Hello Internet - H.I. #125: The Spice Must Flow

Episode Date: June 30, 2019

Grey and Brady's discuss: Grod, the cricket world cup, #squarespacebeyond100, wax cylinder follow up, podcast faces, tipping revisited, the new awkward social thing, and vaping. Sponsors: HelloFresh: tasty recipes & fresh ingredients delivered to your door - for a total of $80 off (8 free meals in your first month) go to hellofresh.com/hellointernet80 and use promo code hellointernet80 Away: thoughtfully designed luggage for the way you actually travel - get $20 off a suitcase at awaytravel.com/hi2019 and use promo code hi2019 Audible: the largest selection of audiobooks and original audio performances anywhere - start a 30-day free trial by signing up at audible.com/hellointernet or text "hellointernet" to 500-500 Listeners like YOU on Patreon Show Notes: Discuss this episode on the reddit The Ashes Brady on screen Destin HI back catalogue on YouTube & Patreon All the wax cylinders Wax cylinder correct handling Wax cylinders in production Grey's blog: Faceless Voices Panera Reverse wireless charging Line to climb Mt Everest Goodbye Internet 125

Hey, oh great, you sound good. My parents' house is like the world's most echoey place in the whole world. Yeah, so I'm going to try to lean in real close. That's what I'm going to try to go for, instead of sounding like this. Okay, here's three claps from me. Oh, they're big. The echoes in this room help. Oh, that's the echo-ness of Chateau Grey. Yes. But I'm also holding my hands together now in a praying position because you told me that you're not running any backup recordings in case your main recording fails. So, I'm just,

I'm saying a little silent prayer to the podcast gods that people are able to hear your end of the conversation. What would podcast god be called? Just like pod? It's not a very intimidating name. No. But it's not that different from god and god's an intimidating name. Like just one letter, hey?

Yeah, but the purr sound is not as good. That's much more like... Do you think god would be more intimidating if he was called grod? Maybe. Or just grod? Maybe. Or just Grodd? Maybe. I mean, you know, the current word has a lot of historical precedent behind it.

It's got a bit of cultural currency. And just like with flags, where the design of the flag becomes inseparable from the concept of the place that it represents. What? What would God's flag be? Oh, no. It'd just be white, wouldn't it? It would just be plain white. Like, pure. It would have to be just all white god's flag i think you're right yeah i think it would have to be all white

i'm glad we've solved that problem for god in case in case god was wondering about what flag to make. Maybe he should have a vote. Great idea. So, Gray, the Cricket World Cup is on at the moment in England. Okay. So, I went to a game in Nottingham last week. Okay. I just want to say I had a great time. It's not the Ashes.

This is the other Cricket Cup? No, no, no. Okay. The Ashes is just Australia versus England, and it's also a different form of cricket. Right. The Ashes is a series of test matches, which are those five-day games. But the World Cup are these one-day games. Every time you mention cricket though, I always think of the Ashes because it's where I feel the most secure. Like, oh yes, I know that one. I know that one. It's between England and Australia. That's the one bit of lingo you can drop. Yeah. If anybody brings up cricket with lingo you can drop. Yeah.

If anybody brings up cricket with me ever, that's going to be my first question. Are you talking about the Ashes? No. No, we're not. Okay. I'm sorry. The Ashes are happening after the World Cup. So, after the World Cup, Australia are hanging around in England to play an Ashes series against England.

Oh, very exciting. So, how was your game? You enjoyed your game, Brady? Well, it was Australia playing, which was great, against Bangladesh, which 10 years ago maybe would have been seen as like a bit of a minnow game. But Bangladesh are a lot better these days. So, it was, you know, it was a really competitive game. It ended up being the highest scoring game in the history of the World Cup as well. Like when you combined all the runs the two teams scored, which was a little bit of history. Australia won the game, most importantly.

Right. Yes, that's what matters. The crowd was full of people from Bangladesh, the way outnumbering the Australians. Because there's a lot of Bangladeshis living in England and a lot came from Europe. The guy sitting next to me had come over from Finland. And it was a great time. Like, it was a really great atmosphere. And there was great, like, banter between myself and all the Bangladeshi fans as fans as we were giving each other you know a ribbing as the game ebbed and

flowed there was it was wonderful atmosphere as there often is at cricket beautiful weather it was a beautiful day okay but oh the best thing about the day was i went along with sean riley i don't think you've ever met sean but he he's the guy who makes Computerphile. He films and edits the videos and lives in Nottingham. So we went along. He's English, but he decided he was going to be an honorary Australian fan for the day, which was kind of him. And he brought with him these funny yellow hats that had this funny yellow hair on it.

Okay. Because Australia wear yellow in cricket. So we could wear these yellow funny hair and show that we're Australia fans. Like a clown wig? That's what I'm imagining in my head. Like a big puffy yellow clown hair head. That'll do. Okay. Not quite so, you know, clowny. There was a bit of subtlety to it. Okay. Anyway, as we were walking to the ground, he handed it to me and I was holding it in my hand and he was holding his in his hand. And we were like out the back behind the grandstands before we were going to go and find our seat. And this camera crew comes up to us and goes, oh, are you Australia fans?

Oh, no. And we're like, yeah, yeah. Oh, God, no, no, no. The first thing they said to us was, do your partners know you're here? Which is obviously a concern people sometimes have. And we're like, yeah, yeah, of course. Right. Okay, then.

Can you put those on for us and like do a little thing for us? And we're like, we're in a good mood. And we said, no problems. And then what they did was in cricket, one of the things you can do, it's a bit like a home run, but it's way more common. You can hit the ball all the way to the boundary and you get four runs. Or you can hit the ball over the boundary on the full and you get six runs. Okay. And whenever that happens, everyone in the crowd will cheer. It can happen, you know,

a hundred times in a game. Okay. And everyone in the crowd will hold up little signs saying four or six and wherever a batsman might get to 50 or a hundred, you can hold up little signs saying 50 or a hundred and celebrate. And they had a bunch of these little signs and they said, can you hold them and celebrate and pretend someone's just hit a four, you know, or someone's just hit a six, like just a little like five second vignette of going, yeah, like celebrating. And they said, we might use it on the screen at some point. And we're like, no problems, no problems.

So, we did these little celebrations and thought nothing more of it. And we went to our seats and then the Australian innings began. And it turned out every time a four or a six got hit, they would show one of these vignettes on the screen, but they only had about two or three in the bank and they were just using us all the time, all the time through the game on this massive screen. We must've been up there 30 times. And like the first few times everyone's sitting around us was going, oh my God, is that you guys on the screen? That's amazing. And we're like, yeah, yeah. And it was all a big joke. By the end of the day, we were sick of it. We'd been

on there so many times. It was so funny. We loved it. I thought it was great. But one of the funny things was at some point, just before the game started, I tweeted, oh, I'm at the cricket today, Australia versus Bangladesh. And someone replied on Twitter saying, oh, thank goodness. I thought I was going crazy when I kept seeing Brady up on the big screen celebrating fours. That's really good. So I'll send you some pictures. I love the idea of someone in the audience going, is that Brady? Or am I losing my mind? I'm seeing him everywhere. It's crazy. Right.

And then it keeps happening. It's not just a once, like it happens over and over again. And it's like, is that Brady? Or am I having some kind of hello internet related mental breakdown? That's amazing. So this first picture I'm sending you is when an Australian batsman called David Warner has just reached his hundred. So he's up on the big screen. So, this first picture I'm sending you is when an Australian batsman called David Warner has just reached his hundred. So, he's up on the big screen, he's holding his bat in the air,

acknowledging the crowd and celebrating as everyone cheers for him and goes crazy. That is a very big screen. And then a few seconds later, like a wipe goes across the screen and there appears Sean and I saluting David Warner, doing like a jokey salute. That's great. This is making me think of that famous Alabama football game we went to with Destin and some friends years ago. And one of the things that was quite striking about that football game

was the repetitive use of the same pieces of footage. Yes. It would be the same clip of like the angry army general yelling yeah or it'd be the same clip of elephants trampling their victims to death yeah you know like all of this stuff and now like you are that like raw raw exactly clip that's being used at the game that's exactly what we were yeah like the way things work is the first three times it's funny yeah you know for the next 50 times you're tired of it but after the 50 times it then becomes something that you need right it's like it's worked its way into your brain and so like if they keep playing this over

and over people are then just going to be expecting like we need those guys in the wig to let us know that it is this 100 or this four or the six or whatever is scored, right? Like you need it after a certain number of times. That's how things get baked into your brain. They also have lots of live footage on the screen all the time. And there are roving cameramen during the day who are going around the edge of the boundary and pointing it at a section of fans. And whenever that happens, everyone just goes completely ballistic and jumps in front of to try to get on the screen and have their moment in the sun. Right. And you see this happening.

