everyone else follows. Every other Joe Blow that comes into that car dealership who you haven't heard of has to introduce themselves with norm that everyone else follows. Every other Joe Blow that comes into that car dealership who you haven't heard of has to introduce themselves with their name

to start with. And even though I'm big and famous and you're going to ask for my autograph and a photo later on, I'm still going to start off like everyone else because that's the humble thing to do. That's the right thing to do. I think that's an interesting comparison. I don't agree that it aligns perfectly, but it's a very good comparison that, yeah, they know who David Beckham is, but David Beckham sort of pretends for a moment like they don't. And it also acknowledges America bestriding across the globe as she does. So, yeah, I guess like I wasn't trying to argue that, you know, someone from Spain cares about the fact that New York isn't New Jersey. I wasn't trying to make that point. That's a dumb point. It's just trying to think, like, why do Americans reflexively say it? And it's because all of their experience is the state is the distinction that matters

when relaying to other Americans. And yeah, I totally agree that you can make an argument that that belies a lack of worldliness. But like the David Beckham is very famous thing, I think there is something about America that is a little bit different because of its omnipresence in the world. But I have a couple of questions for you, Brady, because I want to get the shape of something down. There was one question you should have asked me last time that everyone is angry that you didn't ask me last time. I wonder if it's one of your questions. Everyone said, I can't believe Grady didn't say this to Brady.

I guarantee you it's not one of my questions. So why don't you tell me what the question is? Everyone said that you should have called me up on the fact that I said Brady from England and not Brady from the United Kingdom. And they think it's hypocritical of me to introduce myself from England rather than the United Kingdom, but to call Americans out on introducing themselves from their state. But we did discuss that in the episode. I think that the UK is actually a great comparison to the US with the distinction between the levels and the national government.

We totally did discuss that. I don't remember. But do you think that's hypocritical of me? Do you think like, I can't have my cake and eat it too? Or do you think there is a difference between England, Scotland and Wales that is different to the American states? Okay, let's put that on pause for a second, because we will sort of get to that then. Here's my question.

We're sitting in a group of people. Say we're on a hiking trip in South America. We're with an international group of people and everybody is going around and saying where they are from. So I'm going to give you a place name and then you tell me if in the ideal Brady world where people are being respectful and cognizant in this way,

what their answer should be. Okay. Okay. All right. So person number one, where are you from? Their answer is Maryland. They should have said they were from the US or America. Okay. Yeah. Canberra. They should say Australia. Okay. Interesting. Beijing? China. Hmm. All right. Hawaii. Can you hear this? This is a little piece of paper where I've written some exceptions. Okay. I wanted to know if there were exceptions. Okay, great. And the two exceptions I wrote on here were Hawaii and Alaska.

Okay. All right. All right. Yeah. And I don't know why, but someone in the Reddit brought up the fact they were from Sicily and they don't like saying they're from Italy. And looking at that made me think, I can kind of go with that. I can kind of get that you might say you're from Sicily. And I think the same applies to Hawaii and Alaska, whether it's so superficial of just being, you know, not contiguous to the main body. I don't know, but I will give those two a leave pass. And that's totally arbitrary and you can slay me all you want for it. And to head off any of the commenters in the world, we are totally in like foolish consistency

is the hobgoblin of little minds territory here, right? Like there's no way to be consistent on this topic. Like, so you have a total consistent on this topic. Like, so you have a total pass on that. So, but I was just curious, like I was trying to find a couple places that would be an exception. And with American states, I think Hawaii is the most exceptional of the exceptions. Yes. I almost think it's generous of you to say Alaska, like I would kind of include Alaska too. If most of the states are within one standard deviation of the norm,

Hawaii is three standard deviations away and Alaska is two standard deviations away. Okay. Okay. So that's interesting. So you would give Hawaii a pass. I was just wondering. By the way, you can go too far the other way. Another Reddit comment that caught my eye was a chap who I think was from Denmark saying that when they're in Denmark, obviously they'll say, oh, I'm from Copenhagen or they'll say, you know, their local part of Denmark. And when they're in Denmark, obviously they'll say, oh, I'm from Copenhagen, or they'll say, you know, their local part of Denmark. And if they're traveling around Europe, they'll say, I'm from Denmark. But this person said, if they were in South America, they would say, I'm from Europe. I actually think that's going too far. And I think that's

bordering on being a bit condescending. Okay. Well, so this is what I was going to try to catch out with the next one. I was trying to pull this next one where my question was going to be, what if the person says Andorra? Yeah. Okay. That's a tricky one, right? Because I don't think it's reasonable to assume that even most Europeans would know where Andorra is. That's true. But I think the Brady default to politeness should cut in again and you shouldn't put the other person in the potentially embarrassing situation. So I think you should say the country. And if they want to say, where's that? Fair enough.

Or if they want to just like pretend they know and go, hmm, hmm, interesting and that. But I don't think you should say like a vague thing and make them bury down and say, you know, because basically if I say Europe and then you say, well, we're in Europe, oh, Andorra. Like, it's almost like, I didn't think you'd know. I think you're too dumb. I just think stick at the country. That seems to be the norm. I agree with you that that's the norm for everybody but Americans, obviously, that that's what everybody should follow. So I was just curious if like, so someone from Andorra, you think they should say Andorra? Yeah.

Right. Okay. And let the person gloss over it if they want or dig deeper if they want. Because if you say the vague thing, it's almost like, I think you're too dumb to know. By the way, i'm aware that argument could apply to the america situation as well but that better so how other argument there again i'm not trying to like nail you down on a gotcha moment here right that's just dumb i genuinely find this interesting and it's been driving me crazy since we last spoke of like what answers would brady give to these questions i have no idea i'm genuinely surprised that Beijing, you would say China. I think that's interesting.

But with the small countries, like I remember when I first moved to the UK and I was going to graduate school then, and I was in the position of, for the first time, very frequently coming across people from all sorts of countries where I had no idea. And I do remember a few awkward situations where I was trying to like, suss out where the hell in the world, whatever this country was that this person had just mentioned. Like what country would you have not known? Oh, man, I got to pull up a map. But it's actually funny, because I remember, like, I just have this vague sense of shame because somebody said something from South America

and I was not able to place it until like, I was able to go back to my dorm room and look it up about like, where was that? Did you know the continent? Maybe it was Uruguay and I wasn't sure like, or Bolivia, one of those two probably. And I was like, is this Eastern Europe or is this South America? I just can't place it in this moment. I think Uruguay is a little bit Andorra-ish for everyone, maybe in the Northern Hemisphere. I don't agree, Greg. I will accept it for America, but I think everyone in Europe will know Uruguay because they're such a big soccer country.

Freaking soccer always screwing me up with where do people know where places are from? Yeah, that's a good point. Yeah. Okay. I do think if you're from a place that someone is unlikely to know that a socially polite thing to do is maybe clarify a little bit. Like another example on my list is the person answers that they are from Georgia. And I know someone who was from Georgia and they would always clarify the country, not the state in America. Like they were always really quick on that button. Like they wanted to clarify they're from the country. Do you think that clarification is necessary? Well, it's become necessary because there are so many American Georgians striding the world, assuming that that's an acceptable answer.

I was going to say, yeah, because Georgia is so famous that it dwarfs the country called Georgia, right? So do you think that someone from Georgia should clarify in a conversation that they mean the country, not the state? Well, I imagine their accent would probably give it away, but I think you probably would clarify, as I said, because of the problem that's been caused the america problem but you do it with a like a a smile or like it'd be like someone who's got like an unusual name or unusual spelling of their name they always have to say this

thing at the end of their name because right because their parents made poor choices in giving them an unusual spelling name and saddled them with this burden for the rest of their life yeah exactly sorry people with unusual spelling yeah. Okay. Okay. That's interesting. Yeah. I mean, this mostly gets through it. I mean, I was kind of wondering about also a question like if someone says Tokyo, again, you would say Japan? Look, you keep coming to these capital cities and that's a fair point, the same applies to London. And even though it's not the capital, the same applies to perhaps New York City, right? Right.

And Los Angeles, I'd say as well. And the thing I would say to that is, go with the country. And then when they say, where are you from? You know, then you say, yeah, I'm from the big famous city that you're probably going to guess. But the other reason for that is most of the time when you meet people from those cities, they're not actually from those cities. They just happen to live there. It's such an amazing thing when you meet someone in London or from London and they were born in London as well to the point where they'll say, oh, where are you from? Oh, London. Oh, where were you born? Actually, I was born in London.

It's like, oh, amazing. It's shockingly rare. Running through my mental Rolodex, I don't think I know anybody who was born in London who lives in London. Yeah. And the same is probably going to happen a lot of the time with Beijing and Tokyo. Yeah. I was just curious because I was trying to think like, what are the most identifiable cities in the world? And I feel like Tokyo has got to be on like that top five list, which would seem to me like, surely I think you're perfectly fine politeness wise saying something like Tokyo instead of saying Japan. Yeah. And with Americans, if you're from maybe the two or three most famous cities, you might get a slight leave pass as well.

