Hello Internet - HI #115: Pink Flamingo

Episode Date: December 23, 2018

Brady and Grey discuss: Brady almost dying for The Grams, The UA2408 coverup and the 4153 conspiracy, ruling on what NASA can take into space, Brady buys an iPad Pro, The Numberphile podcast, the unsatisfying resolution of the Amazon HQ2 drama, The Australian Space Agency, and the most disliked video in YouTube's history: Rewind 2018. Sponsors: 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 Casper: get your best rest, one night at a time - get $50 toward select mattresses by visiting Casper.com/HI and using promo code "HI" at checkout Listeners like YOU on Patreon Show Notes: Discuss this episode on the reddit The Pink Flamingo on YouTube UA2408 Tracking UA2408 investigations Elf of the Shelf IN SPACE World-record Hotstopper The Numberphile Podcast YouTube Rewind 2018: Everyone Controls Rewind Subscribe to PewDiePie MKBHD on Rewind Primitive Technology

Just let me get a baseball bat because Audrey's snoring way too much. I need to start poking it. Hang on. Oh, okay. Audrey, you're being so loud today. You're not even snoring. It's just breathing. Oh, dear.

Audrey has a difficult time breathing, Brady. That's very cute. She's part of the podcast. So, Grey, I have a story, another story from the Maldives. It seems like you're always just back from the Maldives. Like, is your office actually in the Maldives? Yeah, I have like an annual holiday, don't you? And that's often the annual holiday, so.

It does seem like a good place to go. It is a very nice place to go. But on this trip, I nearly died. And I nearly died for the sake of an Instagram picture. All right. Now you're building this up, Brady. I am. I always build up my Maldive stories and then like terribly disappoint you.

This is why I'm trying to set my expectations because you're telling me Brady almost died. And I think, ah, Brady almost died. Yeah. Like, my God, what would happen to the Hello Internet show? Whatever your expectations are, lower them even further. All right. So this is going to be then the tradition for what comes out of the Maldives, overselling, under-delivering. Exactly. That's my life motto. So basically, this island that we went to is like,

you could kind of call it Instagram Island. It's very centered on like coming away with the grams. Instagram Island sounds like the saddest island. It's a great place to go and it was a great holiday. Okay. But it does have a component to it that is like quite posey. It's also incredibly naturally beautiful and has a million other things going for it. But they're very aware that people like coming away from holidays with nice pictures so they'll have like little installations around the place that would just make a beautiful picture like they'll stick two lovely big sort of tree logs in the water and put a hammock between them

over the beautiful blue water where you can just pose in a hammock and stuff like that so it's quite you know right they're setting it up i've seen more and more of these things. There's a place I just passed today, which is like a scenic spot in London, but they installed a big Christmas lighted up picture frame. Yes. Like here's where you should take the picture. Stand inside the picture frame and then take the picture and post on Instagram how you're having a great trip in London. At this island, they have a thing like that, but it's like out in the sea.

It's weird to see the digital world affecting the real world like this, but it's spreading. Okay. The absolute piece de resistance for that was I took my drone with me because I wanted to get drone shots of the island because it's amazing. And you'll see some of these in the video for the podcast. I'll come to that in a minute. So they told me, there's the part of the island you're allowed to fly drones. Because obviously you need drone rules now because let's face it, are pretty annoying so they don't want people buzzing the island all day and stuff so they told me the part of the island where i could launch my drone and don't fly here and don't fly there and don't go over there because that's where

the seaplanes land so i went to the spot and i was thinking oh where am i going to put my drone like on the ground to take off because i don't want to get sand all over it and inside it right and sure enough they actually had like a drone launching pad up off the sand where you could put your drone with a little d on it like a helipad with a d for drone so they even had a drone launch pad on the island i mean part of me thinks that's adorable part of me thinks drones are cool and incredibly annoying at the same time they're not annoying when you're the one flying it and it's your drone, but all other times they're incredibly annoying. I mean, do you feel like a pilot when you're flying your drone?

How does it feel, Brady? I'm a maverick, of course. Another thing they have at the island is this giant inflatable pink flamingo that just looks amazing when you've got the blue sky and the greeny blue sea. If you go out and sit in this giant inflatable pink flamingo that just looks amazing when you've got the blue sky and the greeny blue sea if you go out and sit in this giant inflatable pink flamingo it just looks so incredible and it makes for such great photos people want to use it and it's in like a communal area near a bar on one of the beaches but they've cottoned on to how much people love this so what they do is they sell them at the gift shop and you can have your own pink flamingo that you take back to your villa. It's like yours for the whole holiday. So like day one, we were like,

we're having one of them. Do you buy it or do you rent it? You buy it. We sort of thought we might bring it home, but anyway, we'll come to that. I need to understand the scale of this. Is this a pink flamingo? I'm going to send you a picture. I'm going to send you a picture of me on the flamingo. It's not the best weather, but it will give you an idea. There you go. Did this photo make it on Instagram, Brady? I think probably a version of it did. So, the flamingo is about the size of a small sofa. I just wasn't sure if this was a beast that was 10 feet tall in the water. But no, it's an

unusually large flotation device. Two people can easily just sit in it and lounge in the water. We could sit just the two of us side by side, just lay on it. And it's bigger than it looks in that picture even. Oh, okay. All right. So anyway, big inflatable pink flamingo. So we're out in the water about like waist deep near our villa

having a bit of a photo shoot. And the tide's heading out to sea, but it's not that strong. And there's a bit of a breeze and a wind that starts picking up a bit. And just as we're wrapping up our shoot a big gust of wind comes and at the time my wife was holding on to the flamingo and she lost her grip and let out a big scream which made me think she was being attacked by a shark but it was just that she'd lost her grip on the flamingo yes i'm familiar with this kind of scream yes the the over dramatic it's not that big a deal, but yeah. Right. But as the husband, it sends you into full red alert mode. But anyway, such was the wind that it had picked up and the way the tide was going.

And I was like sort of the wrong side of her and the tide to like stop it. It started drifting away. And like only an hour before I'd paid like 90 bucks for this flamingo. And you don't want, you know, your flamingo getting away and going out to sea. So I was tasked with like retrieving it. So I started like wading and the water was just that depth where you couldn't quite swim properly. So you had to wade. And I was also holding like a GoPro on a stick that I'd been doing the photo shoot with.

So I couldn't go into full swimming mode anyway. And the flamingo was just moving at this speed that just kept it constantly about two or three meters out of my grasp, just tantalizing. And I was going further and further and then it would pull further away. So I'd like get down into swimming mode and swim, but then I'd stop because I can't swim while I'm holding the GoPro. And the GoPro is worth more than the flamingo. So I'm not going to let that go. So then I'd try and sort of run or wade again and I couldn't get the speed up. So I'd try and it was just,

and the whole time, like my wife was going, come on, come on, you're so close. You can get it, which was not encouraging me, but was really playing on my ego. Cause she was like, my husband can save it. And I'm like, well, I have to be the one to save it now because she'll think I'm a hero, but I can't save it. And it was just getting further and further away. I can see this whole scenario right now. You are basically the Greek hero Tantalus in this situation. It's just constantly slightly out of reach. I see where this is going. Yeah. And then suddenly, I looked, I was getting further and further out. Right. And also, I was really, like, I was starting to really struggle with, like, my breath. And I was feeling, like, weaker because I'd done too hard a gym session that morning out in the heat with this, like, trainer guy on the island.

So, I was already completely knackered. So, I was getting more and more tired. And I was getting out deeper and deeper. And I realized, oh, my God, what am I doing? I'm chasing, like, an inflatable pink flamingo out to sea with the tide. So when I come back, I'm going to have to go against the tide and the tide's getting stronger and the wind's getting stronger. And I just suddenly thought, I'm going to die. I'm going to be the guy who died chasing a flamingo out to sea, like an Instagram flamingo. It'd be the most embarrassing death in history.

And the thing that made it even worse was it had started in front of all the sea villas, because that's where we were doing our photo shoot. So people who'd been out on their little balconies watching us do the photo shoot and taking their own photos of us doing a photo shoot were now watching us lose the flamingo and watching me chase it. So I had like an audience and I was like, oh, I'm not fast enough. I can't swim fast enough. So maybe I should go a bit further because if I get it, I'm going to look really good. And if I don't, I'm going to look really stupid.

And in the end, I just said, I'm letting it go. I'm letting it go. It was like the Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade moment where it was like, Indiana, let it go. That's what it was like. Yeah. It was like, I'm not going to get this Holy Grail. So anyway, the flamingo went out to sea. It just kept going and going.

It was really funny because it became smaller and smaller. There was this tiny pink dot. And then it suddenly occurred to us like, oh, let's call the water sports center who had inflated the flamingo for us. And we phoned them up and said well we've lost our flamingo and they said oh where did it go and we said oh we think it went out east or west i think i even gave them the wrong directions but they were like okay and like

10 or 15 minutes later this like speedboat went out like looking for the flamingo and we were watching it like look for the flamingo out in the distance and then like about 10-15 minutes after that this traditional doney moldavian traditional boat came chuntering back in from deep sea and stopped and threw the pink flamingo overboard and the guys on the speedboat like went over to it and got it and brought it back and like 20 minutes later there was a knock on the door and there were the dudes with their flamingo again. It had been saved from like its adventure out into the Indian Ocean. I mean, I guess that's why it costs $90

because it comes with a rescue fee attached to it. I know, I know. They've got to factor in the man hours required to go rescue. I am sure, Brady, that you are not the first man to lose a pink flamingo in the Maldives. I know. I discussed this with the staff. I said, how often do the pink flamingos go out to sea? And they said, it does happen occasionally. I mean, this is like AppleCare Plus, isn't it? That's FlamingoCare. How good is that? You've bought your thing and you can phone up and say,

go out to sea in a boat and save my flamingo. I mean, it wouldn't even occur to me to call them up. I would just assume like, oh, they would never go out there and get that flamingo. And I'm sure enough people would think the same way that I had that when they lose their flamingos, that somewhere out in the ocean, just like they're those big swarming, circling garbage piles of plastic. I'm sure somewhere in the ocean, there's a huge flock of Maldivian flamingos orbiting each other until the end of time cursing Instagram why were we made to suffer so anyway inspired by this I hope people who don't usually check out hello internet on YouTube because obviously we always put the episodes on YouTube as well as normal podcast places I'm going

to make a special flamingo Mald moldavian inspired video because afterwards like afterwards i said to my wife well this is gonna make halo internet isn't it so i'm gonna make a bespoke video so we've got a special looping bespoke halo internet video with drone footage and floating flamingos so go and check it out i look forward to seeing that video i am obviously glad that you made it brady but since we've both had life-risking experiences recently on the podcast while i wouldn't want you to go this would be undoubtedly one of the more hilarious ways for you to go just yeah forever inches away from a pink flamingo that you follow out into the open sea. I would miss you, but there's a way that that would never not be funny to me. I knew Instagram was bad for you.