And you know when the camera's near you, because everyone suddenly just starts acting like lunatics, trying to get their two seconds of fame. Right. And everyone's just falling over themselves to get their moment on the screen. And Sean and I, just when we were walking in at the start of the day without even like wanting it or anything, just got pulled aside. And we were on the screen just all day over and over again for like zero effort. And I did feel like there was this tiny kernel of resentment amongst the people.

Like they were saying, how did this happen? Why are you guys up there all the time? Like, when was this done? They just hadn't seen it enough times. That resentment, it would eventually turn into hate. That's how that would work. There we go. I did mention that one of the things that is most celebrated in cricket is the number 100.

So what a segue to Squarespace Beyond 100. Oh, okay. I was like, where's he going with this? Where's he going with this? Oh, I know where he's going with this. The ongoing saga, which has had major twists and turns since we last spoke. Yes. Hashtag Squarespace Beyond 100. Hashtag, why is life always so hard and complicated? That's where we currently are with Squarespace Beyond 100. What I would say initially looked like a tremendous victory

for podcast hordes became surrounded by many asterisks about what had actually changed. Doubt. Yes, doubt is a good way to put it. To bring people up to speed, Squarespace announced that they had lifted their RSS limit for podcasts. If you tabbed a certain setting behind the scenes and pressed a special button, your podcast RSS feed could now have 300 entries, 300 episodes. And while I didn't consider that winning the war, I consider that a pretty big battle victory.

Right. And while they did not acknowledge myself or Gray or Hello Internet in any of these announcements, I think we all know what was going on here. I think we all know where the impetus came from. Yeah. I think we all know exactly what happened. Because the Tims had gotten behind the campaign. And also my gratefulness to those Tims who did.

There was a lot of pressure being brought to bear on Squarespace to do this. So, they did it. And I thought, that's it. I wasn't entirely humble about it, but I was reasonably humble about it. You were reasonably humble. Okay. Yeah. I mean, to be fair, Brady, one could not be expected to be humble in this situation. I mean, I was David. I defeated Goliath. Right. Yes.

That's exactly the metaphor that came to my mind as well. Yeah. But it turns out Goliath hadn't completely fallen over. We would later learn. Yeah. So when you first told me that the limit had been lifted, I was like, yay. And then you said two, three hundred. I was like, oh.

We thought our problem was solved for a while. Yes. I mean, let's not do thought our problem was solved for a while. Yes. I mean, let's not do the actual math, which says that would have lasted the show another eight years. So we don't need to think about that too hard. Yeah. But yeah, there were podcast friends of ours who already have shows that are over 300, right?

Which doesn't help them at all. I was initially thinking, oh, okay, well, we'll do this. We'll press this button. We'll make this change. But in addition to it not being an unlimited number of episodes, there is this caveat, which I am, as the one of us who has the responsibility about whether or not to push the button, I feel very hesitant because there is a trade-off here where if we press the button to have 300 episodes, those 300 episodes will not have show notes. They will be episodes that can be downloaded.

There will be titles. But by default, there are not show notes. Now, Squarespace says they have a way around this. But I, as the one with the responsibility, do not feel very confident in their solution working well on all podcast players. So this is partly why I have not pressed the button yet, because I'm concerned about trading one problem for another, which is many people who've been listening to the show for years probably don't notice or think about the back catalog slowly rolling off the end. But they sure do think about the show notes for every new episode.

And so I'm imagining a scenario in which we press the button, and what actually happens is the number of complaints magnifies tenfold where people want to know where the hell are the show notes in whatever podcast player they're using. And their solution, like the solution that Squarespace trumpeting as the hack around this seems sort of questionable and would involve a whole stack of work and work that might not work in the way we think. Links might not work. You might not be able to do it all. It would take a really long time. And also, is it reversible? If we do lose everything and we think this is worse, can we flick back and get them back? Probably not. So, it's just like, you know, and no one wants to be the guinea pig for this and be the one to press the button and have their entire podcast get destroyed. Exactly. Yeah. So, we haven't pressed the button. We just wanted to give that as an update and also to help maybe reduce the number of people

who are bothering Brady online about why haven't you put the rest of the back catalog up. This is the reason why, because it has not come as a clean win. It's come as a solution, which I am very concerned will actually cause a larger increase in complaints than the current situation. And the genius of this for Squarespace is now the problem is complicated and messy. Yes, exactly. Yeah, exactly. What's my campaign now?

Campaign for show note simplicity, fairness. Yeah, no, exactly. Now I haven't got like something that we can rally around. It's just like, so Squarespace can reply, oh, we've gone to 300. I don't know. What are you talking about? Yeah. And they say that's the Apple limit.

So they think 300 is fine. No, I know. It's genius. It's like an octopus trying to escape from a predator and ejecting a whole bunch of ink and messing up the silt on the bottom of the ground. And everything all cloudy and it's hard like where do you strike i don't know yeah that's so yeah it's a great move on their part yeah i'll be like oh 300 it was enough for the greeks trying to defend their empire from the outside world surely it's enough for your podcast but yeah so now it's all muddy and messy and we're not exactly sure what we're going to do

but we did just want to let everybody know what the situation is and why the back catalogue has yet to appear on the main RSS feed. You can still get it in all those other ways we've talked about before. Yes. YouTube, website, the special Patreon thing we're doing, all those things are- Yes. You know, maybe we'll sort it out with Squarespace one day, but until I come up with a new campaign,

they've kind of thrown me off balance a bit now with their half-baked solution, and I need to think about what's next. We'll let Brady plot for a little while. He has that maniacal media mind that scares me sometimes where he knows how to go after people. We'll let you turn on this for a bit. I also have been somewhat distracted lately because I had to finish off our wax cylinder project, which ended up being a bit of a saga. You sent me that photo of all of the wax cylinders on the table.

Yeah. It just filled my heart with so much joy. They look so good. I love the old timiness of them. It's just perfect. It's just perfect, Brady. But the thing I don't think I made clear to you was, in the end, I was the one that had to do all the labelling by hand.

Ah, that was not made clear to me. You put all those labels on? Yeah. Did you get stickers to put on the containers? I did. Oh, that's brutal. I did end up getting stickers, but I got these special ones that had this nice, oldie-worldie finish. So, I i had lovely stickers but doing it by hand like where it had to be quite precise and i'm not famed for my precision and i had like many of them to do and i had to do all these other things like i had to make the cardboard boxes that they

then went in i had to make up the boxes it ended up being seriously it wiped out an entire weekend saturday and sunday 12 hours each day oh man i had sport on the tv and it was like i found it quite therapeutic and i did get pleasure from knowing each one was going to be like right going to a person and i did feel like a link with the people that would be getting them so it did have this kind of lovely father christmas feel but it was very difficult and can i just say if you've got your wax cylinder and like the labels a bit different or like it's not like it doesn't look like it was done by a machine right that's because it wasn't done by a machine right it was done by me with love and every imperfection on your cylinder every little crease or not quite lined up sticker or anything you've got on there makes it a unique special snowflake and you should treasure that imperfection.

They're individually handcrafted. Wow. I didn't realise that. I didn't realise the full scope of this situation. So handmade. The wax cylinder was done by hand and the labelling. I numbered each one because I thought people might be unhappy with like the stickers being put on by me. So, I thought, but if I numbered each one, like in my handwriting as well with a little initial, that would even add to the like. Ooh, that's genius. That's a genius move. That's a genius move. You've converted it then into, ooh, look at this collector's edition. Yeah. It's not a bug. It's a feature.

Yeah, it's a feature. Yeah. It's like when they have a limited print of a photograph, right, that you could run a million times, but they instead write, ooh, this is number 150 out of 200 that'll ever exist. Yeah. And suddenly people go, ooh, so exciting. Yeah.

Wow, that's amazing. I've been getting a few pictures from people who receive them. I'm yet to receive evidence of one being played. I've received a picture of one on a player. Okay. But I've not received evidence of one being played. And Greg, can I do two public service announcements about these wax cylinders? Please, please.

I know utilising the podcast for such a niche announcement is abusing my powers, but I think this is important. Okay. I told you about the solar eclipse story, didn't I? The advertiser. I must have told you that on the podcast before, but years and years ago on the paper, there was an eclipse happening and one of my mates who was a journalist wrote in the article, do not look at the sun unless you're wearing sunglasses.