But Americans have got the extra baggage that there's already this cliche or perception that they're like immensely arrogant and American centric. And they're just like, they're just playing to it by then saying that and not just saying America. It's a chance to make an introduction that makes you more humble to start with. I think take the opportunity to be humble rather than just play to the expectation and the cliche. Yeah. So I have two more, one of which i will admit at the front i think is totally unfair and it's if the person says they are from hong kong almost more than taiwan i think hong kong is i was like what is the worst answer to muck this up the most and hong kong has got to be that then you are being almost deceptive by saying china aren't you so i don't think there's

any good answer right if someone says China and as you dig in, but like it's, I don't know of any relationship in the world that is like Hong Kong to China, except of course, Macau. Would you be okay with someone saying Hong Kong? I feel like you have to be, right? Yes. Yes, I would be. Yes. And then finally, Wales. I would expect them to say Wales. Interesting. Interesting. I think that of all the home nations in the UK, though. I think if you say you're from the UK and you're not from England, that's almost being deceptive as well.

If you're Scottish and you're from Scotland and you say, oh, I'm from the United Kingdom, you should have said you're from Scotland. This upsets Americans, right? This upsets Americans because this is where they think I'm being hypocritical. And maybe I am. But I do think these nations have a higher ranking than an American state. They play in the World Cup. Scotland plays in the World Cup on its own. And, you know, Texas doesn't. Does Wales? Does Wales play in the World Cup?

Yes, Wales does. Yes, Wales does as well. I pick Wales because, sorry, Welsh people, like, I know you care a lot about the difference between you and England, but to me, this difference seems hilarious. They have their own language, Gray. Yeah, I know. Like, I know they have their own language, but there's something about it, which Wales to me, it's like the Cornwall independence movement. Like, yes, I know you have your own language down in Cornwall too, but the Wales and England, like, I just, I just can't take the distinction seriously. They do play cricket together as well. Wales doesn't have its own cricket team. They have merged with England on that one, but they do have their own soccer team.

And Wales was subsumed by England for like 600 years, and then it reappeared later. And it's just, I don't know. I think Wales is an interesting one. You're getting me in so much trouble. Am I? I don't think I am. No, just my Twitter and my Reddit. I'm just asking you questions about the politics in China.

Like what could possibly get you in trouble there, Brady? I don't understand. This is just my opinion. Like I'm just one person and there are a lot more Americans than there are Brady's. So you guys have it your way. I'm just telling you what I think. But no, I mean, look, Americans, they're nice people too. So I think the Americans will treat you very nicely. Everybody leave Brady alone. They're brilliant people. I just genuinely think this is fascinating. And I think it's fascinating because I do agree with you that even though I think the distinction between Wales and England, personally, I find somewhat ridiculous. I'm totally fine with someone from Wales saying that they are from Wales. And I just think that the UK

and the US are on this same level, which is why I also think it's okay for someone from the US to say their states. I've had one more thought about it. And I don't know if this is going to get me out of trouble or get me into even more trouble. But I was thinking about like reasons this has become the case. And like the one that I harp on is this kind of American centric attitude, or this arrogance I refer to, right? But it's also possible that the main reason this happens is because Americans aren't very well traveled and aren't very worldly and don't have that many experiences in which they get to take this out for a spin and the same thing applies to why they also don't put the usa in their post because they so

rarely send post from outside america and i don't think this is like a criticism of americans per se i think this is just an artifact of the per se. I think this is just an artifact of the fact they live in such a massive country that it's hard to get out of. It's such an awesome country full of so much stuff. You don't often need to get out of it because you can see so much amazing stuff in your own country. And they also have so little vacation time, which I think is criminal how little holidays Americans get. So I like give them a total leave pass for not leaving America much. There's no reason to, and also it's very difficult to, but I think that might also play into the

reason that they'll default to state identification and not even think of the countryside of things. They're just not practiced at it. Well, there's also two other things which I'll be slightly delicate about. One of which is there's a measurement effect that's also occurring here with Americans that you are talking to outside of America. So you're talking to Americans who have passports, who have the means and ability to travel internationally. And I think there's two also confounding factors, that those Americans are vastly more likely to be from states that you can 100% guarantee that other people have heard of, right? Like California, New York, Texas. If you're doing surveys of Americans abroad, it's not a huge population of people from Wyoming, and it's going to be a crazy number of New Yorkers.

And then I'm also willing to bet that that particular group of people may be in conversation or more interested in disassociating themselves from the federal level of the government and associating themselves with the state level of the government right because if you say like i'm american precisely because of the long shadow america casts it has a lot of associations yes and i think people may prefer particularly in an international setting to be associated with the state rather than the country as a as a whole this was a very common theme in the reddit people wanting to not be tarred with the brush of maybe things that are happening on a nationwide level i'll tell you one little little anecdote and then we can leave this conversation forever you will be bothered by the internet no more. Because I do feel, I feel like I have

come to a better understanding that it's politeness is the fundamental shape of the thing here. And then there's just this little quirk about the UK where there's some disagreement, but again, consistency hobgoblins. So since the last recording for an experiment, I thought, if anybody asks me where I'm from, I'm going to say America. And of course, now I'm like cruising for people to ask me where I'm from, right? And it's like, I've never been more social, right? It's like, I'm talking to the guy at the Starbucks. I'm talking to people in the office and your thickest accent yeah it's like i'm just like how y'all doing i'm just cruising

for casual conversation like i never have in my life and i'm coming up with nothing right like you know well first of all these are rusty skills and it's just like, this isn't working. But, but, miraculously, two days ago, in the least likely place, I went to the gym. After the gym, I go into the sauna. Nice and quiet place. And I time my gym and sauna visits very carefully so that nobody is there. I've found the exact correct gym window that has the minimum number of people. And I've rearranged my entire schedule around that. So I'm in the sauna minding my own business.

And what happens? It becomes packed with people like never before, all of whom are having a noisy argument about Brexit. I was like, great, perfect. Now I can just jump into a conversation. And in the course of the conversation, they asked, where was I from? And so I answered, America. And the guy who had asked looked at me

and he said, yes, we can tell that, but where? Yes. It's like, ah, right? But it's like, he said it like I was an idiot, right? Like I was a total moron for answering the question in this way. Unless he had said Canada. Right. If I'd said Canada, then it wouldn't have been, right?

That's the thing. But I said America, and it really felt like everyone in that sauna judged me in that moment and thought me a moron. This is why, this is like yet another reason. Like I'll always just say New York. I'm not going to say that I'm from America. Fair point, Gray. Fair point. And when we discussed this last time, that was the best excuse I said as well. I said that was the one reason I think it could be it works. And anyone who uses that reasoning, I find it hard to argue with. You're avoiding the inevitable question that comes next. But I still think you did the polite thing

and you weren't like an asshole saying, I'm from New York. I love your American accent, Brady. I really enjoy it. It's an interesting discussion point and it certainly incites emotion. I'll take your word for that. It's incited no emotion in me, but much brain buzzing over Brady. Do you know what? That's a fairer way of putting it too. It's not like Reddit became like a swamp of abuse and anger. It was a completely dominant subject and people were very strident, but there was no anger. There was just lots of explaining. So I think that's probably a fairer way to put it. I don't want to give the impression that everyone was really mad at me and abusive to me.

They weren't. They were just like, they just wanted to explain it. That's good to hear. I do feel that our Reddit is unusually good. And I hope they're being very good during this absence time. Well, daddy's away. Yeah. Everybody be on good behavior.

I'm trusting you guys. It's all been great so far. Well, daddy's away. Yeah. Everybody be on good behavior. I'm trusting you guys. It's all been great so far. Like keep it nice and calm. I was also just as a final conversation minimizer. There's a thing that my wife and I have learned to do over the years, which I had to instruct her to do, which is when people ask where we are from as a couple, we have to answer in a very specific way because usually my wife is like the lead in the conversation and so she would say something like i'm from hawaii and he's from new york

and i was like no no we got to do this the total other way because what happens when you say that is the person is very interested in hawaii and doesn't care at all about new york but because i was the second person mentioned they feel like they need to give some kind of token comment about like, oh, New York, it's great. Tell me more about Hawaii. So we've, as a couple, our couple answer, it has to be New York first, Hawaii second, because everybody loves Hawaii. And then that is the polite way to let the conversational interlocutor just start talking about Hawaii because it is the exception. Well done. Sounds like you guys have got that sorted. Question minimization, Brady. It's always the goal.

This episode of Hello Internet is brought to you by Squarespace. Squarespace is the company that has been on the internet for years and years, helping people turn their cool and interesting ideas into a real website to show them off. If you have something in your head like that, there's an idea that you want to get out in the world. Squarespace is the no-brainer place to go to make the website for that idea. They make it very easy to showcase your work or to publish a blog or to sell products and services of any kind. And Squarespace does this by giving you beautiful templates created by world-class designers to start with. So you don't have to create the whole look of your website from the ground up. No, you can take something that is already beautiful and then customize it in a million ways to make it yours. And with building things for the web, there's just so much that you have to worry about, but not if you're using

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that happen with Squarespace. Head to squarespace.com slash hello for a free trial. And when you're ready to launch, use the offer code hello to save 10% off your first purchase. That's squarespace.com slash hello and use offer code hello to save 10% off your first purchase. Get started with Squarespace. Think it. Dream it. Make it. So, Gray, what did you think of banksy's shredded art oh okay you need to explain this to the people i think most people will know about it i mean even you'd heard of it in your

blackout so this is for posterity brady you have to explain it to the people listening a thousand years from now who have no idea what's going on this is not a news podcast this is a time capsule greetings from the past oh people of the future. It's going to be really weird for them to hear that. Yeah. And they're still going to be named Tim. So back in the day, back in the late 2000s, there was an artist named Banksy. Okay, now I feel like you're giving too much background.