I knew it. There was one other thing about this island that when I first tell you, you might think, oh, that's cool. And then I'll tell you why it's not. Okay. So they have this other gimmick on the island. All these islands are quite small, but this one's about, it's very, very thin.

It's only about 100, 200 metres wide, but it's about a kilometre long. You can walk around it and walk up and down it a lot. Perfect, beautiful tropical island. And they have this thing where they have glass bottles that they put like little messages in with a bit of twine wrapped around it. It all looks very classy and how you'd imagine. And they hide them around the island. I don't know how many there are, but they hide a number each day.

And if you find one and then take it to reception, you win something like it could be like a free massage or a bottle of champagne or things like that. So it seems like a nice thing, doesn't it? Like, oh, that's a nice little gimmick, something for nothing, and add a little bit of interest to your trip. That seems fun. Everybody loves a random reward,

and you get to feel like you're the lucky person who found the thing in the day. That seems good. Unless you are a Brady. Okay. And my wife's a bit this way too. Suddenly, it becomes like... Oh, no. All right.

Not a competition, but like a task that has to be achieved and whenever you're like having a nice walk down a path or just you know on your way to lunch suddenly you remember there are these bottles and you start like going on like hyper alert looking like at the trees and all the possible hiding places and even when you don't want to be that into it it just like starts consuming your mind a bit. And in the end, you kind of start resenting it. Like you start hating these bottles. Like I never found one, but it's like, God damn it, these bottles. Am I even going to find one? Like it's like the iceberg spotting competition on the ship in Antarctica. It's like, I have to find a bottle.

I have to find a bottle. And it starts like eating away at your brain all through the holiday. Oh, I still haven't found a bottle. Maybe I'll find one tomorrow. Oh, I'd forgotten the bottles existed for an hour. That was lovely. But now I remember again. Ah, very unrelaxing. You are 100% correct when you started the story as unless you're a Brady. This to me is one of these competitive isn't exactly the right word, but this is one of these things where, again, the Brady mind is a bit mysterious to me and it is often the fog of war. And this is one of those cases where it's come up when we get together in person, perhaps in groups and games are around and you have to abstain from the game because you know that if you participate in a game this aspect of your personality comes out and these little moments as well like the bottles for me it would never cross my mind to treat them this way but as soon as you start describing it's like oh right this is a thing where this part of the brady comes out it comes out like a monster trying to find all the bottles but it's like i don't want the prizes because the prizes aren't even that great.

Yeah, it is. No, I understand. It has nothing to do with that. And I don't begrudge other people finding them. And I don't want to beat other people to them. It's just like, I don't know. I deliberately sometimes in my Numberphile videos in the background put unsolved Rubik's Cubes to troll people because I know there are people who when they see an unsolved Rubik's

Cube, it's just like their brain just can't handle it. But this is what it's like for me, knowing that there could be bottles that I could find that aren't found. It just drives me crazy. It is one of the great satisfactions of life as a YouTube video creator to put something in a video that you deliberately know will annoy a certain kind of person. It's like, ah, what a great satisfaction that is so i like i understand the thing with the rubik's cube i of course in my own videos would never do such a thing but it's tremendously satisfying when you do it like i find it satisfying in part because i find it the

reaction on the other side just irrationally baffling. And this is one of those things, like, it's so hard for me to conceptualize why this thing happens to you. Like, why do the bottles on the island feel like an unsolved Rubik's cube or like a checklist with an item unchecked and you just, you feel compelled to solve it? I have none of this within me and it's baffling, but I can just imagine poor Brady flies to the literal other side of the world as far away as you can possibly get so that he can be relaxed with nothing to do. And then someone leaves a task which is always open and forever incomplete for him. I'm sorry that they've done this on the Maldives for you.

Is it all the islands or is it just this one island? Will you be able to escape it? It's just this one. Okay, good. I do like that they have a drone pad though. Your plane incident. Yes. The plane you were on that was coming into land and then you say dramatically pulled out at the last minute and flew back up.

Near vertical, I think were my exact words. Near vertical. Anyway, you asked the listenership to investigate and they did. This incident has been investigated at a level of detail that I think is only comparable to some of the great plane crashes of our time. Oh, fantastic. Yeah. So there's lots of detail around the place.

The audio from the cockpit and traffic control has been retrieved and listened to. And you were indeed correct, Gray. Your memory under this extreme situation did not fail you. It looks like your plane did come down to 300 meters, it looks like it got to. Yeah. Practically touching the runway. And then suddenly pulled back up to 900. 9,000 meters, I believe. Is that what you said? 9,000 meters? 900. I'm pretty sure it's 900. So it had gotten down to, let's see, when it got to 300 meters, he was going at 213 miles an hour. And then he pulled up and came around and landed later on. A bit slower the second time. So anyway, what was the cause is the big question. Yeah.

What happened? What happened? What was the reason? Well, I'm not going to eke this out. The thing is, we don't know. What do you mean we don't know? We don't know because the pilot, I've got a transcript here now. Okay.

Basically, they're doing all that you know the technical talk let me understand this fully yeah tower says clear to land runway 11 2408 and then two minutes later the pilot says tower united 2408 going around and the tower then tells the flight runway heading maintain 2005 so the tower just tells the pilot to go up to that height i guess is that what that means i guess so yeah giving the new instructions what height to be at and then shortly after gives a new heading i mean okay so i know that i always talk about how the pilots they have this calm tone of voice when things are going on but this this, this is too much for me. I don't understand how it's cool to just say, we're not going to do this landing. We're just going to turn around and the tower is just like,

that's cool. Come around again later. Well, great. This is probably not the time to be having chats about these sort of things. Stuff has to be done. It's not, oh, what happened? It's like, oh, I just wasn't feeling it. Oh, really? Are you okay? Oh, I've been having problems at home and i don't know haven't been getting on with my wife lately like no i'm going around okay here's the new numbers don't hit anything okay i guess you have a point there brady but when you say it that way it sounds quite reasonable especially when you're making fun of what reasons might be but still i like i can't believe there's no lingo like tower united 2408 going around, gust.

Windy, windy. Yeah. Tower 2408 going around, sad home life. I'm just not feeling it. How does it not come up later why they didn't go around? This is baffling to me. And especially for such a dramatic event that I experienced, there must have been a real reason. Well, I've heard some of the experts saying the fact he didn't say anything indicates it may have just been like wind. When I say wind, I mean the blowing wind, not like his own intestinal wind. Oh, really? Okay. I wasn't quite sure.

So the fact he didn't say anything like, oh, there's a goat on the runway. Because if there was like a reason that other pilots should know about, he probably would have said something. But the clue does come later when he's coming in the second time and he has this little backhanded, we'll do 11 now as long as you don't keep our speed up. I think maybe that's the moment where the pilot's saying, it's on you guys. Oh, okay. So that's pilot passive aggressiveness for you're making us land too fast. That's the theory. I mean, I really, I love that the Tims did so much research into this. I'm also looking at a map of the airport here. And like, am I missing something?

Because I see Grey's flight on runway 11. There's another flight coming in on runway 22 or something on runway 22. But there's a marker there for a rogue turkey that's humor i think that's like they were just speculating because it was around thanksgiving that there could have been a turkey on the runway right but this flight 4153 is like the conspiracy theory of the event because it has been suggested that maybe flight 4153 was like blocking the runway or something like that and that's why he pulled up. But- Ooh, I like that conspiracy theory. I do like it. Conspiracy 4153. But even the people like doing this conspiracy theory are

kind of admitting it's pretty unlikely. But one person here I'm reading, I choose to believe that his pilot is a hero who narrowly avoided a catastrophic collision with flight 4153 on 22 left. Yeah. I mean, for sure. The key defining factors of conspiracy theories is that they're way more interesting than reality. So I too am a believer in conspiracy 4153 for sure. Because this thing about like, oh, there was just a little bit of passive aggressive professional bickering between the pilot and the tower, that's not a satisfying answer. My pilot dramatically avoiding flight 4153 and it being covered up because of how tragic the incident would have been for all the loss of my life. I like that conspiracy theory

much better. Oh, I love that there's a cover-up now. Brady, there's no other reasonable explanation. You're right. Can I just make a suggestion for planes? Yeah. I think when announcements are made on planes that are at a certain threshold of importance, they should put some text on the screen saying what the announcement is. Not that there's an announcement in progress, but what the announcement is. Because like most people, I think I put on my noise cancelling headphones as soon as possible on a plane. So I don't have to listen to all the rubbish about duty-free shopping and all the inane stuff they announce. And also, you know, because I don't like the noise of the plane, but it does occasionally mean I miss like a really

important announcement. Like if they say, ladies and gentlemen gentlemen the left engine is on fire brace brace brace right i think i wouldn't hear that because of my noise cancelling headphones but also you know i'll miss like important things that are lower tier like we're two hours late if you've got a connection this is what's going to happen i miss lots of announcements because of noise cancelling headphones and most of those announcements i'm happy to miss but certain ones i think there should be like a little a ticker or something on the screen with written things for people who aren't listening to the announcements they shouldn't be depending on us hearing announcements thoughts my wife gets really angry at me she's like one day something really important's going

to happen and you're not going to hear it because of those bloody noise cancelling headphones but i'm not willing to part with them. But I do want the important information. Happens to be on trains too. I was on a train the other day. And I think an announcement must have come over the PA saying at the next station, the back two carriages are going to be disconnected. So get out and go to the front two carriages. Right. And I completely missed that announcement because I had my noise cancelling headphones on. And we got to the station and suddenly everyone got off the train. And I was like, what the hell's going on? And I took my headphones off and I said, what's going on? And someone said, didn't you hear, we all have to get off and go in the other

carriage. This is a problem. So I'm trying to think this over and you caught me at a bad time because my most recent pilot on my way back to the UK was a real chatty Cathy and lots of lots of announcements. He's not like, I'm going around guy. No, no. Man, a few words. Yeah. And just to be clear, this is a flight that's supposed to be over nighttime, right? Like they're shutting down the lights. Yeah. Everyone's going to go to sleep. Yeah. And dinner's been served. They've turned off the lights. And the pilot comes on, right when just people are probably just beginning to drift off into sleep, comes on and says, Hello, everyone.

Just want to let you know, we're currently estimated to arrive at London Heathrow five minutes earlier than our scheduled arrival time. And I like bananas. Yeah, that would be bad enough. Except I immediately had a thought, which anyone who flies into Heathrow would have that exact same thought, that then the pilot also articulated, which was, the traffic tends to really stack up at Heathrow.

So even though we're getting in five minutes early, we might have to circle around for a while, which could add 15 or 20 minutes additional time to our arrival. But we don't know now. Like, obviously. We'll find out when we get there. So just keeping you updated.