I did tell you this story and he should have said, do not look at it even if you're wearing sunglasses. And it went on the front page of the newspaper. And as a result, we had to put out all these like emergency radio announcements to the whole state saying, if you read that in the paper today, do not look at the sun because they didn't want everyone going blind. This is my equivalent for the wax cylinders because there are two things that may not be clear to people who've received their wax cylinders. Now I'm fascinated. You already almost accidentally blinded half of South Australia. Yeah. And now I'm wondering what could possibly go wrong with these cylinders?

It wasn't me. It wasn't me that made that mistake. I think you bear the responsibility, but go on. So the two things with the wax cylinders, if you've got one, it's too late now because everyone's already got it, but don't take the wax cylinder out and just hold it like you would hold a can of Coke. You've got to stick your fingers in like you're giving a rude V sign, stick your fingers down the hole of the cylinder and then expand your fingers out and slide the cylinder out. So, it's almost like you're holding it. Your fingers need to be inside the cylinder. That description sounds very inappropriate.

If you go to the Wikipedia page for wax cylinders, you'll see a picture of how to do it. Okay. So, use that picture. Okay. I'll put it in the show notes that will be there for this episode. Yeah. And the other thing is, it's a two-minute episode, not a four-minute episode, so that you can set wax cylinders to play at different speeds. Oh. If you set it to play as if it's going to be a four minute episode,

you could actually shred your cylinder to pieces apparently, or something could go horribly wrong. So when the time comes to play it, make sure you know it's a two minute episode. This is like records, don't they have 45 RPMs or? It is like records. Yeah. But if you play a record at the wrong speed, it just sounds a bit RPMs or? It is like records. Yeah. But if you play a record at the wrong speed, it just sounds a bit too slow or a bit too fast. But apparently with wax cylinders, because wax is so fragile, it will damage the wax.

I mean, as it is, you actually do only have a finite number of plays of your wax cylinder before it starts to just erode away from being played. But I'm told that's quite a few plays, more than you would actually ever need. More than you would ever need for a voice memo, as was the original purpose, but certainly not more than you would ever need to listen to Hello Internet. I think people are going to want to revisit that many times. I've heard of them going after 20 or 30 plays, but my guy reckons they'd go beyond 100. We're going to get wax cylinder beyond 100, hashtag next. I'm going to get called out.

We need to upgrade this standard, right? The wax cylinder standard hasn't been keeping pace with modern needs and desires in the past 110 years. Is that about right? That's crazy. I want to hear how you would explain how to hold the wax cylinder, because you said I did it too rude. I didn't say that you did it too rude i just said it sounded quite rude bit naughty yeah naughty is perhaps better that's a better way to describe it i'll send you the link oh no and you have a look at the picture you tell me how you would describe this okay i better make sure i send it to you and not like my wife who then she'll

think i'm being weird she won't actually She was pulled into two hours of wax cylinder duty. Okay. Oh, I see. I see. Preservation of cylinder recordings. And imagine that's already inside the box. So you've got to pull it out that way as well. Right.

So that's in the box. Is that how you were imagining it when I described it? Yeah. I mean, yes. To be fair, your naughty description was also accurate. And now I'm just trying to think of a way to say it. Like, oh, To be fair, your naughty description was also accurate. And now I'm just trying to think of a way to say it. Like, oh, you need to stick your fingers inside the tube and make bunny ears and then take it out. That's what you do. Yeah. Oh, that's better. Yeah. Except if I

was doing bunny ears, I would probably use my pointing finger and my little finger to make a bunny. You mean like a live long and prosper sign? How are you making a bunny fingers? Wait, what? Your index finger and your pinky finger? Hold those two up and the other two, your second and third ones there, your ring finger and your middle finger, put them down into your palm and put your thumb over them. You mean like you're making devil horns then? That's the rock on devil horns.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's not bunny ears. But it's only devil horns if you make them point out. If they point up, it's more like a rabbit. You're taking a photo inapan and someone does bunny ears behind your head right that's what it is it's the bunny ears oh so i know what you meant like bunny ears that you would do behind someone when you're taking a photo yeah okay yeah yeah yeah you're right that's a good way to do it or you could go to the hello internet youtube channel where we put the video of wax cylinders in production. And at the end, I'm holding it in that way. So you can even watch me doing it. You can watch Brady do it on the Hello Internet

YouTube channel and decide for yourself how suggestive it looks. Link in the show notes. This episode of Hello Internet is brought to you by HelloFresh. HelloFresh is the meal kit delivery service that shops, plans, and delivers step-by-step recipes and pre-measured ingredients right to your door so you can just cook, eat, and enjoy. HelloFresh makes conquering the kitchen a reality with deliciously simple meals and recipes that are enjoyable and easy to make. All the meals come together in 30 minutes max, call for less than two pots of pans, and require minimal cleanup. Their fresh pre-measured ingredients are delivered in a special insulated box and come in easy-to-follow six-step pictured recipe cards. There are three delicious plans to choose from, classic, veggie,

and family, and with the option to switch between them if and when your tastes change. I'm here visiting my parents in North Carolina, and they cannot stop talking about how much they love HelloFresh. HelloFresh has become a major part of the meal planning in the household. They absolutely love it, and just talking to my parents this morning about it, one of the things they said is their favorite feature of HelloFresh is that they don't have to have the discussions anymore about what are they going to have for dinner. Nope. They get HelloFresh delivered to the house and they don't have to worry about what it is because it's delicious food and they make it together in the kitchen. From my perspective, this genuinely seems like it has changed their evening lives. So

for $80 off your first month of HelloFresh, go to HelloFresh.com slash HelloInternet80 and enter offer code HelloInternet80. That's HelloFresh.com slash HelloInternet80, the number 80, and enter the promo code HelloInternet80. That gets you $20 off your first four boxes. Seriously, give it a try. Not only does signing up support the podcast, but getting HelloFresh might just change your dinner life as well. Oh, that reminds me of something that I didn't put in our pre-show notes, but now's a good time to mention it,

because we're talking about the fact people can go and see a picture of me. And obviously, for a long time, like, you know, as long as I've known you, there's a large section of the audience that don't want to know what you look like, like, actively don't want to know, and they're upset at the idea of accidentally seeing a picture. Yeah. It's spoilers. Yeah, yeah. I've always respected that, but I've never really totally understood it. Really? Not totally, but I've never really totally understood it. Really? Not totally, but now I do. Okay.

Because I've recently started listening to a podcast that I'm not going to mention because I don't want people to play funny buggers with me. Okay. And try to like ruin it for me. Oh, okay. I see. I've really fallen in love with it. I really like it. And a lot of the things that I've always heard people say about podcasts for the first time, I totally understand. One of them is that feeling of like, these people are your friends. Like, I really feel like these people are my friends in like a weird way. And I wouldn't want to meet them

because I think I might freak them out. Because I just want to say to them, you guys should be my friends. Like, I really like them. But also, I really don't want to know what one of them looks like. Two of them I'm okay with knowing what they look like, but, I really don't want to know what one of them looks like. Two of them I'm okay with knowing what they look like, but another one I don't want to. Yeah. And like, I'm scared of seeing what he looks like now because he's got an interesting voice and I've got this picture in my head and I don't want that ruined. So, for the first time, I'm like that. I'm like avoiding pictures of this person. Okay. I will bleep it for the show. Tell what the podcast is i'm just curious if i know it

it's called uh okay interesting the question that i want to ask you yeah i wrote an article about this a long time ago trying to explain like my relationship with audio media and partly the way like i like to create yeah audio media and and like the videos, even if I'm doing something that's like live filming, like the Tesla vlog was, I don't put my face in it because I do think there's a way in which it benefits the audience. But here's the question for you. When you say you have a picture in your head, do you have like an actual idea in your mind of what the person looks like? Not to the extent where if you sat me down with a sketch artist, I could do it.

Yeah, yeah. It's more nebulous than that. But I know seeing a picture would most likely ruin it. I don't know. It's hard to explain. Yeah, I would struggle. Yeah. And it would be like shifting sands.

It would be like, is it curly hair? Is it straight hair? Oh, maybe it is straight. Oh, is it curly? I don't even know. But I just know it like exists. And it's hair? Oh, maybe it is straight. Oh, is it curly? I don't even know, but I just know it like exists. And it's, yeah, it's a weird thing. Yeah.