All right. So Banksy, the guerrilla graffiti artist type type dude he has this famous image that he sometimes creates and stencils and that of a girl holding a heart-shaped balloon it's like the iconic image that everyone associates with Banksy since he first painted it on a wall somewhere I think in London I'm not sure anyway there was an auction at a big famous auction house. Was it Christie's? I think it was Christie's. It was one of the big famous auction houses. It's Sotheby's.

It was Sotheby's. Sotheby's. So it was being auctioned, this print of an original Banksy print of his piece of artwork. And it was in a frame. It was in this gold frame. And when the hammer came down, it sold for pretty much exactly a million dollars. So it was this million dollar piece of art and moments after the hammer came down and the sale was finalized it turns out there was a shredder a paper shredder built into the bottom part of the frame and the piece of artwork lowered itself

automatically with some remote control lowered itself through the frame and kind of self-shredded itself and the painting was shredded coming out the bottom through the frame and kind of self-shredded itself. And the painting was shredded coming out the bottom of the frame. So it was this self-shredding piece of art that had just sold for a million dollars. It didn't shred all the way. It stopped about halfway. So half the painting is still in the frame and the other half is dangling out the bottom. Because it was a terribly insecure vertical only shredder, whereas everyone buying a shredder, you got to buy the quality crosscut. That's what you want. It was actually also a mishap. Like Banksy has since kind of revealed it was supposed to completely shred, but in some ways

it works better half shredded. It's more obvious what's going on, I think, as a piece of artwork. But I don't think he wanted it to be preserved as an artwork. Of course, everyone was like, oh, what's going to happen now? Someone just paid a million dollars. Are they going to have to pay? But of course, in one of the great ironies of this piece of artwork, it's now worth even more money. And the person who bought it said, oh yeah, I'll pay the million. And now they own this piece of artwork that's worth way more because it's become so incredibly famous for what happened. That's interesting. That's very interesting. I did not realize that Banksy had made a statement that his original

intention was to completely shred the painting. Yeah, he's shown how it was made and said, you know, I did all these test runs and it completely shredded on all my test runs, but the final thing didn't shred. Which is interesting, isn't it? Because like, obviously he was making some statement about the value of art and then having it disappear before people's eyes was quite, you quite a clever thing to do but the fact it kind of half shredded the way it did has created this like quite nice installation like it looks quite cool now i think it's more bankable as a piece of art than if the whole thing had just fallen on the ground into inner pieces so it's kind of backfired in a way hasn hasn't it? And he's made an even more valuable piece of art.

I like the situation more now that it's backfired because I've said it before on the podcast, but if Banksy was a less good artist, he would just be in prison, like as a hooligan defacing public property. And he's very interesting. But I have to say, when this story came to me, we went to Dismaland, and that was a really interesting experience, and I've seen his art, and I think it's good, and it's interesting, and he has a style. But this really felt to me like, you may be wanting to make a statement,

but it just feels to me like you're being an asshole by shredding something after it has sold like i get it you know i get what you're going for here and it's a very banksy thing to do like a podcaster that doesn't listen to podcasts i don't really think that's comparable i'm not an artist who shreds his art i don't know like if i was like if there was some way that we were able to auction off all of the podcasts and then after that auction had happened haha like the computer they were all located on self-encrypted and now you have nothing like surely yeah yeah then i'd just be a dick i don't think there's any other way to would to no i hear what you're saying i mean i don't know banksy personally but the guy obviously

has a lot of money and he's made a lot of money through people paying for his art. And then to then decide to make a statement about how you're all idiots if you pay a lot of money for art is kind of a dick move. Yeah, well, you don't even have to assume that that is the expression that is intended. I mean, I would say that's probably the obvious conclusion that you're supposed to draw from this. I can still view this in absence of, like, remove whatever it is he's trying to say with his art.

It, to me, seems like a very simple destruction of private property that's no longer yours. Like, the gavel comes down, and now this is not yours. But again, he got his whole start by painting on surfaces that were not his so it's not thematically incorrect but this one just struck me as a like oh this is not a stunt that i particularly enjoy this is not a thing that i think is interesting. And the whole discussion about, ooh, is it more valuable now? Strikes me as a weird sideshow and sort of an irrelevance to the actual discussion. I'm genuinely glad to hear that the guy who bought it at auction was happy to still buy it.

Great. I'm glad to hear that. Also think probably a pretty good move to do that and then have a bunch of news stories about the shredded artwork. But I'm going to give this stunt like a zero out of 10 as far as, oh, I think that's cool. It doesn't strike me that way. And I feel like maybe that makes me a bit of a party pooper, but it's just the way I feel about this one. What about you? Do you know, I kind of feel the opposite, despite not wanting to, like I kind of didn't want to like it. He's won you in spite of yourself. Yeah. Like, cause I kind of have this resistance to gimmicks like that. It was just like a fun

idea. It was just, I enjoyed the playfulness of it. And I enjoy the idea of the spectacle of shredding something in an auction house. So it tickled me more than I thought it would have. Cause whenever like modern art happens, right, I always have like a bit of, I don't know if it's a jealousy or a resistance or something, but I always think, well, I could have thought of that. I could have done that. I feel this one was an unobtainable prank to normal people

because no one else can sell their piece of art for a million dollars other than him. So no one else could have made the joke. So I feel a bit like it was a bit, it was cheating a bit. He was doing something no one else could do. But as I said, I'm normally quite resistant to that sort of thing, but this one captured my imagination. I took my hat off to him. I have that same feeling about a lot of modern art. I mean, I know it's like the world's biggest cliche, but it is the reaction. Like this is dumb and I don't understand what the point of this is. It seems like, you know, this auction that's a side effect of the way human brains work.

Everybody's playing a speculative game with this art. Okay, great, whatever. But Banksy is different because the reason you feel that way about modern art, the reason I feel that way about modern art, is because it lacks any technical skill whatsoever. That's the like, oh, I could have done this. I could have made this thing it's not that impressive whereas banksy's art style like i can't draw or paint remotely as

well as he can especially when he's doing these these simple drawings like there's more skill in good simplicity in some ways like picking the elements. And that image of the girl with the balloon, like it's a great image. There's a reason it's so iconic. It has technical skill. And even to pull off this prank with the shredder is in some sense a technical skill as well. I give him that credit. But yeah, I agree with you that most modern art is like whatever. So this is more interesting that most modern art is like, whatever. So this is more

interesting than most modern art, but it's because I almost feel like Banksy isn't really modern art. Like he's an artist and he happens to have a particular visual style. And most of the time when I say the words modern art, what I think of is stuff that lacks any interesting technical ability. That's just like garbage in a room that you're supposed to go, oh, it's so deep. So I had to renew my ESTA to go into the United States. I don't know what that is. It's like a visa, but without, it's not as full blown as a visa. It's just like a permit.

You fill it in online to say I'm coming to America and they'll let you come in. Oh, you have to do that as an Australian? I go as a Brit, but yeah. Yeah, you have to do that. You have to. Yeah. So if you haven't got like a visa or depending what permits you got, it's just like an online thing you do and it's valid for, I think it's valid for a couple of years at least.

Huh. I did not know about that. So even if you don't need a visa, you need to fill out this little RSV like rsvp card for going into america well it's it's done online and there's no there's no physical thing it's just all electronic so when you obviously when you they swipe your passport just a little tick comes up saying yep esther in place sort of thing so for the first time filling that i've filled out a few over the years for the first time when i was filling it out. I've filled out a few over the years. For the first time, when I was filling it out this time, I was asked to enter my social media handles. So it was, you know, who are your parents? Where are you born? What's your passport number? All that sort of stuff. And then one was, you know, what's your Twitter handle? Oh, it was optional. It won't be for long though, will it?

No, it won't be for long. I actually, I didn't fill it out, but it was optional. And I think there were dropdowns for all the different kinds of social media you can be on i don't know how they decide what ones to include and what ones not to include and you know do i have to put all my youtube channels and my myspace page how do you feel about that though being asked for your social media uh i mean obviously do not like uh do not like one tiny bit it feels I always wonder, like, when you swipe your passport, what are they looking at on that screen? You know, you can see that they pulled up some file on you that says things about you.

You know, watch out for this guy. He's hard as nails, or whatever it has on their little documents there. But with all of this security stuff, it always feels like you're just trying to catch the dumbest people people like the dumbest terrorists it can't actually be secure you'd have to be so dumb to be you know talking about oh i'm putting together this bomb right on twitter and posting photos of instagram of like all the

wires or whatever and then you travel to the u.s and you like oh yeah i'm terrorist johnny at twitter that's my my twitter handle it's more about networks isn't it like they probably put your handle into something and look at everyone you're friends with and who they're friends with and who they're friends with and some ai will put together some clever network to realize oh hang on that's kind of where i was going with this right it's like it's a policy that would only catch the dumbest person, which then feels like, well, you're really just casting a wide net for whatever it is that you possibly can, which is what makes it feel uncomfortable.

