Hello Internet - H.I. #87: Podcast of the Century

Episode Date: August 31, 2017

Grey & Brady discuss: Operation Tetra and space launches, the 2017 eclipse, Brady's new podcast, the H3H3 copyright/defamation lawsuit, and YouTube auto-advertiser friendliness. Sponsors: Audible: get a free 30-day trial by signing up at audible.com/hellointernet Hover: The best way to buy and manage domain names - get 10% off your first purchase at www.hover.com/hi Fracture: Photos printed in vivid color directly on glass - get 10% off your first order at www.fractureme.com/podcast and mention Hello Internet Listeners like YOU on Patreon Show Notes: Discuss this episode on the reddit Launch photograph Launch video A photo for ants A better photo Space race shielding Space X's suits HI betting market: Eclipse edition 2017 Solar Eclipse List of future astronomical events The Twilight Saga: Eclipse Destin's & the ISS during the eclipse The Unmade Podcast H3H3: WE WON THE LAWSUIT! Original Video: Bold Guy vs Parkour Girl H3H3's react video RedLetterMedia YouTube massage room Brady's inappropriate video Also inappropriate: HI 86 Banana Republic

Hello, hello, that looks good. Waveform looks good on the new posh as cushions microphone. I was not sure if you were actually going to use that to record a show or if it was going to remain a trophy forever somewhere in your house. I couldn't have predicted what you were going to do. I like the idea of it taking some beatings. Like, while I do like objects, I also like objects that have like been used in battle, like the real thing. I prefer that to something that just sits in a glass case. So once this has got scratches on it and I've dropped it and it's got a few dings and dongs and things, that's just going to make me love it more. And knowing that it was used for the next two to 300 Hello Internet episodes. You and I will be automated by then, of course. Hopefully, hopefully.

Thanks. I would like nothing more than to collect the revenues on an automated Hello Internet. I'm so excited to tell you about this that I don't know how to tell you. Okay. Like, do I stretch it out as a big long story with a twist? Or do I just like tell you the cool thing first? And I don't know how to do it. I think I'm going to just jump right in and give you the good stuff

because you just have to know it's too cool. I don't know, Brady. Isn't it always best to start at the beginning? No, not always. I'm going to mess around with the timeline a bit here. Okay. I'm going to send you a picture. Okay.

Okay. In itself, it's a pretty cool picture. Here we go. Oh. What are you seeing there? The scale is a little tricky on this photograph, but it looks like I am seeing a rocket launch at night. I can't quite tell how big this actually is, but it looks like a pretty reasonably sized rocket launching over the ocean.

Launching over the ocean. This is part of the RockSat-X project that NASA runs, where they launch these things called sounding rockets, which are basically repurposed military hardware that they can send into space on suborbital flights as kind of a cheap way of putting things in space. And they're often used for research or sometimes student projects and things like that. So they'll go up and you'll get five or six minutes of zero G and that sort of thing. Oh, so there are people in there? No, there aren't people in there.

Okay. No, they're nowhere near big enough for like people. But they're still pretty hefty rockets and they can go hundreds of miles into space. So, you know, pretty awesome things. So interesting story as well, by the way, why they're called sounding rockets, because I thought there must be something to do with like sonar or something.

Like they used to send them up and like have them make noise to measure things. But it actually has nothing to do with that. It comes from like the nautical term sounding, which is when they used to drop like string or ropes with weights on them off the back of a ship to measure how deep the water was. So this is kind of like in reverse

because they're sending these things up really high. They're sending these sounding rockets into space to figure out how deep space is. i don't think that's the job of the sounding there's a string at the end of the rocket and then we're going to send it as far as we can and that's how big space is and they keep going boy golly it's a space it's really big yeah they're that last one we sent we ran out of string again so big deal and i'll actually i'll endeavor to post a video of this particular one launching because it's not like watching a Saturn V take off to the moon where they start off really

slow rumbling from the pad. These things are like a bullet out of a gun. They're amazing. I think it's something like 30 G-forces when they take off. Okay. So yeah, there's nobody in that rocket. Yeah, it's crazy. And even when it's a sustained flight, it's about 15 G. So you couldn't put people in it. And they also spin at a crazy rate to keep them stable. But then this particular one sort of stops spinning when it gets into space and it stayed sort of weightless and hardly moving at all for six minutes.

And then they re-spin it up and it falls back down to Earth and it lands in the ocean, in the Atlantic Ocean. This thing takes off from a place called the Wallops Flight Facility, which is an island off Virginia. And then someone will fish it out of the water and if necessary they can get the experiment out of the rocket if it hasn't beamed its information back. That's what's going on.

This particular launch happened just recently on August 13 and this thing went up 100 miles. So it went into space, came back down, fantastic. These things are reasonably common launches like this. But this one was a bit special. I'll send you another picture. Okay. Because as far as I know know this is the first time that the hello internet

nail and gear flag has gone into space there was a nail and gear flag in the nose of this rocket so So the Nihilan gear flag has now been into space. Wow. Okay, so you sent me a picture of a mini flag that it looks like somebody made about the length of a number two pencil. This was in the nose of the spaceship that we're talking about here? It was. So if I may explain. Okay, yeah. How did this come to pass? Basically, the start of Operation Tetra, as I'm calling it, I was contacted by a Tim, who I'm going to give the code name Deep Space.

So Deep Space contacted me, and this person was working on the experimental payload. And it's quite common for people working on these sort of things to put a couple of little personal trinkets in. Like everyone will sign it if there's something that can be signed and they might put like an SD card with a bunch of pictures and everyone's names on them so they can say, your name went into space and that. So Deep Space contacted me and basically said,

there could be an opportunity here. So we decided it was time for the nailing gear to go into space. But it had to be extremely small. We couldn't send like a full-size flare because the amount of space and weight you've got is like tiny. He basically said it had to be small enough that if it was all like wound up, it could fit inside like a tiny little like pill container.

And the amount of fuel you need to accelerate any mass to 30 Gs at a sustained level, it gets expensive fast. But luckily I happen to be very good friends in Bristol here with a very talented woman whose business is doing tiny, like intricate stitching and needlework. Cause I didn't want to just send like a paper flag or a cardboard flag into space. Cause I thought that would be a bit naff. I want it to be like a proper cloth flag with, you know, the nailing gear embroidered on, stitched onto. So what you're looking at there is not just like a piece of paper that looks like the nailing gear. That is a proper cloth flag with little bits of string and like all the little things as if you were going to fly it.

So it is a proper nailing gear flag shrunk down. And even the white part there is like separate cloth stitched on. I'll include some more detailed photos later. So this friend of mine made this beautiful tiny flag. Yeah, you sent me the world's tiniest photograph of this tiny flag. You sent me a photograph for ants. So I couldn't quite see the detail. But yeah, once you start describing it, I can see that it has that additional bit of white on it so that it can be flown on a tiny planet that this spaceship might land on, maybe. I'm going to say that that makes it a hundred times better that it's not just a piece of paper with the logo printed out on it. It is a hello internet flag shrunk down to tiny size. That's way better. That's way better.

For the listeners, after my complaining that the photograph Brady sent me was too small, Brady has now sent macro shots of the detail of this flag. I think these are 10, 20 megapixel photos that have come across the old iMessage. Now I can see every, I zoom in on my computer I can see every single individual lovingly crafted stitch on this tiny Hello Internet flag it's beautiful. I did say to my friend Kate

because her business is making these tiny stitch things like she makes like recreations of detailed maps out of stitches and I did say to her once the Tim's see this like they're going to get pretty excited. I did say how do you feel about makings see this, like they're going to get pretty excited. I did say, how do you feel about making a whole bunch of tiny Nolan gear flags?

And she sort of said, eh, maybe. If they're popular, she may have a sideline. Anyway, at the moment, there's just the one. And it's been in space and it's being sent back to me. It was fished out of the, well, the whole rocket was fished out of the Atlantic by the fishermen. Oh, God, it didn't even occur to me. It was fished out of the, well, the whole rocket was fished out of the Atlantic by the fishermen. Oh, God, it didn't even occur to me. So you're going to get this back in your hands.

Yes. Wow. Yes. It's soon to be in the post from codename Deep Space. And I've said, can you also include like an official letter to like certify that it went into space and all that sort of stuff? Because, you know, I like all that kind of stuff. So, hello, internet flag in space. space and all that sort of stuff because you know i like all that kind of stuff so hello internet flag in space it did get a little bit wet because when the rocket smashes into the sea sometimes a

bit of water can leak in so a little bit of seawater got onto it but you know that just adds to the awesomeness of it in my opinion it was exposed to a bit of you know a bit of vacuumness and you know it's done the real deal man it's done the real deal this is such an artifact of hello internet i know what you're thinking i know what you're thinking what am i thinking brady medal of honor well medal of honor obviously i don't even need to say that out loud i'm still thinking about just the object itself and oh yeah this needs to be kept in a vacuum seal like under a glass. There needs to be some sort of like monument around this Hello Internet artifact. This is great. I really love this. Like the photograph that you sent me of this launch, it gets majestic to see photographs of humans launching objects into space just under

normal circumstances. Like look at this tremendous triumph we have as a species. But now that this photograph has taken on almost majestic or holy proportions in my mind, I lack the words to describe it. Yeah. Well, my plan is to get that amazing photo framed with the flag framed and have it like as a permanent display that could possibly go on world tours. Right. Yes. Yeah. I was thinking Kate who stitched it, I was thinking of having it like displayed in her shop for like a month or two. So she could say, look, I made this flag and here it is going into space.

Because then normal people will see it and it won't just be in my office. And it feels like it's part of its world tour, stage one. I could see the museums around the world that are interested in Hello Internet as a cultural powerhouse would want this artifact on loan, on display. I think this quite reasonably could go on world tours in museums across the globe, without a doubt. Before going into its final resting place at the permanent Halo Internet Museum

on level seven of the Marty Blackstone. Right, of course. Where it will be displayed next to the full-size Halo Internet nail and gear flag that was flown on Air Force One, which is already framed in my office. Yes, Brady's office, Halo Internet nail and gear flag that was flown on Air Force One, which is already framed in my office. Yes. Brady's office, the temporary holding place

for all of the Halo Internet artifacts that will eventually be relocated to the proper museum. Do you know what's amazing, though? What? There was actually a nail and gear space race. No, no. Because believe it or not, I'm going to send you another picture. I'm not even joking. Here comes another picture sent by another Tim who has been working on the

innards and circuitry for a small satellite, which is likely to be launched possibly next year. Please tell me this is a Soviet satellite. It's not Soviet. It's not Soviet. Oh, wow. This is a piece of, it looks like circuit board it's not so oh wow this is a piece of it looks like circuit board like printed circuit board it's like shielding board and silk screened onto it is the name of a few people of note to the creator and well you can see it there gray yeah i can see this the nail and gear silk screened onto the shielding board for this

satellite that's very i like that I like that it's being held in the blue gloves for working with delicate equipment or important equipment. This is proper clean room stuff you're looking at here. This is a honest to goodness, awesome satellite that's going to be proper like 600 kilometers in space for a long time. This is no joking matter. So up there as it's zooming around the earth, there will be a nail in gear inside. Shielding the delicate innards of the satellite from the harsh radiation of space. Also awesome. Not as awesome as an actual flag going into space, but still very, very awesome.

