Hello Internet - HI #122: Wax Cylinders

Episode Date: April 24, 2019

Grey and Brady Discuss: Hello Internet on Wax Cylinders, April Fools Revisited, the true height of Mt Everest, the banality of life in the past, the Event Horizon Black Hole, The Rise of Skywalker, and Brady's office. Sponsors: Away: thoughtfully designed luggage for the way you actually travel - get $20 off a suitcase at awaytravel.com/hi2019 and use promo code hi2019 Hover: the best way to buy and manage domain names - go to hover.com/hi and get 10% off your first purchase from Hover Ting: a smarter, less expensive and more human approach to cell phone service - get $25 off your bill (or $25 off a new phone in the Ting Shop) at hi.ting.com Listeners like YOU on Patreon Show Notes: Discuss this episode on the reddit Hello Internet on Wax Cylinders Brady's April Fool's Prank Event Horizon Black Hole Sixty Symbols: THAT Black Hole picture Veritasium: How to Understand the Image of a Black Hole & and clever double-dipping: First Image of a Black Hole Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker How To Make A Blockbuster Movie Trailer

Brady claps, three claps. Three claps. There we go. That was well spaced. Oh, thank you. Thank you. I know you always have some comment on my clapping abilities, but those were well spaced claps.

That was three of the best you've ever done. 100 plus episodes in, I'm finally getting the hang of clapping at the start. What have you been up to lately, Brady? Well, it had to happen. And it has. What had to happen? There is a new limited edition Hello Internet episode. Okay.

The long awaited sequel to our now legendary vinyl record. Well, I think a lot of people were saying, you know, what are you going to do next time? Will it be a cassette tape or something like that but i've always had a fascination with and i finally managed to execute an episode of hello internet on an original old-fashioned edison wax cylinder all right now because i i recorded with you i know that these things exist in the world but when you first pitched this to me when you're like i have an idea let me i got two words wax cylinder i find it almost inconceivable that the manufacturing capabilities for wax cylinders still exist in the world.

Oh, grey. Yes, they do. You still can have them made. The things I've seen and the stories I could tell. Okay. Because you and I recorded the episode digitally because, you know, we had to do it in our usual way. And then I went off with the file and have gone through the process of having this turned into a wax cylinder. For those who don't know what a wax cylinder is, I've been reading a bit about them on Wikipedia first. Yeah, for the younger members of our audience who haven't used them in their lifetime. Phonograph cylinders are the earliest commercial medium for recording and reproducing sound,

commonly known simply as records in their era of greatest popularity, which was 1896 to 1915. These hollow cylindrical objects have an audio recording engraved on the outside surface which can be reproduced when they are played on a mechanical cylinder phonograph in the 1910s the competing disc record system triumphed in the marketplace to become the dominant commercial audio medium so this is like the beta that was beaten by vhs and i've always been a bit fascinated by the ideas of wax cylinders as like, you know, the ultimate antiquated technology. But I never really knew like what they look like and how they worked.

And it turns out there's a guy that lives not too far away from me who's like keeping the technology alive. So, I basically said to him, can you do an episode of our podcast? And he said, well, I can do anything if you pay me. Yes, that is how the market works. Yes. So, it basically said to him, can you do an episode of our podcast? And he said, well, I can do anything if you pay me. Yes, that is how the market works. Yes. So, it's happened. There are restrictions.

The episode is about two minutes in length. Okay, right. And rather than doing a normal episode over many, many discs, Gray and I recorded a special two-minute episode. But it is a genuine episode, isn't it? In which we reminisce about our favorite old technologies. Yes. It is a Hello Internet episode, highly distilled.

Yeah. But I learned something new about you in it. No spoilers. I don't want to spoil it. Of course, you don't want to spoil those glorious two minutes of content that we produced. But I went along, Ray, and it is amazing to watch these things get made. Because literally to make it, this chap has to play our episode over and over again through a machine on which like a needle literally scratches the episode into this wax disc. Actually, if you switch your camera on, I'll show you because I'm holding one here. I'm using the proper technique for holding them as well. There's a special way to hold these things. I mean, when I'm looking at, did I not know what

it was? I would think it was just an unusually thick toilet paper roll. That's sort of what it looks like. That's not bad, actually. Yeah. That is what it looks like. A toilet paper roll without the paper on it. Yeah, yeah. Slightly more diameter, I would say. But if you look really closely, you can see the episode, like, etched onto it, like on a record player. But it's amazing to watch because as it was recording, I was hearing our voices and the needle was scratching onto the wax. And you see the wax falling off off like shavings falling off like you're grating cheese or something so the wax is literally shaving off i've got videos of this i

will include all the stuff in the normal kind of linky places so people can go and have a look at this but watching it was so amazing and he went and showed me he makes the wax himself i went and watched him like doing the wax and melting it he then casts it but then he has to shave it to this like super precision so that it works but not only that like he used a digital file to make ours although each one's unique because he has to play it over and over again but you can actually speak into this giant like cone horn thing. And you can actually talk onto the wax disc and you can watch your voice live like getting etched onto it. So I made like a little ad for Hello Internet for the cylinder.

And we recorded that live onto a cylinder like and you're watching the wax fall off as you talk. Like your voice is literally being captured in the wax. It's awesome. So watching our episode being carved into the wax, it must be like watching Michelangelo carve David out of a block of marble. Couldn't have said it better myself. That's exactly what it was like. This was like our voices literally being etched into immortality. I never really thought about it, but with the production of vinyl, when it's being manufactured, is it carving into hot vinyl?

I forgot. You can carve. That's very laborious. Yeah, but I thought it's pressed, right? Our episode was pressed. And we've actually shared a video of that before, too, of our episode being made of the vinyl. That's what I was trying to think, is like, it's a pancake that presses it and then you carve off the edges. Yeah. So, for that, they made like a hard copy, like a

die and it was just being pressed into the hot vinyl time after time. But this one is like, each one's unique and a little bit imperfect and different. I listened back to it on this old cylinder player that he has with one of those giant, you know, like bell type cone things on the top. Seriously, it was like going back in time. I had so much fun. I could have stayed there all day. It was brilliant. Just recording your voice memos into wax and listening back. This was a thing that I didn't realize, but you did realize because when you were texting me about it, you dropped this knowledge that I didn't have until I went and met the guy. But up until surprisingly recently at offices,

like bosses would use them as like dictaphone, these wax cylinders and like dictate a letter. And the cylinders would then be given to the secretarial staff who would have all these wax cylinders and listen back to them and type up the letters. And then at the end of the day, all the wax cylinders would be sent down to a special machine in the basement, and the recordings would be like, shaved off the wax and then cylinder made smooth again

for use the next day for more dictaphone recordings. Yeah, I mean, before you pitched a Hello Internet episode on a wax cylinder, that was the only thing that was in my head of knowledge of like what are wax cylinders for for edison yelling at his secretary through a recording like i think this is all this is for yeah it just never occurred to me that you could in the modern age do the thing that we do which is like have the recording and then industrialize producing copies of us talking and like a little brief hello internet episode his system is so antiquated though i believe he had to take a digital recording that i gave him and like transfer onto like a cassette tape or something which he could then play out of a different

machine to record but see this is just an extra selling feature because it's such the warmth, Brady. It's the warmth that these two analog mediums bring to the recording. Yeah. Digital recordings. Yeah. So cold. So impersonal. This is times two analog. It's like, this is as analog as it gets.

These things are amazing. They're very fragile. I also didn't realize how fragile they were, but you can snap them like a prawn cracker if you're not careful with them. They're like, they're amazing. I'm going to go back for more. I want to go back and do more with him. Like, so interesting. Now, the thing that I'm wondering for anybody who's wishing to purchase a wax cylinder. Oh, hold them back. Hold them back. Yeah, no, sure. I'm sure there's a great tidal wave of people coming.