I'm talking about using it like in a clever way, like links that you were just mildly, mildly careless about, but the AI is able to say, hang on, if you're friends with that person and you follow that and you do this and like they start knowing more about you than you realize you're

giving away. You know how they say these things where they can figure out, you know, with 10 data points, they can figure things out about you that you don't even know about yourself. So that kind of thing. Yeah, no, I know. This is getting very close to, I've had this thought of like, oh, someone should make this thing. And then I've realized, oh, this thing would probably just destroy all of society. So maybe you don't. And we're getting kind of close to that.

So I'm just going to keep my mouth shut. But yes, I do agree with you. That's probably a thing that the machines can pull out reasonably quickly is maybe learning a lot about you by all of the associations with your social media accounts.

But there's this thing that i've been vaguely following that this relates to which is one of these stories that i just i don't know how real a lot of this stuff is but it's the like china social credit stuff do you know what i'm talking about with this no No, no. Okay. So before I say anything, I want to be very clear that this is like, I've read articles on this, but I just don't know how real it is. And some people seem to think it's very real. And some people are like, oh no, this is totally overblown. But basically the Chinese government is implementing a kind of how good of a citizen are you score? Oh, yes. Yes. I do know about this yeah i only mention it because that's what makes me like when i i laugh about how oh the twitter

handle thing is optional now but like it won't be for long like eventually it'll just be mandatory it doesn't feel like it's a good direction for things to go in. Again, I want to state this thing very, very cautiously, but sort of growing up, I much more had the idea that democracy just sort of wins because it's a better system, right? That like, oh, democracy wins and it's great. And there's sort of like this upward arrow of history and things improve and this is great. And there's sort of like this upward arrow of history and things improve and this is great. And then a few years ago, largely from reading the book, The Dictator's Handbook, which I turned into that video about rules for rulers, I sort of changed my mind and thought of democracy as much more like a stable but fragile point that you don't inevitably have a march that like all countries

move towards democracy you can have democracy arrive and it's a sort of stable point but not infinitely stable like it's more shakable so it's not the end result of an inevitable arrow it's a thing that can happen but increasingly i worry that technology is shifting the playing field to favor a kind of soft technocracy. And this is why I wonder about the China thing. China to me is the perfect example of, it doesn't seem to be becoming more of a democracy as it becomes richer like it's it's better than it was before but it seems like it's leaning in this technocracy direction that if you control the technology maybe you can control the society and i just worry about that being the way the playing field leans over time, that what technology allows someone to do is like almost by definition, it allows a smaller group of people to do more things. And I do kind of worry about what effect that has on government. It's all sort of vague and incoherent, but that's the uncomfortable feeling

I would have when a government form asks you for what's your social media handle. It's like, oh, is this the start of something that's really bad, even though right now it might not seem like it's a big deal? What's the difference between a technocracy and like a dictatorship or something where the dictators just have a lot of good technology. I think it comes down to the question of hard versus soft force. Like you're not ruling through an iron fist. You're ruling through a kind of self-censorship that you can put on the population. You don't have to like outlaw saying something before everybody decides that they're not going to say the thing.

Not because it's illegal, but because it's uncomfortable. That to me is a little bit like what this like the technocracy feels like is, you know, you're not even going to buy any books that are even remotely close to anything that a computer somewhere might two degrees of separation away say this is associated with stuff that we don't like. It's like it's not even the extreme stuff. It's anything that could be a degree of separation from something that's from something away from extreme. So that's kind of what I think about as the technocracy, that those patterns can be spotted much more easily than they could under like a traditional dictatorship, where maybe you have a whole bunch of spies, but you can never have enough spies to keep track of everything. Do those concerns like affect your behaviors now, like in anticipation of this stuff coming in? Or do you act pretty normal now and it's just,

if it started becoming a big deal, then you'd be careful about what you bought on Amazon? Or do you sit there on Amazon these days and think, oh, I better be careful because in five years there could be this whole new regime and I'm going to look really bad? I don't think about it now, but I could imagine a future me thinking that kind of thing i was just trying to gauge your level of paranoia no like the answer to that question then is like right now no it's not very high because i would describe all of these thoughts as like as the thing that you're supposed to be able to do playing with an idea I don't even know how seriously I take this idea. I don't even know how real the thing in China is.

But nonetheless, it's a thing to sort of play with this idea and think about. Maybe this is a thing. Maybe it's not a thing. I don't know. But the social media handles on government forums makes me think of that thing. I'm like, huh, maybe this is something. Maybe it's not. On a scale from 1 to 10, how would you rate yourself? Do you think this is something maybe it's not on a scale from one to ten how would you rate

yourself do you think this is crazy talk do you think it might be reasonable i don't think it's crazy talk it doesn't really affect my behavior like i'm not careful about right what books i buy on amazon but i don't think it's crazy talk especially now i'm literally being asked from my social media handle to enter the us yeah it's connected to like a very little thing that I had in the show notes for a while, but it's like, it's sort of the same thing when we talked a while back about when people are online, how do you ensure they see news that you would rate as good? And in that conversation, like we both agreed that ultimately this needs to come down to some kind of human curation that may be purely algorithmically this is not possible but of course

human curation has all of its own problems good as in important not good as in happy yeah i'm specifically using the word good in a sort of vague way right like let's not get caught up in the details of of what that means but like we can have a very broad sense of bad as in bad for everyone and good as in good for society. But we don't need to get more specific. But Facebook is apparently rolling out a program where they're trying to algorithmically or through whatever methods they're doing, figure out who are the trustworthy sharers of news on the platform, and then to be able to weight those person's shares more or less in their system. That to me has a little bit of this feeling as well too that if you're on facebook in the back of your mind maybe you want to share an article but you have to then do the metacognition of will facebook think

this article makes me a less reliable person and will therefore turn down the volume on what my shares reach. We face this on YouTube, don't we though? Like, do I put up an avant-garde experimental video on my channel? Not as many people watching it costs me in the long run. Yeah. I mean, the YouTube thing is a little bit different because it's more opaque and YouTube, at least in theory sometimes says like future videos don't affect the past videos and channels aren't people like i just think it's a clearer case on facebook that somewhere in their algorithm they have a like serious sharer of important news however that's defined and then they've got crackpot and you're somewhere on this

scale and then knowing that the things that you share on facebook are always being fed into where are you on the serious versus crackpot scale like that kind of thing then affects do you want to share a story that like oh you think it think it's real, but maybe you have some doubt about, but then you say, you know what? I don't want to hurt my trustworthy score. I don't want to impact my future audience. So maybe I just won't share that. And what you're worried that we all become a bit homogenous and safe. I don't worry that people would become homogenous, but this is just another edge that feels like it's being maybe eroded towards this kind of technocracy that you're being watched in all of these different ways and i do think it's it's fair to say with a

lot of the big social media platforms that you know they really want you to be the kind of user they want on their platform and they're going to amplify or mute you based on your behavior. And it's like, well, this is a tool that many people could want to use. That to me is the fundamental thing about the technocracy is the like meta thinking about your own actions, and how they affect your ranking in some system. Do you think being a Hello Internet listener gets you more points or less points on your government score? I mean, it gets you more Hello Internet points, that's for sure.

Gets you one step closer to that golden hot drop. No matter what country you're from or what American state you're from, it's always good to, well, make yourself a bit smarter, to exercise your brain in ways that'll make you a better problem solver or maybe more creative, that little bit sharper. Now, Brilliant is a website that will help you do just that. It's essentially a community and a repository of math and science problems and puzzles that are tailor-made to help you understand concepts at a deeper level. I actually met some of the people from Brilliant while in San Francisco just recently,

and the thing that struck me most was how much time and effort goes into every question. They aren't just slapping together a quiz for the pub, whacking on a few multiple-choice questions to make it more clickable. These people are super serious and super passionate about how the brain works, how learning works, and they put loads of time into what they're publishing. We talked for ages about how pictures are chosen, how questions are laid out on the page, what wording works best,

and they're constantly improving and adding to what they have. Learning is an art form to these people, and I suggest you go along and check out what they're doing. Now, art form to these people, and I suggest you go along and check out what they're doing. Now, in addition to these more elaborate lessons on the site, my favorite section is the problems of the week. Now, you can probably guess what that is. Each week, a new set of problems, from beginner to advanced, is unleashed on the world. You can do that week's edition, or you can go back in time to previous weeks. And in addition to the questions themselves, there's an interesting community discussion about what's really going on. People chat through what's in the question, how they would have solved

it. Those discussions and explanations are often just as intriguing as the problems themselves. Now there's lots of free stuff on the Brilliant site, so do go and have a play. But if you take out a premium subscription, that means you get access to everything. It's essentially like the pro model. Then all you have to do to get 20% off is enter the URL brilliant.org slash hello. That's 20% off plus some fame and glory for Hello Internet because you used our code. That's brilliant.org slash hello. Thanks to Brilliant for supporting the show. And well, let's get back to the show. Daylight savings time, Brady. Today is the day where we fell back, which I always have to think for a minute, which way that goes. We put the clocks back at 2am i was still awake at 2am i actually watched

my iphone clock like i was watching like the ticking version like you know on the little icon and i was going tick tick towards two and then the hour hand went backwards by an hour it was cool did it rotate backwards or did it just pop backwards well it happened so quick i couldn't quite tell it looked like it animated back but maybe it was instant i don't know i can't believe you were up to see that, Brady. What a strange time to be alive. You lost an hour of your life or... I don't know.