I just asked because the thing that I'm really aware of, a thing that happened to me a while ago is there's an audio book narrator who does a lot of audio books who I really like as a narrator. And I was really annoyed when I just, by total dumb luck on one of the Audible pages, they had a picture of the narrator I was like god damn it audible like I didn't want to see what this guy looks like yeah it's not that I have an image in my mind it feels very much like voices that are not attached to any kind of face exist in a different higher plane in my brain and then when you see the person

it's like it could clunks down into dirty reality. And now that's like, oh, there's a person connected to this thing. Like, at least for me, anyway, I've always found it genuinely makes it less enjoyable to listen to the voice, to have an idea of what the person looks like. There's somehow that the experience is more pure and disassociated from even the concept of like, what does this person look like? So that's one of the reasons why I've always, for podcasts and audiobooks and things, very much trying to avoid finding out what people look like. I suspect that some of the people who listen to the podcasts and like watch the videos that I make feel the same way, you know? Cause I think like you tend to make stuff that someone like you would also

enjoy. Like I'm very willing to bet that's a decent portion of the audience feels that same way where it's like, it's not even that they're thinking about, Ooh, what does this person look like? It's more just like, Oh,

hello. Internet is better. I think if you don't know what either of us look like, and we're just disembodied voices coming to you across the internet pipes. I can almost understand it better for an audiobook though, because like with an audiobook, you don't want to have like personality and identity attached to that person too much. But with something like Hello Internet and like people who've been listening to this show for a long time, probably know quite a lot about you now.

Like they would feel like they know you quite well, whether that's true or not is debatable. But, like, they certainly have, like, a lot of information to have this sort of profile. But to still not want to have an image attached to that is quite interesting, isn't it? It's not like you're existing on some higher plane, like, just a deliverer of information, like an audiobook reader, or even your videos.

Yeah, the videos as well, yeah. But here on the podcast, it's almost like you are kind of like a bit of a friend. So, it's more interesting that people still want to have that anonymity. But I understand it better now anyway. Well, let's be clear. I'm not a bit of a friend. That's the illusion that podcasts create, right? Yes.

Like that's the illusion that you're experienced on the other end. That's the illusion I'm having making a podcast with Gray. Yeah. on the other end. That's the illusion I'm having making a podcast with Grey. I have a tipping complaint to register, Brady. It's been a while since we did Grey tipping corner. I mean, look, it's not a corner. I'm just registering a complaint. Tipping is definitely a corner now.

It's been enough times for it to have corner status. Do you know why I haven't mentioned it in a while? Yeah. Because it is the thing that I know people just react so poorly to. I had a thing in real life where a friend of mine, we got into, I wouldn't say an argument, but I would say a strong disagreement over tipping. And I was just like, I just never want to bring it up. And anyway, but now I'm bringing it up because here's a brand new situation i think needs to be discussed so um i'm down in the south i'm in america now okay and there is coffee chain i like to go to when i'm down here called panera and it's like a starbucks kind of place but you can also get food very nice i like it more than

starbucks i go whenever i can so one of the things that Panera has recently introduced is instead of having to go to the cashier at like at a Starbucks where you talk to the person and you say, oh, I want a venti pie place with room for cream or whatever. They've introduced a thing, which is basically a self-checkout for ordering your own food or drink at the Panera. So if you have a quick order, you can go in, there's a little screen, you can boop, boop, boop, tell the robot what it is that you want, and nice and easy. And it's designed for getting coffees because they just have coffee cups right behind the screen. It's a total honor system.

And it works because everybody's really nice. And this is the system. Now, I tried it for the first time the other day. I thought, great. I'm in a Panera. I don't want to talk to the person. I'm just getting a cup of coffee. Here's what this robot was made to do.

So, boop, I press. I want my coffee. I go to say, yes, medium cup, checkout, please. I grab the cup of coffee behind the little robot screen. I swipe my card. What pops up on the screen? But the question, how much would you like to tip today? And it says 10, 15, 20%. And I swear, Brady, I looked around the Panera expecting someone to like pop out and say they pranked me real good, bro. Because I'm like, I don't understand who am I tipping? I'm doing the checkout. I'm even picking up my own paper cup to then pour my own coffee at this entirely self-service situation.

And this robot is asking me to just pay 20% more to who? Who is the person that I'm tipping? And I feel like this little interaction just really exposes tipping for what it is. This weird, like, hey, sometimes do you want to pay more situation? That doesn't make sense in 80% of circumstances. And this one just blew my mind. Yeah. In the future, kids will be saying things like,

mummy, daddy, what's a tip? What's this thing we do when we all have robot servers and computers? And they'll explain, well, it used to be money we gave when there were humans involved, but now it's just something we still do. Right. But even that, try to explain that. Oh, we used to do it when humans were involved, but not all humans, only humans in some circumstances. Yeah. Like, oh, okay. So, like, what kind of humans? It's like, well, it's not consistent anywhere

in the world or anywhere in the economy, but there were randomly jobs that we decided were jobs that needed to be tipped. What did you do? What did you do? Of course I said no tip. Was no tip an option? Yeah, no tip was an option. Well, let me tell you something then, Gray. Oh, God. Have you been in a London black cab lately?

No. I will do anything I possibly can to avoid going in a taxi anywhere on the face of the earth. So no, I haven't been in a London black tab. Okay. Well, I think they have some advantages over Ubers, which I've talked about before. So I have used them, but they have got something that really cheeses me off. They're now trying to like be up with the times and you can do contactless payment with your card. Oh, that's good. Yeah. When you go to do the payment though, it comes up on the screen. How much would you like to tip? 10%, 15%, 20%. I think they're the numbers.

Or it says other amount. And because I hate being bullied into tipping and I think they're overpriced as it is, I don't want to give them a tip particularly. If I'm paying cash, I'll usually tip. I was not inclined to give a tip partly because I resent this thing. So, I'm like, okay, well, I don't want 10%, 15% or 20%. And I don't want another amount. And then there's also another button that's cancel. So, I hit cancel to say I don't want to do a tip. But what that does is it cancels the whole transaction.

Okay. And then you have to say to the cab driver, oh, sorry, I just hit cancel when I was asked for a tip. Right. You pretend like you're a numpty who didn't know what was going on. Yeah. And like, they have to fire it up again and they know exactly what's happened. And I've done this twice now. I've not known how to do zero tip. What you actually have to do is go into other amount and then enter the number zero.

Right. So, it requires way more effort to put zero tip in than to actually do a tip, which is clearly what they're trying to do. Like, you know, when they, like opting out of promotional emails, do you not want to not receive emails? You know, they're doing this with tips now. It's like this puzzle to figure out how I can possibly pay without doing a tip. I really hate it. But it's also really socially awkward when you hit cancel and then you have to say, can you ring up the transaction again for me, please? Because as I tried to not give you a tip, I accidentally cancelled it.

Wow. That's really bad. That's really bad. It is bad. I really don't like it. But this reminds me of something else I saw in the news just recently, which I think is going to be the new awkward social thing to happen between people. And it's something even you may struggle to avoid when Apple goes down this path.

Okay. And this is this new technology. I think Samsung are already doing it, where you can share charge from your phone. Have you seen this innovation? Oh, yeah. It's the reverse inductive charging. Yeah. Yeah. So, you can just press your phone up against like your friend's phone and take some of their charge. So, if you're low, you can say, oh, can I have some of your charge because I'm really low. And I think this is going to be the new awkward thing. Like, when you're out with someone and they're low on charge and you've got more, but you want your charge and someone asks

for your charge. And like, it's easy to lie and say, I haven't got like a spare charger in my backpack when you really do. But it's impossible to lie if they can take it directly from your phone. What are you going to do if your friend's on like 3% and you're on 25% and they say, can I have 10%? First of all, I have to know, like, are you not a charge bro? Like you can't deny someone when they need charge. I know, I know you can't. No, but it's like, and I'm okay with this. I'm actually perfectly fine with this. What if you haven't got any more yourself, though?

But then it's very obvious. And you say like, oh, no, sorry. I'm down to the end too. Right. And then I guess what will happen is you're at dinner with a bunch of people and then it becomes some kind of charge communism and you all get charged down to whatever the total amount of charges divided by the number of people at the table. Okay.

I've never smoked, but I've always kind of assumed that there's like a camaraderie between smokers about, hey man, do you have a smoke? Greg, are you saying you would give charge to strangers? If you're in an airport lounge and someone comes up to you and says, can I have charge from your phone for 10 minutes? Complete stranger. Because that's what's going to start happening. No, they can get f***ed. That's a different situation. Please, please. Of course, if it's like one of your best friends, you're going to give them charge or someone who you really care about. But I just think this is going to be a new thing.