Do you know what's really cool about the miniature flag and why it means so much to me? What? Is because it was a really big thing in the Apollo time to take miniature flags, like to the moon and stuff. Oh, yeah? And you can still buy them on the secondhand market and a miniature American flag that went to the moon, depending on whether it went around the moon,

landed on the moon, went on the surface of the moon, you're looking at tens, tens, tens of thousands of dollars at least. Wait, can you explain that to me? Are you saying that there was a market for astronauts bringing flags up on space missions and then bringing them back? Apollo astronauts, well, all astronauts still, but it was a particularly big thing in the Apollo time, were allowed to take these personal preference kits, they're called PPKs, into space. And it's like a cloth bag. And you could put whatever you wanted in there. So they would put things in there that would be valuable

because they went to space. And if the material stayed in the module that went around the moon, you know, that's pretty valuable. If you took it with you into the lunar landing module and it went down onto the surface, that made the item even more valuable. If it was in a pocket or something when you walked around on the moon, that's pretty valuable stuff that is. It did start causing a few controversies later on.

Apollo 15 got themselves into a bit of controversy to do with taking up a bunch of envelopes and stamps and sign stuff. And the whole sort of grubby market side of it became a little bit controversial for a while. That's what I was wondering is, is this like part of the unofficial compensation package of becoming an astronaut? Is like, oh, wink, wink, we all know you get to bring up some stuff that you can sell on the grey market. It wasn't even unofficial. There are these things and you can still buy them today. There's quite a market for them. I think they're called insurance covers and they would be like an official envelope, like with nice printed stuff on it, like a picture of

the crew commemorating the mission and like stamps and things like that and all the astronauts on that mission like neil armstrong and buzz aldrin and michael collins did this would each sign the envelope so it had all three members of the mission on the envelope and they'll do a whole bunch of them and then those envelopes would be split amongst the families because then if they then like died on the moon because they couldn't get life insurance because no one would insure them these things would be so valuable they would act as life insurance so they were actually called insurance covers and they were things they were sitting there signing thinking this is going to keep my family fed if i die in space interesting

stuff isn't it the the envelope thing i've heard that I guess what I'm wondering is like this policy of you can bring up a little bag full of personal items. Yeah. How much was it blessed or anticipated from NASA that you, of course, are going to bring up things that you're just going to resell versus, oh, you're bringing up a photograph of your wife and family, you know, to put on the dashboard of the spaceship, like in a movie or whatever. Or leave on the moon. There was one Apollo astronaut who left a photo of his wife and kids actually on the surface of the moon. Or to do that. Like, I guess that's what I'm wondering is, I understand that they could officially bring up objects, but was it foreseen or anticipated that this would rapidly turn into a gray market of memorabilia? I'm pretty sure it was already a known thing that was happening. Like even before

Apollo, the early missions, it was sort of already a thing that items flown in space were valuable and astronauts, you know, were known to be taking them up there and like doing their own little side deals with people to take certain things into space. It came to a head after Apollo 15. I can't remember all the exact details. I think from memory it was reaching a kind of more industrial scale almost and then it kind of started looking bad and then they sort of introduced some new rules. But up until then it was kind of okay. NASA, again, I'm just speaking from memory here,

but I believe NASA didn't even look at what was in those bags. That's how personal they were. The only person who had a list of what was in your personal preference kit, I believe, was probably Deke Slayton, who was the head of the astronaut office. So he had to know what was in there just so that you weren't taking a stick of dynamite up or something like that. Or they have an inventory,

just in case there's an Apollo 13 moment of, oh, somebody brought scotch tape. How incredibly convenient is this? Yeah, I actually brought the correct shaped carbon dioxide filter in my personal preference kit. What a blessing. That's really interesting. I have one more question about this, Brady. Oh, I only want.

Go on. Can you explain the name Operation Tetra? I feel like there's some clever meaning to this, that I, as a person who lacks your encyclopedic knowledge of outer space i am not picking up on what is this operation name and what does it mean the reason it is called operation tetra is not for me to reveal that is a decision for deep space if he wishes to reveal it okay that's how secretive it is if deep space wishes to reveal why we're calling it operation tetra that is his prerogative okay wow We'll find out next episode if such information is revealed or if it remains forever a mystery. I was so excited by this, but before I spoke about it on the show today, because

obviously most of this had been done by email and post. Before I spoke about it on the show today, I wanted to have had a voice conversation just to find out, you know, you find out so much more that way. Right. So I had the phone call and that just got me even more excited. And I couldn't tell you because I wanted to surprise you on the show. So I immediately phoned my wife and she's like, what's going on? I'm like, oh, I'm so excited. I just have to tell you what's going on.

And she already knew about the thing going into space. I was like, I spoke to him. She's like, oh, that's good. And, you know, I told her all sorts of bits and pieces and she listened. And do you know what her reaction was? I'm going to guess, as with so many things with your wife and Hello Internet related, her reaction was no reaction.

She said, don't forget to pick up some bananas at the shop. Oh, God. Oh, God, that's the worst. That is so deflationary. I understand that feeling. I have been on the unintentional receiving end of those kinds of remarks too, where you're telling someone something that you think is so amazing and that other person's like, oh, that's great. That's great. We need milk as well if you happen to be going out like oh before that she did ask me one question and that kind of shot me down as well because i said oh the flow oh it went into space it went into space and she went where in space did it go and then i went oh well like it went up like high for six minutes and then it fell back down into the sea uh okay she was looking for a planet name. Is that what she's looking for? A planet.

Actually, two and a half years ago on day one of the podcast, we launched a probe headed out towards Pluto and it's just come back. Anyway, I did pick up the bananas. We get the important things done here. Speaking of space, Gray, Elon Musk apparently has released the picture of what the space suit is going to look like that is going to be worn by his SpaceX crew when they like go to space. I mean, I don't know why there's crew on his dragon cargo capsules, but... Okay. I have a question here, Brady.

Okay. There's a good chance I won't have the answer. Well, okay. My question is actually partly about that because I feel like maybe I'm wrong about this, but I feel like you're a real NASA man. Am I right about that? Yeah. A couple of episodes ago,

there was something about cars in Australia and it was like, oh, everybody in Australia, it's wibbly wobblies versus zingers, and I'm a wibbly wobbly man. Like people pick sides in these things. Yeah, I know what you're talking about now. Fordham Holden. Yeah, I got it. I may be wrong, but I'm realizing when you send me this story about SpaceX, that I feel like you're a NASA man in your bones. And I would wonder, first, is that correct? And if it is correct, how much do you follow news about SpaceX? I love NASA, because, you know, they've got the

runs on the board, haven't they? They put people on the moon. They were the groundbreakers. And when they were doing space stuff at its best, it was all about just what can we do? What can we do just for the sake of doing? Not what's going to make us money, not how much money are we going to get by landing on the moon or putting people in space or taking a photo of the moons of Saturn. It was just what can we do and let's do it. And I love them for that. Times have changed.

Times have even changed at NASA, in my opinion. And so when I look at things like SpaceX, while they're doing impressive difficult things a lot of it is kind of what can we do that's already been done but cheaper or what can we do that's already been done but earn money from it right and like that's important and like i know it's important to make space stuff cheaper because that's what's going to make it, you know, more useful to us as humans. But that just doesn't inspire me. I'm not inspired by economics.

Like when they keep landing these reusable rockets and everyone's like this is a great milestone for space, like it's not a great milestone. It just means it's going to make rocket use cheaper. And like to me that's not a milestone. That's just like economies. going to make rocket use cheaper. And to me, that's not a milestone. That's just like economies. And don't get me wrong, it does look pretty impressive when those things land because it just is such a bizarre looking thing

to see something land backwards like that. So I am impressed by the visuals of it. But I don't think all these milestones of making things cheaper are like inspiring me. I think they're good and I'm glad people are doing them and I'm glad there are businessmen who care about these things, because it's important to push it all forward. So I'm not going to poo poo them. But I'm also not going to get stars in my eyes and think how wonderful this is. I just think it's just the corporatization and the businessization

of space, which was inevitable and fine, but it just doesn't stir me. You liked space before it was all corporate? Yeah. You've summed it up there. Yeah. It's interesting because I am very aware that of all of the companies that are in the Musk orbit, the only one that I actually really follow with any detail is Tesla. And I haven't followed any of the news out of SpaceX, it just doesn't hold my mind. Even though I completely agree with with your comments, but like the economics of it are important for the future of space travel. It's just that I don't follow it. I actually haven't even seen one of those videos yet of the rockets landing

backwards. Like I've, I've seen still photographs, but I've never actually seen the video itself. It's quite a sight. It's quite a funny sight. It's worth a look. Yeah. But what I just think is interesting is I do know people who are into space and it's like, for some people, like while you are a NASA man, some people are all in on SpaceX. Like they're super interested in SpaceX and not very interested in the stuff that came before SpaceX. There are two types of SpaceX fans. There are the ones you just described who like, just love that it's becoming business and private. And there are also like the cheerleaders who just like anything space is good. Hey, if it's space, it's good. And they get all excited. And you know my feeling on that.

Space cheer pressure. That's how you feel about it. Space cheer pressure. You mustn't say anything bad about SpaceX because they're like pushing space forward. And like, you know, dare not question that. Anyway. I think it's an interesting thing because I vaguely know when SpaceX stuff is going on because I see people tweeting at me about the news and asking what I think about it. I'm just always aware that I just don't follow it. It doesn't pull my attention toward it. Maybe I

think you've solidified something in my mind that it's like the NASA stuff is interesting because it was first. And as I think I've said before, on the podcast, I view a lot of the NASA stuff as particularly interesting. The whole space race time is particularly interesting. Because it may be one of the only times in human history where there was like technological happenings that were off the timeline. I feel like the progress of technology is very ordered and one thing very naturally comes after the next. But that maybe we had this moment where there was like a push that was ahead of its time, which is then why we didn't have much progress for a long time. But that makes it super interesting, that there were other things happening in the world that forced this early expansion of a thing that really shouldn't have happened for another 60 years. So like, that is very interesting. But I think you're right, maybe a lot of the stuff right now, it doesn't capture my attention, because it is

mostly about dropping the costs to the point at which it's economical to do. And then maybe my interest will uptick once it gets out of the we're dropping the cost phase. which it's economical to do. And then maybe my interest will uptick once it gets out of the we're dropping the cost phase. And it's like, okay, I think I'll be excited once we start actually moving cargo in and out of space, or like when we actually start mining asteroids, like Jeff Bezos, his rival company is trying to do. I think that's maybe where I'll be interested again. but I still feel like I'm at a real lull for interest in what's going on in space. We're going through a necessary process, but it's not exciting to me yet until we start doing new things again.