I hate the spring forward, fall back thing because it sounds helpful, but it's not because I still have to think it through real hard each time to be like, wait, so yesterday 7pm is what today, right? Like I just... Yeah. There's something about this math that i find totally impossible i'm rubbish just in general with clocks like if someone in america says call me at this time and i have to do like time zone conversions that's like an hour of my life gone

yeah this is why you got to turn on time zone support on the calendar on your phone so when someone says 3 p.m in new york you just put 3 p.m in new y York on your phone and then it shows you wherever the hell you are, what time that actually is. Like just let a computer do this because God only knows those calculations are not easy and they're not consistent. No. But. I'm sure you've got thoughts on daylight saving time then. Well, I mean, we go through this madness all the time.

It's obviously dumb. I've spoken about this many times. Yeah. Okay. We need to just mention Brexit briefly because now Brexit, now it's serious because the EU has said they're getting rid of daylight savings time. They're not going to do this anymore. So this was their final fallback. And the plan is they're going to spring forward and then that's it. Then they're done.

No more of this nonsense. So we keep the light in the evening, which is the best one. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know how this works. All I know is last fall back, they're going to spring forward and then boom, they're done. I can't figure out when the sun is up. Someone always loses in this calculation. Children go to school in the dark or whatever. Look, there's only so many hours of sun to go around and screwing with the clock doesn't change anything but they're loading the sunlight towards the second half of the day rather than the first half of the day i'll take your word for it yeah because i think that's the way you like that's the general agreement is you leave summertime on and you stop savings time or

whatever that is the saving time. Yeah, all right. Yeah, see, it's like, it's impossible to talk about, right? It's just impossible. Basically, the question was, do I get to play more cricket after school? I want that preserved, maximum cricket time after school. So I want the sun to stay up as long as possible.

I think that's what's happening for your European cricket parties. I'm pretty sure that's what's happening. But I do not trust me to do the mental math remotely about how that's going to work. But of course, the UK hates anything European. They're going to be like, we're keeping it. It's like, goddammit, right?

Now we're leaving the EU. This is exactly the thing that I really worry about. That because of the weird politics of this, the last thing in the world the UK wants to be seen to do is anything that aligns with the European Union. And so I feel like I was reaching out to taste delicious ambrosia, which is that I don't have to deal with this nonsense in my life. Do you know what? I hate daylight savings time. And it's like, I am a man unmoored from the world. I was going to say, I can't think of anyone in the world who would be less affected by this than you. But Brady, I have to go to the gym, right? The gym is the thing that is like,

it's like hello internet keeps me on the barest of gossamer threads connected to what's going on in the world around me. It's like the goddamn gym and the people with their schedules. Their schedules shift when the clocks shift. So I have to shift my schedule too. And the other one that kills me is when I go into my office, like in this big building, I don't want anybody there.

So I get up nice and early so I can go in before anybody arrives. My whole life is scheduled around these things. And then the clocks change. So it affects me and I hate it. Like I hate how it affects me. And it's like, it was going to be fixed. It was so like, it was within my grasp. And then it's just been whisked away. I'm crushed. Like I cannot explain how crushed I am. I haven't like dipped into this argument, but I have no doubt the Brexit people absolutely want to keep this daylight saving situation because

it's the sort of thing they would want to keep. Yeah. It hits all of the wrong markers. It's an obvious thing. It's a visually obvious affects everyone thing that they're going to not want to align with the European Union on. And it just crushes me. It makes me so sad. Why does everyone at the gym change their schedules? I don't understand. I can see how people being in and out of the office would change because of, you know, light and people wanting to go and play in the park or ride their bikes and stuff. But I can't see how, why the gym instructors change the time for their

spin class and things like that. What do you mean? Like it's at, you know, their spin class is at 8am or whatever, and then it's still going to be at 8am the next time. Exactly. So when the clocks change, I can't see how that affects your life. But I still have to wake up an hour earlier or an hour later to hit the empty hour at the gym, right? The empty hour moves when everybody else's schedules move. Okay. So it's the moving empty hour. But so spin class is still at eight.

It's just there's more or less people in it because of people wanting to take advantage or avoid sunlight and stuff. I feel like I don't even understand how to explain this. Okay. All right. Busy gym times. Let's reverse engineer this. Okay.

It's busy in the morning before work from all the people I'm really frustrated by who are like, they get up early, go to the gym and they have a great day people. I want to be one of those people. I'm not. And then I silently resent them for their running in the morning. Right. So before work hours, gym is busy. Then it starts to lull off as the workday begins. Yeah. And this is where we get into the beautiful empty hour at the gym. But it's a brief period of time because once you start getting close to lunchtime again, people are taking off early from lunch, I presume, to get to the gym.

And then lunchtime, it's incredibly busy. And after work, it's incredibly busy. Yeah, of course. So when the clocks change, that's all still the same pattern, isn't it? It's just... Yeah, work it's incredibly busy yeah of course so when the clocks change right that's all still the same pattern isn't it it's just yeah but it's just but it hasn't moved on your clock it's only moved in reality so if you still obey your clock which is admittedly has changed and your your body might have to slightly adjust over the course of a week or so but as long as you obey your watch, you can still hit

all these windows that you want to hit. I feel like I'm taking crazy pills here. Like I'm doing something- So do I. So do I. I totally don't understand your complaint here. Unless you're saying people start changing whether they go before work or after work. No, no, nobody. Okay. No, nobody changes anything. Well, if nobody changes their schedule in any way, what does it matter to you? But the hours change. Okay. So you're talking about like your natural body rhythm, like you're having to like,

just the inconvenience of that. What I want, and again, what I'm so close to achieving is to be able to ignore the fact that the clocks change. So in my schedule, I get up at six in the morning. And when the clocks change, whichever which way, I want to move my schedule so that I'm getting up at the same time I was yesterday. The same time on your watch or the same time in the universe? Same time in the real world, right?

Not the same time on the universe. No, same time in the real world, right? Like, not the same time on the clock, right? But I can't because everything else in the world has shifted. And then there's only two things I care about, which is I want no one in the office and I want no one at the gym. And because those two slots move, I too have to move. And that's where it affects me. And that's the frustration. So the thing you're resenting is that you're having to change your body clock. Yes. That's the whole reason the clock thing is dumb is because everybody has to change their body clock. That's the whole problem. I understand you now. Fair enough. Okay, great. Fair enough. I felt like I was losing my mind.

What I thought you were suggesting was, you know, everyone's going to the gym before work. And then when the clocks change, everyone starts going to the gym after work because, you know, it's easier to cycle or something like that. But that's not what's changing. Just what's changing is your wake up time relative to the stars. Yes. What you're discussing there is the theory of what should be happening with daylight savings time, right? Is people adjust to have more after work activities because there's more sunlight. But in reality land, nobody does that.

Oh, that definitely happened in my reality in Australia. Okay. But I haven't really noticed it in the UK so much. It's not so much in the UK. It's like everybody's going to work at the same time and everybody's doing whatever at the same time. Nothing changes. So anyway, I'm grumpy because today I feel like I have just been

doomed to a thousand years of daylight savings time changes. I've got to build my own private gym and my own private office. That's next up on the project list, I guess. So Gray, just before we came on air, on air, just before we started recording. Before we started broadcasting live to the world, Brady. Yeah, just before we started. I saw a tweet and you won't see it. So I took a screen cap of the picture that the Press Association tweeted. They took a photo of the final board in, I think it was the World Championship of Scrabble.

So this was like, you know, obviously the two finalists went head to head. I don't know who they are. I haven't done enough research. So this is the final board know, obviously the two finalists went head to head. I don't know who they are. I haven't done enough research. So this is the final board from the Scrabble. I just wanted to see what you thought of it. I really wanted to know how many of the words you knew. Okay. Because obviously these people know all the words, don't they?

All the words. Yeah. They know all those tricky words that can get you out of a jam. Tell me you're not fascinated to see what the final board looks like in the Scrabble grand final. The Super Bowl of Scrabble. Well, I mean, I can say I'm not excited because I have a real visceral aversion to Scrabble. I think it may be one of the worst games

mankind has ever created. Wow. A lot of these don't even register as words to me. You should be able to read any which way, right? Like there's D-E on e on here d e is not a word apparently it is as is ut yeah ut i mean they must mean utah everybody around the world would know that ut is the abbreviation for utah can you use abbreviations or abbreviations kosher no no you can't e n n i know is a word That was one of my cheat words I learned in Scrabble.

