Hello Internet - Nine Ladies Dancing

Episode Date: January 2, 2019

Here we go. The ninth day of Hello Internet. The ninth day? It's not the eighth day? It's the ninth, isn't it? One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. Of course, no, it's the ninth day of Christmas. Yeah, it's the ninth day of Hello Internet. Right, ninth day of Hello Internet. Ninth day of Hello Internet.

Should be very easy to keep track of because we're just marking the days on the calendar as they pass by. Yeah. And we're definitely not in the same room recording in a marathon stretch. That's not what we're doing. No. So we couldn't possibly lose track of where we are in time. We could still lose track. But it's New Year's Boxing Day is what the day after New Year's is known as.

Second day of the year. So happy New Year's Boxing Day is what the day after New Year's is known as. Second day of the year. So happy New Year's Boxing Day, Brady. So I've just picked an envelope out of the pile and opened. And look, it's got flaggy flag drawn on it. Should I not even open that as like a show of disrespect? I mean, it's the ninth day of Hello Internet Christmas. The cheer is beginning to wear a little bit thin, right? Like everybody's happy in the beginning,

but at a certain point, you need to re-establish the boot on the neck of Flaggy Flag forever. So Eric in Oregon, I know that's who you are because you wrote on the outside of your envelope. Because you put Flaggy Flag on here, on your envelope, straight in the bin.

Not even going to open it. I will open it later, just to be nice. But I'm going to be hardcore here. I'm going in the bin Wow Not even going to open it Wow I will open it later Just to be nice But I'm going to be hardcore here I'm going in the bin Brady's such a brutal dictator Now I want to see what's in it Damn it Oh you're such a child

Because now I feel like I could be missing something I'm going to open it I can't believe what has just occurred here I just caved You completely caved You made a threat that you didn't follow through on Brady It's not even a Christmas card. It's a letter.

That's not a Christmas card. Again, I should be throwing it away. But he's still reading it. He did call me Dr. Harron again. I cannot thank you enough for the wonderful content released both on YouTube and podcast. That's nicer. So, I mean, let's deal with this. Let's deal with this in the public forum okay

because the thing that he's the thing that he's complaining about i can't even get his question on now this is unbelievable like i can't believe this is unbelievable you're such a sucker but the thing he's complaining about was the hi star wars last jedi christmas special okay was not given an episode number and it lies between episodes 94 and 95. Yet the Star Wars Christmas special before was given an episode number. That's number 54 featuring the Force Awakens. And the Rogue One Star Wars Christmas special,

I think was given a number. Is it 76? Anyway, he wants to know, is this deliberate? Is there some meaning to it? Was it an oversight? And I think just in general, like the issue of numbering of Hello Internet episodes is something that exercises people somewhat. Grey, you do the numbering, so you can answer this. No, I do the numbering.

And all I can say is people expect that I'm the sort of person who would strive for consistency. And that's exactly what I give them. Right. That non-numbering of that episode causes like frustration. I strive for consistency and perfection in all my work. People, what you don't realize is perhaps that episode was not numbered on purpose. And if you go back and re-listen to it and take the second letter of every ninth word,

there may be, I'm just saying, maybe there's a message there. There's reasons for everything. It's only a question of how deep are you willing to dig to find them. That's right. All right. Maybe there's things in the metadata sometimes. Who knows? Who knows? There could be all sorts of things oh look at this brady what we got oh yeah from some envelope once again we just have money on the table okay so the card playing to brady again the very front of the card simply says dr brady harron yeah

no reference to his co-host no it says dear gray and brady hello internet is the podcast i love the most so i sent this letter in the post even with brady's tales their friendship prevails now i just wanted to say happy christmas to you both yeah so it says enjoy the limerick i have also included australia's new polymer banknotes five dollars yeah dollars yeah yeah it's not like did you read dollars i was actually good i stopped myself from saying kiwi bucks. I was like, no, wait a minute. Don't say that. So I have also included Australia's new polymer banknotes, $5 and $10.

Hopefully you guys can review them and tell the Tims what you think. That's 15 bucks in there. It's not bad. My grandma used to only send me 10. P.S. Bradyady you can spend these when you return to adelaide and or the black stump yeah all right have you seen these in person i've not seen these new give you the five all right they're similar to what was before but this clear bit down the middle is expanded there didn't used to be this clear bit down the middle

anyway so you got a five dollar and a ten dollar note from Australia. What are you thinking of them, Gray? Well, I love the polymer notes in general. As I think I mentioned in a previous show, it's like, I can't wait for the UK to go all polymer. For poor Americans who are dealing with like their terrible paper money. As soon as you touch and play with a polymer note, you think, why isn't all money like this? So it's just great.

It's an interesting look to have on these bills two-thirds of the way across it's just completely clear like it breaks the bill into two pieces i'm gonna say i like it as a like a bold design decision i don't know if it's the best but i what I like about this clear section is it doesn't feel committee. You know, like when we've complained about money designs in the past, one of the complaints is that it feels like a whole group of committee people have gotten together and you end up with averages of terrible decisions. So this feels like a bold design. I'm going to give it a thumbs up. And I don't know, I like the look of the notes. I think they look good. I like the colors.