Yeah. I think I get a little bit demotivated when I think people are doing things just for the money. And I feel like it's an inevitable consequence of private funded space travel and exploration that it has to be done for the money. Otherwise, it won't happen. So I'm not saying like Elon Musk only cares about money. Right. But I am saying they are making sure everything they do will make money. And that's when it becomes a bit demotivating.

Even when they start, you know, doing lots more cargo or when they start mining stuff. I don't care about the mining asteroids because it's profitable. I'm really curious to see what it's like on an asteroid. That's going to be cool. But when it's about money, I straight away go, business. I love when things are being done just for the accomplishment. For the glory of it. Glory, okay. yeah, glory too.

I understand that feeling. I think my feeling is a little bit different in that I think with stuff like this, in my mind, when I think about mining asteroids, I think it's not like, wow, Bezos or Musk are going to make a fortune on those asteroids, right? Isn't that exciting? I think I'm much more interested because

it's like the money is an indication that something is useful now. It's not just a stunt. It means like if a thing can be done for profit, it means there is some intrinsic utility in the thing for someone, somewhere. Like that's where it starts becoming interesting again. like once the economics of asteroid mining become viable it means that whatever it is that's happening is useful and relevant to people in some way but it feels like we're not there yet and who knows how long it will take to actually get there this this is also the kind of thing i feel like i have no idea or mental estimate of like what is the timeline of how long is it going to take before the very first roll of copper is ever pulled in from an asteroid?

Like, I have no idea. Is that 10 years? Is it 50 years? Is it 100 years away? Like, I don't have any concept of what people are thinking about in that domain. I get it. And I get why that is of interest to you. And it certainly is important to lots of people.

And it's inevitable that that's the way things would end up. But I feel sad that that has actually become so important to everyone. Like that's what's reigned in NASA, isn't it? People started saying, you know, how is what you're doing actually useful to humans? Not another space probe into the outer solar system. Like do something useful. There's all this pressure to do something useful. There was nothing useful about going to the moon.

Oh, there was something useful. It was proving those Ruskies that we were better. I'm going to directly argue that that was actually tremendously useful. And that's why it was a bit of like an artificial technological leap. We got to prove to somebody that we're way better than them. Like watch out Russiansussians america rules yeah but america didn't prove its might by finding a cheaper way to refine copper or it didn't prove its might by increasing its gross domestic product by 15 and use that as a way of saying see russia

we are mighty what they did was something audacious with no seeming economic value. So even though there was the political utility of it at the time, the thing they realised they had to do to really wow the world and prove their amazingness wasn't economic. It was outside that. Anyway, Elon Musk has released this image of their spacesuit. I was just curious what you thought of it. I thought, like, it's obviously a very glossy PR picture designed to impress,

but it's the first look at a private spacesuit. I wonder what you thought of it. I don't know. I think it looks sleek. It looks very 2001. There isn't much to comment on it, except there is something that endlessly tickles me about The Guardian has an article in which they reference that, quote, Chief Executive Elon Musk revealed the suit on Instagram on Wednesday. Right? Like, there's something about that, that I just I find really funny,

that we live in this world where the CEOs of major companies or even big notable politicians, like they announced stuff on like Twitter and Instagram. And I just wait for the day when someone really important announces the thing on Reddit and then newspapers have to reveal that CyberMonkey47 revealed his future plans about this enormous company that he runs on his Reddit. I feel like it is only a matter of time before some kid who's had a social media account forever with a dumb name who just wants to keep keeping it becomes a CEO of an important company. And then all of his announcements are on this social media with his old handle, right, that he made up when he was 13. Like, I just, it tickles me to think that that's going to happen eventually.

Or like, I look forward to like a president declaring war on Snapchat and it disappears after 24 hours. Did he declare war? The snap's not there anymore. Oh, it's okay. I screen grabbed it. This episode of Hello Internet is brought to you by our good friends at Audible. Audible brings you an unmatched selection of audiobooks, original audio shows, news, comedy, and more. You can get a free audiobook with a 30-day trial at audible.com slash hellointernet. One of the things I like about listening to audiobooks is I find much more than a physical book, it's easier to re-read an audiobook that you like a lot. And I have a few favorites that I like to revisit on occasion. And one of those that's been on my mind, given some of the things we've been discussing on Hello Internet, is Bill Bryson's In a Sunburned Country. Bill

Bryson, if you're unaware, is a funny expat travel writer who I've enjoyed a bunch of his books. A Walk in the Woods, where he goes through the Appalachian Trail, is also quite good. And I think I have recommended to you before. But in a sunburned country, this is the book where he visits Australia. And I think perhaps I need to revisit this book so I can more deeply understand Akka. I feel like there's something I'm still not getting about this term that Brady discusses on the podcast. And it's been a long time

since I've read In a Sunburned Country. So I think I need to go back for some Akka updates. I need to hear Bryson tell me about all of the kind of super adorable things that you can find in Australia. Cuddly koalas, posing platypi. The country is just filled with so much cuteness that I think I didn't appreciate on my first listen through. So if you are signing up with Audible and you're thinking about a book that you want to use as your free audiobook, perhaps think about giving In a Sunburned Country by Bill Bryson a try.

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up today at audible.com slash hellointernet. That's audible, A-U-D-I-B-L-E dot com slash hellointernet. Thanks again to Audible for sponsoring the show. All right. One other reasonably, well, yes, significant piece of space news. Where am I, Brady, right now? I actually don't know where you are. I'm assuming you're in England, but seriously, you never tell me. I actually, at one point, thought you'd gone to America for the eclipse and hadn't told me. Maybe I have.

I still don't know that you didn't. It is actually true that I have occasionally recorded the podcast from another location and it just hasn't come up in the space of recording. But no, for this recording, I'm sure to the disappointment of hundreds of thousands of Tims, we are not in America recording while the eclipse is occurring. On a podcast many, many moons ago. Oh, clever. It was speculated whether or not we were going to be in America for the eclipse,

whether or not the podcast was going to still be in existence at the time that the eclipse occurred. And the podcast still exists, but we did not make it to America this summer. Sorry, everybody. For two minutes, I was jealous of all my American friends. But for the 48 hours, either side of those two minutes, I was feeling very all my American friends. But for the 48 hours either side of those two minutes, I was feeling very, very happy to not be in airports and on planes.

Yeah, I think that is definitely the case. For both of us, we've ended up with a summer with lots of travel. And it was very difficult to try to coordinate. I had the longest traveling I ever had this summer, which was then followed by a very short break being back in England. And then a big anniversary trip. And it's just like the summer was just a big, big traveling summer. And it just really wasn't, it wasn't going to work out going to America. So I have said before, seeing a total solar eclipse is an amazing thing. I did see one in China. And it remains one of the most extraordinary things I've seen. So I

think everyone who was lucky enough to see it in the United States is very fortunate and I hope they enjoyed it. But the cheer pressure got a little bit crazy at some points on Twitter and I braved it occasionally with a little bit of mocking. The America-centricness of it took even my breath away. Like someone needs to get over there and tell Americans that eclipses happen elsewhere. Seriously, it was crazy how America-centric it was. But okay, okay, my fault for following so many Americans on Twitter. But CNN did my head in most of all,

constantly referring to this as the eclipse of the century. By what criteria this is the eclipse of the century, I have not been able to establish. I can't even make one up. Is it the only eclipse this century, Brady? No. Is it the only eclipse in America this century? No.

Okay. Is it the biggest eclipse? No this century? No. Okay. Is it the biggest eclipse? No. It's not the longest. Is it the smallest eclipse? It's not the smallest. It's nothing. I couldn't find a single criteria by which this was the eclipse of the century, other than it was happening right now in America. Is it the eclipse of the century that has been most often referred to as the eclipse of the century? Perhaps that is the metric by which they are measuring.

And it will remain so until the next solar eclipse in the United States. Like there are some people saying, oh, there's some coast to coast criteria, but eclipses have gone across like other countries. Like if you are not being America centric, there is no way you could call it the eclipse of the century. And even if you are being America centric, they have a better eclipse this century. Admittedly, not for a long time. When is the better eclipse? Oh, it's like right at the end of the century. Okay. Well, promise right now, if the podcast is still running, we'll be there for the second eclipse of the century. We missed the first one,

but we'll catch the second one in America. I started looking up other eclipses to find out what really is the eclipse of the century. We missed the first one, but we'll catch the second one in America. I started looking up other eclipses to find out what really is the eclipse of the century. I decided I wanted to figure out what would be the eclipse of the century. I didn't really decide on one. There was a quite a good one in Antarctica that goes the opposite way to normal. But what I then started looking at was, well, what are just the best eclipses full stop? And there's actually a Wikipedia page you can go to because you know how they know every eclipse forever so they know when they're going to happen in that and you can look up all these amazing things like eclipses that coincide with transits of venus and things

like that like all these amazing alignments that happen in space and there was one i think in like 20 000 years or something where a total solar eclipse coincides with a transit of Venus and things like that. So I was reading about that stuff, right? And that stuff is so far in the future, it starts to make you feel a little bit insignificant, right? And then I saw an image taken from space of the eclipse that just happened. And it was like a time lapse showing the moon's shadow sweep across the earth. And when you saw it in time lapse and you realized all an eclipse is, is like a shadow fleetingly crossing another object.

Part of me looked at that imagery and thought, that's amazing. Like, that's really amazing to see. It's amazing that we can do that, that we can look at the moon's shadow from space aren't we amazing but another part of me thought like that was just a shadow briefly touching another object in space it happens all the time it will happen for hundreds of thousands of more years it happens all across the universe all the time and yet we humans down here are getting so excited and calling it the eclipse of the century and like our planet's grinding to a halt so we can watch it. And it made me suddenly think, aren't humans like really fleeting and pathetic? Few things. First, I need you to send me the link to this list of eclipses because when I searched for Wikipedia eclipse, the top result was Twilight Saga colon eclipse.

So I am not able to find this list that you're talking about. Put list of future astronomical events. This Wikipedia article is very interesting, but it is not what I think we're really looking for here. List of future astronomical events. Yeah, and if you scroll down to things that are happening, like, you know, in the year 20,346, Kerban becomes the North Star and things like that. Okay, right. So I'm looking at list of future astronomical events.

I enjoy this breakdown. We have the 21st century, including things like Halley's Comet reaches perihelion as it returns to the inner solar system. There's Venus occults Jupiter. I don't actually know what the word occults means in this context. It's kind of like an eclipse, but the other way. It's like two things crossing over each other in the night sky. So what was that one? Venus occults Jupiter. So that would look like Venus was crossing in front of Jupiter from our perspective.

Okay. So there's a few things that are listed here in the 21st century. The next category is 22nd to 30th century, known as the near Star Trek future, I imagine. It then goes to the 4th to 10th millennium. But I really enjoy that after the 10th millennium, they simply call it the far future, right? Whereas I feel like 4th to 10th millennium, I think you can categorize it as the far future. I like that they're like, no, no, no. After 10th millennium, far future is what we need to talk about. Some of these are awesome, though. And it makes me sad that I won't be here.