But this is why I'm using smoking as an analogy. If I was a smoker and some stranger came up to me and said, hey man, can I have a smoke? It's like, I would no more give him the smoke than I would just give him money straight out of my pocket. That's not going to happen. But I feel like if I was a smoker, that the giving of cigarettes would extend very far out in the circle of people that I know. Okay. To like glancing acquaintances. And I think the charge radius is the same thing. Like my willingness to reverse inductively charge outward, I think would extend to the very

edges of what I would consider an acquaintance. So I'm actually okay with this. I asked the guy next to me at the cricket for charge. Okay. This Bangladesh fan at one point, because I was running out of charge. And he did give me his like charger, but it was out of charge. I mean, but that does count twice if he's a Bangladesh fan and you're an Australian fan, right? That seems like that's... But he may have been starstruck because I was on the screen so often.

Ah, that's true. That's true. Okay. Well, you surprised me. And I think this is going to become a thing. I'm just saying. I think it's going to become a thing. It's going to become, there's going to, we haven't built the social etiquette around it yet. The technology is moving too fast for our human brain to figure out how to deal with this. I think we're going to immediately adopt smoking rules and it's going to be fine. Okay. You know what many of us have to do during the summer?

We have to travel a lot. And you know what can really make traveling unpleasant? Having a terrible suitcase. Look into your heart, listener. Do you know that you have a terrible suitcase? Well, lucky for you, Away is here for you. Away is a company that's really thought about what does someone need when they're traveling. Their suitcases are lightweight, but they have a durable shell that's made to last for a lifetime of travel. They have clever built-in compression packs that let you fit more in your suitcase. There's four slick 360-degree spinner wheels that guarantee you a smooth ride. And let me tell you, if you haven't used a suitcase with four wheels, you haven't lived. Their suitcases are TSA approved with combination locks to keep your belongings safe. And all modern travelers

have electronic devices with them that need constant charging. And Away has a removable, ejectable battery as part of the suitcase that helps you keep topped up all the time. Their suitcases come in an array of colors and two different sizes. They're carry-on and they're bigger carry-on. I love the way my Away suitcase looks. It's got that nice minimal design, and it's good in any context. Now, if you have a terrible suitcase, you need to try an Away. Go to awaytravel.com slash hi2019 and get $20 off a suitcase when you use that promo code hi2019 during checkout. Now, you have nothing to be afraid of because Away is so confident in their suitcase. They have a 100-day trial on everything they make. Get the suitcase, pack it, travel with it,

take it out on the road. You can basically use it for an entire summer and decide how you feel about it, which will be you'll love your Away suitcase. So once again, go to awaytravel.com slash HI2019 and use promo code HI2019 during checkout to get yourself a suitcase that you will love. Thanks to Away for supporting the show, and thanks to Away for making travel easier. Brady, I have a thing that I want to ask you about that I've been dying to know your thoughts about. Okay. Since this thing broke into my fortress of solitude. Yeah. And I won't even send you the link because I know you know what it is. It's that photo of a line of people waiting to get to the summit of Mount Everest.

Yes. What do you think of this image? I mean, it's not the first image that's been released like this. This is, for people who haven't seen it, and I don't think there's anyone in the world who hasn't seen it, this was one of the days, this climbing season, there was like beautiful clear sky. So, everyone who's trying to climb Mount Everest all went for the summit at once. And basically, for the last, it must have been hundreds and hundreds of feet towards

the summer, there was just this absolutely crammed queue, like people lining up to go up to a sports stadium of people in all their mountaineering suits and stuff trying to get up onto the summer. And it was this complete traffic jam on this tiny, thin ridge. Yeah. It looked like a bunch of people on an escalator. Yeah. There was a tragic component to this, of course, because a few people have died in this climbing season, including that day, I believe a few people died. So, and then there's all this

debate, are people dying because they're being delayed by these queues? And some people say, yes. Other people say that's not the main problem, but either way, it's not a good look. It's just not a good look in many, many ways. That doesn't seem like the main problem. The main problem to me seems like you're on a freaking mountain that's the tallest mountain on earth like there's problems on a mountain yeah but you also want to spend as little time as possible at that super super rarefied height and if there's a big queue of people it does make it hard to do your quick dash to the summer selfie and back down because you have to stand there waiting for hours and hours at this higher altitude oh that's right okay so i totally forgot this but that's right you're only supposed to

spend a limited time above a certain altitude on Everest that's what is like you're waiting just below the threshold you're dashing up and you're dashing back so summit day you normally get up you know at before sunrise okay get to the top and get back down as quick as you can. So, A, if bad weather comes in, you've gotten out of dodge, but also less time at the high high, get down into the thicker air as quick as you can. So, if you're standing there waiting for every tourist, Tom, Dick and Harry, also trying to get to the summit, you're spending more time in the dangerous. And so, when someone then collapses and dies, a lot of people will say, well, hang on. Ah, okay.

Would they have lived if they were here for less time? Is this queue causing the problem? Right. Okay. But it's also just a terrible like PR look just for mountaineering and for cool adventures. I mean, saying, yeah, I've been to the summer of Everest is suddenly seeming sillier and sillier when you see pictures like that. I mean, I think long-time listeners of the podcast will know,

I've, for a long time, not taken Everest summiting super seriously because of the Sherpas and all of like, oh, who put that bridge there for you, right? But this photo was just genuinely appalling. It really did make going to Everest look about as fun as standing online in Disney World. Like that's the way that photo looked. It looked brutal. And I was just kind of curious, like, if you feel the same way about that or?

Yeah. Yeah. It hurts my feelings. How so? As someone who, like, as an Everest fan and a purist and someone who reads all the books and idolises all your George Mallories and Edmund Hilleries and Tenzing Norgays and these famous mountaineers and a lover of Everest lore to now see Everest just being talked about as like a dinner table joke that people will say, oh, did you see the picture in the Times today of all those jokers climbing Everest? And now people who even don't know anything about Mount Everest, all they know is,

oh yeah, that picture. And yeah, any tourist can get to the top of Mount Everest and things like that. You know, you just get dragged up there by a Sherpa, which is kind of simplifying things a bit, but maybe not as much as I used to think. Like, yeah, it's sad for me. It's probably sad for me the day it will in some ways become sad when a boy band makes a music video on the moon you know like that will happen and it will be a sad day for me i'm sorry that's just an amazing comparison. I know I sometimes give you a hard time for your comparisons and your analogies, but that is an amazing comparison. Okay, who will be the first boy band to make a video on the moon? Well, I was going to say it'd be sad for me when Tudor was stuck going to the moon,

but then I knew everyone would get upset at me. So I went for the boy band to... Yeah, no, but it's actually a good comparison of of like oh the moon is being used as a backdrop for this other thing yeah it's a trophy like mount everest is this trophy like i mean it's always been a trophy hasn't it but now it's a trophy for 50 year old overweight investment bankers so if you were king of nepal what would you do about this? Or would you do anything about it? I mean, it's easy for me to sit here and say that poor country shouldn't be taking so many

thousands and thousands of dollars each year in permits. But I mean, this is the debate. Everyone says that the Nepal authorities are being too greedy and giving out too many permits. Other people say that's not the problem. I don't know what I would do about the problem. I do think there are too many people doing it. There are only a small number of days per year that people can get to the summit. And these are these tiny windows of dashing to the top and back. And when there are lots and lots of people there, I think it's ruining it for everyone.

But who am I to decide who the ones that get to do it are and who the ones that aren't? You know, it's difficult. It's difficult. I think there should be fewer people climbing each year. Just also just to protect the mountain as an icon of our planet, you know, stop covering it in poo, oxygen bottles, and an increasing number of dead human bodies. I'm asking as well, because I feel like this is one of these situations where we talked about on the podcast a little while ago, overtourism. And now I feel like I'm kind of seeing it everywhere. And this Everest thing is like the most striking image of overtourism I genuinely think there could possibly be. Because it's the most exclusive place on earth and it is such a small

little piece of real estate to put humans on. Yeah. Like I've seen photos of the Great Wall of China where there are so many people on the wall, you can't believe anyone can even move. And those images are horrifying. Like there's collections of these photos on the internet of like tourists swamping and destroying the thing that they're all there to see. I really do think that that Everest photo, because of the location that it is, is the most representative image of this concept that there could possibly be. I've seen more and more places discussing this as an actual issue. I can't remember where I came across it, but like as an example, I was reading, I think it was

an article by an economist discussing how one of the possible causes of overtourism just in general is Airbnb having dramatically increased the supply of hotel rooms in major cities all across the world and also bringing down the price. And it's like, oh, yes, there used to be some kind of natural balance between how many hotels there were and the number of tourists who would come to a city. And then lots of places feel like they're being over-touristed because the hotel supply jumped by 30% in the space of five or 10 years, which is just like way more than hotels would ever get built in the same period of time. I think I saw something about Iceland's thinking about like a tourist tax. I may have come across that incorrectly, but like, I'm just wondering, that's why I asked, like, if you were king of