A cheat word, huh? What does N mean? That's to do with printing, I think. It's like it's a measurement, an N. It's a small gap. Oh, yeah, of course. I remember this from latex typesetting. Yeah, it's like M and N lengths, right? Zo, Z-O. Basically, is there any two-letter combination that is not a word in Scrabble? That is the question I'm left asking, looking at this. F, E-F. What is this? There's a blank one in the middle. Yeah, that's a blank in Scrabble. That can be any letter you want it to be. Have you ever played Scrabble? Yeah, I have played Scrabble. It's terrible. But that blank is really throwing me off there.

Is that, can you place, you can place a blank? Yeah. And you nominate what letter it is. Yeah. I don't know what letter it is in that word, because I don't recognize all the letters around it. Lavalosis. I don't know what that's supposed to be. Shouldn't they write in marker what the letter is? That's very confusing. You just have to remember. Maybe they should. Yeah. The funny thing is, like, there's so many weird words on this board that when you see a word you recognize, it's like really exciting. Like ovarian i know that word or words that i'm just sort of registering as i think i know it like groutier like yeah that sounds like a thing i might know one who grouts yeah one who grouts any i know the word any that's good i would be

embarrassed putting gag on the board jaw i can recognize jaw yeah scriber again one who scribes i'm surprised that tex is a word t-e-x but it is everybody knows if you're from texas you're a tex that works it's all about the american states with you isn't it i'm saying every everyone around the world knows there's tex-mex tex-mex I don't know. I just... Why do you hate Scrabble so much? Are you good at it? No, I'm terrible at it. I can't spell. That's true, Tims. That is true. I'm a terrible speller and a fast and careless typer, which is a fantastic combination. Bad combo, that.

I played Scrabble a couple of times and I just hate everything about it. Okay, here's the fundamental problem with Scrabble a couple times, and I just hate everything about it. Okay, here's the fundamental problem with Scrabble. You have to keep turning the stupid board to read it right. This is like ground zero problem with your game, is that you have two people sitting at a table, and it's not like a chess match or like a breathtakingly beautiful go board. No, like you can't read it upside down and you have to turn it. So you lose half the thinking time when you're playing Scrabble with somebody else.

Although sometimes looking at it from another angle makes you have ideas you wouldn't have otherwise had. No, disagree. Not true. Okay. You don't get enough letters. You need more letters. I think the double, triple word score thing makes it look like a cheap

game of Je jeopardy or something Like even this board is just ugly. Look at it. It's ugly. This is not a piece of artwork The double triple word scores that's that's where the strategy comes in though You know what to open up and what to you know, how aggressive to be and how cautious to be That's what makes it more than just how many words do I know spelletron? Yeah, but it looks cheap. Look at it It's cheap and gross looking. I'll give you that. I'll give you that it looks cheap.

But I think that's because they've kept the original design. And I quite like that they've done that, that they haven't like, like, for example, the redesigning of Uno cards, I think was tragedy. The way that the Draw 4 card has changed its design. I like that Scrabble looks exactly like it looked when I was a kid. Okay. I remember that Draw 4 Wild. Exactly. Like it's burned into your mind what it looked like. And then they changed the design. They changed the design of the draw four. And is it the one now just with the circles

with the no words? Yeah. And it's all, yeah. Oh, I like that much better. Well, look, you would, I don't like words, right? It's not about words. It's about nostalgia. Like, okay, I'm trying to look at this stupid Scrabble board. God damn it. Double letter, double word. Put symbols on there. I hate words because they talk to you when you look at them, right? It's like you're looking at the board and it's triple word, double letter. They all like, they're all just dumbly talking to you when you look at them.

And looking at a Scrabble board and trying to play it, it's like this noisy thing. I hate everything about it. I don't like Scrabble. And this is just aesthetically unpleasing. Go is the winner in this realm. Go is like two players building a work of

art together. And Scrabble is the worst. It's the ugliest game by far. Can you think of an uglier game? Can you think of a single game that's uglier? I am struggling. Yeah. What do you think of games that are like three-dimensional, like Mousetrap and Run Yourself Ragged? Oh, Mousetrap. Wow. Wait, is Run Yourself Ragged a game? I don't know Run Yourself Ragged. That has different names in different places. I found an old Run Yourself Ragged in a shop, and it was called something different. So I don't know what other peopleged that has different names in different places i found an old run yourself ragged in a shop and it was called something different so i don't know what other people know that is i'm unfamiliar with that mousetrap i'm fine with that but i don't know mousetrap

falls into uh you know it's like chutes and ladders oh i'm sorry wasn't it snakes and ladders yeah snakes snakes and ladders where the purpose the Snakes and Ladders is to teach young children the futility of decision making and that they live in a universe in which their decisions don't matter. Here I found Run Yourself Ragged called Screwball Scramble. I recognize that even less. Okay. And it's like mousetrap. The purpose of that is also to instill in children that the best laid plans of mice and men often go wrong. They're like, look, you're going to have these complicated structures and they're not going to work.

And welcome to the world, kid. This is tough. I don't even remember how the game Mousetrap worked, like the actual board game part of it. I would just build the trap and then set it off so I could watch it work. I didn't care about the game itself. I just wanted to build the thing and then see if I could make that Rube Goldberg machine work properly. Yeah. Again, it's like a children's learning. There's a reason that adults don't play Mousetrap, right? Because they've learned, oh, complexity often leads to failure. Like Hungry Hungry

Hippos. There's not international championships of Hungry Hungry Hippos because you've taught children, again, sometimes your skill doesn't matter and just being fast and voracious is all that matters in the world. So that's what these things are for. I'm not even joking. I really think that's why kids have these weird games that don't make any sense to adults because you're learning things about the world. You're learning these harsh, harsh lessons that we have to cover in candy color plastic. And Scrabble, it's an adult's game, but it's the worst game. And the kids' games, maybe they look kind of garish, but they're serving the purpose that they serve. Like those things you put in baby cribs that have mirrors and bells and things on them, right? Like they're garish, but the purpose of them is there's like a human

trying to congeal inside this brain and you want to give it a bunch of stimulus to play with, to self congeal. That's like, that's why that thing exists. You make childhood sound so romantic. Do you like Trivial Pursuit? Yeah, it's okay, I guess. It's better than Scrabble. With Brady and I discussing hiking on the show, the thing that is good for your soul, the thing that calls to us,

I have found myself re-listening to one of my favorite audiobooks of all time. And that book is A Walk in the Woods. It's by Bill Bryson. Now, where would I listen to my audiobooks? Well, there's only one place. It's Audible. There is no better place to listen to audiobooks than Audible. Their selection of books is just unparalleled. If you want an audiobook on any topic at all, Audible is going to have it. And in addition to their huge library of audiobooks, they're also producing their own original programs. When you sign up with Audible, every month you get one credit that's good for any audiobook, plus you can choose from two of their Audible originals.

And the selection changes every month. And on Audible, your books are yours to keep. You can go back and re-listen anytime, even if you cancel that membership. You can start a 30-day trial and get your first audiobook free by going to audible.com slash hellointernet or text hellointernet to 500-500 to get started. Now, I'm going to recommend that if you find yourself too called into the woods, that you should listen to A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson. Like I said at the top, it's one of my absolute favorite audiobooks. I'm going to particularly recommend you get the version that is narrated by Rob McQuay.

A great audiobook narrator can really add a lot to a book, and his reading of this book really brings the story to life. It's A Walk in the Woods. It's by Bill Bryson, but look for the narrator, Rob McQuay. I love it. I've listened to it several times, and I'm listening through it again. It's just as good every time. So you should get that as your free Audible book. And once again, you can start your 30-day trial by going to audible.com slash hellointernet or text hellointernet to 500-500 to get started. Thanks to Audible for supporting the show. And thanks to Audible for bringing me so many great audiobooks.

You had me watch a movie, Brady. I felt like we had to review First Man. First Man. Yeah, you feel like we had to review it? Yeah, well, you know, I love Apollo and the Moon. And I don't know, it felt like one we should do. When you sent me this message suggesting this as a movie to watch for the podcast, I felt there's no way

I can turn down a Brady on a NASA movie. It's just not possible for me to say no. So I agreed very quickly to go see First Man, which I have just come from a showing of. And you saw it last night, did you? I saw it last night and you saw it just a few hours ago. How do you want to start with this, Brady? I don't know. This is always our problem with movie reviews, isn't it? We kind of don't know how to start. Look, I'm just going to do what you want. I loved it. It was a great movie. And I had this feeling watching the movie that a good movie can do, which is when it's over, I almost feel like I've woken up from a kind of dream. That's what this movie was.

Like I was seeing it in the theater. It's a great movie for seeing in a theater. It was all dark. It had my full attention. And then when the credits rolled, I like needed a cup of coffee because this feeling of like, oh, I've woken up from some kind of dream state was very strong.