Like in the year 38,172, if you're on the surface of Neptune, you can watch Uranus transit across the front of the sun, the rarest of all planetary transits. Wouldn't that be amazing? Or if you were around here on Earth in the year 67,173, Mercury and Venus cross the ecliptic at the same time, but then a mere 2, 2000 years later, you can watch something I would love to see, a simultaneous transit of Venus and Mercury, both crossing the

sun's face at the same time. Personally, I like Wikipedia for some of its little human elements here, that in the year 4772 on October 13th, the Mayan calendar will require a sixth digit. I like to imagine that on October 12th of that year, there are once again people freaking out about the inevitable end of the earth at that point. Like, oh, the Mayan calendar, it only has five digits. It's referred to as the Mayan bug. I really like the idea of that. People will just have totally forgotten all of the history up until now. Like, oh no, Mayan calendar again. It's coming up to another digit.

The Mayans didn't see this far in advance. And in America, it will still be eclipses of the century every time there's an eclipse in America. Yeah, that's what's going to happen here. It's an interesting list to see these things. I enjoy the idea of physicists calculating and finding these things or simulating these things on a computer, however it is they come across these events. This is also for me as a former physics major, it's the pleasing nature of being able to do calculations that are so many times in physics, you're doing a calculation

and you say these things like, oh, well, we're just going to have to ignore friction and air resistance for this physics problem. But when you're dealing with very massive bodies in space, in the vacuum of space, you can say, yeah, we can actually calculate what's going to happen in the year 7000, right? Because we can ignore friction, because there isn't any friction, like it's trivial in this case. So I love the idea that you can just calculate that stuff so far out in advance. Apparently, there is a point though, where even like solar system predictions become chaotic. There has to be,

because you have stuff like solar wind and the vacuum of space is not a pure vacuum. There has to be some point at which that is, but like how close is that to the actual heat death of the universe? I would love to know. Somebody knows. Like where does it start becoming chaotic in those predictions? Long after you and I are in the ground, that's for sure.

But all of this, all of this aside, the thing I kept thinking about with this eclipse coming up in America, and of course, us having made reference to it years ago, I feel like someone has been turning up the volume in the background of my life for the past three months about how often I hear about this eclipse, like on Twitter and references to the rest of it. And as it kept getting closer, and as I was thinking more and more about eclipses, and seeing what equipment you need to view the eclipse and where you need to be, I have to say, I feel like this took all of the shine off of eclipses in my mind, because like you, when you were talking about, oh, it's a shadow crossing in front of an object, I feel like I have crossed some kind of mental barrier where

I don't even understand why this is anything other than just a thing of mild interest. I don't know, I feel like I can't understand anymore how it is that people are interpreting the eclipse. It's like, okay, so your subjective experience is you're outside, it goes dark for a few moments, and then it's light again in the middle of the day. That's not what the eclipse experience is though. Like that's not what happens. Okay. Why is it so breathtaking?

It is a very beautiful thing. It's rare, right? Let's ignore like the historical significance of the human like relationship with eclipses because you can easily dismiss that as old superstition, right? So let's just talk about it as just a thing of beauty. It is a very beautiful thing. Okay.

It's also like just something so far from what you're used to seeing, like watching the sun, which you've seen like every day of your life in the sky suddenly being like eaten away like pac-man is like it's just very strange to look up and think that's like a really strange thing to see like if something extraordinary is in the sky and then for the two minutes of totality not only is it strange to have like night thrust upon you so quickly there is like an eeriness to it because everything else is like day still. So like the birds are all out and animals are around and suddenly they're quite confused. So some

interesting things happen. But the most important thing is it just looks really beautiful the way you see the corona and the diamond ring phenomena and the glistening around the edge of the sun, this black disc in the sky with the light around it. But the other thing that's seeing a total eclipse in real life impressed upon me that is never conveyed in photos. Yeah, this is what I'm wondering. What is the in-presence experience? Yeah, there is something that's not conveyed in photos. And this will sound silly, because I know how far away all these objects are, right? But there is like a kind of three dimensionality to it that's hard to explain

it doesn't just look like a flat photo or a video it feels more three-dimensional and almost feels like you could reach out and touch it it's got this really weird quality to it and i was talking to our very good friend destin beforehand who did watch the eclipse i would have been severely disappointed if destin had not seen the eclipse and who also i must say did invite me to go and watch it with him and tried to accommodate me. So he was very kind, but I couldn't make it. And he also took an incredible photo of the International Space Station transiting the sun partway through the eclipse. So make sure you go and check that out and whatever other videos Destin has produced about it, because I'm sure they'll be brilliant, although I've not yet seen them.

But when I was talking to Destin beforehand, I said to him, whatever you do, make sure you put your camera down at some point and look at it because there's something about seeing it that no photo will convey and you should just stop and look at it for a minute because that's the best thing about it. And afterwards, like he said, I even stopped taking photos. I almost forgot to take photos because looking at it was what it was all about and he couldn't have agreed more.

And I said, do you agree? Like no photo can explain what that looks like. And he said, 100% agree. Maybe you're talking me back into it, Brady. You should definitely watch one at some point. They are lovely to watch. I feel like your poetic words are unwinding something about my experience of seeing photographs on twitter of people holding

paper plates in front of their face this one for me in a way was a bit ruined by the hype like i'd rather go and watch one in antarctica or like in some obscure place where it's a bit it feels a little bit more i don't want to sound like really like- Like a personal experience? You want a private experience? Yeah, I don't want to like say like more at one with nature or something like that where I'm going to embarrass myself. But where it doesn't feel like it's just something for CNN to put another counter on the screen for. It's inevitable when something happens in America,

it's going to get like hyped to death. Like whenever the Olympics are in America, they're never as good because the Olympics are like this exotic sporting event. When I was growing up, the Olympics are this amazing thing. In countries you could never dream of visiting, and you can't even say their names properly. And then whenever the Olympics goes to America, it's just like, bleh, Super Bowl, you know. It's the Super Bowl of athletics. It becomes a bit rubbish, because as much as I love America and Americans, they kind of, you know, they have this way about things.

They have this way about them, right? That's probably the best way to say it, Brady. So they even turned the eclipse into like the Super Bowl of astronomy. It had to be the eclipse of the century. This is the world champion of eclipses. It's like, you know, it's just, it's an eclipse. I know you haven't had one for a while and you're right to want to go out and watch it. But, you know, calm down.

Calm down. I'm feeling like the inevitable name of this podcast should be Eclipse of the Century. Perhaps that's a bit too mean, right? It's like that's going to set terrible expectations for the listeners if they see Eclipse of the Century. Are you telling me that the nail and gear flag has been sent into space and you're going to make this podcast name about the eclipse? You know what it is, actually? It's the podcast of the century. That's what it is.

I think you've called it because us sending that flag into space was pretty amazing. And there's more good stuff to come. Podcast of the century it is. There we go. Done. By the way, I just wanted to bring up a little quick thing we talked in the last episode about positioning your icons on your iphone because i've now got this massive screen right the plus the plus screen yep so i was talking to my wife about it and i was saying how i'm going to move twitter and all my regularly

used icons down lower so i can get to them more easily and i said you know and then you know i'll muscle memory where they are eventually and everything will be back to normal. And she told me something she does that I didn't know she did and is really interesting. And I thought you would find interesting. And that is every few days or so, she moves her icons for things she gets a little bit addicted to like Twitter and Instagram. So they're not always in the same place. So she doesn't get that muscle memory. So she actually thinks about it, like, do I really want to open Twitter yet again? Do I really want to browse Instagram? Like to actually put a barrier to finding it, to stop her opening it all the time out of force of habit.

And I found that, I didn't know she did it. And I found it fascinating. And I thought it was a really clever idea. That is a really great idea. Yeah. It's a really interesting idea because, I mean, you know, my tack to this is to take everything off my phone except the absolute bare minimum of what I need. Probably, I think you would say definitely to a level at which it inconveniences the other people who have to interact with me. Yes. Yeah, there you go. Definite yes from Brady there, without a doubt, because I make my phone as inert an object as possible that does as few functions as possible. Right.

That, shall we say, is not a strategy for everyone. That's like, that's one step away from cutting off your fingers to stop yourself using Twitter. What I feel is the inevitable is it's like, this is how it starts and it ends in a cabin in the woods with no Wi-Fi, right? Like that's, we all know that's where this is. This is inevitably going. But so I actually think this is a kind of brilliant strategy for a much less extreme

take on it. Like you still want to have these things on your phone because they're useful and because you like them and because they bring entertainment into your life. But it is so easy to mindlessly just go to them and to not really to have that like lizard part of your brain wake up and think, oh, what's on Twitter? And it just goes and it looks and you don't quite consciously realize what's happening. Like that's a really great strategy. And I think that's a really great option for you want to stay connected to the world like a normal person, but still break that automatic reflex that you get over time. And let's be honest, it's also a thing that many of these companies who want you to have their apps on your phone, like they intentionally try to get you Skinner boxed into that habit of just opening kind of thoughtlessly. So you are,

you do have a bit of an antagonist in the form of some of those apps. I think that's a really great idea. Is it a strategy that you're going to adopt? I don't know yet. I don't know. I'm a bit of a mess with my phone at the moment. Like I've repositioned the icons and i'm not happy and i'm not happy with my phone life at the moment and i don't want to churn it up because i think it's a bit of a boring thing to talk about repeatedly but i've just i haven't found a happy place with my new phone and my icon positioning and you think this is a boring topic i'll tell you well no no no no actually like me, I kind of think it is a bit of a boring topic. But for some reason, it's a topic that lots of people can't move away from. People love this topic in a way that I find is weirdly intense and obsessive. But I am with you 100% about this. Again, simply

because I'm running the beta on my phone. So it's changed a bunch of things about how and where different apps need to be. But I'm with you. I'm at a place where I feel very uncertain with where different apps go and how everything is going to be arranged. You know how when your house isn't quite right, like you haven't unpacked boxes or a room is messy and stuff, and you've got other things to do. But just knowing that room is messy is messing with your mind.

I'm having that about my phone at the moment. Every time I think about my phone, I just feel this like I'm really unhappy because I know it's not serving me well. The screen's too big. I may have made a mistake. I don't know. The screen is definitely too big. Like this is an example of the screen being too big causing me a problem, right?