I'll be amazed if there is one Tim who has the ability to listen to one of these things. I'd be amazed. I'm not going to lie. The fact that we're selling these, part of the appeal for me. When we did the vinyl episode, it felt like a Hello Internet achievement get to listen to an episode on an actual record player, right? Like it's a hassle to do yeah but that's like achievement unlocked yeah hello internet on vinyl yeah now in all video games you have

baby level achievements that you're just going to do when you're playing the game then you have actual things that require effort yeah which is what the vinyl episode feels like. And then you have achievements that only the insane will pursue because of their difficulty level, that only the most intense and hardcore players will pursue. Devout. Yeah, devout. And that's why this really appealed to me, because I thought, how many people in the world, if their life depended on it, could find and use the equipment to play a wax cylinder?

You can buy them on eBay, Gray, these phonograph cylinder players. Because I said I want one. Right, of course. I want to be able to listen to my copy of it. I have listened to the episode on wax at his house, but I want't be able to listen to my copy of it i have listened to the episode on wax at his house but i want to be able to do it at leisure right of course he seemed to think i could get one for the ballpark of over 100 pounds so you know 150 bucks or so i'd be surprised but that seems that seems crazy to me yeah he repairs them as well so i've got

he'll be able to fix one up for me. Yeah. Although, again, perhaps like the dinosaurs attacks market, there's going to be a spike in the price of wax cylinder playing equipment very soon. I don't imagine anyone buying one at all. But if they did, I don't imagine people buying this for the playing. It's more just for like the object right that it looks cool you know because i've almost finished having like special labels designed and made and they're going to look old school they're going to be designed in the way they were back in

the day so it's more just for the object itself but to give you some idea of where i expect demand to be at this stage i've had 10 made right thinking that you and i can have a couple each and then i don't know what will happen with the others but you never know there may be an untapped market for wax cylinders and if so my man's on standby i said to him look if demand goes crazy if the teams want wax can you deliver and he said yes, reluctantly. And basically, it's going to involve him sitting literally in his lounge room, listening to this episode over and over again as a nail etches it into wax and the wax literally falls onto his coffee table in his lounge room while he makes them. It's extraordinary.

That's amazing. That's amazing. Perhaps like there's been a vinyl resurgence. This could be the spark that's been a vinyl resurgence. This could be the spark that starts a wax cylinder resurgence. We could switch the podcast exclusively to wax. The world's only exclusively wax podcast. It has a very small, but very dedicated fan base. Anyway, so details should be available either now in the show notes or- There will be a link in the show notes somewhere. But, you know, if you follow us on all the usual places as well, the Twitters and the

Patreons and things like that, that's where you get there. All the info as it comes to hand, if you can't wait to hear us tell you ourselves. But it's been a very fun, ourselves. But it's been a very fun, I mean, it's been a very easy project for you. It required two minutes of your time. But for me, it has been a labor of absolute love. I've gone on long drives into the countryside. I've learned all about how it works. It's brilliant. It's charming. It's absolutely charming. You have genuinely seemed so happy about this project. I'm really glad that this has been a Hello Internet project.

It has been just a pleasure. I'll be sure to get you a wax player for your birthday. So at the time of recording, we've had another April Fool's Day. Happens every year. Yeah. One less to have to live through. Do you know what? I was asked to be involved with an April Fool prank and I said no because I'm against April Fool's Day. I think it's a bit naff. Yeah, you say no because that's the correct decision.

But then the day before April Fool's Day, I actually had like, coincidentally, I had an idea for something I thought would be funny to do as a bit of a prank. And I thought, oh, tomorrow is April Fool's Day. I'm going to do it. So I did it. Oh no. And I thought, oh, tomorrow is April Fool's Day. I'm going to do it. So, I did it. And I felt dirty. You should. You should, Brady.

I did. I did. You 100% should feel dirty for doing that. I'm not proud of it. I'm not proud of it. I did it. I don't know. I can't even justify it, but I did an April Fool's prank. Can you explain to me what the prank is or is it too embarrassing? I took a photo of the golden hot stopper in a hiding place, like, you know, in a nondescript hiding place and just put GPS coordinates. So, I created the illusion that I'd done the legendary golden hot drop.

But then if you put the GPS coordinates into some kind of non-wax technology that is capable of telling you what the GPS coordinates are, you would learn that those coordinates were for the so-called pole of inaccessibility, the most remote place in the ocean that you can possibly have. The ungettable place where they try to land satellites and things like that. So, that was my little gag. It was very Hello Internet-y, golden hot drops. It had geographical locations of interest. I'm not proud of it look the wax cylinder you ran past me and i approved immediately because it's an amazing fun idea that is not an april fool's joke i actually have made

them no no i know but what i'm saying is i heard nothing of this idea and you didn't run it past me oh hey what do you think of this idea i think you didn't run it past me. Oh, hey, what do you think of this idea? I think you didn't run it past me because you knew. You knew I would give you no encouragement in this endeavor. No, you would have stopped me and you would have been right to have done so. But I can't change it, all right? It's happened. Let's move on. Look, we all make mistakes in life. And participating in April Fool's is one of those mistakes. But April Fool's Day has found a new way to annoy me. Okay, please.

A different way. Well, there are two new traditions now that people who are too cool to do April Fool's jokes do if they still want those sweet, sweet clicks. Right. You know, yeah, you got to get the clicks, of course. And they are, you either write a listicle about great April Fool's jokes of the past. Right. Five great April Fool's jokes.

And they're like, you know, the ones you always see, like the BBC spaghetti farm one. So, they do that, the listicle to cash in on April Fool's without having done one. Right. farm one. So they do that, the listicle to cash in on April Fool's without having done one. Right. And the other one is five amazing stories that are happening today that aren't April Fool's jokes. Can you believe these are real stories today? Everyone does that article. Oh, clever. The reversal. Yeah. Five things in the news today that you thought were April Fool jokes, but they're not. And everyone does that. And they've been doing it for years now, and they think it's really

original. I would almost rather an April Fool joke than have to read another one of those lists of stories that aren't April Fool jokes. Why so down on the reverse April Fools? You got to find an angle for the story, right? No, because you don't have to find an angle. And because it's unoriginal, but they think it's original. There's nothing worse than people thinking they're being really, really original when they're not. Nothing is original. Nothing is new except that. There are no ideas left.

The last one went about eight years ago. Okay. But, I mean, when you say that, that actually feels quite freeing. Like, oh, well, if we're all out of new ideas, let's just go. Then we're fine. I'm curious, though, Brady, is there an acceptable angle to you? Is there a way that you would be fine with an April Fool's joke?

Possibly, but it's entirely at my discretion and on my whim. Okay. And I don't know what that is. You'll know it when you see it. Yeah, it will depend on my mood and how hungry i am at the time when i stumble over it okay what about you what's the acceptable face of april fool's day for you i don't know something that's just not dumb here's the problem i used to make like snarky tweets on twitter about how like april fool's was the annual stay off the internet day. I was just like, hey, everybody take a step back.

Like it's just going to be so dumb. And this year it caught me off guard because I didn't have that in the forefront of my mind. And I was just on YouTube and it's like, oh, God damn it. Like a couple of people's stupid videos caught me out for like, why did this channel upload this ridiculously dumb thing? Oh, great. Thanks for wasting my time. I am having a bit of a pushback against the anti-April Fool's Day movement though as well. Like I'm almost jaded by that. That's how cynical I am. That's what a grump I am.

That's why you don't like the genuine articles on April Fool's Day. Yeah. i am that's why you don't like the genuine articles on april fool's day yeah you know i think about those prank channels what makes a good prank is that the prank e should laugh when they discover that they're in on it right yeah and i feel like the april fool's thing should be good for the person who was fooled. Yeah. Like they should have the feeling of, oh, that was really clever. Well, great. Can I come back to my April Fool then with the golden hot stopper?