It's like, are you f***ing kidding me? The lights are out in the cabin. Just like we have to look at the fasten seatbelt sign, there should be some big sign up front for the pilot, which is, hey, the lights are out. People are probably sleeping. Nobody cares. Here's the problem with the announcements, right? There's no action that can be taken in any circumstance except for the one you just posited, which is brace, brace, brace, right? Like no matter what they tell you, oh, the flight's going to be two hours early. Oh, the flight's going to be two hours late.

The weather when we land is going to be this, right? That's my personal favorite. If you save all of those things to right before you descend to the runway, it makes just as much difference. No one needs to know these things during the flight. There's nothing that can be done. All right. I'm going to be devil's advocate for 10 seconds because I've just thought of

why maybe this happens. And don't get me wrong, I'm more on your side here. But I can only think, there are certain people who are obsessed with the weather and are we running late? Are we running early? Yeah. Obsessed weirdos. Yeah. Maybe they do that announcement to stop those weirdos harassing the flight attendants the whole flight like instead of 19 people coming up to the galley and saying oh sorry i was just wondering do you know if we're on time we were running late oh what's the weather like in london as the captain heard maybe like to stop that happening and the attendants getting harassed they do these

occasional announcements that's just me speculating. Yeah. Interesting speculation that it could be flight attendants requesting, please save us from all these obsessive compulsive weirdos, because this is going to be the same kind of person who's going to check right before takeoff. Oh, what's the weather? And they need to know if it's any different. Okay. Maybe. But also on this flight, everybody had little screens in front of them

where you can pull up the window to stare at what's the time at the destination what's our exact altitude what's the barometric pressure outside yeah like what's the phase of the moon overhead you know all the whatever the stuff is that they put on that screen so my feeling is any of those planes especially if they have a screen you know what i want to hear from the pilot? Nothing. I don't even know why the pilot tells me his name, right? They're like, hi, this is John Ayr Smith flying your flight today. Like, I don't care. I care that it lands. Great. I'll thank you at the end for landing the plane, but like, I don't need to know your name. Oh, but hang on, John Ayr Smith,

you haven't told me the name of the lead cabin attendant who'll be making my flight comfortable today. I need to know that person's name as well. At least that one I can understand because I have a possibility of interacting with the chief purser, right? Like there's within the orbit of things that can occur on a plane, maybe there's a situation where I'm going to interact with the chief purser. But the pilot, especially now, now when the pilot goes to the bathroom and they like wall off the front of the airplane, right? They put the food pilot goes to the bathroom and they like wall off the front of the airplane, right? They put the food cart in front. Sometimes they pull the window. It's like, no one can see the pilot. What does it matter? If it was a dog and an automated system up front,

I would have no idea, right? Like you never would know. So I just don't understand. I don't understand the reason. And I think all of those announcements are so trivial, the total amount of human aggravation caused by pausing movies for the remaining few L think we lose every time for people being like, oh, I was at a good part of the movie, right? Yeah. No, it makes me furious. This comes back to my original idea, though, because there are ways to escape this. Noise-canceling headphones. So that's why I think there should be some way to convey messages of true import to us. The only problem is, of course, they'll then start exploiting

that and using that to sell us duty free as well. But I still think there should be like a text or a ticker of announcements of things. They shouldn't just rely on the audio. That's old school. That's old school. I agree. And I would almost wonder if that's the case. I mean, my flight obviously was very dramatic, but clearly just under the threshold of what might exist, which is a system where I wonder, do the pilots, if they have to tell you brace, brace, brace? It seems like just from an Americans with Disabilities Act standpoint should have a button they compress that turns all the screens red and says emergency like this right that feels like a thing that should exist right that's when the sign language person comes out of a secret compartment and starts yeah but like i don't know it seems like that should exist that there should be a way to visually indicate there's a problem i mean probably everybody screaming and hugging their loved ones goodbye would also be a good visual indicator that there's a problem because i don don't know, because this again, it feels to me a bit

like so many other things in my life where I feel like, if it's a real problem, someone will let me know. This feels like the same thing. So many things go wrong with in-flight entertainment and electronic systems on planes. If they do have like a functionality where everything goes red and says, we're all going to Yeah. Like you just know that's going to get triggered by mistake at least once a month. And some poor person just having a nap is going to like wake up to this like false alarm announcement that the plane's about to hit the sea. I don't know. Like, I feel like this must exist.

This must exist. There must be a way to press a button that turns all the screens red and says we're going to die. Now I really want to know. I'll ask my pilot, mate. He'll be able to tell me yeah you asked your pilot friend we can find out that way but i think you're still conceding too much even with your idea of how to fix the pilot announcements still gonna hold my position of i want to hear not one word from the pilot until i say thanks for getting us here at the end when he stands there.

I had a chatty pilot cost me the lovely emotional ending to the film Up, because we were coming into land once. And I still resent that. I still remember it. I timed my Up watching just perfectly so I'd be able to watch the end before we landed. He robbed me. See? That's the utilitarian calculus coming through. What was that announcement? Who cares? Has the movie been forever sullied? Yes.

I've been on the road recently a bunch. And when you're doing a lot of driving on your own, you need something to occupy your mind. And that's where Audible comes in. I've been listening to a whole bunch of audiobooks recently. And they all come from Audible because that's where I get my audiobooks. It's the best place to get audiobooks, and it's where you should get your audiobooks. As an Audible member, every month I get one credit that's good for any audiobook that I want to choose on their system. Plus, Audible has recently introduced Audible Originals. These are Audible productions that you're not going to find anywhere else, and as a member, you can pick two of them every month. This is in addition to Audible's already ginormous collection of audiobooks.

And when you buy your audiobooks on Audible, they're yours to keep. You can go back and re-listen at any time, even if you cancel your membership. And if you get an audiobook and you don't like it, exchange it, no questions asked. And as someone who's done research on a bunch of topics, that is a feature I have used several times. I don't want to mention the books I've been listening to recently because that would give away the project that I'm working on. But as it is the holiday season, I'm going to recommend a classic favorite of mine, which is A Christmas Carol read by none other than Sir Patrick Stewart, Jean-Luc Picard himself. I got this book a number of years ago as a Christmas present from my wife, who is a huge next-gen fan, and the captain did not disappoint. He does quite the emotive performance of A Christmas Carol. If you're looking for something to listen to over the holidays, I highly recommend it.

Start a 30-day trial with Audible and your first audiobook is free. Just go to audible.com slash hello internet or text hello internet to 500 500. That's audible.com slash hello internet, all one word, or text hello internet, also all one word, to 500 500. Thanks to Audible for supporting the show, for keeping me busy during a recent trip, and for delivering the beautiful voice of Patrick Stewart directly into your ears. I saw in the news the other day that they'd sent like a supply ship up to the space station. And in the, like the tweet or whatever I saw about it, there was something about someone had said something along the lines of, well, I wonder what Christmas goodies are on the supply ship. And straight away, I started feeling the dread of like Santa suits

and all sorts of crazy stuff that these astronauts were going to. Sure enough, within a few days I found out what one of the objects was. And if you click on the link that I've sent you, it's a news article about it. It's another Hello Internet favourite. It is the elf on the shelf. Oh, God. There is an elf on the shelf on the space station and i've been taking little pictures with it sort of posing on little shelves and racks

there and the modules of a of the international space station okay now look i don't want to be mr cynical man over here but this feels like a sponsored product placement. That big elf on the shelf is paying for placement on the space station. I don't think so. I don't think they'd be allowed to do that. I think it's legit. And do you know what? What? You're going to call me fickle or a hypocrite or you call me what you want. Oh no, don't tell me Brady. I don't mind it. God damn it. I don't mind this one because it feels like peripheral. It feels like just a little thing off to the side. The astronauts aren't wearing it. It doesn't take up a lot of space and weight. It's the

right amount of whimsy. An astronaut themselves wearing a Spider-Man suit is not whimsical. It's embarrassing. But just a little elf on the shelf in the corner at Christmas, it's just a little human moment. I'm all right with it. And I can't justify it and I can't explain it. And I know I'm frustrating you, but I'm just saying, when I first saw her, I thought, oh, this is going to rile me up. And after a few seconds, I thought, nah, I'm all right with that. That's cute. I have to admit, again, i don't understand the shape of a brady mind here i don't understand the scales of justice for what is and what is not allowed on the space station there is no justice it usually depends on how much sugar i've had in the last

hour i'm especially irritated because i don't remember how much of it ever made it into the show or not. But I feel like you totally turned my mind on the space costumes thing. Like you brought me around to your side. I stand by that too. I stand by that. I know you do. But the thing is, I wasn't originally with you and you turned me, Brady. Like you turned me.

And now I look at the space stuff and I think, oh, those guys making fools of themselves. Why are they doing this? It's just a terrible publicity idea. So you've changed me. And now what to me seems more suspicious, you're somehow okay with this. I know you don't have a reason for it. And again, even I will say it's fine not to always be consistent. But I think I made it clear. It's because it's more arm's length. It is more arm's length. And it's small. Yeah.

But it bothers me because it has the appearance, even if it's not the case, of product placement. Let's say it isn't. Let's say that the elf on the shelf big industry didn't pay for this which i agree with you is probably unlikely like that's also bad then because now nasa is shilling for the omnipresent spies on your children elf industry i don't think that's what nasa's doing i think the thing nasa's doing here that i also don't like okay is it's kind of trying to ingratiate itself by using the zeitgeist to try to get free publicity and it's like oh everyone loves elf on the shelf they're a year behind granted but they're like everyone talks about elf on the shelf everyone knows that if we have one on the space station

we'll get a whole bunch of free media god damn it now again i'm trying to like think through the rules in my head of like how can i make something consistent out of this and immediately running into all of these stumbling blocks but like i happened to hear this thing the other day so i was talking to someone about the concept of throwing a dinner party what is the platonic ideal of a dinner party? They're like, well, it's different from just having people over. You have to have invitations ahead of time. It needs to be clear to everybody that it's a bigger deal, that the platonic ideal of a dinner party, the host is also cooking. You can't just order pizza. That's not a dinner party. And one of the things that I thought was a very interesting idea was that a dinner party should not have visible labels for the foods.

So everything should be presented in terms of just being the food, right? Here's a slab of butter on a plate, but it's not in a container that has the brand of butter, right? So everything's been decanted from its packaging. Exactly. Even if you're serving soda, like the bottles have to be hidden away in the kitchen and you were just bringing out soda. Okay.

Well, at first I thought, well, that sounds dumb and crazy. But then I thought about it a bit more and I was like, oh, you know, it would be nice to be in an environment where there aren't labels and advertising. And I think somehow the space station feels like that, that the elf on the shelf is like a bottle of Coke on the table. Yeah, that's fair enough. The funny thing is like straight away you seized upon like the corporate and the money and the elf on the shelf industry. And like, to be fair, like I didn't really think about that very much at the time.