When you make a Snapchat video, like you hold down the button to make the video and to release the button, like on screen, the on-screen video button, like just to take your thumb off it, involves having to change your grip on the phone because your thumb holding the video button is part of your grip on the phone. So when you lift that thumb off the screen and you're using one hand, you no longer have the same grip on the phone. So the phone kind of drops and slips and moves. And that is the last half a second of your Snapchat video, which you then can't edit because you can't edit Snapchat videos. So every Snapchat video I make

ends with the camera just suddenly jerking for half a second as I lift my thumb off the video. It's just little things like that. It's annoying. And these devices are with us all the time. And it's like a thing that you have to deal with all day long. I'm with you 100% about it. It's like having part of your house not in order. It's worse than that because it's a thing that you end up opening and looking at so many times. I should have stuck with the small phone because the other thing I thought would happen in my head, I thought having this big phone would give me a battery that would last for weeks. I think I fell into the hype that you get better battery life. So still, when I look down at my battery,

and yet again, I'm in the red, I'm like, what? I thought I've got this big, ginormous phone. I'd have more battery life. And still, my battery's always bloody empty. God sake. I thought at least I was buying more battery life. No, you're never winning this race. It's absolutely frustrating. Great, I'm calling it. Yeah. End of phone conversation. Done. If this

is going to be the podcast of the century, we can't have this much phone talk in it. So Grey, I think it's fitting that you decided to call this episode podcast of the century. Because I've launched a new podcast. Oh, I wasn't even thinking about that. I thought maybe you were paying me an immense compliment. I swear I didn't set that up. That was entirely your idea to call it Podcast of the Century. You did not set that up. That was me doing that. Yeah, so you have started, you've launched a new podcast, Brady. And if I may say so, my own personal experience of this is it's about time. I feel like ever since we did the first 10 episodes and then Hello Internet has continued on since then, I have been waiting.

It felt just so, so inevitable that you would launch a podcast at some point. And I would mention this to you over the years and you would say, no, no, I'm too busy. I can't possibly do a podcast at some point, and I would mention this to you over the years, and you would say, no, no, I'm too busy. I can't possibly do a podcast. I would say, that's okay. I'll just wait. I'll wait for the day that it inevitably occurs. And now it's here. It's finally here, Brady. It is here. And I have to say, of all the people who have been encouraging me to do it, bordering on pressuring me to do it, Gray has been top of the list. It's something you've really been encouraging me to do for a long time. So if you think that like I've sneaked off behind Gray's back, you couldn't be further from the truth. He's forever telling me he thought it was something I should do and has been very encouraging and helpful. So Brady, do you want

to pitch the people on what your podcast is about? Well, before I tell you about it and the name of it, I have to quickly tell you about my co-host or vice host. Yeah, what's his name? His name is Tim. No. And it's not a joke. It's not a joke. It's his real name.

He's one of my best friends and has been for a very long time. He lives in Australia and his real name is Tim. So while this podcast has no links with Hello Internet, it's just a separate thing that I'm doing occasionally in my spare time. The co-host is called Tim, and this has caused much amusement. So there you go. You can make what you will of that. It's a podcast I'm doing with my friend Tim.

And the name of it is The Unmade Podcast. And the pitch of it is, so far, you never know what direction a podcast is going to end up going. No, of course. But so far, the idea is in each episode, we discuss ideas for podcasts that would be fun to make. And then we talk about each other's ideas and whether we think they're good ideas or bad ideas.

And it's supposed to be funny. So sometimes it's a serious idea. More often than not, they're silly ideas. And we each pitch two ideas to each other per episode. And then we just chat about them and joke around and see where the conversation goes. And it's been quite good fun to make. So Unmade podcast because they're podcasts that will probably always be unmade. It's a tease, Brady. It's an eternal tease for these podcasts that people are going to want. Can I do a little bit of a spoiler for the first episode, just related to this? You can. The first episode came out before we were recording, so hopefully some people

have actually listened to it. Yeah, it came out yesterday, the day before yesterday, in the recording timeline here. So I've listened to the first episode. And the tease thing about it, I actually got a preview. I got to hear an early cut. You did. You had exclusive first listen. I felt very privileged with that. You actually listened to it before it was properly cut down to size, though. So you heard it when it was still a little bit ugly.

But that's okay. I didn't think it was ugly. No. But there's a funny thing here. So the segment that you have at the very end is where your co-host suggests the idea of a Groundhog Day podcast, in which you are going to discuss Groundhog Day every day. And I told you at the time, that's a hilarious topic because it's obviously such a terrible idea.

But after listening to that show, it's one of these things like that idea keeps haunting me. I keep thinking about the Groundhog Day podcast and I feel like there is nothing more that I want than to hear you about the Groundhog Day podcast. And I feel like there is nothing more that I want than to hear you do a Groundhog Day podcast. Like I can't let this idea go. And I feel like this is what the podcast may be, is just getting teased about shows that are not going to be made because it would be crazy for you to make the Groundhog Day podcast. But I cannot let it go. I keep coming back to this idea

of every day you're doing a podcast about the movie Groundhog Day. It's fantastic. So another idea that came up in that first episode was one that I suggested called, I called it podcastology. And every episode you discuss a different ology. So it could be biology or proctology or entomology and that sort of thing. And it was more of a serious idea. We joked around about it, but it was a serious idea. And seriously, the number of people who've contacted me saying like, yeah, we like the Unmade podcast, Brady, but whatever you do,

you have to start that ology one. That's one we really want to hear. So I think you're right. I think like as we throw these ideas around, we're going to get a lot of people saying, that's actually probably a podcast you should make, which is like, maybe it's nice that they think that. I have to say though, like to be a bit meta about it. Obviously I think about the episodes beforehand and think, oh, what ideas am I going to have? And I always try, I want them to be funny. So I always come up with some ridiculous, stupid idea that could never be

a podcast. And I just sit around thinking about it. And within an hour, I've reshaped it in my head and tweaked it and thought about it to a point where I think, you know what, this actually would be a really good podcast. And no matter how stupid the idea is, I always end up thinking, that is stupid, but that should probably get made. That'd be pretty good, you know? I'm just realizing now, somehow this had not occurred to me before this very moment. But it somehow seems inevitable that the person who has so many projects that he runs would end up doing a podcast about an infinite possibility of potential

projects. That's what happened, Gray. When Tim and I were discussing what are we going to do a podcast about, we had three or four ideas. and we kept changing the idea because each day we thought we had a better idea. And it got to a point where I was saying, you know, all these ideas are so interesting that we're talking about. Why don't we just make the podcast about all the ideas we're having for a podcast? So that's what we're doing. I have had a couple of little observations I wanted to share though. There's something I wanted to say about it because Hello Internet, you run the show on Hello Internet and you do all the behind the scenes stuff and run all the technical stuff and i've actually always been quite oblivious to it so i've had to learn how to do all that stuff

because i'm running this new one and it has made me realize a few things and it has made me feel like i need to make like a small apology to you because like to make the apology i will first have to admit to a slightly uncharitable thought i had about you and that was before we started like working together properly and we were just friends and i watched your videos i always thought that you were this really like accurate meticulous guy because your videos are all about you know really good accurate explaining things that are researched and the videos are so well prepared and well executed so i had this image of you okay i'm not sure where this apology is going okay well when we started working together more and i started having more communication with you but also you started doing like hello internet

stuff i would like occasionally find little things like a little typo or something that i thought was a bit sloppy like a space missing or there should be a you know just little tiny things like a little typo or something that I thought was a bit sloppy, like a space missing or there should be a, you know, just little tiny things, little details that I thought weren't perfect. And I thought, oh, he's not, you know, he's a bit sloppier than I thought, you know, and, you know, fair enough. That's okay. I've now realised that when you're doing a podcast

and you were doing all this stuff behind the scenes on Hello Internet, it is such a faffy job. There are so many different little things to do. There are so many balls to keep in the air at once. So many little fields and things you have to fill out and bits and pieces to do that those little mistakes that I thought you were making because you just weren't paying attention to detail. That was not the case at all. There's just too much to do. And like, it just gets away from you, all this stuff really quickly. Like, I'm sure it will become more routine in time. But at the moment, I'm finding all the stuff you do on the technical side of a podcast is really like, I feel like a duck really paddling really fast underwater.

So all those times when you made a little mistake here or there on a webpage, and I was texting you saying, Gray, I think you need to fix this on that web page because it doesn't look absolutely perfect. I take all that back now. I now realize what you were doing and you did a very good job. So apologies for those thoughts. Thank you. I accept your apology for your silent thoughts. But now you do see why I made originally like a hundred point, here's all the switches you need to flip and all those things that you need to do it is you use the right word it is a remarkably faffy job with just like a whole bunch of picky little things that are really easy to forget when you're launching a podcast so now

that you are at the helm of your other show this burden of responsibility falls on you as the captain of that show a couple more little observations one is, and this is something that's true for any project, but I've just been reminded of it because I haven't started like a new project since Objectivity. How long has Objectivity been running now? Well, over two years. Somehow that makes me feel really old. Yeah, and it's reminded me how all-consuming

and what a narcotic it can be to do something new. Mm-hmm. Reminded me how all consuming and what a narcotic it can be to like do like something new. Like because the Unmade podcast is like it's taken us seriously. I'm not joking here. It's taken us a year to record a few episodes because we're both so busy. So I'm not sure what the future of this podcast is, if it's going to be just a few episodes occasionally or it's going to be regular. At the moment, regular looks difficult, but maybe it will be. I hope it will be.

But just doing something new and putting something new out there, it's really exciting and it's really all-consuming. And even though I'm making no money from it and I shouldn't be doing it and I should be doing all my projects that are like my job, it just takes up a disproportionate amount of your headspace when you do something new. And that's voluntary because it's such a drug to be creating something new.

And it's such a nice feeling. So I have enjoyed putting something new out. Just, I mean, I still enjoy every new episode of Hello Internet and every new episode of Numberphile and every new episode of everything I do. But the whole project being new is like another level up, isn't it? Yeah, that is a very, very different thing. I think if someone searches back through my Twitter history, I think I made a comment exactly along these lines when we launched Hello Internet about how it's so exciting and different to launch

a new project into the world. It's not like anything else. It's not like uploading videos to your existing channel. It's not like continuing to produce episodes of a thing that you already do. This is also why I think in the world of just being people who have to create things for a living, the other side of this is that you do have a kind of siren song of new projects always attracting you away from your current work because of that excitement. I'm glad that you're being able to experience that. And I'm particularly shocked to realize that it has been two years since you did that with objectivity. The Brady in my head is always just

spawning new channels constantly. I think it's getting closer to three years. There's like 120 odd episodes. No, no, let's not say that. Let's just say two. Let's just say two. I'll feel better about that. All right.

Yeah. Another thing I noticed, the idea of this podcast, as we've said, is just to come up with ideas for podcasts. And we usually give them a name. And I find this very easy coming up with ideas and giving them a name. But do you know what's funny? What an incredibly difficult process it was to actually name this podcast.