Nepal and you really did have, or I guess king of Nepal and king of China, you could make it be however it would want to be for a place that you know well yeah what would you what would you do like okay you think there should be fewer people there but what course of action would you take if i wasn't taking into account things like you know the problems nepal's having rebuilding after its earthquake and its poverty and things like if i could take all of that out of the equation and i can just be yeah you're king of everest is you actually are. I would limit the number of people who can do it. And there would be some kind of merit-based system to who gets to do it as well. There'd be a small lottery component. There'd be a small number that are merit-based and a small number that are just ridiculously expensive. So, I'd

have like, you know, 20 permits a year for like your multi-multi-millionaire so I'd have like you know 20 permits a year for like your multi multi-millionaire so I can really milk them I'd have you know 50 permits a year for special charitable causes or special events and things like that and then I'd have another 20 that are done by lottery and I'd build fairness into it maybe there'd be permits for people who've tried before or people who've done other things. Like, I don't know what the system would be, but that would be how the system would work. And I know people would be unhappy with it, but it's like, you know, you've got to enter lotteries to get into things like the New York marathon, don't you? And there are all these different ways to get in and stuff. It'd be like that, but on a tiny scale. But that's

what I'd do. I'd have like a system like that. That merit one's really interesting. You know me, I would just go straight to an auction and just bypass all of that. But the merit one is an excellent point for climbing Everest in particular. Yeah. It's a very interesting thought. Yeah. Well, because, you know, a lot of the climbers, the world's great climbers, a lot of the people I think who have the right to attempt this fate aren't necessarily particularly wealthy. So, I don't think it should just be the domain of the wealthy. But I do think Nepal should be able to milk the cash cow.

I think my solution probably deals with both. It's not such a big problem on the China side, by the way. Coming in from Tibet, you don't get that situation, partly because it's a more difficult feat to climb it from that side. That's the side George Mallory died attempting, whereas Hillary succeeded from the Nepal side. It's a slightly George Mallory died attempting, whereas Hillary succeeded from the Nepal side. It's a slightly easier way to do it. I'm kind of taken by this idea of merit. You know, you get out to the top of six of the other tallest mountains in the world and you have like a little stamp in your mountain passport. Yeah. But that counts more towards, oh, you can collect Everest too. It's an interesting idea. You've got to also allow for people who have

raised a tremendous amount of money for good causes and you also get people who climb it for you know the 50 year anniversary of tenzing norgay's you know birthday and you could have all things like that you'd like you're gonna have all these people who want to climb for different reasons you're gonna have to have some it'd be a devil of a job deciding what to do and then when people fail you know and they want to do it again, what happens? Do they have to- can they try again next year? Have they got to wait 10 years?

Like, I don't know. You've got lots of- you've got lots of complications. But I don't know how it works now, by the way. There is a finite number of passes now. So, there obviously is some criteria as it stands at the moment. So, I believe the fees are fixed. I was also just idly wondering what would merit be for just a tourist in general, you know, for like the over-tourism problem all around the world. Maybe it's like an inverse

merit system where the more you have traveled, the less likely you would be to get a permit to go anywhere else, right? So, I'm that that'd be like a global inverse merit solution for over tourism like hey people you gotta you gotta pick you gotta pick your places there's only so many places there's way too many people i don't like the sound of that i can easily imagine why you wouldn't like the sound of it but but again i'm just like i find this a genuinely interesting problem and like a weird situation that more and more places are facing. And it's also just been on my mind again, because I was, as I always do, when I come to America, I do like to go out to the parks, but I'm just so aware that particularly the national parks, almost everywhere are so incredibly busy in a way with, you know,

particularly foreign tourists, like they just never used to be i'm always going to like the state parks because that's where i find like you can get a nice optimal mix of still very beautiful but also not crowded with people but i do wonder like what can you know what can the national park service do and they just don't have a lot of options and same with cities or other other sorts of places but i don't know maybe my my inverse meritocratic method is a potential proposal for places around the world a terrible one i am going to yosemite later this year and i'm worried about how crazy that's going to be you let me know you let me know i expect it's going to be very crazy i expect it's going to be super crazy. I expect it's going to be super crazy. Because there's been like a few really good films lately, you know, set in Yosemite, like Free Solo and The Dawn Wall and stuff like that. So, like interest in Yosemite is increasing.

Bring some hand sanitizer. That's what you're going to need. Don't share your charge. The little quiz we did recently where you dug up those quiz questions from that academic paper, was was a thousand questions or something that were asked of university students and we went through a whole bunch of them it was the general knowledge quiz or at least that's how it was pitched yeah so since that happened a few tims have created online like websites and tools where you can like take the quiz oh which was quite a handy thing so i went i went and had a play on one of them recently just because I wanted to see what more of the questions were like.

Because I think anyone listening to the podcast would have come away with the impression, well, I feel like I did quite well. Yeah. But also that the questions were quite easy. And like even when we got to the point where only 50% of university students were getting them right, they were still reasonably easy. And we never really got to many questions that both of us couldn't answer. So, then as like a bit of an experiment, I said to you, ask me the hardest question,

like what was the bottom of the list? And I sort of semi got that one right. So, I came away thinking, oh, these are pretty easy bunch of questions. So, when I went and did the quiz again, like on one of these websites, I went straight to the end, to the hard ones. And I have to say, although I did kind of know the answer to the hardest question. Yeah, and a kind of mountain. The hard ones were very hard. And like basically, the next 50 or so above that, I pretty much knew none of them. So, it did get to a point where those quiz

questions were actually extremely hard. So, I wanted to tip my hat to people who made these, some of these online tools, but I also wanted to just acknowledge that going through this, it seemed like easy peasy, but there were some curly questions in there as well. You wanted to be a little bit humble that you couldn't get all 1000 questions, right? No, yeah. But of course, I didn't think I could get all 1,000. But like towards the end there, it was like, no chance. No chance. We talked about who wants to be a millionaire, didn't we?

In Australia. The first time that ever went to the million dollar question. Oh, I don't know. In who wants to be a millionaire style, they were like, after the commercial, we're going to have the million dollar question. I think it was the next night they were going to have the million-dollar question, so everyone tuned in. And the first ever million-dollar question in Australia was,

how many men have walked on the moon? And that would have been like my dream question because I would have named all 12. I would have been a complete show-off. It would have been brilliant. Oh, wow. You would have named them too? Oh, yeah. I would have pretended to not know, but I could have been a complete show-off. It would have been brilliant. Oh, wow. You would have named them too? Oh, yeah.

I would have pretended to not know, but I could have just gone, well, let's see, there was Neil Armstrong and obviously Buzz Aldrin, but hmm, then we had Pete Conrad and Alan Bean. And then I would have said, so that's 12. So I was telling someone that story and they said, oh, that's funny you should say that because the first time there was ever the million dollar question in some other country, I can't remember what it was. The question was, who were the two, what were the names of the two people who first

summited Mount Everest? It's like, oh, another one I would have got. Where are these million dollar questions when you need them? Yeah, there are not enough million dollar questions when you need them.'s for sure and if i was on the show i'm sure the million dollar question would be some american horse racing question that i would have no idea let me jump forward i was really looking forward to this one so forbes has really as they do they love releasing these lists of rich people, don't they? Oh, like the world's 20 richest people kind of thing?

Yeah. So, they've just released recently the list of the 100 highest paid athletes, sports people in the world. Hmm. And I wanted to go through the top 10 to see how many of them you knew. Oh, no, this is a pop quiz. It's kind of like a quiz, but like, I was just curious. Okay. And I will say there were names in the top 10 that I probably wouldn't have gotten.

Okay. So, but not many. This is just my curiosity. I'm always curious about how aware you are of sport, because I know you're not into sport in any way. Just tell me the name, because I'm fantasizing that I'm going to be able to guess the sport. Like, I'll be able to tell you the sport, not only that I recognize the name. Like, I'm hoping to slumdog millionaire this one.

All right. Number one, pulling in $127 million a year, Lionel Messi. No, I've never heard this name before. Okay. Lionel Messi. No, I've never heard this name before. Okay. Lionel Messi. He is a soccer player. He's a soccer player? For Barcelona.

Yeah. I think he's the best player in the world. So, do you think that salary is commensurate with his playing skills? It's probably commensurate with the good he does for his commercial interest because every kid wants to be him. Right. Because he's quite a small little guy and he gets by with his skill. He's not like, you know, six foot five and Adonis and he doesn't look like he's blessed.