But the article I sent you I know did use a photo of the Elf on the Shelf book to help illustrate what the Elf on the Shelf is to readers. So maybe that kind of planted that seed in your head. Very possibly. More so than when I was first exposed to it. But I don't know. I never really thought of it as a way that they were going to sell more elves on the shelves. Of course they will, but that wasn't the thing that

came into my head. It's just because elf on the shelf is not organically Christmas. It's a constructed modern thing. And we all know that the last acceptable organically Christmas thing is Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. That marks the end of when organic Christmas items can exist. And everything before Rudolph is sort of fine. And everything after Rudolph is suspect, like Elf on the Shelf. Like if they brought up a little Rudolph doll, I would have no problem with that. Or a little Santa. But Elf on the Shelf, it's suspicious. It's commercialized Christmas. Yeah. I mean, obviously without going into the

whole Santa issue, you're right, but at least it heavily plays on tradition. I mean, it is an elf and it is wearing red and white Christmassy, Santa-y type outfit and there are no words on it, which helps. So I don't don't know i hear you it hasn't made me as angry as the spider-man outfits halloween did that's still the low point of the space station for me well i enjoy your judgment of objects sent to the space station even if it's not entirely consistent maybe they should have me as like the person who decides like they just run everything by me the inventory i'm like yep yep yep no no yep and you could be like look nasa i'm trying to do you a favor here i'm trying to save you embarrassment i am team nasa no one's more team nasa than you although i cannot help but notice that this was delivered by spacex not delivered by nas Ah, of course it was. I've had a bit of listener feedback. Oh yeah? Mainly hot stopper news. Hot stopper news. I just

want to, in general, say thank you to everyone who's been doing pilgrimages to the mighty Black Stump in Adelaide and going to Black Stump Espresso down in the reception and asking for a hot stopper. It's becoming increasingly common. Are you still supplying them with hot stoppers? I sent him another bag. He ran out and I said, do you want some more? And he said, yes, please. God, I love this. Apparently now, I heard the other day that what happens is like Tim's go up there

and they look a bit awkward and sort of say, have you got, and before that people can even finish, the staff go, you want one of these, don't you? And pull out a hot stopper. Like they can pick them now. I love that this is happening. I remember you mentioned this a long time ago, and I vaguely filed it under the category of things no one would obviously maintain over a long period of time. But I love that you have.

It's no work for me other than keeping him supplied. Look, here's the thing, Brady. If it was my job to keep him supplied, we would have run out of hot stoppers there years ago. You're the real hot stopper hero in this scenario. And I love that this is happening. I didn't realize that people are still going there. That's fantastic. Yeah, it's still a thing. I got a tweet from a guy called John Bishop with a fantastic photo. How's that, John Bishop? Okay, so John Bishop is asking, what's the record for the largest Hello Internet hotstopper? And then he has a photograph of himself with one that is 260.3 centimeters large.

Two and a half meters. It towers over him. It's gray colored. It's a very good likeness of a, well, it's just a giant hotstopper. Oh my God. He CNC milled it out of plywood. What does CNC mean? I don't actually know. Is that the programmable machine? Is that what a CNC miller is? Computer numerical controlled machining. Yeah. So pretty much what you said.

It's also quite a photogenic image. He's gone out into the woods. It's a nice background. It's autumn. It's yeah, it's beautiful, beautiful picture, beautiful piece of Timage. Largest hot stopper I've ever seen by quite some distance. Yes, I would like, I too will agree. This is the largest hot stopper I have ever seen. According to my quick conversion here, it is eight feet and six and three eighth inches tall that's quite a hot stopper oh and i just noticed in the picture he is pointing at it as well like in case you missed it in true uh hello internet style the pointing is required yeah my god that's fantastic that really makes me smile that is ridiculous but it is delightfully ridiculous i've got one more gray i've got one

more piece of hot stopper news this one i'm gonna warn you from the start this is a bit weird okay but it's so weird i thought maybe it's worth a place on the show okay so you remember we dropped well you dropped some hot stoppers underneath some bushes underneath the sign at an Arby's on our road trip. Yes. Never have I felt more like a weirdo than in that moment. You're about to get outdone. Okay. So I've had a message from a Tim. I won't say her name for reasons that are about to become evident. But this hot drop was obviously one that we just did like on the podcast.

So this was like a special hot drop. Right. That one hadn't been shared ahead of time. That was the live hot drop. So this Tim has sent a photo of herself underneath the Arby sign with the bushes in the background. And she's holding a hot stopper. So she's, you know, she's got one. And this is the email that came with it.

I don't even know why I'm reading this. Oh, God, Brady, you make me so nervous i got one of the ultra rare coveted hot stoppers early this morning i wanted to tell you about the interesting company i had with me while it happened i am a driver for a company that provides medical specimens brackets body parts to doctors for training my job is to both go pick up the whole bodies from where they died and bring them back and or to deliver coolers with parts in them to surgical companies. Today, I was delivering 11 torsos when I realized the hot stop would be on my way. So, I pulled my corpse bit filled van right into that tiny Arby's parking lot and got

to work looking with great success. Thank you so much for leaving these around and for making my favorite podcast. That's not anything to worry about, Brady. That's amazing. That's the greatest thing ever. I'm just imagining the police pulling her over and saying, what's in the car, man? And she goes, 11 torsos and a hot stopper. Wow. That is great.

There you go. Nice work, Tim. wow that is great yeah there you go nice work tim in terms of like things that i never really thought about someone's got to drive around bodies or body parts and the way it's phrased 11 torsos i'm just sort of visually assuming that it's just the torso that's that arby's parking lot it was not an easy place to turn around so I didn't like it there you go wow that makes me so happy like that weirdness

this is the kind of thing I love about doing the show Brady is like the show goes up and someone's listening and it's like

oh they just happen to be driving a truck full of dead people body parts and they are the human who at this moment is going to go get that hot stopper. You never know what's going to happen, Brady. You never know.

So, Gray, obviously, it's become clear to people who listen to the show over the years that you are slow to respond to text messages. And when you do respond, I would say your responses are normally brief. Straight to the point. Straight to the point. Perfunctory. No, no. I'm not going to give you perfunctory. I'm going to say containing exactly and only the necessary information. That's what I think. Okay. The only time you seem to break out of character, is when I need to purchase Apple products.

So the other day, I lost my iPad, we discussed, so I had to buy another one. So I was on my way to the store to buy a new iPad, and I haven't bought one for a while, and I don't know much about these sort of things. So I thought, oh, I'll send Gray a text in case he can give me some advice. But, you know, I normally don't hear from him for two days, so good luck. And I sent her and like, before my thumb had come off the screen of my phone, this stream of consciousness came and you were like, you had like this verbal diarrhea and you were giving me all this advice.

And part of me is like touched that you're willing to help me on a topic that, you know, you find interesting. But another part of me thinks, well, he obviously gets all my other messages as well and just chooses to ignore those ones. This is slanderous and not the correct way to think about this at all, Brady. First, like you must know by now, messages that I receive in the morning, wherever I am in the world in the morning, those have no chance of getting responded to. So like you hit me in the afternoon, and if you hit me exactly,

it was a perfect storm of Brady replies. And you got me when I was on my phone, I remember the moment, talking to my wife, and a Brady text message rolled in about how he wants to buy an iPad. And so I think I was appropriately helpful. You caught me right there when I was on the device.

If you send a message and I'm not on my phone, it's going to be a few days maybe before I look at my messages. But you got me at the right time. And I just, I wanted to be helpful, Brady. I wanted to help you out with your iPad purchase. But you, I don't know why, but you withheld information from me about your iPad purchase. I you, I don't know why, but you withheld information from me about

your iPad purchase. I was trying to be helpful and you were deliberately withholding information from me. And I don't know why you did this. Because basically I wanted to know what iPad to get and also whether I should get the keyboard and whether I should get the pen. Right. I don't know. I withheld it from you partly just to like seize back some control but also because i thought it might be fun to discuss on the show well yeah obviously i told you to buy the pro we all know that yeah once you go pro you never go back i don't know how to make that rhyme yeah amateur and brady is a pro kind of guy yeah i was always gonna get the pro i'm

such a sucker for pro. I'll even buy prof. It's like a toothbrush. I'm terrible. Pro toothpaste. So I did get the pro. I probably didn't need it, but I couldn't bear the thought of not having it. Brady, here's a secret of life.

Yeah. When you live in the first world, almost never does the word need mean anything. Everything in our built environment, do you say, do you need any of the particular parts? Of course not. You don't. So when people talk about, do you need something? This almost seems irrelevant because you need so few things in life. The only things you need are the very basest of things that are what keep life going.

So need does not come into it with an iPad, Brady. Also, I've just got this fantasy that people like you fuel, but I now realize is a fantasy of somehow getting some professional use out of an iPad. Like there's just no work use for it. It's just a big phone. But Brady, it is the iPad Pro. I mean, surely it's made your life more productive. No, it doesn't. No, it hasn't. So you've just been watching Netflix on it. Yeah, it is. It's still just a video machine. And I don't even put my email and other stuff on it because I don't want another place I can get my email.

So it's like until they come up with some good way to edit, even just editing audio would do me now. But until there's a better way to edit material, media on an iPad, it is going to remain a recreational device for me. I know people who edit podcasts on iPads. What software are they using? The recommended app is a thing called Ferrite. Okay. However, I have tried Ferrite to edit a podcast and I found it a totally unworkable process.

Okay. You were probably editing podcasts and editing audio pretty quickly. And iPad stuff is fine if you don't need to make a lot of edits quickly. So I can't exactly say that I would recommend it, but I know that it is at least possible. But surely Brady, if the iPad is helping you to relax, does that not also help your work? Yeah. Don't you ultimately need time off from work? Yeah, but I would like it to help me work.

I'd love to just take it to like, you know, a cafe and sit and not have to take like my big laptop or my, you know, with a drive plugged in on the side of it and stuff. I'd love to just be able to take an iPad and just spend an hour having a hot chocolate and quickly editing a podcast, but it's just not happening for me. You may in theory be able to do that. Obviously editing video is totally out of the picture. I would love it if they put Final Cut on an iPad, but I don't think it's happening anytime soon. But you still haven't told me, Brady. I was advising you, answering all of your iPad questions. And the only thing I wanted to know is, did you end up getting the keyboard or not?

And you refused to tell me. You also didn't ask me if I got the pen or not, the pencil or whatever it's called. Well, I mean, here's the thing, Brady. I told you that the pencil was a non-optional purchase. So I just assumed that you would have gotten it. You did. You told me I had to get the pencil

and that the keyboard was up to me. And the decision I made, which was just based on instinct and having a look at both, was I didn't get the pencil and that the keyboard was up to me and the decision i made which was just based on like instinct and like having a look at both was i didn't get the keyboard because i didn't like how it felt on the on the ipad and i was told that typing on the ipad's fine which was probably not true but anyway i didn't get the keyboard because i liked the cover that hasn't got the keyboard and i did get the pencil as told me, and I'm yet to take it out of the box. Okay, well, that doesn't help you, Brady. You have to take it.