Can I see the five? I like the 10, and I don't like the five, and I don't know if it's because I associate the color of the 10 with 10 bucks, and therefore it excites me a bit more, but the five is kind of pink, and I don't know, I like the bluey green of the 10 better, and the five has the queen on it. I will agree with you.

The color scheme of the 10 is superior to the color scheme of the five has the queen on it i will agree with you the color scheme of the 10 is superior to the color scheme of the five yeah the five has gross purple bleeding into a kind of orangey pink i don't like the color scheme as much but i'm i also i'm biased by polymer bills like to see it in person and to handle it makes me like it a lot. I might have been more harsh if I just saw the designs on a webpage though. Yeah. Okay. But I will not disparage the new money of Australia. Oh, I like the 10 as well because it's got Banjo Patterson on it

who's a famous Australian poet and there's a little picture next to him of the man from Snowy River who's a famous poem he wrote about this amazing horse rider doing some horse ridery stuff on it well i'll give you these didgeridoo dollars yeah and you spend them when you're in australia thank you very much who was it that sent that in again that is sam from perth australia from perth okay are you disappointed

wasn't expecting her people can be from other places in Australia I don't know about that Well I was expecting Like Sydney or Melbourne You know But anyway There we go 15 bucks I feel a bit bad Taking money in this way

Like it feels a bit like I don't know Maybe we should like You know Do something charitable With it Or maybe we should just Buy another Ovaltine

Chocolate drink Yeah I am at the bottom Of my Ovaltine here Brady I'll get you another one in a minute After you open a few more cards Okay Alright See now Brady

Here's one that does have The flaggy flag on it But I, unlike you Am going to There it goes Flaggy flag you've worn out your holiday welcome you had a brief window of opportunity at the beginning and now it's gone

and unlike Brady I'm actually following through on that you're a man of your convictions I'm going to open another envelope just because I like the sound of opening the envelope hang on this is always like because Gray and I have basically got two piles, as I've said before, ones that we've looked at and said

that probably won't make the show, a pile of ones that are a chance and go into the lucky dip, but I'm taking a risk here and just opening one unsolicited. It's from North Carolina. Oh, hey. Yeah. Howdy, Brady and Grey. Duke, I think, on the front.

Indeed, it says, Seasons greetings from Duke University in North Carolina. I mean, the United States. It snowed unseasonably early here, making this SoCal resident very excited. I know you're both Apple fans and use Macs, but I wondered if either of you ever built a PC or a Hackintosh, since it seems the type of thing Gray might have enjoyed once upon a time.

Happy holidays from Matt. Have you ever built a PC? I used to have a job building Franken systems, taking a bunch of broken PCs, trying to find the parts that work, put them together, make a working computer. That was one of my jobs for the physics lab back in the day. Like a paid job?

Yeah, like a paid job. It was like a summer job while i stayed at university over the summer yeah deeply satisfying work taking a bunch of broken junk and trying to make working computers out of it so i did that a long time ago really liked it did you have like an aptitude for it like was it something that came easily to you or was that a bit of a grind or no i liked it it's satisfying and i think it also it helped in teaching a kind of methodical problem solving. How do you figure out which piece is broken and what works and what doesn't? So I really liked it. I have built not one, but I have built many PCs just a long time ago.

How about you, Brady? No. Now you never put together a computer? No. I'm rubbish at that stuff. That worked out well, just opening one at random do it again yeah you never know this could be you tim there you go great you read it okay see if it's any good oh we've got one of these threefold ones here all right yeah triple decker triple decker okay searching searching okay this person it's the cowell family they have the question that i've

been trying to ask you a bunch of times about which is discuss brexit i've been trying to get brady to talk about brexit on the show for months and every time i do he makes exactly that sign he's like oh I don't even want to talk about it. I mean, this is so difficult because full disclosure, and I think most people are aware, we are recording these just before Christmas. But this episode obviously is going out in the new year. And this is such a fast changing situation

that it feels almost pointless to talk about it now because everything will be different. But I mean, you've missed so much lately. It's really been kicking off lately, Greg. Well, the reason why I keep asking you about Brexit is because it has been almost a year since I've actually heard anything about Brexit. And I only ever have one question,

which is, is there anything that I need to know? And you always tell me this thing of like, nobody knows. And so it's like, I have not paid attention to the story for a year. And it seems to have totally not mattered that I didn't. But like, so here we are, it's like i have not paid attention to the story for a year and it seems to have totally not mattered that i didn't but like so here we are it's christmas what do i need to know about brexit as i speak to you right now let me give you a summary which will doubtless have changed very soon okay the european union agreed a strategy with theres May, the Prime Minister.