Because this is my justification for it. And I'm not really trying to justify it. I will take my medicine and admit that it was naff. But the thing I liked about it was it riffed on the idea of the golden hot drop, but it sort of posed the question in your head. If we were to drop the golden hot stopper, if we were to hide a hot stopper made of gold with a diamond in it, where would we put it? Ah, yeah, the pole of inaccessibility. That would be like the hardest place you could possibly put it.

The most challenging hot drop you could ever have would be that hot drop so if someone then put those coordinates in to find out where it was in their excitement and then they realized they'd been fooled and i hadn't actually done the hot drop they would still think oh yeah the pole of inaccessibility do i know what that is do i not know what it is should i read a bit about what it is why did you choose that place i felt like there was like discussion to be had it wasn't just haha i made you look. Don't you feel silly? It was, oh yeah, it's an interesting place.

Or I know that place. Oh yeah, that would be the place to do the golden hot drop. I'm not justifying it, but I do think it wasn't, I wasn't just making people feel duped. It was like, oh yeah, of course. Yeah. Cool place for it. That is where you'd put the golden hot stopper. Yeah.

I'll give that to you. You were not engendering the feeling of stupidness in people. Yeah. But that falls astray in my mind of a different problem, which is like the brief excitement crushed. Yeah. And time wasted. And I did waste time. The time there is relatively minimal. Like I'll give you a pass on that. All right.

But I think it's more like, my God, is is the race on is there going to be an indiana jones style hunt across the world for the golden hot stopper that would be amazing and then it's like oh no it's a joke okay let me ask you this yeah i haven't seen it did you at least photograph yourself like the old lady in Titanic holding it out over the water so that it would seem like a possible drop? No, it was like in a place that you wouldn't be able to identify, but it was like in a pot plant sort of thing. It was on the, you know. Oh, oh no. It should have been over water, Brady. It should have been over water. Okay. You're right. You're right.

I didn't commit that much time to it. I think I might have wondered if you put in the wrong coordinates. There's what I did. And you're right. It probably would have been better if I'd... Oh, yeah. What is this? This is what, like over a path in your garden or something?

It's done now. It's done. You did get 12 retweets. I hope it was worth it, Brady. Oh, building the brand brand i don't know i'm like now i like the idea of having some global 80 days around the world challenge and hunt for the hot stopper with clues spread everywhere but that sounds like a lot of work and also that hot stopper belongs in a museum this episode of Hello Internet is brought to you in part by Away,

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thanks to Away for making travel much easier. I'm such a grump. I know I'm a grump. And actually, I'm in a really good mood tonight. Are you a grump? I don't think of you as a grump, Brady. That's not how I think of you. Well, there's something else I'm a grump. And actually, I'm in a really good mood tonight. Are you a grump? I don't think of you as a grump, Brady. That's not how I think of you. Well, there's something else I'm annoyed by. I mean, you've come to the right place. You know how they're always finding water on Mars, right? Right, of course. Water on Mars, water on Mars. Oh, my goodness. Another story about water on Mars.

And Voyager has left the solar system. Yes. Yes, yet again, the Voyager has left the solar system. I've realized there's another new story that seems to come up all the time. Like, it just seems like a perennial story. Is this not sorted? Why are we still having this story reported? Okay.

And that is re-measuring the exact height of Mount Everest. Oh, yeah? There's always some project or team or group of people who want to definitively once and for all measure the true exact height of Mount Everest. And of course it has to be Mount Everest because no one cares about the heights of the other mountains. This is always the one. So I've seen in the news this week that a Nepalese team is going to measure Mount Everest. Amid concerns it may have shrunk following the recent earthquake in Nepal. But it's all about how there's never been like a Nepalese team that has measured the

exact height of Mount Everest. So the time has come. Nepal is sending a group of expert climbers to remeasure the heart of Mount Everest today. By the way, there's no suggestion that it's not the highest mountain in the world. I was about to say that the word concern in that article there, I cannot muster up within me concern for a mountain. I don't have that emotionally within me. And it's like, that must mean the next highest mountain is really close in height and maybe it's shrunk, but that's not the thing either. So this is all just an excuse.

And this is once they successfully reach the summit, they will use a new global navigation satellite system that can send readings about its height to their colleagues at Basecamp. They're basically just getting to the top and then using satellites. That sounds like someone wanted to climb Everest, but they needed to use their business expense account to do it, right? Like, oh, this is for science. We've got to get to the top. It's got some huge budget, this project.

They believe the device will allow them to accurately measure the height of Everest to the centimeter, putting any uncertainty firmly to rest. Centimeter? Okay, maybe I'm an idiot here, but surely annual temperature changes must cause Everest to expand or contract more than a centimeter. And also, I'm pretty sure there's like snow at the top. There is rock. I guess they're going to have to dig down through a bit of snow to the rock. Yeah, measure from the rock. I don't know exactly how they decide the highest bit of rock. And the highest bit of rock presumably is like a millimeter higher than the bits of

rock to the left and the right of it. And if someone's always wanting to touch that point, put their GPS on that point, is that getting chipped at? And like, I don't know. Or I'm thinking like when you walk on the beach and you see those guys who just balance a little tower of rocks at the top, you know, surely someone's going to do that on top of Everest. I need to know, but it has to be true that there's thermal expansion and contraction

of Everest. That can not be true if I know anything about physics. And I'd be shocked to hear if the tolerance on that is less than a centimeter. That has to be the case. You'd think something as big as Mount Everest would even be affected by like the moon and tides because there are tides in land. So surely it's being pulled up and pushed down as the moon does the business too. Yeah. This sounds like a ridiculous boondoggle. That's what this is like. They just, they just, oh, we need to buy a new satellite. We wanted to climb to the top of Everest. How can we expense these to the local university or whatever? That's

what this sounds like to me. That's what I think this is. Yeah. Although as you're mentioning one about Everest, I just realized I can think of another one of these routine stories. It's not as frequent, but it is, it's one that I've come across on occasion and it's earliest signs of humans at location X, whatever it is. So there's always like, I feel like in America in particular, it feels like every couple of years, there's a new story about how like, oh, we thought people came to America 10,000 BC, but we're pretty sure we've just found bones from 15,000 BC or 20,000 BC. That's the one that feels like I come across that every once in a while. Like we're always going to keep pushing this number back of like someone is always claiming that they found like the oldest human remains at a particular location. It feels like one that comes up every once in a while as well.

Yeah, that one doesn't float my boat either as a story. I mean, you know, space things and Mount Everest things obviously are like right in my wheelhouse. I am interested in these subjects, but I don't get too into like early humans. I'm more interested in people who would like from about two or 300 years ago, because I always wonder how much like me they were. Whereas the people like in 20,000 BC, I'm pretty sure they weren't much like me. So what do you mean? Like how much was a 1700s Australian like Brady? Is that what you're asking? Were there people in Australia in 1700? I mean, like, you know, convicts,

when did that start? Obviously the Aboriginals were there since 250,000 BC, but... Late 1700s, 1788, like. Okay, 1788. So, just under the 300-year mark then. Yeah, less than 250. You think that they could be very different? Well, yeah, I just sort of wondered, like, would like would like a married couple in like the late 1700s would their relationship be like my relationships i don't know i always wonder how different life was because you know how you're you know you watch like a western right and it

seems like people living in the wild west all they care about is not getting shot and drinking whiskey but you know presumably they had other things like they would argue over doing the dishes, or they would have banal like, oh, I must paint that door at some point, or like, I want to get some idea of what the minutiae of life was like then and how much it was like life now, or was it more? I mean, I would suspect in the West in particular, there were a lot of minutiae concerns around horses. People were like, oh, I need to put a fresh coat of paint on this horse. And then the guy in the saloon is like, is the horse bigger when you

put the paint on it? Yeah, obviously, you idiot. Of course it's bigger. But did they kiss the same way? Things like that. I know that seems silly, but it's like, I don't know, just all that kind of stuff. How different was their life? To pin down this question, you're thinking in terms of daily life and cultural differences. If you took a baby born in 1700 into the modern day, no one would ever know, right? Is that a presupposition that you would have? Maybe it's more if I went back, how easy would I find it to fit in? I don't know. I just think about it. I think you would not fit in at all. You may be battle-tested and hard as nails, but I think the 1700s would defeat you very quickly.