It was so difficult. Like every other idea I have in the show, I give it a name like just off the top of my head straight away. And it just seems like a natural fit. And I'm usually pretty happy with it. But this was really difficult. Like every other idea I have in the show, I give it a name like just off the top of my head straight away. And it just seems like a natural fit. And I'm usually pretty happy with it. But this was really difficult, as you know, because I was lamenting to you coming up with a name. You seem pretty desperate on iMessage about names. It was such a hard show to name. The branding of it and the look of it was quite easy because I got like really good artists to do it. The branding was easy because you didn't do that part. Yeah. And also he did do all the branding based on an earlier name. And then I

called him up and said, no, we're not doing that name. So he had to start again. But anyway, it was very hard to name. How did you name Hello Internet? Because that was your idea. We bounced around ideas a little bit, you know, forever ago about naming the podcast, but it was mainly like we kind of knew that the show wasn't going to be about anything in particular. So we had to pick a name that wasn't really anything in particular. I'm not sure that Hello Internet is the best name for this show as it currently exists. But it doesn't matter because especially with a show like this one, the name just becomes the thing. As long as the name doesn't have some specific meaning, then it just becomes what it is. Hello Internet is the name of this show. Even if for someone who's a new

listener, does that name make any sense? Like it doesn't really, but it just is what it is. Because I was having this discussion. I was discussing with my wife and I was saying, am I worrying too much about the name? I said the same thing. I said, you know, if the show is good, that's what matters. And then the name just fits the show. And I even said to her, I mean, look at Hello Internet, that's not a particularly good name. And that's become very successful. And she said, Hello Internet is a really good name. And I had never thought of it as a good name before. So yeah. I think it's just a name. I wouldn't say that it's a particularly good name. I think it ends up having really good associations for the people who listen to the show because

they like the show. And then that's the name. I think the name only matters if you're trying to really be about a specific thing and capture the audience for that thing. Like if you were launching a new podcast talking about all of the exciting new economies of scale in outer space, and you wanted people who are really into that kind of thing to listen to your show, then you need to have a title that describes what that show is about. You know, mining for cheaper in outer space podcast show, right? That's the name you need so that people know what it actually is. But I think for for these, like for two dudes talking kinds of shows, it doesn't really matter what the name, like, I'm just running through my mental list of the shows that I listened to that are, are you know maybe ostensibly about a thing or ostensibly have a format but are really

just about liking who the hosts are none of those names really matter none of them are really descriptive about what the show is and it doesn't make any difference because you're listening for the people you're not listening for the specific yeah content the Unmade podcast does have a bit more of a format than Halloween Snare though. It does. But ultimately, like from having listened to the first episode, and of course, we know better than anybody, like shows aren't what they start as necessarily. They grow and they become their own thing. It has more of a format.

But ultimately, again, that is a show that at least from the first episode strikes me as very much as it it is the conversation between the two of you is the thing which is also why like when we were talking on iMessage I was in the same camp as your wife of you need to pick a name but the name is not going to make or break the show the content is the thing that's going to do that I'd like to ask you though because I have been expectant and sort of harassing you about when are you going to finally do a podcast? Yeah. Is there something that made this finally happen now, as opposed to a year ago? Like, is there a series of events that brought this into being? Or was it something that you just decided now was the time that you wanted

to do this? Basically, what took so long? We started a year ago. I'm not joking. Actually, I looked at the date and I think the first one we recorded was actually a year ago this month. And just recently, we recorded our third episode that we're happy with. I didn't want to release a podcast like one episode

and then never release another one. I wanted to have three made so that even if people aren't that into it, so it doesn't become a thing, I could release three like a trilogy. So I didn't want to release it until I had made three at the very least. So now that there's three, I feel like, okay, now let's see what people think. And if they like it, we'll make more. And if they don't like it, well, we'll release three and people can enjoy those three episodes as a thing that I did once with my mate. That's really what the tipping point point was and I also did get to a point where I was thinking

if I don't do this I'll never do it like I had someone make a YouTube video recently that was something I'd been planning to do for about two years and I could have done two years ago and I hadn't and they released a video and I was like you can't just sit on stuff you idiot yeah if you want to do things, do things. Maybe that catalyzed me too in some way. I'm not sure to think, come on, do crap, Brady. So we've put it out there. Yeah, because you certainly don't do enough as it is.

You better get off your butt and do some more. Well, we'll see what happens. But thank you for letting me discuss it in such depth here on Hello Internet. Oh, yeah. I'm very happy that it's out there. And I think people should go listen. Go give it a try. Yeah. happens but thank you for letting me discuss it in such depth here on hello internet oh yeah i'm very happy that it's out there and and i think people should go listen go give it a try yeah unmade.fm unmade.fm that's right and and that's as good a jump off point as anywhere and that's got all the links and it's i think you can search for it now on some of the usual places so don't

like stop listening to hello internet now but maybe at the end of the show go and check it out if you've got an idea something you want to do in business or maybe just for fun, you're almost certainly going to need a web domain. It could be a classic with something like.com or.net or maybe.fm for a podcast. Or you might want something zany like.dog for that new pet walking business, .poker for that card shop consultancy, or.space for your new asteroid mining enterprise. Whatever your grand plan, don't sit around waiting for someone else to get all the best names. Go to hover.com and reserve one right now. I've been

using Hover quite a bit over the last week, launching a new podcast, and I have to say, I've yet again been super impressed by what a pleasure it is to use. Super easy to search for what's available and then buying the name all for yourself is done in just a few clicks. From there everything else you might want to do managing the domains is so smooth and, and this is me talking, it's idiot proof. I've been able to divert domains I've reserved to other sites or link them with services like Squarespace in just a few super simple and well-explained steps. They've got this thing called Hover Connect, which does it all for you.

I wish this had been around like 10 years ago when I was practically crying myself to sleep every night trying to understand domain names. Hover has all the good stuff you'd want, like free Whois privacy and great customer support. Go to hover.com slash hi for 10% off your first purchase. That's hover.com slash hi. Our thanks to Hover for supporting this episode. And by the way, if my Australian English hybrid pronunciation of Hover is confusing, that's Hover for you Americans.

Spell it H-O-V-E-R, like a hovercraft. We have a topic, Brady, that we want to talk about, but I feel like I have just spent this afternoon in preparation for catching up on a whole big story that I was dimly aware existed, which is this lawsuit that has been taking place between H3H3, a big popular content creator on YouTube, and another much smaller YouTube channel over copyright infringement. And I feel like since I have caught up on this thing all at once, I'm not really sure how to explain the timeline or how to explain this whole event to the listeners. Do you have any idea how to summarize this for everybody? I only found out about it yesterday as well. Okay. You're not up on your YouTube news, Brady?

No, no. I'm surprisingly bad at stuff like this. But obviously this H3H3 people made this video really taking the piss out of this other video. And they showed lots of clips from it. But then they also cut to themselves taking the mickey out of it. Yeah. H3H3 would describe this as a reaction video.

They use that language themselves. I thought it was beyond a reaction video myself. I think it was more than that. Like, to me, a reaction video is just people watching things going, oh, gross, or ha ha, that's funny. But they like took this one to pieces. Like, they did a real job on him. I mean mean calling this

a reaction video is like calling what adleta media did to star wars a reaction video like i think this was more in that genre of like a really harsh critique it wasn't just like passively reacting to it so i think it was probably quite fair the other guy didn't. They went to court. H3H3 have won. There's been this judgment in which the judge has said, this was not defamatory, which was also part of the lawsuit. And this was fair use. This was fair criticism, which is being hailed as a big victory for fair use. But the judge also said in like a footnote in the judgment, while this is fair use, I'm not applying this to the other sort of brand of reaction videos where people are more just watching and really just using the content. So the judge herself has basically said there are two types of reaction videos, those that I think are fair use and those that I'm not commenting on, which reading between the lines says, I don't think are fair use.

It's interesting. I feel like I have a little bit of a different subjective take on it. I think if you imagine there's a spectrum and in my head, I pick the red letter media thing as an example of one extreme end of the spectrum. Yes.

Taking out the word react videos for a moment, there is this question of, you want to make a video about something that somebody else has made. They've made a YouTube video or maybe they have made Star Wars. Whatever it is, you want to make a video about a thing that somebody else has made. On one end of the spectrum is what I think is the worst and awful is the pure react video, which, as you were saying before before is somebody just puts a webcam on

their face and you see them watching a thing they watch the thing in its entirety and the worst of them say very little or just chuckle or make facial expressions and do almost nothing yeah that's one end of the spectrum and then on the other end of the spectrum i think you you have something like red letter media as a perfect example of they have taken star wars they've used an enormous amount of footage from it but they have essentially made an entirely brand new thing yes that and like that is the clearest case of fair use that can possibly exist and then the react, the pure react video is the absolute worst use case that there possibly is. And something like what H3H3 made is in between those two extremes. It's not red letter media, but it's also not them just filming their faces doing nothing. My personal subjective

take is that it's closer to the pure reaction video than it is to the red letter media end of that spectrum. But ultimately, that is a subjective call. Like if I was a judge, I would say what they did was fair use. it feels to me like it's much closer to the pure react end of the spectrum where it's like if we turn this dial down a lot more then it starts becoming a little bit of a gray area that at least that's that's my particular feel for it i mean i agree there is like this blurred spectrum and i think your two extreme ends are correct i watched the h3h3 video that caused the whole kerfuffle and i thought you know i think he sued because they were taking the piss out of him. And if they'd said this was a magnificent video, he wouldn't have sued. So really, he got his nose out of joint.

But the thing I think decided that, and I think it's kind of what the judge said as well, was, does this video become like a replacement or substitute for watching the original? Like, if you'd liked this guy, what's his name? Who's or whatever his name is. If you'd liked this guy who made the original video and you liked his stuff, could you have gone on to H3H3 and watched that instead to replace the experience? And certainly you couldn't do that because they chopped it to pieces. They were stopping it all the time. They were belittling it. You know, you wouldn't get the same experience. Whereas if you just played the video and put yourself down in the bottom corner,

pulling faces and going, whoa, then you have replaced the experience. You don't have to watch both. It's funny that you picked that up because I actually took down the exact quote that the judge wrote because I thought this is an interesting part of it. So again, H3H3 took this person's video, they played clips of it, paused it, then talked about what had just happened on screen, you know, and played clips of it, right? And they're making fun of and commenting on the video. And again, like mockery and commentary is exactly what the whole idea of fair use is for, you're commenting on a thing. So the quote from the judge is, because the Klein H3H3 video does not offer a substitute for the original, it does not substitute a market that properly belongs to the copyright holder. So like we have discussed on previous

shows, there's also this idea with fair use of, have you taken away the market that the original thing was created for? Like, are you substituting the thing? And what I think is really interesting is, so I watched the H3H3 video making fun of this guy. And they're funny, like they're very likable. And they do a good job of ripping apart this guy's thing. But when I watched it, what I thought is, I want to go now find the original video. And I want to watch that. Because partly what I was curious is, it's very hard to tell when you're watching someone who's cut clips out of a thing, how much of the thing is missing. Right? Like, how much of this is clips versus how much of it is the original thing.

So I went back and I watched the original video. And it's hard to say, I'd love to see someone actually do a little timeline, but I feel like they probably used 70% of the original thing. And it's interesting, because I'm looking at this judge's decision. And I agree, like it does not substitute for the original. But I think what is crossing my mind is, it's almost like YouTube is creating a new concept in the world, which is, like, the idea of fair use was originally created for this idea of, like, if you watch the Red Letter Media review of Star Wars, does that substitute for watching the Star Wars movie itself? Obviously not, right? Because they're two totally different experiences. And watching the H3H3 video, I totally agree with the judge.