He actually had some condition when he was growing up that affected his growth and stunted his growth. He's actually like a little small guy and He's just incredibly skillful and clever. So, I think he's like, you know, he gives hope. Number two, $109 million, Cristiano Ronaldo. Oh, is that tennis? I've heard this name. I'm guessing tennis.

He is also a soccer player. Oh, no. Okay. He is probably- He's like- You would know his name though, because he's very famous. And he is like blessed, you know, he's tall and incredible athlete. I think I know this name because you've mentioned him on the podcast. Yeah.

I think I've heard of like, I'm trying to drag it up in my brain. And I feel like I've heard you say Ronaldo. That's where I'm coming from. Number three, $105 million dollars neymar oh no i have no idea also a soccer player okay are there any not soccer players on this list there are okay number four canelo alvarez no nothing soccer i'm gonna guess soccer there's a good chance i wouldn't have got that because i'm not particularly into boxing and he's a boxer. Oh, boxing. Interesting.

I like to think I know the famous boxers, but I'm not overly familiar with him. I probably would have guessed from his name, though. Number five is the first one I think you might get. $93.4 million. Don't put pressure on me, Brady. Roger Federer. Oh, yeah. I know that.

I recognize that name. Baseball? I'm going to go with baseball. No? No. Okay. Tennis. He was the one that got interviewed and they asked him about the red and the green tennis balls. Oh. The Tim's dad asked him the question, hey, Roger, are tennis balls green or yellow? Okay okay it's the greatest tennis player ever brady i don't want to draw attention to it but that was actually probably your best american accent that you just did there i feel like that that actually that actually wasn't half bad that wasn't half bad i think you weren't you weren't paying too much attention to it so it came out better than most number six i wouldn't have got myself okay i'm gonna get it russell wilson russell wilson uh yeah um if you get this i'll be amazed uh russell wilson it's uh um water polo i also wouldn't have got number seven who is aaron

rogers and they are both american footballers aaron rogers i think i feel like i wouldn't have been able to guess football, but I feel like I've heard the name Aaron Rodgers. Yeah, I'm the same, but I wouldn't have guessed right. Number eight, LeBron James. Oh, basketball. Okay, that's the first one where I actually have a good sense of it. $89 million. Number nine,hen curry or steph curry he's often called uh i can i can give you nothing about steph curry or kevin and number 10 is kevin durant they are also both basketballers no no yeah i got nothing that's the top 10 lebron james hmm the reason i know lebron james yeah is because a few years ago i think he he switched teams. He was somewhere else and he

went down to Florida or something. He switched teams a few times. He moved to Miami Heat, I believe. Miami Heat. That's what it was. Okay. Yeah. And the reason I knew this is because there was a service person who came to the house in America years ago, who I ended up having to handle while my parents were out. And instead of doing his job, he wanted to talk to me about LeBron James while the Miami Heat thing was going down. And I kept saying, I don't follow sports. And he kept hearing, please tell me more about sports. And it was one of these situations where I'm like, oh, yeah, no, I don't really follow any of this. I'd really just like you to do what we're paying you to fix in this house.

And he was like, oh, let me tell you how exciting all of this is. is so i got stuck in i don't know a half an hour conversation about lebron james where i remember getting to hear everything about him going to the miami heat because this guy thought i didn't follow sports because no one had told me about them before and i just didn't realize how great it was yeah it's like it was like the it was like the sports version of the the terrible thing when you go to a restaurant and people are like oh uh have you had octopus and you're like yeah i had it i don't like octopus uh i'm morally opposed and they go no no you haven't had octopus here right you like this is this is where they really make it you like it was the sports version of that i don't follow any sports at all oh but you haven't heard about lebron james like that's the thing that's gonna get you into this Let me tell you about the Miami Heat.

I completely forgot about that Netflix Formula One thing you were supposed to watch. Have you watched it yet? Oh, damn it. Well, let's do that for, let's keep that as ongoing homework. Everyone gets an extension. Yes, everyone gets an extension. I had it, Brady, I literally had it on in front of me in Netflix, but this was two weeks ago when i knew it was going to be too

long until we were actually recorded the next show so i waited but it's not it is on my list i genuinely will watch it i know that this is the octopus that i will like and i'll give it a watch before next time let me choose a few other random names on the list just uh okay because for my curiosity let me give you number 11 just so you can have one because i know because i want to build your confidence up number 11 don't patronize me number 11 on the list is tiger woods yeah golf i know that yeah number 13 is lewis hamilton no i don't know that he's a formula one driver he's the current world champion all right i will know him very soon though apparently he. He's not in that documentary that much.

Number 17 is a guy called Novak Djokovic. No. He's a tennis player. Okay. Number 21 is a chap named Conor McGregor. He sounds Scottish. Golf. I thought you might know him because he often spills into like the popular cultures art

guys. He's one of these mixed martial arts fighters. Oh, he's one of the MMA guys. Yeah. And he's a bit of a character. Okay. Yeah. MMA is pretty brutal.

Number 32, Rory McIlroy. I'm sorry, Brady. You should have done what I thought you'd do. When you saw Mook, you'd say, oh, he's a golf because he's a golfer. Okay. Rafael Nadal at number 37. It does sound kind of familiar. Soccer?

No, he plays tennis. Oh, okay. This is just getting humiliating. The only woman on the list, I believe, the only one I found so far at number 63. Yes. Serena Williams. Serena Williams 60, yes. Serena Williams. Serena Williams, I know. Serena Williams, I 100% know.

All right. Let's get down towards the bottom of the list here. Oh, here we go. Number 81, Tom Brady. American football, right? Yes. Yes, okay. I have to get this.

I know this has come up before on the show. All the way at number 125, at a paltry $25 million a year, Virat Kohli. No, I have no idea. Okay. He is the, I believe, only cricketer on the list. The top guy was what? It was 127 million. Is that right?

Yeah. is that right yeah that feels like a that feels like a flatter a flatter half-life curve than i would expect for the top 100 paid sports people yeah yeah to like to drop basically 100 million in 100 places yeah i i don't know i would feel like you know because this is this is um you know like like in the uh entertainment industry this is going to be one of those curves where the top 0.1% earns a bazillion dollars and it drops off tremendously rapidly. And there can be quite a disparity between salary and endorsement deals too in these figures. Some of them are earning most of their money in salary and some of them have got like whopping amounts from all their sponsorship deals. Oh, okay. That's interesting. But yeah, it feels like a flatter drop off than i would especially for sport like

sports so big all across the whole world i feel like i would have expected number one is like 300 million a year and number 100 is 10 million a year like i don't know all right okay like i would have i would have thought there was a bigger disparity between them, but apparently not. But I'm sorry I didn't do very well on your quiz, Brady. No, no, no. It was not a quiz. And if you sat there and asked me to name video game characters or whatever it is you know about, I'm sure it would be this. That's a very charming concept of like,

what would Grey know a bunch of things about video game characters? Yeah, productivity experts. Yeah, I don't know what my equivalent of this would be. I don't think I have an equivalent of this for you. This episode of Hello Internet is brought to you in part by Audible. If you're listening to this podcast, which I mean, I guess you are, obviously, then you would like audiobooks. And Audible is the place where I get all of my audiobooks from.

Not only do they have the largest selection of audiobooks on the planet, but if you don't like an audiobook, you can exchange it for free, which is one of my favorite features. Sometimes you start a book, you realize it's not for you, and with Audible, it's no problem. Just a couple clicks, boom, that book goes back and you can get another one. A good audio book is a fantastic companion during all sorts of things. Maybe you're going on a summer road trip. Perfect time for an audio book. I've been trying to keep up with the Fitatron lifestyle and using Audible at the gym a

lot. And the book I've been listening to, which maybe you want to give a try, is the Panama Papers, all about the various international financial shenanigans that have been going on in the world. Now, if you want to give Audible a try, maybe try the Panama Papers, visit audible.com slash hellointernet or text hellointernet to 500-500 to get started today. And if you're an Amazon Prime member, for a limited time, you can start an Audible membership and save 66% on your first three months. That's $30 off. It's like getting the first three months for the price of one. You pay just $4.99 per month for the first three months, and after that, it's only $14.99 per month. And that offer is good during the entire month of July. So if you haven't given Audible a shot, and especially if you're an Amazon Prime member, now is the time. Go to

audible.com slash hellointernet or text hellointernet to 500 500 to get started today. Thanks to Audible for supporting the show. And thanks to Audible for keeping me company in the gym. I've had a thing on my list, Brady, to discuss with you. Yeah. Vaping. It's been on my list for ages, but I've been really scared to talk about it. I have also been scared to talk about it. This is clearly going to be an old man yells at cloud kind of conversation.