It's things like day-to-day life. Like, when we think about something that we were not part of, say World War II in the UK, when there was rationing and there were air raids and everyone was worried about being bombed and that, You kind of think that they were living through all this time, all these years, just every night waiting for a bomb to land on them and being hungry, right? Like this time of suffering and fear. Yeah. But like during that time, life was still going on. Like people were still like, you know, sometimes were getting married and there were still shops. And like, so there was some semblance of life going on. But that stuff is, you know, sometimes we're getting married and there were still shops. And like, so there was some semblance of life going on.

But that stuff is, you know, forgotten, perhaps almost rightly because of the significance of the other things that were happening. But that makes me more curious about it. Like, what was normal life like even during World War II if you weren't, you know, having to fight the war? Like, what was their life like? Was there ever normalness? I'm thinking of when my wife and I watch Escape to the Country, like the old people that we are, they often talk about like, oh, the local history of this village, you know, and because it's England, they're like, oh, in the 1400s or whatever, you know, things that are 20,000 years ago. And sometimes they will mention like what a person did or things that seem to be like, oh, this local person's hobby was turned into like a museum.

You know, for example, there was an episode that happened to contain like, oh, if you go into this town, this manor has a museum that's a display of this tremendous seashell collection that this noble woman had at the time. You know, it's like the world's most boring program. And my wife and I often have the same comment, which is even these little like insights into anything that's remotely like normalcy a long time ago makes it seem like the world was incredibly boring if you could live a life of leisure right so like if you were an upper class person you just had nothing to do like in the jane austen novels like why do they all make each other's lives miserable it's like well because they have nothing else to do but gossip about the neighbors all day long like it just seems like

there's nothing there and then if you're a poor person, I wonder how much of anything that feels like a normal life is pushed out just entirely through the drudgery. You know, I was seeing a show which was just talking recently about how long it takes to hand wash clothes, you know, before a washing machine came along. And it's like, my God, you don't even really think about it. yeah it's like my god you don't even really think about it but it's like oh of course even when you account for people had fewer clothes

keeping clothes clean is an enormous time-consuming task so i don't know i just i tend to kind of assume that as you go backwards in time you have this weird disparity of like nothing to do or no time at all because you just your life is filled with the drudgery of survival but i could be totally wrong i suspect we're falling into a trap there because it's the things that we know are different about them right like you know they had to spend ages washing their clothes right so you suddenly think that was like a massive part of their life but maybe they had more in common with us than like did the guys building the pyramids complain about their boss would they go

home and say i worked really well today and you know what my supervisor said nothing or you know barry he was slacking off all day today and i was the one that had to lift all those big blocks and well like did they have a normal life would they go for beers afterwards and like talk about their day or like was the guy building the pyramid on the left sleeping with the wife of the guy building the sphinx like things that are just like normal to us like you know the minutiae of human life we just erase that from those people and think all they did was pick up blocks and build pyramids all they did was wash clothes or all they did was collect seashells. And I don't know, I'd like to just go and see how much it was like today or how different it was.

If you're wondering if people gossiped and bitched about how much work other people did in the group, I guarantee you that goes back tens of thousands of years. For sure, someone's going like, oh, thag. He never participates in the hunt. He just eats the meat. What a lazy guy. And I know they occasionally will find like a hieroglyph where someone says, you know, I hate Barry. He's got a big nose or something. And that's like the most exciting thing they ever find. I read this book so long ago. So I don't know if it's held up over time. But I remember liking it, you know, when I was a teenager. Book called Grooming Gossip and the Evolution of Language.

The central thesis of which was like humans invented language to be able to complain and gossip about other humans. So I think at least that part of life probably goes back a very long time. What's this black hole image I'm seeing everywhere all over the internet brady what is this well gray this was cheer pressure turned up to 11 okay you know what before you say anything i'm glad to hear that because sometimes i just have this feeling about something and again like on YouTube, suddenly I saw that like every thumbnail in the world was this black hole and some like newspapers, the headlines were about this black hole. And there's something about this where it's like, wait a minute, why is this everywhere? All of a sudden that throws up my defenses. And I feel

like incredibly resistant. Like when a dog puts down its paws and it's like, I'm not walking any further. I've sort of avoided this. I'm very interested to hear you say that you felt like it was a cheer pressure story. Cause I had this like suspicion about this. Yeah. I mean, my tweet deck, when the image was released, I swear there were more images of that black hole in my tweet deck than there are actual black holes in the universe. It was amazing. It was everywhere. I don't know how frequent black holes are. Maybe that's actually literally true. No, they're pretty frequent. I mean, they reckon there's probably a supermassive one at the center of every galaxy. So that's already loads. Plus you've got stellar ones. How many galaxies can there be, Brady?

There's quite a few. And then you've got stellar black holes just like dotted around galaxies too. So there's quite a few of them. So my joke stands. Okay. But so what is so special about this one? Well, the thing I found interesting about this was you knew it was coming. Like they announced this press conference like a week in advance. It was like the release of a movie. There's going to be a big announcement from this Event Horizon project. They didn't even say what the announcement was, but everyone knew it was going to be an image of a black hole because that was kind of the point of this project. Yeah. I mean, the project is called Event Horizon. It gives you some clues about what

direction it's in. So, they'd used all these radio telescopes around the world as a giant interferometer with, you know, essentially the diameter of the Earth to get this incredible resolution. And they pointed it as such at the supermassive black hole at the centre of the Milky Way. And also they pointed it at the centre of Messier 87, which is a big, quite interesting galaxy far, far away. And everyone thought they were going to release an image of the supermassive black hole at the centre of the Milky Way, but they didn't get as good a picture of that. But the one at the centre of M87, they did get a better image of, I should say.

But there was all this hype and build-up beforehand, which I found really weird for, like, a science announcement. It seemed kind of unscientific to be hyping it and building it up and have all these synchronized press conferences. There was something a little bit less dignified than what I'd expect. As a slight side point here, I'm curious though, because as being the science communicator that you are, I feel like I have heard you promote the idea that there should be like more of a story when communicating

science and it shouldn't just be about the results does this not fit into that idea that it's like we're letting you know that something big is coming and then we're telling you it instead of just dumping the photo out i mean that's never what i've meant by that okay i think that's a whole separate issue okay i've never thought they should like, you know, hype things up like that. I don't know. I guess I'd have a resistance to hype. I mean, whatever. It just feels strange to have the results and then sit on them strategically,

like to try and get your best possible coverage. I guess it's just the obvious transparentness of them trying to play the game and fair enough they do have to play the game and that is something i have said before so maybe that's what you're getting at and you've kind of got me there like but it was just so obvious the way they were playing the game you know we mustn't have leaks and they were really they ran a really tight ship and no one could find out about it beforehand and this is the day it's going to be released and this is the, you know, it was such a strategic thing to get maximum media coverage and you like to think somehow they're not, but you like to think scientists are somehow above that and this just made it obvious that they're not above that because they were totally playing the game.

Yeah, just to be clear, I'm not trying to get you on that. I just, I'm just sort of like, you know, because like scientists genuinely, and especially in the modern world where everything is trying to soak up people's attention, it does often feel like science is fighting to even of the stars at the very center of the Milky Way and they showed that they moved dramatically fast towards the center and then suddenly loop around and they're all it's obvious when you see this famous animation that there's something invisible at the center yeah that all these stars and that was like at last there we go that's the smoking gun at last we've shown yeah i remember that very well it's still an awesome animation i love it so i before the image was released i was sort of saying to the scientists so how is this different you? Am I actually going to see a black hole then? I didn't think you could see a black hole. That was the whole point. You didn't think you were allowed. I like that. The universe does not allow you to see this black hole.