Like it doesn't substitute the original market that belongs to the original copyright holder. Like if you like that guy's videos, watching H3H3 is nothing like watching his videos without their commentary. They're two totally different things. Yeah. But there is this idea that's creeping into my head

that watching the H3H3 video, it doesn't substitute for the original, but it does obviate the need to watch the original. Because I was just aware of watching the original one. It's like, I feel I have totally seen this. Yeah, yeah. It doesn't substitute, but it does kind of remove something. Because I've only just been thinking about this afternoon. I'm not saying that like, oh, so the case should have been decided in a different way. Like, I completely agree with the way the case was decided.

And thank God for everybody on YouTube that it was decided this way. But I just keep, I have this little wedge in my mind that I keep thinking there is this idea that this concept of fair use was written in a very different environment than it is being applied now. And it's like, I feel like there's an additional subtlety to the idea of substitution as a test for fair use that is being pulled out by this case in my mind, because I really do think that the H3H3 video obviates the need to watch the original, which is a new concept in the world. At least that's how it feels to me. This finding as well, that's being hailed by YouTubers everywhere as a really

good thing for them, could come back to bite them on the backside. Because if all your mail-on lines and other video-stealing freebooters of the world can turn this to their advantage suddenly you know all your best youtube videos are going to end up on the mail-on line website and they're going to say oh no it's that's you know fair use or we're not taking your market away because we have a whole different demographic or right we're not taking your market away because we've made some changes to it that you weren't willing to make. Like we made it short. We're catering to people who like short 45 second clips. You're catering to people who like 15 minute in-depth science things. Like it does open a door that people may think twice about later. I completely agree. And the thing that I keep thinking of is

take the kinds of videos that we make, like educational videos. There's a whole world of YouTube that I'm just not really comfortable with, which is this kind of area that is, it's not the pure React videos, but it's sort of that, where somebody takes somebody else's video and just plays most of it, but pauses it and then talks and then plays most of it and pauses it and talks. It's very parasitic, isn't it? I mean, this guy who made the video that got, which I didn't think was very good, but he made a lot of effort and he made a creation. And these people didn't really create much. They just sat there and watched it and talked about it. And you could say, well, their creation was their wit and their intellect and their,

or their satire that they brought to it. But I still think one person has like, you know, built the pyramid and the other person has just said you know, built the pyramid. And the other person has just said, your pyramids crap. And they're both getting the same reward as if they both built a pyramid. There is definitely something to that. And I'm aware that this world of YouTube where people play other people's videos, pause, comment and continue to play and pause comment. Again, I'm not a judge here. I'm not like the god of copyright. But my feeling is if you use 100% of the other person's video and only do the pause, play, pause,

I feel like for me personally, I would not rule that as fair use, which is why in my head the H3H3 video, it almost sets like the limit for what is it that I would consider is fair use, but is getting very close to the edge of what is not fair use. Because I feel like if you watch their video and you watch the original, there's so much of the original in there and they're playing it all in chronological order and just pausing and commenting. Like it's such an interesting legal case, but it is like it's setting a minimum bar of what do I agree with? But I feel like you're coming real close to start using big, big chunks of their video and playing the game of how little commentary can we possibly add while still considering this to be fair use. And it's like, oh, we haven't substituted for your market because watching our video with our comments is not the same as watching your video. But that's where I mean, like, I feel like I have this idea that there's like an additional

concept here with fair use in the internet world that needs some exploration. And I don't even know what directions that exploration would take. There is one thing I will say that I think is the unambiguous great part about this case. So like, while the copyright part is a bit like, oh, I'm happy about it, but it's a bit of a less certain that it's going to be great for YouTubers kind of thing. The part that I do think is fantastic is the part of the case which is about defamation. And that is the thing that could have been really bad for all YouTubers where the lawsuit, it seems like a big part of it was the idea that they aren't just commenting on the other guy's video. They're making fun of him. And then it's like, does making fun of someone on the

internet, is this going to be an example that we can say, here is the bar where we set what defamation is. And that defamation is making fun of someone's parkour skills on the internet, right? Like, is that defamation? Or saying that, like, the treatment of characters in his video is terrible. Like, is that defamation? The judge had some funny language that they go over in their video about how it's like, it is so clearly not defamation to make fun of someone on the internet. And that is a door that I'm very glad was

more clearly closed. In this case, we haven't opened the door wider to what is the minimum bar for being able to sue someone for defamation. Because if this video was defamatory, then it's like, we have opened a Pandora's box of crazy for for what is acceptable or what is not acceptable content on the internet so that to me is is the best and the clearest win out of this case by far so great another youtubey thing which has been in my life the last few days is this thing where youtube are flagging videos that they think are unsuitable for full advertising they'll automatically this is done automatically. Videos are flagged as potentially being unsuitable for certain advertisers. So they'll

serve no advertising or very limited advertising against it. I feel like there was an asteroid called the Adpocalypse, which crossed the sky of our YouTube planets, and it is forever continuing to rain down chunks of it upon the earth. This is yet another chunk of this, is YouTube fairly recently introducing some AI machine learning bots that are trying to scan the video for content and automatically determine advertiser friendliness or not. I mean, I've got a lot of videos on YouTube, as you know, and I haven't been particularly

affected by this. But in the last few days, I've just noticed on a few of my lesser channels, I had a whole bunch of videos flagged for it. Did you get a notification about them being flagged or did you manually look? I manually looked. Oh, okay, great. So I went and had a look and I found some. And I can sort of see why some of them maybe were flagged automatically because of the headline. Like I'll give you an example of some that were flagged.

I did one about Viagra, which is actually about the chemistry of how Viagra works. There's no sexual content. It is literally about chemistry. Do you say what the purpose of Viagra is? Is it hinted at in a playful manner? Hardly at all. Not in a way that's unsuitable. Okay. Another one called making nanoparticles in supercritical water, which is a really boring science-y thing. There was one that got flagged,

which just kind of amused me because it was one that, it was a funny film that was unlisted that Destin and I made years ago called In the YouTube Massage Room, because they have a massage room for staff in YouTube. And we made a funny video pretending that I was giving Destin a massage and we were being secretly filmed. Oh, yeah, I remember that one. That's good. Wildly inappropriate for work, however. But yeah, I remember that one. I don't know. Anyway, I don't care. It got flagged. Another one's just called Subbutamol and Asthma. Again, you know, just a technical video about how a certain chemical is used to treat asthma. And then on my second Numberphile channel, where I have extras, my big channels, this doesn't seem to have happened on, but on my secondary Numberphile channel called Numberphile

2, I had some extra footage for this big video I did about derangements, which are a mathematical thing. Like derangements are like permutations and that. It's just a boring mathematical thing. Like derangements are like permutations. It's just a boring mathematical thing. And this video was called Derangement Extra Footage on Numberphile. And you can ask for a manual review. So I asked for manual reviews on all of these videos. I don't think I did on the massage one, but I asked for a manual review on all of them. And of all of them, the derangement one,

within two seconds of watching it, it's James Grime with a piece of brown paper doing math equations, talking about these things called derangements and permutations and arranging cards in certain order. And so while we've been talking, I have got an email back from YouTube saying, hi, Numberphile2, after manually reviewing your video, we've confirmed that it isn't suitable for all advertisers. Wow. As a result, it will continue to run limited or no ads. Do they give a reason?

Like, is it too boring for most advertisers? Is that the reason it's unsuitable? Maybe, but that's going to shut down all of Numberphile. We confirmed that your video is snortastic and advertisers are uninterested. It is quite, you know, if you don't like mathematics, okay. But there is no way that it is unsuitable. If this has been manually reviewed, I am absolutely flabbergasted.

I mean, it's had 66,000 views and like it's not going to make lots and lots of money. And this isn't about money. You know, if they shut down all my videos, fair enough. You know, it's not that. It's just that I kind of put a toe in the water here and thought, haha, that's funny. The system's a bit broken.

I'll go for the manual review. And the manual review's broken. So suddenly I'm thinking, hang on, what's going on here? Unless this video is going to take a very dramatic turn at some point in. I have to admit later on, there is a part where he does say, N factorial, take N factorial over one factorial, plus N factorial over two factorial, take N factorial. Whoa, whoa, calm down. Calm down there, Brady. I don't know what to say or think about this. I'm kind of a little bit outraged.

Why do you feel outraged? Because they're now saying they manually reviewed it and they think it's not suitable. And that makes me think the manual review, like the checks and balances aren't working. So your frustration is that the system is broken. I don't mind that it got flagged because derangement is a word that I could see could have other meanings. Right. You know, that they're concerned about. I can see why maybe, I mean, I don't know why the main video, which is also called derangement on the main channel, wasn't flagged.

Maybe Numberphile has protected status because it's some white listed channel. And maybe Numberphile 2 is seen because it's a smaller channel. It hasn't got those predictions but i would also just pause it here that like when people have conversations about what the youtube algorithm does or any of these machine learning systems that there are non-human understandable reasons why these things occur that's just a part of the way these systems work is that even if you were able to peer directly into the code there may be no human understandable explanation as to why do two similar videos end up with different results but that is precisely why say a human manual review is a necessary part of the process

and it is not encouraging that it does not work no i've had my human manual review and unless yeah like you say unless there's something about that video, I don't know. I'm a little bit, I'm a little bit upset about it. And like I said, I'm not upset because of money. I'm upset because it's wrong. Yeah. Well, it's upsetting as always with this YouTube stuff, because it is a thing upon which, like it's never about any one video, but it is about the system upon which livelihoods depend. That's why people always get real nervous when this stuff happens with YouTube. So I have a question.

As someone who has gone through the manual review process, is there now a button that you can press that says you would like to appeal the manual review process? No, it only just says you can find more information about our advertiser-friendly guidelines in our help center. If they're going to have a manual review system at all, I feel like as a subjective experience, as a user of YouTube, it's incredibly infuriating to press a button that says,

hey, a human is going to look at this, and you get a form letter back that explains nothing, right? That's just sent out thousands and thousands of times an hour, I'm sure. As a content creator, the thing that I would want to have happen is when you press the manual review button, maybe it comes back with the judgment that you don't want, but it should also come back with a timestamp that says like here, then a link to the policy that it is deemed that this violates.

I mean, I can see how that would be very time consuming for the five people they've got doing the job. But I just don't know what the person did. Like, did the person not watch it? Did they just look at the headline the same as the algorithm did and think, oh, derangement, it must be about mental illness or something? What did the manual person do? The whole point of the manual process

is to understand what the hell is going on. Like, I'm very happy to use machine learning to do a whole bunch of sorting. Like, I understand this. Like I said, it is an intrinsic part of the machine learning that it is not understandable. And so then when you're kicking it over into a human, the whole benefit of the human side of the system is there is at least the possibility of understanding and that a reason can be given. But that's why a form letter back is frustrating because it's just, oh, it might as well have been a robot. For all you know, the appeal is just another, like it's appeal.app, which is doing a different algorithm to take a look at the videos. And gives you no explanation of what is occurring.