And do what with it? And just like, it's clearly this is something I'm going to lose because the way that it is connected to the iPad is non-existent. I cannot believe I haven't lost my AirPod things yet, but I'm definitely going to lose this pencil. And I have no use for it. I'm yet to use the iPad and think, oh, this would be way easier if I had a pencil in my hand instead of using my finger. Oh man, those AirPods. All right. So like I have a lot of pencils. I have a very good record of not losing Apple pencils, although I'm always worried about

it. So I like to keep a spare in my bag if i'm ever traveling but i swear to god those airpods it's like i don't know how i lose them all the time i've lost so many of those airpods it's like airpods are like a subscription service that i'm on from apple right just like they're like your flamingo yeah i don't know how i don't know why this object but somehow it's like my brain is incapable of keeping track of AirPods. I'm yet to lose mine. I did misplace them for a week, but then I found them and I love them. They're like, they are a great addition to my life, but the pencil, I don't know. I cannot see any need for it yet. Use it to tap the screen, Brady. Tap the screen with it instead of using. I can do that with my finger. No, it's not the same. It's not the same. You have to do it with

the pencil. It's much more comfortable to do with the pencil all i need to do is press play on netflix i mean okay if you're telling me you literally only use it as a netflix box then i suppose you can get away with it can i have your pencil then when i come to visit i just think you look a bit silly using the pencil too it looks a bit posy no i disagree i think you look like a very serious professional when you're using that pure white look like you think you're a serious professional when you're using the pencil i don't know i think it looks a bit arty and like i can see like if you're writing with it or drawing with it like you know of course but using it just for like you know navigating around i don't know what do i know i would like to use it. And as I've said, I would like the iPad to become more a part of my life, but I just can't see it happening.

It's the dream of all technology and also all stationary stores that when you go in, you partly sell yourself the dream of, oh, when I buy this thing, this thing will make my life more productive. But you're still just you, right? Like you're the same guy who walked into the store as the guy who walks out of the store. It's like, oh, now that I have this trapper keeper, I'm going to do great at school. No, you're not. This episode is brought to you in part by Casper. Casper is the mattress that combines multiple supportive memory foams for a quality sleep surface with just the right amounts of both sink and bounce.

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And thanks to Casper for cradling me gently while I sleep. So Brady, you mentioned that you want to be editing audio on your iPad. Yes. Editing presumably long streams of audio. What is it that you're editing on this iPad or that you want to edit? I have started a third podcast. A third podcast. A third podcast. Yeah. So obviously, Hello Internet is like, you know, origin story. Origin story, of course.

Yeah. And Unmade's been going for a little while, but now I have launched a Numberphile podcast spun out of the Numberphile video channel. And do you know what? It's going well. I'm liking it. Where can people go to find the Numberphile podcast spun out of the Numberphile video channel. And do you know what? It's going well. I'm liking it. Where can people go to find the Numberphile podcast? Well, they can just go to wherever they listen to podcasts and just write in Numberphile. Numberphile is spelt with a PH, like the file part is PH for love,

not file as in a filing cabinet. Numberphile, all one word. Or they can go to numberphile.com and find it from there. So it's not like number file videos for people who have ever seen a number file video which are normally like you know 10 minutes long and very mathematical and lots of numbers and drawings and writing and things like that the podcast is not like that the podcast is like long interviews and discussions with people who are in the videos and mathematicians and other interesting people with some kind of numbery bent. So these are produced while you're making the regular number? Because like,

are these produced in the spiritual home of Numberphile when you're going out on location to do these interviews? They'll be produced everywhere. Basically, the thinking is, I spend all this time traveling around the world, meeting all these interesting people to make number file videos, and I end up making like a five or ten minute video with them. Why not then say, oh, why don't we go and sit down for an hour and just have a chat about life and other things that don't come out in the video.

So it's more about people and stories. So the first one was actually with a guy called Grant Sanderson who makes the YouTube channel 3Blue1Brown, just talking to him about maths and his attitude to making videos and that. But I've also done one with the second one, which is the really famous mathematician who helped solve Fermat's last theorem. So that's like a proper, you know, top level mathematician. That's pretty serious. Yeah, yeah. And the third one's with Hannah that's like a proper, you know, top level mathematician. That's pretty serious.

Yeah, yeah. And the third one's with Hannah Fry, who's like, you know, a mathematician, but also like a really interesting communicator and, you know, math celebrity. So I'm hoping for a real mixture of guests. And they're just sort of, so far they've been half an hour to an hour long chats. And I think they're really fun and funny and interesting so if any tims out there have any capacity in their uh podcast schedule that's one to think about like there's always more room for dessert there's always more room for podcasts right i don't know

if there's is there always more room for another hour long discussion i don't know but i think if people's podcast cues are anything to go by the answer is yes there is always room for another hour-long discussion? I don't know. I think if people's podcast cues are anything to go by, the answer is yes. There is always room for more. I do have to say, Brady, it is supremely satisfying to me that you have made this podcast because ever since we started Hello Internet and after the first season of Hello Internet, when, don't laugh, I still cling to the idea of seasons. I was thinking of trying to bring it back. We could talk about that later. What are we on now? Season 11 or something then?

I don't know. Yeah, I know. But like I never achieved the dream of what I wanted with seasons. But anyway, ever since it was obvious that we were going to continue with the show and you enjoyed podcasting, or at least I hope you enjoyed podcasting. I do, yeah, I do. We had conversations many times in which I expressed the idea that it just seemed

inevitable to me that at some point there would be a podcast where Brady, if not interviews, but talks with guests. I couldn't conceive that this wouldn't happen. And you always gave me a whole bunch of like, oh no, like podcasts, it's a big project and it takes a bunch of, you always gave me these reasons that I thought were no good reasons. And it feels like all it took was what? Four years later, you finally broke the seal with your first other podcast. And now that that door has been opened, now we are in a world where there can be multiple Brady podcasts. And of course, the Numberphile podcast is the one where I feel like I knew it.

I knew this was going to happen. I was just waiting for it to happen. I would never have guessed that it would take this long. But I'm very glad that this thing is now a thing that exists in the universe. Well, when you come out of your Project Cyclops, you can even have a listen to a couple, if you like. Tell me what you think. I think this is more like the one you predicted. Obviously, Unmade, which was the second one I started, is more like just outside my normal zone. It's just like joking around with a friend. But this is like the one you predicted, isn't it? It's like quite interviewee. And I do

talk less in this one, obviously, because I am the interviewer and the other person is like the star of the show. But I don't know, in some ways I've still restricted it a little bit by putting it under the number file banner. Like I couldn't easily do a chemistry interview or interview a movie star on it. I think it's still a bit more restricted maybe than what you used to talk about to me. Yes, that's true. I mean, look, also the universe is balanced again because like you have more YouTube channels than I do, you also now have more podcasts than I do. The universe was unbalanced for a while there, but now like things have come back into the natural order of things. And I just sort of assume that there's going to be now, you know, maybe not soon, but many podcast

projects in a Brady's future. Now that this has become, you know, like a thing that you can do, that you feel free to start and to do new ones. So I feel like the world is open to you, Brady, the podcasting universe. Well, I mean, you opened this world as well, because I mean, firstly, because it was your idea to even do a podcast in Hello Internet. So you dragged me into the podcast world. But you also gradually over time have taught me how it technically works at the back end to a point where i can actually now make one and upload it and understand how it all works like obviously people are already joking oh now there's going to be periodic videos and 60 symbols and objectivity podcasts and like you know of course there could be of course that comes into my head because like you know why wouldn't it come into my head but like, you know, why wouldn't it come into my head? But I don't think it's going

to happen anytime soon. I was going to say, are you... Never say never. I was, yeah. You're not going to put down never on the show though, are you? No, no. I've just got no more capacity. I haven't really got capacity for this, but I've managed to carve it out by getting a bit more help on other stuff. Here's the thing. I can be sympathetic to the notion that you are out of capacity, but at the same time, I feel like I've hearing from a brady how he's out of capacity for forever i've been hearing about how you're out of capacity before objectivity came into

existence so it's like obviously there is not infinite capacity in a brady but it seems like there's just like you have so much to give Brady. Like it's an endless bounty of Brady giving on as many projects across many different things. So I know that you are probably feeling a little overwhelmed right now. And of course, it's because you have a brand new project at numberphile.com that they should go check out, subscribe and listen. Thumbs up, smash that like button. Review. Review. Yes. Become a friend of the pod. Yeah. Oh, God. It still hurts. It still hurts. But I think, yeah, the horizon is open to you,

Brady. And never say never. All right. And you don't have to like mathematics. I know a lot of people who listen to Hello Internet probably wouldn't watch Numberphile videos because it's like, there is some mathematics in there. But this hasn't got mathematics in there it's not like we're sitting there talking about numbers and proofs and and then you divide by three on both sides and then you cancel out the x's it's not like that it's more like tell me about what you were like as a kid and what was university like and it's been really interesting actually finding out what people like own up to and tell you if you get the right person it's been really interesting actually finding out what people like own up to and tell you if you get the right person you get some really interesting little revelations well it's also why it's always

seemed something along these lines has seemed inevitable to me because you are without a doubt the best interviewer i know i know you always want to downplay this but you are you are really good at it and i've seen you in action and you have a real skill for asking both the right and interesting questions and asking questions that are the exact right amount of annoying to get an interesting response from people. Like, it's your skill, Brady. And you're so good at it, I feel like you can't perceive it as directly as those around you. That's super kind of you.

Thank you very much. Go listen to the podcast, people. Let's talk about the Amazon headquarters. We were talking before the show. It feels like this was something we were both very interested in. And we've kind of run out of puff a bit now. Now that the story's actually come to fruition, it's a bit like, meh. Okay, let me tell you what my problem is with this.

So I don't know when it was like six months ago we talked about amazon holding this competition between different cities for where are they going to build hq2 right there they want to build like a gigantic second headquarters and at the point that we discussed, they had whittled down the list to 20 finalists in the bidding process. And there was like a map to look at. And there was a whole page. And there was this fun horse race speculation around who is going to win the honor of having an Amazon factory drop down upon them. Who is going to get to give all the tax concessions to Amazon that they want?

Exactly. Like, I mean, really, that to me is part of the interesting part. How far are these cities willing to go to like cut their own flesh, right? To convince Amazon to come over. And I was really excited about this. I don't know why. I mean, it's sort of like boring corporate taxation compensation corner. Like it is kind of dull, but I don't know.