So I thought it was a great movie. I was expecting, frankly, to be really bored throughout the whole thing and that i was going to watch this because you wanted me to but i i thought it was great i loved it i thought it was boring oh my god okay yeah wow i thought it was really really dull huh the world has turned on its head in this moment. I was also thinking, oh man, Brady must love this. Brady's probably eating up every moment of this movie. And boy, was I wrong. Okay. Tell me what you didn't like. To be fair, it didn't feel like as long as it was. It didn't feel too long and it

was a long movie. So maybe boring is not the right word. because I wasn't like looking at my watch thinking I wish this had finished. It felt like the right length. Okay. I just felt very bored by it. It had a few good things in it. It had things I liked about it. But I was a bit disappointed. Okay.

What were you hoping it would be? I was hoping it would, because it was all about Neil Armstrong, you know, the first man. It was all about the person. I was hoping it would tell me and people watching something about him, like it would shed new light or it would help me understand the man better. The problem is, right, the problem with this film is it's about a man who is a really boring guy. Like Neil Armstrong was kind of almost in some ways picked for his boringness. That's what made him so ideal for what was thrust upon him.

But it means like he doesn't make for a good movie. Like three or four amazing things happened to him in his life action-wise. They showed those moments quite well, like when his Gemini ship spun out of control and when he escaped from his lunar practice craft when it exploded and hit the ground and things like that. And when he walked on the moon, of course. And they dealt with all those moments very well. And there were a few sequences and visual parts of the film

that I thought were really good. But I just felt like he was really boring and they didn't give me any understanding of him and his motivation and some of the human things that may or may not have happened in his life. And maybe that's because nothing interesting happened. And the couple of things they did do that sort of humanised him were kind of made up.

He didn't leave any jewellery on the moon for his little girl. Yeah, that was the number one question I had. The movie opens with his daughter dying, which I presume is real. Yes, yes. At the end of the movie, it shows him dropping this piece of jewelry of hers on the surface of the moon. And it was so shocking as a thing my reaction was this must be true because surely they wouldn't they wouldn't fabricate this no but then immediately i did the

metacognition of i just don't know and i wanted to that was my number one question for you is was that real and of course okay so no it isn't. And they were so thorough and accurate in this film, you know, making sure all the ships look right and the buttons are in the right place and that, that to do something like that was quite audacious. And it was so audacious that made me think, my goodness, is that, because I like to think I know quite a lot about Apollo 11. I was thinking, did this happen? And I didn't know, have I missed this piece of trivia all this time? What a glaring omission in my knowledge of the moon landing that I went and researched it and looked it up.

Then I read articles about the director saying, oh, basically I made it up. That's a bad move. I think that's a really bad move. But you kind of see why they did it story-wise because it made the story nicer and it suddenly made Neil Armstrong interesting. Oh, isn't it interesting that he did that?

But in fact, he didn't do anything so interesting. He remained boring. Well, I had just a different reaction to it, because I wouldn't use the word boring. I would use the word level. He is portrayed as a man who is level but that doesn't make for great films does it it doesn't make for great films unless your movie happens to be about what was the first human who stood on the moon like what i was thinking of during the movie is for this project you're trying to select someone who has such an unusual cluster of characteristics. I mean, again, the astronauts already are a couple

standard deviations away from anything like a normal human being. And for this kind of project in particular, you're looking for someone who is risk-taking enough that they're like yeah i'll go to the moon but they're also so level-headed that you can trust them with the gigantic rocket ship that would go to them like you can't send a cowboy off to do this kind of thing yeah but think of that as your film pitch okay i want to pitch you a film about a guy who's really level and no matter what happens to him he kind of just stays really level again any other movie terrible protagonist and i think we also touched on this a little bit for uh captain sullenberger when we were talking about the plank like it was the same thing like he's like a level guy in a really interesting situation which is again is exactly what you

want i like i always want those pilots to be real boring on those announcements. Maybe it's a casting issue then, Grey. Maybe it's a casting issue because Sully is the same, but he was played by Tom Hanks, who's so charismatic and quite a successful actor. And I've always found Ryan Gosling, who plays Neil Armstrong, to be quite a boring actor. I find him quite uncharismatic and not that great I kind of like him still but he always plays really sort of dreary dull characters and maybe they needed to give the part to someone who just had some sparkle somehow just to rescue Neil Armstrong from himself don't get me wrong by the way you know who loves Neil Armstrong more than me but yeah I don't think you're like poo-pooing Neil

Armstrong in this yeah right right? Like we're talking about the movie. I did have a little bit of a hard time taking Ryan Gosling seriously in the beginning of the movie. You know, shouldn't you be using moves from Dirty Dancing to try to pick up Emma Stone? Like, isn't that what you do? This is like, you're such a pretty boy, but he won me over with this level portrayal. And I guess like the other thing here is i've been kind of down on movies lately we have discussed it a little bit but this feeling of being beat to death by the machine that makes the movies and knowing too much about how movies are made and the structure of movies and then seeing like oh these character decisions were made for this reason because this just has to fit in this.

Like it just, oh, all of these strings. Like I can see all of these strings and you need to have a disagreement between your main protagonists right about now. There it comes. It's like, oh, it's exhausting. Whereas I think the reason I got pulled into this movie is it just, it so wasn't a traditional three-act structure movie like it's a

sequence of things that happen to neil armstrong and he is not a protagonist for a mainstream blockbuster movie because he has no emotional reactions to anything and that's sort of the story of who he is yeah but they did then make him cry on the moon and you know that made stuff up to i don't know great i thought it was a bit cliched i thought maybe i've seen too many space movies but i thought it was cliche it had all the things that the right stuff and apollo 13 and all these things have have. It seemed to just tick all the boxes. It has the trope of the anxious wife who's actually quite steely and it had the deaths that make you question whether this is all worth it. I mean, you can't mess with what really happened and everything in the film was pretty accurate. Have you seen the film The Right Stuff?

No, I have not seen it. I'm sorry. Because that's the great space movie. Okay. And I felt like this was like, I won't say a poor man's right stuff, because it's probably cost more to make than The Right Stuff. But it felt like it wanted to be The Right Stuff, but failed in all the areas where The Right Stuff succeeded. Because The Right Stuff is a very similar film. It even starts with a test pilot and the test pilot life and then becoming astronaut and going to astronaut training and the funny things that happen as you're selected as an astronaut and then the personalities of the men who are chosen to be the astronauts and their relationships with their wives and all these sort of things so this was like this followed the right

stuff template but it didn't have the brilliant acting and the fascinating characters and i know i have seen less space movies than you have but that strikes me a little bit as surely this is what happens when you send someone into space yeah like you got to have the training like they do the training montage in armageddon because you got to train guys you're sending up into space right and yeah man i can't like i i'm just i was oh i was so sure that brady was just gonna love this movie and we were gonna have two minutes at the end of the podcast where we both say we thought it was great and then there's let me tell you some things i liked about the movie okay let me tell you some things i liked about the movie because there were things i liked

about the movie i loved the scene where they did the launch of the Gemini, the first launch, where they never once showed the outside of the rocket. And they focused on like the rivets and how this thing feels like a tin can that's just been shaken to death. And I thought that was a really brave way of showing the launch. They lost their nerve when they did the Saturn launch finally to go to the moon and they went for all the cliche classic shots. But the Gemini launch made it feel like wow this was really pokey what they were doing in these tin cans and it was creative and different and just to follow on from that I also like just in general the way they showed what it was like to be like in the space suit they made it all seem a bit crappier and more homemade which was probably

a little bit accurate like you know what it's like to have all the windows fogged up and to be inside your mask and hear your own breathing and it did give a real sense of not just a sense of being there but a sense of the precariousness of what they were doing that i haven't seen in a lot of other space movies and is that it it? Is that the end of the list? That's pretty much it. And the rest of the things I've written down here are things I didn't like. Wow. That's so interesting. It was really well made. It looked good. It was a bit too much of the shaky face close-ups, you know?

That is my one major downside was I, at many points, felt like i was in that three axis spinning machine with just like jesus christ can't you guys lock off a camera for any of these shots like you can't it's like was everything filmed by a guy standing 50 feet away using a telephoto lens but by hand this is like stuff in the house like you know conversations and stuff not the rocket stuff where it's supposed to be shaking around but yeah it struck me as bizarre and like an intrusion of modern filmmaking onto this thing that's set in the 1960s because otherwise like they clearly put a kind of 1960s grain over the whole movie which i thought gave it an interesting feel but it felt very strange then when they were also having just this shaky cam. Like that was my number one thing, like, Jesus Christ guys, this doesn't work when they're

just talking. It's like AB camera shots here and it's all over the place. Did you notice a lot of what felt like gratuitous shots showing watches? Because I think like some money probably changed hands to make sure that the Amiga got some time, the Moonwatch. But it felt like there were a lot of like, the watches felt a bit gratuitous in the film, but maybe I'm just something I pay attention to. I don't think you are. I don't think you're overly sensitive to that. I was very aware of several characters' watches. Even ones that I didn't recognize the brand. It wasn't always like, oh, look, that's obviously,

you know, an Amiga. They just seem to place a lot of emphasis on people wearing watches all the time. Yeah. There were several shots where watches seemed really shiny and cups were pulled down just below the watch. So I don't think you're crazy with that. Tell me more about what you liked. Let's hear some positives. Well, I have some questions for you as the expert.