It's not unlikely that that's really genuinely possible, right? That it's just, oh, it's just a different system that we have. And if the two systems agree, then we say, yes, of course, it's not friendly to all advertisers or whatever their language is that they use. They have used the word manual, which is an interesting word to have chosen. I mean, what does manual mean anyway? It could just be a clockwork AI, right? That's what it is. It's actually, it's marbles and it's rubber bands, but it's still, they built a big machine somewhere that's watching the YouTube

videos. It's interesting though, that you mentioned this because I've been hearing grumbles and grumbles about this kind of content system, where once again, it just seems like YouTube has a very hard time making a correct maneuver. And I manually went through a bunch of my videos and I wanted to take a look. Oh, have I been caught by this? Because again, it seems like people just get surprised. Like you don't get notifications that a thing has occurred. And I looked through my videos.

Nothing has been flagged yet. But, you know, who knows? Maybe I have to keep checking when they update their algorithm. But coincidentally, literally today, as I was putting up the YouTube video for the previous episode that just went live for listeners, Hello Internet number 86, Banana Republic, that episode has the little badge next to it, which says this video is not suitable for all advertisers. Review requested. Had you put something in the metadata or the description?

Like, was there a word in the show notes that would have flagged trip the system? I mean, looking through the show notes, there's nothing that I can think of. Maybe the word pirate. We linked to the Hello Internet pirate flag is perhaps that. Bee rustling is maybe bee rustling is a kind of thing that would scare off advertisers. There's a link to Audrey. Perhaps her cuteness is so great that YouTube advertisers wouldn't want to compete with that kind of thing. Who knows?

Who knows the reason why? It feels kind of ridiculous that a podcast has been flagged up into the system. I have pressed the manual review button. And I can't wait to find out if we make it through the manual process, whatever that means, for this episode. Good luck. I don't know. I feel like this is all just this endless mess that has come about since the adpocalypse where YouTube is trying to do things that are sort of undoable for appeasement reasons that I think

might not be super valuable in the first place. Like it's a complicated, unwinnable mess, this whole thing. It makes content creators really frustrated to not be able to understand why things have been demonetized. And your experience of a manual review that is 0% enlightening is not encouraging. This episode of Hello Internet is brought to you in part by Fracture. Fracture is the photo decor company that turns your digital images into thoughtful gifts or keepsakes by printing them directly onto glass. Shipped complete with a backing stand, wall, anchor, or stand, they're ready to display right out of the box. Just upload your digital photo and pick your size.

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and get a Fracture made of it by going to fractureme.com slash podcast. Thanks to Fracture for supporting the show. I think of all the news stories that have affected me most though over the last week or two, it has to be a story about Big Ben, which if you're going to be pedantic is the name of like oh no one

cares no don't don't even don't even give in to those people don't just ignore them just move right along big ben the tower yeah the big famous clock in london right what everybody thinks of as big ben the big famous clock but in fact the story is about big ben because it's about the bell they're doing a big restoration job on the tower, which I think is called the Elizabeth Tower that houses Big Ben. It's the tower with the clock at the top. So they need to do all this renovation. And as a result, the bell's not going to ring except like for very special occasions like New Year's Eve and stuff like that. So they're silencing the bell. And I thought, fair enough. You've got to do your work. I imagine you've got to switch the bell off. And it just suddenly emerged that the bell is going to be deactivated for like four years.

And at first people were like, oh, four years, okay. And then I think within the course of a day or two, people just started saying, hang on a second, four years? And then the politicians have chimed in. And even the Prime Minister, I think, has said this seems excessive. Like does it really have to be four years? And then the politicians have chimed in. Even the Prime Minister, I think, has said this seems excessive. Like, does it really have to be four years? And I agree. I think it is absolutely outrageous that you won't be able to hear

Big Ben ring for four years. And there's going to be scaffolding on that tower for ages as well. I think this is such an important thing in London, you know, for tourism and just for the look of London. I cannot believe anything can take that long to fix. You look at Japan, they get those sinkholes in the road and they're fixed within 20 minutes. And they're going to take four years to fix a clock. Like I know it's a difficult job. It's an important building, it's precious and clocks are hard to fix and this requires expertise. But just throw more people at it. Nothing should take four years.

Nothing should take four years. That's a bold statement there, Brady. Do you know what? The Manhattan Project took four years. I checked, it actually took four years. So they're saying they can go from not having a nuclear bomb to like the nuclear bomb in the same amount of time it takes to fix a clock. What? Well, it's a historical repair of the tower I thought was the primary thing. This is one of these things where I don't remember. But just put a thousand men on it. Like just have the thing team, like build the world's biggest scaffold.

Someone hasn't read the mythical man month, right? You put a thousand men on it, it's going to take 40 years to fix that bell, right? That's how that works, Brady. Do you think it's reasonable to have the most, this is the most famous monument in London, if not the world. Maybe there's only probably two or three more famous monuments in the world. Do you think that's reasonable to have it so out of commission for four years? I don't know.

I don't know. I've been aware of the story because I think't know. I don't know. I've been aware of the story because I think being in London, somehow I was, I've been aware for a really long time that the tower was going to be covered up in scaffolding for a long period of time. I don't remember where it was, but I feel like I've known this for months and months and months, but it has suddenly become a story because it's like people can crystallize around the concept of the bell not ringing which has turned it into a thing and it's happening now it's become the repair job of the century yes it has become the repair job of the century but when i when i came back uh to

london from the summer the scaffolding was just going up and i took a picture of it at that time because i knew like oh yes it's going to be a while before the tower is fully uncovered again. Like this is this is going to be some big, huge job. The four years thing is just like, I don't know, because it's hard to say with projects like this, what are what are they doing? If they are trying to restore the tower so that it can last another hundred years, taking 4% of the time to restore the tower doesn't seem like a crazy number to me. That would seem quite reasonable if this is a restoration job to last 100 years.

Now, if it is a restoration job to last six years, then yes, there is some horrible bureaucratic problem going on with how long the repairs take and what it is that they're actually doing here. I don't know. With construction projects in particular, like, I'm also just aware of this in London that I like to take photographs of some places that I know that are under construction when they're foolish enough to put up a date. And I have a few places where I have photographs of the exact same sign as they have changed the date over the years for like, opening for the Olympics and opening for 2015, opening 2017, opening 2018,

right? And they just keep bumping it back. I wouldn't be surprised if once that scaffolding goes up, it actually ends up taking them six years or eight years to really do the thing. Like four years is their optimistic outcome right now, but they're going to discover something in the process of doing the restoration that actually makes it take much longer. Can you imagine being an American tourist coming to London and Big Ben's covered in scaffolding? It's amazing. It's like such a problem. Well, what I wonder is they're very good in London about putting up those drawings of the building on the outside of the building. And the thing is, it's amazing actually how often you don't necessarily notice.

There was, I think I have a photograph, was it St. Paul's Cathedral? There was some place where they put up that kind of scaffolding, and from the right view, like down the street, you'd never know. Like, you wouldn't notice if you didn't tune into it. You never know if it's just the background to you, and you see St. Paul's Cathedral all the time. But if you've come just to take a photo of Big Ben, which is what most people come to London to do, you're going to notice. Well, people come to London to have fun in Trafalgar Square. That's the primary reason that they come here. And I think we've discussed before, there are the danger to London's tourism around that particular tourist attraction is much, much worse than this. I only mentioned the construction around Big Ben because you know there is going to be some non-zero number of

tourists who see the scaffolding around it with the drawing of the tower on it who think that is the thing like that someone is going to have that experience that's definitely going to happen do you think they will put the uh the drawing on it do oh oh they have to if they don't put the drawing on it i will be very surprised they're going to put the drawing on there maybe if they're really clever they can do some rear projection of a clock on the actual drawing so they could get the time right. That would be a good thing to do. I think the scaffolding won't cover the clock itself until the very last minute, but I could be wrong about that too.

That's possible. That's possible. Here's the other thing though, that I think is interesting around this construction thing. Like it's going to take so long, but what has happened and like i kind of love when this happens and i also hate when it happens is that now what the bell will chime for is turning into like a fun political issue where everybody gets to argue about what events are they going to ring the bell for right so somebody somebody made a terrible mistake where they said oh the bell isn't going to ring for four years. Right. And then, as you mentioned, like politicians came in and they said, well, what about for New Year's? And I said, OK, well, we can make the bell ring for New Year's. I was like, no, no. If you say the bell won't ring, don't concede. Right. Don't ever concede, because then all you're going to deal with for forever is people asking you to make the bell ring for their idea of what a special occasion is. And so already there's a little storm about, is the bell going to ring for the moment of the glorious independence of the UK when it leaves the EU? Like, surely Big Ben should ring for that. It's like, oh, no, you've opened yourself up to this problem of everybody asking,

now that you have declared this period of silence, of everybody asking for the bell to ring on a special occasion. Like, you know, in the next four years, there's going to be some dramatic news event, right? Some tragedy of some kind, and people will be calling for the bell to ring as respect for this moment, right? It's inevitable that this is going to happen. At the moment, they're saying only New Year's Eve and Remembrance Sunday. It'd be interesting if a really, really important member of the royal family dies, for example, in the next four years, which is not an inconceivable thought. It's not inconceivable that the queen is going to die in the next four years, right? You said it, not me.

We're not jinxing the queen here, Brady. That's not how this works. But the thing is, if Big Ben was ringing, everyone would be saying it should be silenced. So I don't know what they're going to do when that happens. You can't say, hey, the Queen's dead, let's all ring a bell. Ding dong. I've put my money right now that if the Queen dies, they will ring the bell. Right.

I bet that will happen. That's what I put my money on. But when someone dies, isn't it all, you know, stop the bells? That's even the poem, isn't it? It's when someone dies, it's an inversion. You're totally right. So because the bell is silent, now we must ring the bell. To not ring the bell, incredibly disrespectful.

Do you know what's going to happen? What? Every bad thing that happens in the next four years is going to be put down to the curse of Big Ben. It's going to be like when celebrities start dying and bad things happen. It's going to be, oh, this just started happening when Big Ben stopped ringing.

You know, I think you're right. I think you're right, Brady. Big Ben, it's the beating heart of the United Kingdom. It's terrible, terrible luck to steal the beating heart of this kingdom. And is it a coincidence they stopped the bell the same day as the eclipse of the century? I don't think it is. Yeah. I don't think it is. It's concerning. It's a really concerning point that you brought up there. Curse of Big Ben. I hope we make it through it. Thank you. do i sound posher yes you sound posher without a doubt i think we could do a double blind posh test on this and people would definitely say this is the posher one. Although because it's like that old fashioned type of microphone,

I was hoping it would maybe make me sound like those people who did like voiceovers for 1950s newsreels. Like, Johnny Good Show, chaps. Here they are, having set the new land speed record out on the lakes of North America. That's pretty good.