And it also makes me feel weirdly out of touch. But I don't know, I guess in the last year or so, the number of people vaping on the streets of London reached some critical threshold that it has started to tremendously annoy me i keep i keep having this this thought which isn't entirely true but the feeling of it is true that i kind of can't believe that smoking managed to replace itself with a habit that is more annoying than the smoking was i yeah right Do you know what I mean? Like, that's not literally true. It feels that way. Smoking was more annoying in the aggregate. Like when you have a lot of smokers, it was totally unbearable.

Yeah. I know. I haven't been in a situation where it's like a pub and there's 30 people vaping in the pub. Yeah. One individual smoker walking on the street bothers me far less than this like cloud of strawberry vapor that comes out of a single person vaping. Like, I don't know. I just always feel like I'm in dune.

And it's like, oh, the spice must flow. And we have to do this drug in order for our space machines to work. And it's like, I just, it's so, so strange and very intrusive on the people around you in a way that I find shocking and appalling. And I can't believe that this is the thing that has replaced smoking. I mean, I don't know how much I want to get myself in trouble here and upset people. Please get yourself in trouble because I feel like I don't know how much I want to get myself in trouble here and upset people. Please get yourself in trouble because I feel like I'm already in a lot of trouble. I'm about to do that.

And I kind of want to put some caveats in there, right? Because I hate cigarette smoking and I hate cigarettes. And I used to go out with a girl who smoked it. It caused lots of problems. My dad's always been a big smoker. I hate the smell of cigarette smoke. I also acknowledge that it's incredibly dangerous and deadly, and I'm very anti-smoking. I've never had a cigarette in my life. I don't like it.

And I can see that vaping is probably less dangerous and probably better for society, maybe. I don't know. But the one thing I cannot help thinking is when I see people vaping is you look ridiculous. You just look, you look ridiculous. Do you not see, like, as much as I hate smoking, at least smoking is kind of cool. And like, and like there's danger involved and there's fire and it's this, and it's, and it's got this heritage about it of like,, you know, James Dean and, like, so even though I think you shouldn't do it and it's dangerous, like, it's kind of like at least it's got something a bit cool about it. And, like, I don't know. But vaping just looks silly.

You've got these silly, like, things that look like lightsabers or space toys. They're ridiculous looking devices. They're too looking devices. They're too big. Like, they're not small and cool like a cigarette. They're these big, cumbersome, silly things. So, you look like you should be in the cantina at Mos Eisley. And there's these, yeah, there's these huge plumes of,

I have to admit, I do sometimes like the little strawberry smell if I walk past. Like, I actually don't, I'm a bit of a sweet tooth. So, sometimes the strawberry smell, I do think, that is quite pleasant. And I hate cigarette smoke. Okay. But I I'm a bit of a sweet tooth. So, sometimes the strawberry smell, I do think that is quite pleasant and I hate cigarette smoke. Okay. That's revolting. I've got a bit of a sickly sweet taste. So, fair enough. But I just think vaping looks silly. You know, if you're not going to have cigarettes, I applaud you, but don't replace it with like this silly replacement. I just think it looks ridiculous. I've never seen someone vaping and thought you look cool. Vaping makes you look less cool than you already are. Smoking, I hate to admit it,

can actually sometimes make you look cooler than you are. We can all agree on two things. Smoking, bad for your health, but makes you look cool. Like it just does. It gives you plus 10 cool when you smoke yeah and and yeah i i just assume that this is this is like the weight of culture upon us with this concept uh you know there's nothing intrinsic about it it just does here's what it is great here's what it is is a gun. Vaping is a water pistol.

Ooh. You're replacing a gun with a water pistol. That's good. In many ways, because a gun is metal and dangerous and deadly, and a water pistol is colourful and childish and silly. There's something that you're right about with the size as well. I think one of the reasons why even now still you see people smoking in movies is because like the little cigarette can be held and it also has a little bit of light at the end and it can act as like as an accessory to thought and motion. But it is the

vaping, I don't know what you call them, vaping sabers, whatever they are. Like they are these big clunky things in your hands. You can't gesture with it or point with it in the same way or like do little circle motion of, oh, you're thinking about something. Yeah, with just like a little lovely little wisp that's just getting caught in the lamplight of smoke. Like it is the Apple emoji water pistol, right? Like it's big, they're sometimes colorful

and it just looks stupid. What are they called? I'm very sure it's vaping sabres. Is it vape pens? I saw vape pens or- It's not, but they don't look anything like a pen. Vaping devices include not just e-cigarettes, but also vape pens and advanced personal vaporisers, also known as mods.

Mod. Okay, that is the term I've heard a bunch of people use. Vape pens, which resemble large fountain pens, are typically simpler in design and less expensive than devices that have been customized by the user. Yeah. You customize it. You know, you build your own. That's a rite of passage of the vapor. Yeah. I have to say, I'm a little bit glad to hear your opinion on this because you use all the words, Star Wars, lightsaberaber that come into my head when I do look at these vape pens. And I was a little worried that you might be taken in by the potential Star Warsiness. No, I'm the wooden toothbrush guy.

I know, Brady, but still some of them do look very much like a little lightsaber, which I also think is very much on purpose. You don't know me. I like Star Wars, which I also think is very much on purpose. Have you, you, you don't know me. I like Star Wars, but I'm the, I like my stuff old school. The old watch. You're the Apple watch guy. You're the one who I thought would be seduced by the,

the vape mod with all your, with all your, your smart smoking devices. Yeah, no, it's, I'm, I'm definitely not.

There is something, there's something about it where it still does catch me off guard and that my brain does not expect it and it feels very much like living in the future when i see someone use one of those things but the the reaction that i have is not is not like oh this is the cool. There's something about vaping that strikes me as the dystopian future, where I can't help but think of the little vaping devices as, this is addiction technologically distilled. We've removed having to grow tobacco plants in North Carolina and refine them and turn them into cigarettes. It's like, oh no, now we just have this little machine that is just a drug injection machine. And it comes with some fancy baubles and some things that you can customize and these other tricks that humans are suckers for, like the routine of it. But they feel to me like addiction devices distilled all of the

periphery is completely removed but they haven't distilled it they've made it more cumbersome and silly it's like it's like you've managed to quit drinking but your punishment is you have to wear a clown nose and a green wig for the rest of your life like if you're gonna quit the thing don't replace it i don't i don't understand like the health side of it very well and i know it's also debated like some it doesn't seem are these saving lives or this just are people just dying of something else now with this new i don't know and i know it's i know it's debatable about the merits of them but um it's certainly going into pubs is much nicer now you haven't got cigarettes in pubs, but I don't know, does vapes, if you hang out with vapes, does it like get in all your clothes like

cigarette smoke used to? I used to hate coming home from nightclubs and all my clothes smelling a cigarette smoke, but I don't know what, if all my friends were vape, vapers, I don't know what my clothes would smell like. I don't know anyone who vapes, by the way. I don't, I haven't got a single friend or anyone I know who does it that's interesting because i would say it's the same thing for me i i know and have friends who smoke i don't have know a single person who's transitioned to the vape lifestyle the thing that you just mentioned there is actually is actually an interesting um connection to what made me think about this for today which is i lived in london before the came in. And, you know, at least from

my experience, like as an introverted person who doesn't like to go to clubs anyway and pubs, it's much better now that there's not smoking in them. In public areas, it's better to not have smoking. But I'm still like, if you want to smoke in your own life, that's perfectly fine. But what I think is interesting is it just happened a couple of days ago, but San Francisco has apparently passed a ban on e-cigarettes just entirely within the city. They're banning the sale and use of e-cigarettes just like completely within San Francisco. And even for me as somebody who doesn't like vaping, I feel like that's too far. I wouldn't go that far, but I certainly wouldn't mind a little, I wouldn't mind a ban on e-cigarettes in any enclosed areas. And I feel like right now there isn't an official ban, but lots of places like airplanes and like restaurants are saying no cigarettes or e-cigarettes, which feels like the right way.

But I feel like an old man yelling at a cloud somehow complaining about you're gonna get it reddit's gonna go crazy as well and people telling us why they're good and why they're bad and yeah good time to be off reddit i'm not i'm not i think i'm not gonna miss the conversation about this one but they are incredibly obnoxious on the street and you're wrong to like the smell of strawberry sprady it's i do i do i do sometimes like a little weird but i think you look ridiculous it's sickly because it's it's strawberries that have been inside someone else's lungs you don't want to smell that well i don't know again we put it that way everything's been inside someone else's lungs the air you breathe was the air you breathe was inside someone else's lungs probably a minute ago.

Look, in order to get through life, we have to disassociate some things. And that's one of those things.