It just hit me in the right way. And then, whatever it is, a couple of weeks ago, all of a sudden it was just done. It was over. It was announced and the winners were picked. And I felt like, hey, what happened to this horse race I was following? I wanted to go from 20 to 10 and then from 10 down to five. And at each stage, everyone's getting more vicious. And like a cage battle or something. Yeah, exactly. Like, you know, Bezos is able to oversee a fisticuffs fight between the governors

of the various states. Like, I don't know what I wanted except like this really dramatic battle. And so it's the weirdest story, but I felt like it was over before I had a chance to really get into it. Of course, Amazon's not out here for my entertainment in picking their second headquarters. In retrospect,

it kind of makes sense why they wouldn't have playoffs and like a bracket of the cities like, oh, Raleigh's defeated Atlanta this week, right? Like it makes sense why they wouldn't do that. But I don't know. I find myself weirdly disappointed by it. Should we tell people who won who don't know? So this is the other thing. There was a bit of like a switcheroo at the very end, which is one of the winners was a place called Crystal City, which was not on the original list, but it is in Arlington County, Virginia, which, as we discussed last time, was like there were three cities that were picked all around Washington, D.C., and Jeff Bezos just bought a house in Washington. So it seemed like that area was a lock to win. And this city that I've never heard of before, they got the bid for HQ2.

But also, it wasn't just HQ2, it was two HQ2s. And there's a second one that they're going to build in what to me is a particularly hilarious spot, Long Island City in New York. Now, Long Island City is part of New York City, but it's in Queens, which always feels like a little bit of a separate place. Like it's part of New York, but Queens feels like its own spot. And Long Island City to me seems like kind of a hilarious spot because it's not a very nice part of New York City. And it also lacks any kind of transportation options. So I don't know how they think whatever it is, 50,000 people are going to be able to commute in and out of that particular spot in the city. But I don't know. I feel like all this stuff together just made me feel a little bit like, oh, I wanted more of a vicious battle. I didn't want to just suddenly know. And it's also weird that you just picked two, which didn't feel like the rules you were setting out at the start.

Yeah. Do you have any thoughts on it, Brady? Surely they didn't choose Crystal City just because Bezos happens to live in Washington. There must be a bigger reason than that. Is it because of just proximity to the lawmakers? This is my thought, right? Bezos didn't pick Washington, D.C. for no reason as a place to buy a house. Yeah.

I think, like many of these tech companies are thinking, that they've ignored the politics game for a long time. But the bell is ringing for all of these companies that hey you guys don't do a lot of lobbying and there's other companies that spend a lot of money on lobbying maybe you should play this game too and i think the big tech companies are realizing that they should and so i feel like bezos went to dc because probably one of the biggest financial concerns that Amazon has at this point is government interference or regulation or rules or whatever. And so the best thing that he can do is spend time there and then also get a bunch of like Amazon voters right in the backyard of these people.

So that's kind of my thought. And what about Long Island City? What do you think the rationale was for that one in a nutshell? My guess would be just that New York is a useful place to have another campus if they want to try to attract tech talent that's on the East Coast. Because it's a cool place to live as well. Yeah, it's a cool place to live, right? In America, obviously, San Francisco, even though it's kind of a hellhole,

last time I went there, I was like, well, I never need to come to you again, San Francisco. But it's still like the place. It has a lot of these network effects that make it the place to recruit tech talent. But New York City is clearly the second best place in America. And so Amazon seems to be doing a lot of pivoting into tech. So my guess is that the New York one is going to be like, where are they trying to recruit programmers to? And for all the programmers who don't want to move to the West Coast, New York is the best place to go on the East Coast. And that's probably why it's there. That would be my guess. All right. So the next question then, and the next piece of news,

is why is Apple building a big new mega campus in Austin? Same reason? Because I know Austin's a pretty cool place, but... Oh, that's outrageous. I knew Apple was also trying to build a campus, but I thought Raleigh in the great state of North Carolina was the lock for Apple's additional campus. I can't believe that. I feel like I've been personally robbed somehow. It was supposed to be Raleigh, Apple. Everyone was expecting it to be Raleigh. I don't know why

they would choose Austin over Raleigh. I was recently in Austin. I've got one word, overrated. I've not been there. I want to go there because I've heard it's highly rated, but you got me wondering now i'm telling you right now it is highly rated now austinites austiners austinistas understand the exact meaning of this word overrated doesn't mean bad that's right so you can calm down it simply means the wondrous tales that people tell of Austin, right? This, oh, it's an oasis on the plains of Texas. It's just a city. It has bars with noisy nightlife and live music.

It's not Nirvana among the cows. That's not what it is. It's a city. It's a nice city, but way overrated. Super duper overrated. I don't understand why. So why does Apple want to put a $1 billion campus there? I don't know. They should have put it in Raleigh. I'm very disappointed.

They clearly want to up their game in the South, don't they? I mean, yeah, if I have to pick the third best place, if you're going to try to get techies, if they're not going to San Francisco and they're not going to New York, I mean, it's probably that they're going to Austin. I guess that's what it is also texas you know is a big player on the political stage isn't it so having like a huge presence there for a company that wants to be part of the politics of america you know that's why a lot of nasa got put there isn't that so yeah the nasa stuff feels different though right because that's like oh we have to assemble this aircraft in you know every state in the union i don't know i'm like i'm not sure how much an apple campus in

austin could affect texas politics maybe i'm wrong about that but i don't know i feel like the way you affect politics most directly is like Bezos pressing the flesh in Washington, DC and being right there. I don't know about the politics angle, but I'm still just deeply disappointed. So the biggest news of all though, is the announcement that the Australian Space Agency, is that what they're calling it? It's like the Australian NASA, I think. It's like in its embryonic stages.

Oh, okay. The Australian Space Agency has just decided where they're going to put their headquarters. Is it Adelaide? Yep. I'm looking at an article here. It might not be NASA, but the development of the Australian Space Agency is being touted as a giant and exciting leap into the unknown. Adelaide will be the new agency's home after South Australia won the space race between the states to secure hosting rights. I'm glad that in your pitch here, you said that it's in the embryonic stages because I didn't want to be mean, but my very first thought was, Australia has a space agency?

You know, again, look, it's not a question of can koalas and kangaroos build a spaceship. It's simply a question of what is the size of the population? All right, great. I'm going to give you a big looping pitch over the plate here. Here's a sentence further down that I was hoping you weren't going to read. Okay. Despite its ambitious aims, the new agency will have modest beginnings a staff of 20 people and what the federal government said would be a relatively small startup cost

oh okay but like australia is good for launching rockets and stuff like that so i'm thinking maybe rather than like you know building a space station australia is going to see itself having a role in the kind of facilitating launches and stuff like that and then industries start building around that all right you want to be closer to the equator when you're launching a rocket right well not so good for that part but wait a minute doesn't the equator go through indonesia like a thousand miles north of australia yeah but like there's a there is a good launch facility in australia in south australia called woombara where they do launch sort of rockets and things like that so yeah but if you're going to launch rockets you should launch them from darwin it seems like uh adelaide

is the exact opposite spot i don't know look stop stop it all right adelaide's the new home of space no look i'm not i'm not trying to put adelaide down i'm'm just like, one, I'm relieved that you're not pitching me a story about how mighty ASSA, the Australian Space Agency is. So like, I feel better that you've beaten me to the punch on this because I was just, I'm just surprised. I was just surprised. But yes, how do you feel about this great honor, Brady? Look, if you told me thatia was launching a 20 person space agency i probably wouldn't have even given you the time of day but because it's in adelaide yeah i'm right on board okay like my parochial side has been stirred right i think they should

be basing it in the mighty black stump because there is rooms for rent in that building but they're looking at building something on the site of a former hospital quite a nice little spot in adelaide i think they're knocking down the old hospital and asa is going to be part of that i assume oh it really is called asa is it is it actually called that yeah it says the australian space agency was announced in 2017 woomera is a really cool place i've been to a rocket launch at woomera it was awesome woomera is an aboriginal word for like a device they use to throw spears. It's like a little wooden sheath. They put the spear in to help them throw the spear further.

Oh, is that the thing that gives them the leverage? I think I know what you're talking about. Yeah, it's like you put the spear in the base of it and then you throw the two together. Yeah, so that's quite a cool name for a place to launch rockets. That's a good rocket launch name. Yeah. I like that. It is like about 15 hours drive from Adelaide, but...

Oh, okay. Well, you probably shouldn't have mentioned that. Well, it's in the middle of nowhere, but... I'm trying to get behind this. So... You don't have to get behind it yet, Gray. Let me work up some talking points and hype for you. I just want to let you know it's happened while we're talking about...

Basically, I thought if I rode on the coattails of Amazon and Apple announcing new places, that would seem more important. Okay, right. I see what's going on here. Yeah. Like, why did Brady bring up this Apple thing? That doesn't seem like a story. Ah, now he wants to ride off of one of the largest companies in the world.

And also in the same vein, let's talk about Adelaide. So I've just been suckered into this conversation of Adelaide boosting, as I often am on the show. I'm just trying to appropriate some of the stardust of the big companies that you are interested in. Okay. So what do you see as the glorious future in space for Australia? Look, I have no delusions of grandeur here.

I just, I don't know. It could be the start of something big. It could come to nothing. It'll probably come to nothing. But I'm just happy that Adelaide got a win, basically. I'm happy for you that Adelaide got a win. The bigger cities sometimes kick us around a bit. So it's nice that something nice has happened.

I mean, only 20 people. So I do realize we're just being thrown a bone, but we'll take it. I was going to try to throw you another bone. I was like, how many people did SpaceX have when it started? And the answer was 160 people. So it's rather more than the Australian Space Agency. Well, I don't know that you and I have discussed this before. It's been like suggested many, many times.

But Elon Musk does have quite a relationship with Adelaide. And Adelaide had some problems with its power supply a year or two ago. And Elon Musk, you know, having his ability to sort of seize on PR opportunities, said, hey, South Australia, I'll build you a big super battery, you know, with all my new battery technology. And the government took him up on it. And he did all these visits to adelaide and they built a big elon musk battery proof of concept power station type thing near adelaide so like he has this association now so i imagine you know maybe the government there's now going

to say hey you got you want to throw us any spacex bones as well i don't know just put it out there i think it helped. The vision of Adelaide getting SpaceX bones. The future of Australian Space Agency. Adelaide, we have a problem. Today's episode is brought to you by Brilliant. Brilliant helps you master key ideas

in math, science, and computer science in fun, bite-sized bits, and through problem solving. Whether you want to hone your quantitative skills, improve your knowledge of science and technology, be a smarter parent for your inquisitive kid, or simply stay sharp, Brilliant helps you grow as a curious and ambitious person.