Yeah. But then the astronomers were sort of saying to me, well, yeah, that's true. You're still not going to see it, but you're going to see the stuff around it. And I'm like, well, I've already seen that, haven't I, through the stars. And obviously what they released was different because now what we're seeing is stuff closer to the black hole, you know, the actual gas that's swirling around the black hole itself. And so it is different, but it did feel a little bit like we're still not seeing the black hole. We're still seeing what's around the black hole.

We're just going a level closer to what's, you know. And I can imagine in 10 years, there's going to be some new image of a black hole that usurps this one. And that's going to be the first time we've really seen a black hole. Like I can just see this happening again. I feel like there are further levels

that they're going to take this down and we're going to forever be seeing the first images of a black hole of some sort or another. But don't get me wrong. further levels that they're going to take this down and we're going to forever be seeing the first images of a black hole of some sort or another. But don't get me wrong, I thought it was a pretty cool image. I did make a video about it on 60 Symbols. The Duke from Venezuela made excellent videos about it, which I definitely recommend watching. He was really smart because he made one the day before it came out. He said, this is probably what you're going to see tomorrow. So he really cashed in there because to be fair,

it also was a fantastic video. So it would have been a good video any day of the week, but he released it at a very smart time. But Derek, he's not just pretty, he's also clever. So he was trying to catch the wave before it really got up. He did. And he did another one after the image came out. He did great stuff. Oh, even better. Now he gets twice as many views for the one topic. Two bites of the cherry. I couldn't be there. So, I actually had to send someone else along to film it for me and then have it all sent to me via like Dropbox and edit it all that night. But I was quite quick. I got it out quite quick as well. So, I did try to catch the last remnants of the wave. So don't get me wrong.

I was, you know, playing the game too. And it was an awesome image. It was an awesome image. I thought it was a bit more worthy of the cheer pressure than some other things have been. Yeah. Have you seen it? What do you think of the image? Yeah, I've just loaded it up.

I don't know. This is one of these moments where, like, I get it. I get why this is. It didn't know. This is one of these moments where, like, I get it. I get why this is- It didn't live up to the hype. But the problem is, there'd been so much hype about it that I was convinced it would be disappointing. And just like a few pixels, that when it finally did come out, I was like, oh, that is actually not as good as the hype, but better than what I'd convinced myself it was going to be. So it was sort of somewhere in the middle for me. Like this is a scientifically important image, right? Like I can already see it in all the

textbooks and physics textbooks talking about black holes. I mean, I would say that this counts as direct evidence as opposed to indirect evidence, the planet orbiting is even though that indirect evidence is so solid like even i in a court of law would convict based on that kind of indirect evidence like yes okay please like you know this couldn't be more clear the color's artificial which i think people quickly forget like it just didn't it didn't even occur to me it's like yeah no scientific image of space like basically just assume all the colors are artificial. When you talk about there's a press conference and there's a big PR push behind this. I don't know.

There's part of me, Brady, that sometimes wonders if it would just be better for science to try to mind its own business and not play the attention game. I totally understand why that is not actually reasonable because of funding and everything else. But I just don't know how many people something like this captures or brings on board to the team of funding science. I don't know.

I don't think it's a big deal, but I also think unless you're already pretty on the science team, it's hard to look at this image and and be impressed or understand what it is if you're watching a veritasium video about explaining the black hole like you're pretty already on the science team so i don't know i'm not poo-pooing it but i just i think like you sometimes i just feel a little strange about these kinds of things yeah i do agree with you that in the future there will be another image of a black hole that's higher resolution inevitably and i would kind of like to see the black hole at the center of

our galaxy it's like oh somebody else's black hole it's not nearly as interesting as ours they did release that one i didn't really it kind of got a bit buried but the duke's video did mention that and they showed it but it kind of because they didn't get as good an image of it, I don't think the black hole probably wasn't oriented at the best angle or something. So anyway, it does exist, but it's not as pretty as the M87 one. So be it. Black holes. Stay far away. I mean, they are awesome. Don't get me wrong. That's as awesome as science gets but we're not trying to downplay the coolness of a black hole today's episode has been brought to you by hover the premium domain registrar

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speaking of cool space should we talk about star? You put into our show notes, new Star Wars trailer. You. Well. Finger on the pulse. I only put this in as a very minor thing. Because I remember, whatever it is, 10 years ago now, when the new Star Wars movie came out. The first of the new Star Wars movie came out, the first of the new trilogy. And I was going to go into it perfectly cold,

have a pure experience. But I had started a podcast with a friend of mine and he insisted, no, you have to watch it live on the podcast even though you don't want to, even though we all know this will make your experience worse. You have to watch it live. And I cannot remember with the second of the new trilogy, was it Last Jedi?

Yeah, Last Jedi. I honestly cannot remember if I watched the trailer beforehand or not. Yeah. But with this one, when I saw it come up in my recommended feed, I just went, oh, I clicked and I watched it immediately. And that is the behavior that I have for movies that I really don't care at all about. I was just, I was so aware of it. It just caught me in a really funny way that I just, I clicked.

I didn't have a second's hesitation about should I watch this or not to preserve my Star Wars watching experience. I was just like, click, I'll watch this trailer. Okay, I'll see it. Seeing it feels to me as inevitable as the arrival of Thanos. And it's like, yeah, okay. This is just a thing. It's just a thing in the universe. But I feel like I've kind of couched this movie in my mind as this is the last one I have to care about. Yes. And I'm off the hook. Yes. Yeah.

Yes. 100% Brady. I had that exact same feeling of like, this is the last time I have to. Even though I don't care about it, this is the last one I have to. Like I'm obliged to care about oh that's amazing i'm so glad i feel that way yeah oh okay all right so i assume you watched the trailer as well i have watched the trailer i didn't like seek it out in fact i think what happened was there were lots of stills from it in my instagram okay there were lots of pictures of

the woman who plays what What's her name? Ray. She's good. I think she's a really good actress. But anyway, so I was seeing lots of pictures of her holding a lightsaber and I was like, why is it her birthday today or something? Why am I seeing so many pictures of her? Right.

Daisy Ridley. Is it May the 4th? Anyway, yeah, I thought it must be her birthday. And then I realised, oh, no, these are stills from a trailer. There's a new trailer out. So I swiped or pressed or did whatever I had to do and watched it. I watched it once. And then my wife heard the laughing at the end and went, oh, that sounds really familiar.

Can you play it again for me? So I played the laugh at the end. And then she's like, oh, yeah, that's what it is. It sounds just like the laugh from Thriller. Okay. Right. Yeah. I could see that and then i watched

it again quickly before this episode just to get myself up to speed so i've watched it two and a half times what are your impressions brady my impression is that isn't it amazing what a template pro forma cliche all these teaser trailers for star wars films have to follow now like there has to be sound with no picture yeah like just like breathing or some sound and then suddenly a hard cut to a bright stark picture from the blackness yeah i was trying to think like did they recreate the opening shot from the first trailer where um the stormtrooper the stormtrooper pops up yeah it's like if i was like was that shot for shot the same i have no idea but i wouldn't be surprised if it was and then you have to very early on have a little like a cliche star wars

sound like tie fighter sound or a shot of a lightsaber and then you have to have meaningful voiceover saying something that is supposed to be really important but it's totally forgettable like you know we are all born with a one destiny and yeah they could be saying anything and you wouldn't it doesn't matter as long as it sounds like like wisdom yeah like it's faux wisdom. You have to have some of that. And then you have to have some extraordinary visual effect that everyone's just going to go, whoa. In this case, it was like her doing some back cartwheel over a spaceship in slow motion. In another one, it was like, you know, the Millennium Falcon doing some loop-de-loop and then you have to have lots of really really fast fast clips that everyone's going to pause and pour over every detail without knowing anything that's going on and then you have to suddenly have a shot of total mega nostalgia and this time it was like Lando Calrissian

previously it's been Greyhound solo and things like that it's this complete template and this followed it like beat for beat for me what you're saying there it makes me think of there's a great video on youtube called how to make a blockbuster movie trailer right and it does this it's going through all of the classic tropes yeah but what's great is that the video is nothing but white text on a black background. And it simply says what is in the movie, right? So it's like black opener. Sound that you hear that you know, right? And then it's like shot of main character.