They said, okay, this is the way out. It involves this complicated compromise due to, the thing that's become the big problem is Northern Ireland because if the UK leaves the EU, there's this shared border between Northern Ireland and Ireland. How do you deal with customs and things going over and across this border if Britain is no longer part of the EU? And that's further complicated by the fact that having a soft border there, not having a strict border between Northern Ireland and Ireland,

is really important to the Good Friday Agreement. Yeah, Good Friday, right. And peace and things like that. So it's not just about customs. It runs much deeper than that. And this has become a real problem and a sticking point about the whole issue. So when Theresa May came back and said, this is the deal that we're going to do with Europe. I think this is the way out for us. This is the best deal we're going to get.

There was going to be a vote in the House of Commons on this. It has to be approved by the parliament before the deal can be signed from this end. Europeans said, we're happy, we'll sign off on this deal. Theresa May came back and said, all right, if I can get my parliament to sign off on the deal, the deal is done. And a vote was scheduled and she was going to go around the country and tout it for a week or two and then put it to a vote. Everyone hates it. Everyone hates the deal in Britain. People who want to stay in Europe obviously hate it. People who want to completely cut ties with Europe completely hate it. People who think there should be sort of a half-half deal think this is a terrible half-half deal. Theresa May wasn't going to have the numbers to get it passed. That was

obvious. It was going to be really embarrassing for her. So she took the vote off the table, said, okay, we're not going to vote on her because she didn't want to be embarrassed. And she said, I'm going to go back to Europe and see if they'll fiddle with this Northern Ireland thing because this is clearly going to be a problem. But while she went i'm going to go back to europe and see if they'll fiddle with this northern ireland thing because this is clearly going to be a problem but while she went off to europe to go and do a new deal her own party turned on her and did a motion of no confidence and tried to kick her out as prime minister whoa so she had to rush back to britain and shore up the numbers for this vote of no confidence in her which she, but she only won like 200 to 120. So it wasn't a resounding victory.

So she's kind of been weakened by this. And to win that vote, she said, I will stop being prime minister before the next election, which is always a stupid thing to do because you become a bit of a lame duck prime minister. So things are a bit in tatters now. And she said, all right, in January, I think it's scheduled for maybe january 14 there's going to be another vote of the parliament on some kind of deal for brexit no one's happy

it's looking more likely than ever before that britain will leave with no deal this is like the crash out crash out crash out it's also looking more likely than it did before that there could be another referendum i don't think it'll happen but it's more likely than it did before that there could be another referendum. I don't think it'll happen, but it's more likely than ever has been before that there could be another referendum where people are asked again, this is the new situation, what do you think should happen?

Theresa May said, there's no way I'm going to let that happen, but a lot of people seem to think it will happen. So at the moment, it's still all in limbo. Europe said, okay, here's the deal. Theresa May said, I'm happy with that deal. And she couldn't get it at her end. So Europe are now like, well, what the hell, man?

What was the deal with the border? What was going to happen at the border? The problem is this thing called the backstop. What the agreement is, is that Britain leaves the EU, but kind of stays in the EU until a deal is done. And Northern Ireland in particular will still have open trade between Ireland and Northern Ireland, but also Northern Ireland will follow the rules of the EU.

So for all intents and purposes, it will kind of be in the EU. Parts of Britain will still be in the EU, but the border between Britain and the EU will be like the sea between Ireland and Britain. And it's kind of like Northern Ireland has been like excised off of the UK and like broken the union. So like now it's this. So the Northern Ireland thing becomes like a little European Union enclave? Yeah, that's kind of like that, yeah.

So everyone in Northern Ireland is really unhappy about it. But Theresa May's only got the majority in the Parliament of Britain and the numbers to like even have supply bills passed because the DUP, the Northern Ireland MPs, are supporting her. So the only people that are keeping her in power are the ones that she's really upsetting. So they were talking about, okay, we'll withdraw all our support for the government and then the whole government collapses

and then there would be a general election. Oh, my God. So a general election is very my god so so a general election is very much on the table as well at the moment it feels like it's getting further from resolution than closer that's amazing brady if there's a general election you have to tell me like i need to know i'll tell you okay there's another referendum i'll tell you as well yeah so that's kind of you know i've glossed over a lot. And I don't understand some. But it's just a right mess.

Of course. And it's supposed to be what, March? Is March when we're supposed to leave? Yeah. I mean, the leave was always going to be a soft leave anyway. It was always going to be a transition period. It wasn't going to be, you know, border checks coming from today. But it is a total mess.

It's really terrible you know america's doing its best to compete for messy politics but in the last few weeks britain's sort of taken the lead that's amazing well thank you the cowell family for finally getting brady to tell me some stuff about brexit yeah as it was in like mid-december as opposed to don't know no brady don't you mean as it was january 2nd what day is to is quote today i think today is january 2nd yes january 2nd 2019 but like there's for all i know there'll be a new prime minister now like that's that's the way things are going anything could have happened oh. I'm going to cross my fingers so hard for the world to be completely different by the time this goes up. That would be amazing if we had a different prime minister.

Who would it be? I have no idea. This is so far, I don't know who the prime minister is. I don't know who the president of the United States will be. I certainly don't know who will be working for the US government at this stage, the way they're all resigning. So it's uh interesting times oh thank you for that update it's very actionable you're welcome you're welcome