And I feel like Hello Internet listeners are way more likely than the average person to be curious and ambitious people. No matter where you are, Brilliant's entertaining and educational course library is perfect for beginners, but also includes intermediate and advanced topics for professionals or lifelong learners, so that you can finish every day a little bit smarter than you started. And what's great about Brilliant is instead of having you memorize formulas,

you are learning not just facts, but you're learning frameworks for thinking and for solving challenging problems. This helps you apply the concepts that you've learned, and they're always keeping it fresh because every week there are new challenges. If, for example, you're a space nut like Brady and you want to know the nitty-gritty details of slingshot maneuvers, well, Brilliant has a course on the dynamics of orbits that'll help you learn physics and design your own mission to Mars. So to learn more about Brilliant, go to brilliant.org slash hello. There you can sign up for free to master key ideas in math and science, and you can get 20% off the annual premium subscription. That's brilliant.org slash hello to get 20% off the annual premium

subscription. Thanks to Brilliant for supporting the show and for making the world just a little bit smarter every day. So let's talk about YouTube. Everybody's favorite video hosting service, YouTube. We've got a few little things to talk about here. There's a few things in our show notes because I've been collecting some items for a corner that I was tentatively thinking of in my mind as YouTube wants to be TV corner. Because I feel like this is a real summary of a bunch of the little things that YouTube has done. None of them big, which is why it hasn't come up on the show yet. But I'm just like, I'm going to keep putting little things in this corner. And then since this section kept getting bumped back and bumped back for several episodes, of course, what has been released since the last episode, before we could get to this corner, was the always talked about YouTube Rewind of the year.

Which I feel like every year catches me off guard that I forget that it exists. And then for a brief shining moment, it's like the absolute epicenter of the online universe. And then it fades away very quickly. This is, of course, this compilation video that sort of, you know, is full of YouTube stars and talks about the year that was. You didn't get the coal up? No, no. They did have a bunch of animators, which is genuinely nice to see because it's obviously

more of a pain in the butt to include animators than other creators. You have to work them in a little bit differently. Props to Jaden Animations and like others. It's great. Like I'm glad they included them, but no no i was not asked to be part of youtube rewind snubbed snubbed well i was waiting for them to say brady we want you in the white gloves of destiny from objectivity but oh that actually would have been really good that would have been great yeah like yeah i could see that even you know because like there's a million little cameos

in this yeah me and ke Keith down in the archives. Yeah. Doing the ultimate rewind through history. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Or even just as a prop in the background, right? The white gloves, just like a little objectivity nod from someone who's a fan. I'll tell you what, if I'd been in that video,

I would comfortably have been the oldest person in it. I'm not 100% sure that's true. No, maybe. Or Will Smith, maybe smith maybe oh yeah of course will smith anyway this is just for context it's been viewed 142 million times which is not surprising because youtube shoves it down everyone's throat but it has become the most disliked video in youtube history overtaking some justin bie Bieber video that used to hold the record. It's been liked. It's got the thumbs up 2.3 million times, but it has been disliked more than 13 million times.

Oh, wow. It's up to 13 now. That's great. Did you see, you probably didn't see YouTube's like mea culpa basically on Twitter about it, did you? No, no. I don't know. What is this? Yeah, so YouTube tweeted a picture, like a screenshot, at the moment that it overtook Justin Bieber as the most disliked video. And they wrote, new record! And then they put, oh, wait.

So they were kind of like being self-deprecating. And then as the second thing in the thread, they wrote, thanks to the creators that took part in Rewind and the community that responded, we hear what you're saying and we want to make next year better for all of you. Watch this space. That's close to a mea culpa, isn't it? Yeah. I mean, here's the reason we're talking about it.

Because like I mentioned at the beginning, it's like this burning thing on the internet, but it also every year kind of fades rapidly. Yeah. It sort of goes away. But I do think that this is interesting precisely because it crossed this threshold of being the most disliked video on all of YouTube. It gave it like a news peg and a talking point. I hope it's a thing that youtube takes notice of i sent you uh i don't know if you've seen it but it's a graph of the likes versus

dislikes over time for all of the various youtube rewinds oh this is the first time in a long time that it's been out disliked it is the first time it has ever been out disliked 2011 looks like it might have been out disliked i can't quite tell but oh yeah maybe but i feel like it's the second one it's within basically within like a margin of error right like they're so small it doesn't matter like 2012 is the actual start especially if you go back and you watch the first 2010 rewind it's hilarious because it's just rebecca black counting down some but it's not even what we think of as rewind what do you think of the video? You've watched the video, obviously.

Here's the thing. It's terrible. It's corporately cringey. But just from a like, I'm watching something on YouTube. Here is a video. Does this deserve to be the most disliked video on YouTube? Judged as a video? I think not. But likes and dislikes aren't about technical skill, are they?

No, no, no. But this is what I mean. It's like the actual video, if you watch it as I did, sort of isolated from the world and someone's like, oh, hey, YouTube rewinds up, you have to see it. And so I click on it and watch it without much context. It's corporately cringey. And there's a couple of parts that make me deeply cringe. But it feels like, oh, this is just like last year, right? Where it's bad and boring in a corporate way. But I wouldn't have pegged like, oh, this is going to be just the worst thing ever, right? People are totally going to hate this. Viewing it in an isolated bubble. What did you think of it, watching it? I thought it was dreadful. I never like or dislike videos on YouTube, but I did consider giving it a thumbs down, just almost like I felt like I had a duty to. But I didn't.

I probably said this last year when we reviewed last year's. It makes me kind of embarrassed to be a YouTube filmmaker. Like if my friends who know that I'm at YouTube videos but aren't into YouTube watched that and associated that with me, I'd be really embarrassed that they think that's the world I operate in and work in and that's the world I operate in and work in. And that's what my content is like. And that's what my viewers and audience enjoy.

Like it just, it makes me feel incredibly disconnected with YouTube because like my experience in YouTube world is nothing like that. And I feel like my experience of YouTube and YouTube world is not represented in that video in any way whatsoever. And that's either because they've stuffed up or more likely my little corner of YouTube is so insignificant and small, it doesn't even deserve to be in the rewind, which is kind of interesting and depressing and fascinating all at the same time. I mean, Brady, they did represent science in the video by doing an experiment where they melted lipstick in a big vat. Yeah, that was the one nod to science, wasn't it?

Hey, there needs to be more science on YouTube. And you're thinking, oh, here comes the science part. And then they just melt lipstick. Yeah, not good, shall we say. It's like you have two seconds worth of science. You could do almost anything, melting lipstick and just stirring it and going, ooh. It's not what science is. I think what's fascinating about that is you probably don't remember, but a few years ago

now there was a controversy when the European Union released a video that was aimed at getting women into science. Oh, I remember that video. Yeah. That was unforgettable. Yeah. Science, it's a girl thing. And that was really terrible and condescending. And it was all about, you know, makeup and lipstick and trying to incorporate that into science. And it was like, oh, and they got so much flack for it. And they quite rightly, in my opinion, withdrew from it because I think they really made a mistake with it. And the beautiful thing about this is that they've done the exact same thing, but just in like a couple of seconds of rewind. It's like they've crammed every possible terrible thing

you could do into one mega video. Right. They've purified it, right? They've distilled it down into this thing. Yeah. How can we be really condescending to science? Well, we'd melt lipstick, but we haven't got time to put science in the video. Well, let's just melt lipstick for two seconds. Yeah. It's like, I would prefer that you just hadn't or just show it, but don't be like, oh, this video needs more science. And it's almost like the two creators who are like, you know, legitimate science creators were given the script line, there should be more science on YouTube. And then within half a second of that half a line being delivered, they just slapped them in the face and said, this is what

you're going to get. Like that was pretty terrible. And also if last year's productions are anything to go by, they almost certainly filmed a whole bunch of genuinely science-y stuff. And I'm sure they were filming for hours and hours. And then of course, what ends up happening is like, well, we got to pick the thing that just looks best on camera. Who knows what that even was in that vat, right? It could have been something else entirely. It's just like, whatever, this looks good. We're just going to film it. We're going to add in a line about melting lipstick. Great. We're done. Move on. So a couple of other thoughts, Greg, is what you asked about that. And I thought the two other things that I wrote down, it's not the easiest thing to say, but the section in the middle where

it got all emotional and worthy about YouTube, and they talked about how all the great things that are happening on youtube you know with diversity and that sort of stuff like i get that youtube want to push that barrow and highlight these things that are happening on the platform and fair enough of course they would want to push those things but it was done in such a condescending yet saccharine yet kind of unsubtle way it was like they didn't represent like you know diversity and the good things about youtube just by showing them in their natural environment they just kind of shoved it down your throat and spelled it all out and like the music stopped it was like an after-school special like telling you exactly why YouTube's good. So that section I found like tonally poorly done, even though, you know, if that's what they want to achieve with the video, that's fine. But I think they could have done it a lot better.

Yeah. I mean, they might as well have had a record screeching sound effect, like preceding that section. Like, hey guys, let's take a minute to talk about the things that really matter. It's like, whoa, this is quite a shift. Yeah. And it was just lacking in any subtlety. And the people who have had success, like, you know, breaking down stereotypes and misconceptions on YouTube, do it like just by being themselves and by being cool and being there. You don't have to spell it out quite so clearly. And the other thing that I wrote down was, because before I watched it, obviously I saw there was all this controversy

about who was and wasn't in it. Like, obviously all the PewDiePie lovers are like, PewDiePie should be in it. How can you have a rewind without such a big and important creator? Or how come they didn't have this boxing match between Logan, Paul and whoever? Like, there was all this controversy

about who was left out. And there were other people online saying, this is ridiculous. You know, you can't have everyone in it. There shouldn't be all this talk about who's in and who's out, like this is a stupid debate. But YouTube bring this on themselves because the whole message of this video was who deserves to be in the video. That was almost like the theme of the video. This person should be in it. This person should be in it. This person deserves to be in the video? Yeah. That was almost like the theme of the video. This person should be in it. This person should be in it. This person deserves to be in it. So the whole premise of the film was who deserves to be in a YouTube rewind.

So of course that's going to blow up in their face with all the people they left out for the various reasons they would leave those people out. It was a stupid thing to do for that reason that to me is the thing that i think went so deeply deeply wrong with this youtube rewind is exactly that point that i mean the title is everyone controls rewind and the premise of it is that the creators in the video are also picking other creators to be in the video. And it incredibly opens them up to perfectly legitimate criticism of who should be in the video

and who should not be in the video. And then makes all of the decisions they make framed in, like, it has always been the case, but it is, it just makes it crystal clear that everyone can pick who's in this video as long as they're the people that we want in this video. And it's like, I don't really want to get into that debate either, but I can say there are some people who have made very repeat occurrences on YouTube Rewind who was like, we all know why you're here. It's because you're one of YouTube's golden

children and they love you for a whole bunch of reasons. But if you could gather up YouTube as a community and ask that community, which people do they want in Rewind. I can think a few of those people who are there every year, who there is like a 0% chance would be chosen. But YouTube wants them there. And this is also why to me it falls under my YouTube wants to be TV corner. Because perhaps to me, the thing that really sets it off on the most wrong foot is opening it with Will Smith. Yes, that was a massive mistake. And making it a mystery, like it starts with the back of the head and you're like, oh, who is this?