And it's like, it's totally true. Like the Star Wars one follows it absolutely perfectly. The only thing that this video does, which I absolutely love, is they're like serious remake of a classic pop song right so you know that it's like a dramatic movie yeah honest to god i saw that trailer and i swear it like fell right out of my brain like i could barely remember anything about it except the two things that annoyed me like i just don't care like the magnitude of my inability to care is amazing and i feel like you and me brady we've been on this this amazing star wars journey together

lo these many years and i would not have expected it to end in an apathy all consuming i would have assumed the most probable outcome would be like i'd hate it as much as the prequels you know and now it is this feeling of like oh we're almost free like we're almost free of this thing and i just have to watch it again don't get me wrong i am kind of looking forward to it like if i was seeing it tomorrow night i would be pleased like i am looking forward to watching it but i do feel like it's like, and then I'm free. And that's funny because some of these like interloper ones that have like just like sat on their own, like that solo one,

I've quite liked. So I am thinking there will be ones I quite like in the future, but this feels like this is the last one that matters. Yeah. And this is the last one that if it's be it good or be it crap, that matters because it's part of the nine. And there are like three good ones and then there were three bad ones. And then there's this sort of mixed bag since. This is the last one that goes on your permanent record.

Yes. Yes. That's an excellent way to put it. This is the last one on the permanent record. Yeah. Where it's like, oh yes, for 30 years, we've been hearing this totally made up story that there was always intended to be three trilogies, right? And now it's like, oh, it's finally all finished.

What did you like or not like about the trailer then, Gray? Oh, again, I can't really remember anything that I liked. You can rewatch it if you like. I'm happy to wait for one minute. It's not even the length of a wax cylinder episode. Actually, no, it almost exactly is. It's two minutes. It almost is exactly the length of a wax cylinder episode. Oh yeah, that's right. That's right. Because the reason I don't remember anything is 50% of it is just Rey in the desert and there's a TIE fighter that's chasing her.

I do like her outfit her clothes look cool brady's giving props to the wardrobe people yeah hold on wardrobe people i'll tell you this the only thing that i still have a genuine emotional reaction to that haven't beaten out of me yet is the sound of the tie fighter shooting and i think partly because i spent so many hours pretending to be a tie fighter pilot as a child, you know, in video games. It's like the TIE laser sounds still get me. The score, when the score rouses partway through and finally lifts, you know, and it goes full John Williams. Just after she does the cartwheel and it goes this Christmas and the full music comes in, then you're like, oh, yeah, man.

He nailed the music that guy yes but that's just cheating because you know music is emotional manipulation that's what it is it's like a sequence of sounds that hacks your brain into glitching into an emotion like that's what music does and so like i don't even i don't even count that so i'm just like what am i going to give this trailer i'm going to to give it the Thai laser sounds, which I still like and have this emotional reaction to. But I mostly don't care. But then also, it's just like there's two things. I was like, oh, no.

The first one, I should have known that it was inevitable, but it still made me sad, was seeing Lando on the screen for a moment. Yeah. It just kills me because I've always totally loved Lando slightly fat Lando yeah and that's like part of what it is is like Luke and Leia and Han getting older I'm fine with like I think it works in the trilogy as the main characters yeah but it's like I want to think of Lando as like, well, hello, hello, hello, Lando. Right. I want to think of him in Cloud City and like being this cool guy who appears and kind of mixes up the main cast a little bit.

And I've always really loved his appearance in the trilogies. And, you know, like in Solo, which was surprisingly good, we have a young Lando. That's cool. That's fine. You can do a kind of different take on Lando. But it genuinely made me sad of like, because this movie is the last required one.

I don't want you to take away the cool Lando in my brain and replace him with what is now just, oh, it's a man who's lived his life on earth and he's older now and he's older and chubby and they brought him back for a movie. And now this is also going to be in your head. It's like, oh, I think it's partly because I feel that way because it's like, unlike Leia or like Harrison Ford or even Mark Hamill, I just don't know him from anything else other than being Lando. So it's like, oh, that made me sad. It's like the late episodes of Happy Days when Fonzie sort of starts having responsibilities and being a normal person. And it's like, oh, no.

Right. That's not what I want to see. That's not what i want to see that's not what i want to see and now when you see henry winkler who's had like a successful career as a director and doing other things but when you see him as like a gray old man but he still looks like fonzie but just like old and you're like oh no no that can't happen to fonzie maybe it's because i was never very attached to fonzie but i think he totally redeemed himself in Arrested Development, which was genius when he shows up.

I didn't watch that, so I'll take the pass. I think whatever it is, the first two or three seasons of Arrested Development, the original airing of it is one of my top three comedies of all time. It's great. He's in it. He does a really good job. But yeah, it's just like old Lando. I didn't ask for this. I don't want this. And it's required, old lando i didn't ask for this i don't want this and it's required and i have to see it but of course you're gonna know what the other thing is it's the big thing in the trailer what do you think of the big thing in the trailer brady are you talking about the death star the laugh at the end oh right yeah i thought seeing wreckage of the death star was very

interesting to me yeah that's cool like i think that's interesting and cool i'm undecided yet about how i feel about it because i need a lot more context but just the notion that there's like death star wreckage is an interesting thought the laugh at the end of the trailer is ridiculous why is it ridiculous i don't know what they were thinking well it's just so hammy you know and a bit corny there's nothing good about it is it supposed to say you know palpatine's back yeah palpatine's behind it all that's what that is and that just makes me think oh let it go see it didn't occur to me but watching this trailer and when the little palpatine laugh comes at the end i totally had had this feeling of, oh, of course, of course, in the last on-record movie, they want to establish it as canon that the Emperor is back in some form.

If Palpatine is not dead, if Palpatine did not die in that shaft on the Death Star in Return of the Jedi, then my entire childhood has been completely betrayed because my existence depends on the fact that Luke Skywalker's dad finally came good and killed the Emperor. That turned years and years of thinking Darth Vader was bad and turned it around. That's his legacy. Everything that is good about my life centers on that moment when Darth Vader looks at Luke's suffering and says, I'm going to fix this and kill the Emperor. And if he didn't kill the Emperor that day, I would genuinely be devastated. Oh, my goodness. Okay.

Okay. Wait. Now, that's brilliant, Brady. What are your feelings on Force Ghost Emperor? Well, no, I'm not happy with that either, because it feels like the one reward you get for being on the good side, the light side, is you get to be a Force Ghost. It's like heaven. And if the baddies also get to have their own heaven, because obviously, if they're in hell, they wouldn't be able to, you know, do able to do stuff, have agency in the galaxy.

If being on the dark side means you also get to go and run amok in ghost world, then what's the point of even being on the good side? Like that's the reward. The blue light and living forever is your reward for making the right decision. You can't have bad force ghosts oh i'm pretty sure that bad force ghosts are canon in the star wars universe though okay okay i'm pretty sure that they are in like one of the tv shows or something don't talk to me about something in some book or tv show yeah no no i'm with you 100 of like books and tv shows whatever i'm not interested like the movies that would count but because it's disney running a whole show about some book yeah

like yeah i'm totally not interested but it's i think it does open the door to them having force ghost palpatine that's like yeah we do this elsewhere and now again we're just going to get it on the official record right before the end. And as we learned in the last movie, Force ghosts can call down lightning from the sky. Like they can interact with the world. I never really thought about like, what is the afterlife? Like what is the metaphysics of the Star Wars universe?