Okay. So a thing that also made it feel like it was not a traditional movie to me was very little explanation of lots of things which i thought was great it was brave i i was watching it thinking will people understand what's going on here because of the lack of exposition yeah there were many scenes where i can say i didn't really get the details of what's going on i was like oh yeah there's a problem this guy seems unhappy with the decision that's just been made but i don't really understand why like in the lunar module the when they're landing it's like buzz aldrin seems annoyed with some of the decisions he's making and it's not clear at first why i don't understand but

i think it's a great move that they didn't have buzz aldrin spell it out for the audience like i like those clunky exposition lines but what i was wondering is like how much of ryan gosling's dialogue was real because watching the movie i was getting the impression that they're not doing exposition dialogue because this must just almost entirely be whatever the dialogue was in the actual cabin. Like that's how it sounded to my ear. I didn't hear anything that I didn't think was what was said. Like, you know, I've heard the recording of some of that landing a few times and there

was nothing. It all seemed to follow exactly what was said. I guess there are so many like Apollo nerds watching that they had, that's one time where they couldn't really take any license, you know, with actual dialogue that is the recordings of which still exist. Yeah. That's what I was thinking is like, I wonder how much of the voices that I'm hearing on the headsets are just the actual recordings from the day. Like, or did they have the actors just say the same things? I have no idea.

But obviously, Ryan Gosling is saying all his lines. But I was just wondering about some of the faceless NASA guys, if that's just actual recordings from the time. Well, the big question that they had to deal with, which was interesting, was what they were going to do for Neil Armstrong's first words on the moon. Yeah. Because there's this famous story isn't it that he

he was supposed to say for it to make sense that's one small step for a man one giant leap for mankind and the a was missing and armstrong always said well that's what i was supposed to say and he actually pretty much said actually i think i said it and it was kind of lost in transmission whereas other people thinks he just flubbed his lines you know at the moment and i i wondered how they were going to deal with that and they just went with one small step for man giant leap for mankind and they didn't really make it clear how they were playing it from my hearing of the recording i don't think he said a i think he messed it up i could oh there's been all sorts of analysis done and people saying what could or couldn't have happened and stuff but i think he flubbed it as well i'm sure there

has been but to my ear it doesn't sound like there's time to correctly say an a as someone who has edited a lot of audio it's like if there's an a you've done a thing where you half pronounce a vowel at best but you haven't you haven't really said it. I actually wasn't even really thinking about that because I was just thinking like, yeah, he messed up the line and it's fine. It still sort of makes sense in the way that it's said. Yeah. I think the meaning comes across. Yeah. Yeah. The meaning comes across. And it's almost a bit more poetic now. Maybe that's just because we've heard it that way

so many times, but. Yeah. He could almost have said anything and it would be poetic right yeah golly gee look at that earth right and and if you heard it 10 million times it would become like oh that's the most poetic thing anyone's ever said well the third man to walk on the moon so the first man on apollo 12 because everyone was like well what's he gonna say and what doesn't matter and he was kind of aware of the weird situation he was in when he stepped stepped on the moon, his name was Pete Conrad. He was quite a short guy. So as he jumped down the ladder, he went,

woo-hoo, as his first words. And then he said, it may have been a small step for Neil, but it was a big one for me. What a clown. He was a bit of a comedian. Hmm. All of this makes it more stark that they manufactured the thing about the bracelet and his daughter yeah because if it it seemed like a movie that was really paying attention to all of the details and wasn't bothering to do exposition for the audience and seems to be using

just a ton of actual dialogue from the scenes and also my my big point that i agree with you on was in all of the earlier flights i loved the claustrophobia of the camera not leaving the cabin or just only showing shots that would be cameras bolted to the the ship itself and it's like i thought they did a tremendously good job of this feeling of claustrophobia and it's one of my measures for a movie of it is a movie working is does it cause any kind of emotional resonance and all of the the scenes in the cockpit for me were high anxiety scenes even though i know like oh this happened 100 years ago when he was fine but the way they filmed it yeah conveyed that.

And yeah, it really gave that feeling of, this is a bit of a tin can that we've made work. And it's just such an interesting cinema technique, the way you can create anxiety, almost because of the expectations in a movie that like, give me the wide shot. Like, I want the wide shot and I know the movie's not gonna do it.

And it creates this claustrophobia i disagree though i thought it was perfectly fine in the final mission to go for the wide shot i thought i feel like that made it stand out as a more different thing and almost made it feel more uplifting after all of these all of theseucing, buried alive inside this little tin can scenes from earlier. Man, I never know with you, Brady. I never know at all what you're going to think. Maybe it was just my mood or it got me at the wrong time. I've always wondered what must it have been like to be Neil Armstrong

and walk down that ladder and live that moment. And this film was the first time I saw it recreated in an interesting way. It was the first time I thought, because I always think the reality must have been quite disappointing compared to, like, you know, the way we mere mortals build it up. Like, to actually have lived it, it must have seemed a bit, like, just normal and dirty. And this is the first time I've saw it portrayed that way.

It was like it felt like I had some sense of what it might really have been like, which was nice. What do you think it was like? You just mean that sort of the normality of it? Yeah, just like, I mean, because he did it and he knows what it was like. You know, what it looked like and felt like and this grand moment in history that no one really knows what it looked like except for this terrible grainy camera angle that we had like i don't know it's like such a built-up moment in human history but the reality of it no doubt was quite normal and human and visceral. And I don't know, that came across and by showing it through

his eyes and looking at the glass and showing his hands on the ladder. And it just seemed, it was very unglamorous, the first step. And I liked that. I agree. I again, feel like this is where, to me, it struck me as not a normal movie and that they didn't have swelling triumphal music at this moment. Well, they also didn't show the planting of the flag, which has been a little bit controversial. Okay, I didn't even think about that. But yeah, he just gets out

and they just show you these first-person shots of looking out at the nothingness of the moon. And while I agree, it's such an incredible accomplishment and I will forever think of the whole NASA Apollo time as maybe the only technological blip in the course of human history reaching further than the timeline should have allowed. The shots of him standing on the moon were really very like the emotional feeling there was what are we doing here like it was it was a real like my god like we've done so much to get here and you stand on the moon and there's nothing and you also i thought they did a good job

in the shot of conveying the feeling that the moon is smaller than the earth. It's not an infinite vista in all directions. He's getting out on a bunch of gray dirt on a small sphere and he's going to fly back. It's a big deal, but it's also kind of, what am I doing here? You're right. They did make the moon seem small to a point where I wondered if that was accurate, whether it felt too small almost. But I don't know because I haven't been there. One more question for you as the expert. Is buzz aldrin supposed to be kind of a dick because i

was very aware in this movie they really only gave him a few sentences that were character moments like maybe three character lines and all three of them were very clearly telegraphing buzz aldrin is kind of a dick. I don't know if he was exactly like that. He was like a more obnoxious character. But that's one of the things I found interesting, though. He only got three or four lines in the film, and yet he's much more memorable and interesting, and you want to know more about him.

Well, yeah. You know, the whole film's about Neil Armstrong, and it's like, oh. No, 100%. I want to know more about Buzz Aldrin. I didn't come out of that movie thinking, boy, I want to take a look at Neil Armstrong's Wikipedia page. My number one question is, is Buzz Aldrin a dick? Like, does everybody hate him?

Why did they portray him this way in the movie? You know, why did they hire the actor who always plays a villain to play Buzz Aldrin? It's like, okay. I mean, yeah, he was like, you know, a more colorful character and still is, obviously. But they didn't deal with a lot of that. Like, I would have liked to have seen more of the relationship between, you know, like Buzz Aldrin was jockeying about who was going

to be the first man down the ladder. Like, Buzz Aldrin tried to maneuver to get that job. And why did they pick Neil Armstrong? Couldn't they have given me something there or was that a little explained or? Well, I'm going to give it two thumbs up. Yeah. Maybe it caught me at just the right moment, but I feel like I really loved it.

I am planning to see it again. So I'm going to reserve the right to say I was wrong, but. What I want to know right now on the Brady, one thumb on a 360 degree circle, where do you rate this movie? It is just above the horizontal because of the effects and how well made it is. I'd say if you're holding your thumb in front of you

and then you start tipping it up, I'd put it towards about just not quite at 10 o'clock. Not quite at 10 o'clock. Not quite. Or maybe just touching. Maybe it just gets to 10 o'clock. Not quite at 10 o'clock. Not quite. Or maybe just touching. Maybe it just gets to 10 o'clock. Okay. If you want to see an amazing space film, watch The Right Stuff.

It's an old film, but it's still incredible. I tried to get Destin to watch The Right Stuff for about four or five years. And finally, there was a night when we both had to stay in the same hotel room for something we were doing, and I made him sit down and watch it. Like I pretty much tied him down because, you know, he has the attention span of a gnat and wants to do a thousand different things. And I was like, no, you are watching this film. Watch that film. And if you want Apollo, the book you should read is called A Man on the Moon by Andrew Chaikin.

And that was turned into a series. I think it's an HBO series called From the Earth to the Moon, like a mini series. And that covers like all Apollo. And that's awesome. NASA recommendations by Brady. Who would have thought? I didn't think you'd like it that much. This is the magic of movies, Brady. Sometimes they get you. Sometimes they don't.