Who is this person? And he turns around and it's like a gut punch. It's like, yep, we're doing exactly what you're afraid of. It's almost like, what the hell is this person doing here? He's so out of place. And they start with it as a big reveal. Like we should be like, whoa, awesome. You took me by surprise. And it's like, no, you've disappointed me from the start. Yeah. I mean, look, I'm just going to say it. The only way an opening reveal like that would have worked in YouTube's favor is if it was PewDiePie. Because it would be a genuine surprise and a huge number of people would be thrilled to have your review.

They'd be thrilled, right? You genuinely wouldn't expect it. And it would also mean that YouTube had made a decision that was contrary to what you expect logan paul would have worked in that respect too maybe but pewdiepie is a better choice pewdiepie is the biggest at least for now while he's still winning over t-series yeah hashtag subscribe to pewdiepie but like that is the only way a reveal could work yeah and it's it's amazing because if i sat down and tried to think okay how could you make a reveal that would get exactly the the reaction that you don't want

to happen i think almost nobody could be more perfect than will smith he's like old person's cool he's like the managers of youtube when they sit around thinking who's the coolest person in the world we could possibly get? And they'd be like, oh, Will Smith. I loved his films in the 90s and the 2000s. And it's who the manager would choose. And it's like, no, you don't get it. I mean, look, this may be a little mean to say, but Will Smith is a YouTube carpetbagger. He is coming to this platform in a very calculated way. And I'm not saying that his vlogs are bad i've watched some of them but i cannot get past just how transparently this is a calculated career move for someone like will smith he knows as the first big movie star person to like really go all in on

a vlog that he is going to be exactly what YouTube wants to promote exactly what they what they're going to want to put in YouTube rewind you know he is going to become another one of YouTube's golden children like if I was Will Smith 100% I would be doing a vlog on YouTube and promoting it and trying to be a huge big deal there but it's like always this feeling of like YouTube doesn't appreciate the resource that it has in all of these creators because they don't like the intrinsic chaoticness and variance that comes with the people on the platform but it's the one advantage that they have over other streaming services it is their most key advantage and it's infuriating to see them constantly push back on this yeah and the will smith reveal is the most like hey you know

what everybody wants to see in youtube rewind they want to see movie stars who are making calculated career moves it's like no nobody wants see this. I don't know how you possibly could have thought this reveal is a good idea. And that sets the tone for the whole thing, because now everything that happens in the video, it's not something that the viewer wants. I think that's why it ended up spiraling out of control, because everybody could make the comment at some point in the video, this isn't what I want in my YouTube rewind. And starting it with Will Smith made it all the fruit of a poison tree. I think it really did.

I mean, it's so corporate and tone deaf and it makes me sad and it's just a huge mess. If you were the boss of YouTube, if you got made chief executive and you had to oversee next year, what would you do to rewind? Would you scrap it? Would you have someone cool make it? What would be your plan of attack? First of all, would you have it? Does it need to exist?

Well, I mean, look, like here's the problem. Am I the CEO of YouTube or am I the god emperor of YouTube? Because those are two very different things. Right. As the CEO of YouTube, I'm not sure I would do a lot different because the CEO in the real world is acting under a whole bunch of constraints. And the CEO of YouTube is really just a sub-CEO of Google that owns them, which is a sub-entity of Alphabet. They're not even like an Elon Musk-style CEO who can just go off the rails and do what he wants. But you aren't telling me that she's looking at this video and standing by and thinking, that was a good call.

Surely the people in YouTube must be thinking, we mucked that one up. Or do you think they're looking at it going, sure, it's got a lot of dislikes, but it's achieved a whole bunch of things we wanted it to achieve? Well, the CEO, I imagine, would have thought that this was achieving what they want to achieve. In retrospect, maybe it did, maybe it didn't. But they made it because they thought that this was a correct decision. So, like, if I was the god emperor of YouTube, I think the thing that people actually want from Rewind, if you're trying to make something that's actually for the community and that matches up with the actual title of what it is, you would need to have something that references the biggest events on YouTube in the past year. And guess what? That means you're going to have creators in there that aren't perfect angels of exactly everything that you want. That's what

the rewind should be. And it's like, the problem with this thing is it's like a weird promotional video for YouTube, but like promotional to who? I don't understand. And everyone's in the wrong context. All these people you know and love, I have to admit, I don't know who most of them are, but all these people who are known and loved, it's not a rewind because you're not seeing them doing the things you love seeing them do. They're all way out of their comfort zones and look like they're way out of their comfort zones you know you're seeing someone

who's really famous for doing like fantastic technology reviews and he's like in front of a blue screen jumping out of a plane and like yeah it doesn't quite fit i also loved how fast mkbhd disowned that like he was he was the first guy out with a video distancing himself from YouTube Rewind. It's like, MKBHD is no dummy. He knew exactly what to do there. But no, I agree. It's people completely out of context. But that's what I would do if I was the god emperor of YouTube.

I would say, okay, look, we're going to have the biggest events. And that means that there are people who are not angels. And we're going to have the biggest events. And that means that there are people who are not angels and we're going to have them in there. But it's like a YouTube rewind that doesn't include a race between two channels to be the top channel of YouTube is like a totally meaningless rewind. You know, like one of the bigger events of the year. Like that has to be in there. Whether or not you like PewDiePie, it has to be in there. And a live streamed boxing match between two creators. Like even if it wasn't the biggest thing, it was like, how can that not be represented in there? I know one of the guys

had a few other issues, but you could do something about the boxing without bringing up all the other stuff. Yeah. And I think that's a perfect example of Logan Paul has made some mistakes this year, but you could still have him in it with the boxing because the boxing with ksi was a legitimately huge deal and lots of people were watching it and it's just it's a bizarre thing that youtube does like i kind of hope that youtube sees it and take something from this because i think it I think it's a real sign that, I've always said this, like YouTube is weaker than it looks.

And one of the reasons it's weaker than it looks is because a lot of people I talk to at best dislike the platform and the way it handles creators. And a lot of people have built up a lot of resentment towards like YouTube over the years, but just like all of the randomness and the demonetization and changing features or taking features away and always like putting you in a smaller and smaller box and all this kind of stuff. And I think like that ends up expressing itself in this kind of video. I doubt anything

will happen because I'm pretty sure that YouTube really does just want to be TV and they're going to do everything that they possibly can to make themselves TV over time. And this is just like a one-way ratchet, but I would hope it would be something else, but it's like creator frustration made visceral in the YouTube Rewind video. If they said to you, CGP Grey, we're doing another one next year. Do you want to be part of it? Can you give us like, you know, a soundbite and a piece of animation that looks like it's from your channel and stuff? What would be your instinctive reaction now? Okay. There's many levels to this, Brady. My instinctive, simple reaction would be that no i wouldn't want

to be part of it yeah but i might want to be part of it if there was an opportunity let's say to be slightly subversive in the actual video itself like if you could say sneak something in that might be a reason to be in youtube rewind but the straight up question like if you could say sneak something in that might be a reason to be in youtube rewind but the straight up question like if i was asked i think you asked me the same thing last year would i be in it no it's it's a strange bizarre thing i don't like being part of projects where i don't have control over them either it's like i'm gonna hand you a thing and like who knows what's going to happen or what the context is going to be around it. So generally, no, I'd have to say no. But if you were offered the opportunity to have the white gloves of destiny in the video,

what would you do, Brady? Do you know, like last year, I'm sure I said part of me thinks no, but another part of me thinks I have an obligation to try and seek out opportunities to promote the projects. I have that obligation to other people who are involved with the projects, but I'm not sure being in it would do you any good anyway. Like if they said, oh, Brady, can you just come and stand around a campfire and wear the white gloves and deliver some line about, I love that education is part of the YouTube platform. Like, I don't think people at the end of the video are going to go, who was that like weird ginger guy with the gloves?

Oh, let me go and watch his channel and subscribe to it and learn about the archives at the Royal Society. I just don't think that happens. So I think like there's probably more to be lost than gained, you know? I just wanted to take a look at the only appearance that i genuinely liked in the video which was at the very end primitive technology did the credit sequence oh yeah that was cool primitive technology if you if it's a channel that you haven't seen it's great it's weirdly meditative there's no talking It's just this guy out in the woods somewhere building a hut

or baking bricks, like all of this Neolithic level technology stuff. But he has just a great way of filming it. And there's something just really captivating about the tremendous number of man hours required to shingle the roof of your hut with clay bricks. It's just amazing, and they're hypnotic. And he got featured at the end and I thought, oh, this is actually great. And one of the reasons it's great is you get to see who is this weird channel. Like what does he do? It's long enough to take it in.

So it's a huge feature. I think you could argue that aside from Will Smith, no one was greater featured in the video than primitive technology. Yeah. But I've just pulled up his subscriber stats for the day that YouTube Rewind went up. You wouldn't know. You wouldn't know there was any difference in before and after YouTube Rewind went up. It ticks up some,

but it's not like he gained a million billion subscribers when Rewind went up. billion subscribers when rewind went up youtube rewind went up on the sixth you know and he gets 2 000 subscribers a day on average and on the rewind day he got 4 000 subscribers you know so i don't i don't think it's a promotional tool for the people who are in it and i will always say people use this phrase where they go like, I'm so honored.'s no good reason for you to do this thing. Like honor is how people trick you into doing something that is not in your own best interests. Right. Like it's like, oh, it's not worth actual compensation.

It's worth this pretend societal compensation called honor. And I think the YouTube rewind is a great example of that like oh what an honor to take these people and showcase them in the rewind and suck up a day of their life filming and added with travel and everything it's like it always makes me smile and people are like oh i was so honored to be part of this thing it's like you just sound like a sucker when you say that but i don't know i don't know if i should leave that in the podcast it's it too close. It cuts too close to the core of society, Brady. Yeah. YouTubers are also a group of people who are probably more susceptible than most to being paid with honor as well, because it also is like ego-stroking, isn't it?

Well- Like, it's validation. You are important enough to be in this thing that other people aren't in. Again, I don't want to bring it up, Brady, because I know it's a point. But I'm going to, again, say that the YouTube Rewind crowd, the drama club, is dramatically overrepresented in the YouTube Rewind crowd.

Like, for sure, many of those people are the personality type of like, I just want to be on the stage. I just want a bunch of strangers I don't know to love me, like a total psychopath, right? Like, there's clearly some people in that group who fit that mold quite tightly. I always love it when we're recording Hello Internet, because I know if

you ever say, I'm not sure I should leave this in the podcast, or I'm not sure I should say this, it means you're almost guaranteed to leave it in. They're the things you leave in the most. It's the things you don't talk about that silently get snipped. Do you know why I leave them in sometimes, Brady? I feel like those sentences are like a message in a bottle to younger versions of me. Like, hey, hey, don't buy all this bulls**t society is selling you. Let other people buy this bulls**t.