I mean, that's the end of Return of the Jedi, isn't it? The end of Return of the Jedi, we see Anakin Force Ghost, and it's like, oh, phew, at the last minute, he redeemed himself. So, he got to have a Force Ghost. He got to have the blue glow. Otherwise, he would have been condemned to Star Wars hell. I feel like I never really articulated that in my head, but obviously, that's the thing. I just never really thought about it in such clear terms that the bad guys don't get force ghosts. They're just dead. I've got another question about metaphysical like Star Wars heaven. If you're a good person and lead a good life, but you're not a Jedi, do you not get to have like happily ever after eternal life? What happens to people after they

die if they're good, but they're not a Jedi. Right. You're asking, is there heaven in general in the Star Wars universe? Yeah. Like, because they've established there is heaven for Jedis. Do only Jedis get heaven? That would be like going to church and being told, and the priest saying, I get to go to heaven, but all of you parishioners don't. Can you imagine? That like religion wouldn't work anymore if that was the rules. It would fall apart very quickly. Although, I'm not sure I really agree with your concept that they are in force ghost heaven.

They're not in heaven, right? Yeah. What are they? They're force ghosts. They live in the exposition dimension where they can come in and tell you stuff. Well, they're obviously having some degree of eternal consciousness because they're conscious. Yeah. Or do they live in the subconscious of the person looking at them? Maybe they don't even exist and you're just imagining them. No, no, no. Again, they're there, you know,

because they can burn down your Jedi library. You know, they're real. They have agency in the world. Yeah, that's true. They can come back one more time just to laugh at you and cause you problems and make fun of you for not reading a book. Reveal family secrets. Yeah. The more I'm thinking about it, the more Force Goes Heaven actually sounds like a Black Mirror Hell. It's like, wait a minute, you're around. Do you have eternal life now, but just as a force ghost? And what do you do? You just hang out and you wait for things to happen? Can you ever not cease existing as a force ghost

when the universe comes to an end, or are you stuck like this forever now? Again, in the Star Wars universe, death is preferable to being a force ghost. It's cool for the first 15 minutes, and then it gets boring really fast. And also, if being a force ghost is good, like, you know, it's a nice existence, that makes Obi-Wan's act of self-sacrifice on the death star seem less noble doesn't it like he's like yeah well go on strike me down then i'll be a force ghost and won't have to hobble around in the desert anymore although again i think it's uh is qui-gon jinn is the first one who becomes a force ghost because i think that's i

think that's the way that works so there's actually not very many of them that's right oh those prequels they announced something yeah didn't yeah qui-gon jinn like invented force ghost yeah yeah yeah again they got that in i think it was at like the 11th hour of the third prequel where they're like oh hey by the way qui-gon jinn's around he's figured out a cool trick let me tell you about it he's working on it he's working on something. Yeah. But you think of all of those Jedis who got slaughtered in the prequels and, you know, Qui-Gon figured out something.

It's like, hey, why don't we have an afterlife? That would be way better. Yeah. Will it though? It won't be if you're stuck around for all of eternity after the stars have blinked out of existence and the black holes have radiated away to nothing. Like, that's not going to be any fun whatsoever. Yeah.

Then they'll be, then they'll be going, but he quite got into it. Yeah. What a jerk. Everything was fine until then. Yeah. I don't know. I just like, if I'm trying to put odds on it, I give it near 100% odds that the emperor is back in some form.

60% space ghost, 30 30 he just totally lived 10 something really dumb that i can't think of there's some sort of brexit thing going on here isn't there where we don't we don't know exactly how he exited the films right yeah but he's like he's gonna be back you know you know 10 we'll divide that up like five percent chance is a clone. There's an emperor clone who just happens to be exactly the same. Brother. Yeah, that's exactly where I was going to go, his brother. Oh, I never told you, I had an identical twin brother who I was training as my replacement. You know, something dumb.

We were separated at birth. Yeah. He's growing up on a desert planet. For sure, he's coming back. And it's just like... What did you think of the laugh itself then, Gray? Like as a dramatic moment in the trailer? It's silly.

I think they should have had him say something. I mean, look, here's what you should do. If you want to bring back the goddamn emperor, it should be a surprising moment in your film that shocks people. If you're, say, trying to achieve an artistic goal of, oh God, everything that we've ever fought for has been for nothing. And this war will continue on forever because the mouse will never let it stop. Like, you can make that like a dramatic moment in your film, but if what you actually want to do is, after a disappointing previous movie, try to make sure that everybody buys a ticket to this movie. You want to have emperors in it.

Hey, everybody, the emperor. You remember him. The best part of the prequels, he's in this, and he's laughing, and he's being evil, and the emperor is great. So come see this movie because the emperor's in this and he's laughing and he's being evil and the emperor is great so come see this movie because the emperor is in it it's a bit like you wouldn't end a teaser trailer for the empire strikes back with like the final moment as the screen fades to black having darth vader's voice going no luke i am your father yes yes that's exactly right like you'd sell a bunch of tickets with that trailer but it's like oh, you've robbed the movie of everything that it could possibly be. What do you think of the name The Rise of Skywalker? but in the first movie, they don't call them the rebels. They keep calling them the resistance.

And I found that really annoying, but it makes sense like, oh, we can't have the rebels because we used to have the rebels. But the long-term plan, I'm convinced, was always to get them back to calling them the rebels again. And I can't remember what stupid nonsense happened in the previous movie, but they eventually did like the linguistic change of like, oh, we're not a resistance anymore. This is the rebirth of the rebellion. Right.

So like, okay, we can just use the word that we actually want to use. My suspicion is rise of Skywalker is going to be some, some kind of sneaky way to get the Jedi back. That like Skywalker becomes the title of the head of a new school of jedi or something like this is what this feels like to me it's like oh we said there's no more jedi but obviously because we're disney and we own this intellectual property and the war has

to go on forever we just want there to be jedi and sith forever we need some way to bring this back so that's what i think this is what do you think well my problems with a twofold one is it's a bit like not another you know return of attack of like you know it's like okay is this how we name the films all right now we're rising of yeah no no no, no. Star Wars Episode IX, you know, reloaded. My other problem is you have to remember this is not a prequel. This is like, you know, after what's come before. So, is Anakin going from desert boy to run-of-the-mill Jedi to basically second in charge of the Empire? Like, that strikes me as a rise of a Skywalker. And then Luke going from farm boy to twice defeating the Empire,

like, also strikes me as a pretty impressive rise of a Skywalker. I feel like we've already had the rise of Skywalker. I don't feel like there's any more rising for Skywalkers to do. I feel like the Skywalkers have peaked. What more can happen? I mean, I don't know what happens in the film. Maybe they're going to do something even greater, but I feel like the Skywalkers have risen. The Skywalkers have like, they've made their mark. They don't need to rise.

Yeah. I don't know. Like I've got my money is banked on some kind of Skywalker school, right? Or like Skywalker title. Ah, right. Okay. So so it becomes like the Nobel Prize. Yes, that's right. That's right. You get the Skywalker medal because we see the medal, don't we, at the being fondled at some point in the trailer,

you know, the New Hope medal, presumably, that they get presented with. Okay, if there is a medal being handled, I bet $1,000 right now it's for Chewie. I just think they're having an objectivity moment where they're like saying oh look here's the medal that luke and han and chewy won back in a new hope thanks keith very possible very possible when's the film out christmas so are we going to do it this christmas can we do a review that's what i was just wondering when

are we finally released and we have released this this Christmas. That is Disney's Christmas present to us. Freedom. And we're not committing to what physical format the episode will be released on. Yeah, that's true. That's true. We're releasing it in a holograph form. This episode of Hello Internet is brought to you in part by Ting. Ting is the mobile phone service that does things differently

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And again, since the average bill is only $23 a month, that's basically one month free. So make the smarter choice for mobile. Get $25 off your phone bill at hi.ting.com. hi.ting.com, hi.ting.com. Thanks to Ting for supporting the show. So Gray, I know you haven't been following the news much lately, but I don't know if this one pierced your bubble. Have you heard of the great Brady Haran office reorganization of 2019? No, I have not heard of the great office reorganization of 2019. I would like to know more. Six day project. I basically just got sick of, like my office goes through boom and bust cycles

of how tidy it is. But underneath it was getting away from me. Like even when it was tidy, psychologically, I knew the cupboards and the drawers and everything weren't truly organized. And it was like a plaque in my brain. It was like, oh, it was just annoying me too much. So I said, that's it. I'm not working for a few days and I'm going to go deep with the office reorganization. Threw away loads and loads of stuff, shredded loads of stuff, put lots of stuff off to my storage unit. It was epic. And now every morning when i come up into my office to start working it's just like oh it's beautiful it's like a sound of music moment or something i half expect julie andrew to be up here and talking to me like fantastic oh that's very exciting brady it's made me so happy

this makes me think that the brady office move is much less likely of a thing to happen. That's gone into a holding pattern for various reasons. Oh, okay. The main reason was the one place that I was considering as an option for an office to move to. The person who was running it, who was selling the office space, just struck me as incompetent. And that lost me. Because I emailed and said, I want to come and have a look at some space and then that night he emailed me and said it was good to meet you today that space that you liked is going soon so if you want to reserve it like get in quick what and i was like

i haven't i haven't been to visit you i think you've got the wrong email address this is someone else i was the guy who just wants to come and have a look and i expected to get like an apologetic email back saying, oh, sorry, that's embarrassing. What a mix up. But I had no reply at all. And I was like, oh, if that's who I'm dealing with, then yeah. That's immediate abort.

If you have that kind of interaction, you know, like, oh, this is how it's always going to be forever. But I feel like I have a new office now anyway. So it's like, it feels nice at the moment. That's really exciting to do. Like that kind of stuff is great to do of clearing it all out. Trying to make your office a smooth, well-oiled machine. I have one thing left on my desk.

Okay. That is an interesting object though. And I've been meaning to talk to you about it. Okay. Because when I bought my new ipad recently and i texted you and i said do i get the keyboard with it do i get an apple pencil you know and i was asking you what specs i should get in that right you told me to get the apple pencil yes so i've got my apple pencil here sitting in its box like the box is open but it sits in the box like as a ceremonial holder. Do you know what? I have not used it one time.

It has never even touched the screen of my iPad. Not even once. That was a bum steer. No, no, no. I don't know what you want me to do with this information. Because it sounds like you're trying to blame this on me. I gave you bad advice. And all I'm hearing is, I bought a thing and i never used it why did you tell me to buy this thing that i

have not used because i thought its use would just like be self-evident okay but but there's never a time when i'm on my ipad thinking oh you know what i need now like another device it's just that i could lose. You will. Don't play this. God damn it, Brady. But you knew me, right? You already like, you knew a lot about how I worked. No, don't try.

No, don't try to turn this around on me. I feel like you're. When you advised me to get it, when you advised me to get it. Yeah. In your imagination, when you were like imagining Brady using it, what was he using it for? He was using it to touch things on the screen. Like everyone I know who has an Apple Pencil uses it.

So in which application was he touching the screen? All applications. Like email, if he was writing an email or... Well, if you're writing an email, you would use the keyboard. Well, tell me which application would I use the pen in? All of them. So press the buttons. Netflix?

Yeah, I use the pen in Netflix. of them. So press the buttons. Netflix? Yeah, I use the pen in Netflix. You can use it to press the buttons. If you're on the sofa watching something on Netflix and you're like, oh, I'm just going to pause this for a minute to make a coffee, you will pause it with the pen. Look, I'll pause it with my finger, but the initial browsing stage, for sure, the pencil is in my hand. You browse with the pen?

Yeah. As you're swiping up and down and left and right to like... Yeah, 100%. Listen, listen, let me just get this out. Okay. So insanity. No, I feel like you're a person... Is this a hygiene thing, Gray?

No, it's 2000... God damn it. No, it's 2007 and like smartphones have just come out on the market. And you're a person who's bought an iPhone and you've left it in the box. And what you're saying is, oh, my phone is perfectly good. I don't know why I would use this. I can't explain to you why you would use this if you haven't touched it, if you haven't

used it. See, you bring yourself unstuck there because what I thought you were about to say is what brings you unstuck. Remember when digital phones and that first did come out and you would have little styluses with them that you would like insert into a slot. And you look at retro films of people using the first digital phones and they're all using those little styluses. Yeah, like Palm Pilots and stuff. Yeah. And then suddenly someone realized this is ridiculous.

Why, you know, that's the old way. That's how paper and pencils work. Now we can just use our fingers. It's less to carry around. That's the old way. That's how paper and pencils work. Now we can just use our fingers. It's less to carry around. It works just as well. And so we ditched them because we realized they were silly. And now it feels like they're coming back for no reason. Well, again, the technological difference between the styluses of 15 years ago and now is enormous. So as someone who has used old styluses and apple pencils like i will tell you they are basically fundamentally different things aside from the idea that you're pointing at a screen like they're just very different okay great let's before we get

onto that because all right i accept that if i was an artist i could see the use for the pen right what do you think i'm doing beautifully sketching stick figures on my iPad? Let's go back to Netflix, right? Yeah. When I'm deciding what show to watch on Netflix tonight, and you are deciding what show to watch on Netflix tonight, what advantage do you have over me because you are using the pen? It's just more precise and it's more physically comfortable. Precise? You can't miss those squares on Netflix. Like they're huge. I'm trying to think of another analogy here and this analogy will not help at all. It's like a game controller versus using a keyboard and mouse when you're playing video games.

Yeah. Both of them will get the job done, but a mouse is a, it's just more precise. Okay. This is the experience with the pencil is I'm just swiping and I'm moving around and I'll use the pencil to like manipulate objects on the screen but yeah like if i'm just pausing a video that i'm in the middle of watching i'll reach out with my hand because i'm just like bam i just need to hit it anywhere in the center of the screen and it'll pause right it doesn't matter i don't even know why i'm having this conversation with you because if you don't take it out of the box and

clip it to the top so that it charges for a second and just physically use it once or twice to swipe around the screen and open up apps i don't even know why i'm trying to convince you of anything all right i guess i just don't use my ipad for many work purposes and that's the problem and i i remain unconvinced that i need more accuracy in netflix which is my main use of my iPad, to be honest. All right. I'll come back to you on this. Very frustrating. It just feels like a real dud purchase for me.

Use it. Just use it. Damn it. You can't say it's a dud purchase if you haven't even touched pencil tip to screen. I refuse to be blamed for this, Brady. I refuse. I'm still blaming you, but we'll see. To be fair, I was always resistant to Wacom tablets

and now I couldn't live without one. So, you know, and that is a similar thing. Maybe one day I'll use it. For now, it remains a entirely ceremonial object like my rowing machine. Shall we end with a Christmas card? Yes, let's end with a Christmas card. I keep them in a little space here next to my desk

so that when we want to question at the end of an episode. You have to have it nearby because, again, it's always Christmas at Hello Internet. Yeah, so I'm looking through all the ones that were sent in. Here's one. This will be quick. You have to have it nearby because, again, it's always Christmas at Hello Internet. Yeah. So, I'm looking through all the ones that were sent in. Here's one. This will be quick, but it's topical because it's about to be big time in the news. Oh, yeah.

And the question was, the person just said, I would love to hear both of you talk about Game of Thrones, A Song of Fire and Ice. Oh, my God. And they also have glitter all over this oh you bastard my nice tidy office oh perfect that's beautiful god damn it christmas is very glittery, Brady. You always have to watch out. I've always been careful about glitter with these things.

I'm not sure it came off that car to another one underneath it, but I'm covered in glitter. It's really fine glitter as well. I'm sorry, Brady. It'll never be gone. You know what? For that, we're not talking about Game of Thrones. Well, good. I've never watched an episode.

I've got to go and get a vacuum cleaner now. I'll catch you later. All right, bye.