Back to Work

Dan and Merlin have a wide-ranging discussion about technology, and Merlin lays the groundwork for several spirited rants.

Links:

• Mythic Computer is trying to change the PC world one wood computer at a time - The Verge
• Ideogram: Helping people become more creative.
• Amazon.com: Anker USB C Charger, 735 Charger (Nano II 65W), iPad Charger, PPS 3-Port Fast Compact Foldable for MacBook Pro/Air, iPad Pro, Galaxy S23, Dell XPS 13, Note 20/10+, iPhone 14/Pro, Steam Deck, and More : Electronics
• Amazon.com: Anker Magnetic Battery (MagGo), 10,000mAh Foldable Wireless Portable Charger, 20W USB-C Power Delivery for iPhone 14/14 Pro / 14 Pro Max, iPhone 13/12 Series. (Black) : Cell Phones & Accessories
• Amazon.com: Anker 622 Magnetic Battery (MagGo) Upgraded Version, 5,000mAh Foldable Magnetic Wireless Portable Charger and USB-C (On The Side), Only for iPhone 14/13/12 Series (Interstellar Gray) : Cell Phones & Accessories

Over the course of this classic Odds n' Sods episode, it becomes clear that all Merlin cares about is babies and 3D printing.

Links:

• White Noise Podcasters Are Costing Spotify $38 Million a Year - Bloomberg
• Stanford Tree - Wikipedia
• Monoprice MP Voxel 3D Printer, Fully Enclosed, Easy Wi-Fi, Touchscreen, 8GB On-Board Memory - Monoprice.com
• Bre Pettis - Wikipedia
• On Not Writing About New College - ungainly

Dan returns from a nice trip, and Merlin has been printing lizards.

Links:

• Connect Patreon to Spotify and Stream Your Favorite Podcasts in One Place — Spotify
• Javier Bardem - Wikipedia
• Thingiverse - Digital Designs for Physical Objects
• How the West Was Won (Led Zeppelin album) - Wikipedia
• Home - 13 Coins
• Brian Brettschneider on Twitter: "The average President/Ex-President has been changed with 2 felonies over the course of U.S. history. 🇺🇸 https://t.co/qxHHHVxXqS" / X
• Drama Actors Roundtable: Pedro Pascal, Evan Peters, Kieran Culkin, Damson Idris & More - YouTube
• The Suicide Squad | Watch the Movie on HBO | HBO.com

You’re either early or you’re late; leave time for a flat tire; have you tried melatonin?; a new search engine and some enthusiasm for blogs.

Links:

• Searching for a Search Engine — I've long been on the lookout for a search engine that would let me filter out sites that I've found to be more noise than signal. After a little over a month of paid use, I'm feeling cautiously optimistic about Kagi.
• Kagi Search
• StandBy is a great way to reduce distractions (and screen time)
• Tiny Awards, a celebration of the small, playful, and heartfelt web - Waxy.org
• Blade Runner | Typeset In The Future
• uBlock Origin - Free, open-source ad content blocker.
• uBlacklist for Safari on the App Store
• Traditional Development - #6 in the Strong Towns Curbside Chat Video Series - YouTube
• ooh.directory: a place to find good blogs that interest you — A collection of 1957 blogs about every topic
• Waxy.org - Andy Baio lives here
• kottke.org - home of fine hypertext products
• Quotes to get right. #runx — Authoritative-ish citations are added and updated as available.
• Ep. 502: "Dr. Guy" - Roderick on the Line - Merlin Mann — The Problem: John is a different kind of dog. (Recorded on Monday, June 19, 2023.)

With Merlin on the mend, your hosts discuss actors named Hurt, comic books, and old Macs.

Links:

• The Computer Chronicles - Macintosh System 7.0 (1991) - YouTube
• iTextEditors - iPhone and iPad text/code editors and writing tools compared — This is a feature comparison of text editors on iOS.
• ex-men - YouTube
• ALTI Wireless Charging Desk Mat- Journey
• Uncanny X-Force - Wikipedia
• Ex-Men: Wolverine - YouTube

DISCUSSED: A self-hypnosis recommendation leads to another look at meditation (as well as not-meditation), plus Merlin has a few more beta finds that contribute to the Tiny Life Improvement Project.

Links:

• Sleep Hypnosis for Calming An Overactive Mind - YouTube
• wisdom/wisdom.md at master · merlinmann/wisdom · GitHub
• Genesis - "Turn It On Again" - YouTube

DISCUSSED: Dan sets up his little office, your hosts talk about the new Apple dingus, and Merlin highlights some strong OS updates.

Links:

• Denny's Moons Over My Hammy Copycat Recipe by Todd Wilbur

Dan needs your help with a flooring dilemma, and your hosts share some thoughts on WWDC announcements.

Links:

• Overlooked! A detail in The Shining that you’ve never seen - YouTube
• “A Little Dazzled” - A Gentle Introduction to XTC - playlist by merlinmann | Spotify
• “Your Head Keeps Shaking.” - playlist by merlinmann | Spotify
• New Wave That Still Stands Up - playlist by merlinmann | Spotify
• The features that didn’t get discussed onstage at WWDC – Six Colors
• Forté for iPhone
• Apple Vision Pro: a Post-Mac, iPhone and iPad Future With New VisionOS and Apps - Bloomberg

Dan dives deep on his Sonos setup, and Merlin explores official state things.

Links:

• Amazon.com: Pyle Home 4-Zone Channel Speaker Switch Selector-Premium New & Improved Switch Box Hub, Distribution Box for Multi-Channel High Powered Stereo Amp A/B/C/D Switches, 4 Pairs Of Speakers, Black - PSS4 : Electronics
• Arizona Facts | Office of the Arizona Governor — The bola tie was designated the official neckware of Arizona in 1973.
• Reviews and Ratings - RTINGS.com
• WiFi Speakers - Smart Speakers - IKEA

DISCUSSED: Merlin's family doesn't understand him; an extremely funny TV show is recommended; your hosts address some of the trade-offs that continue to hinder easy smart home adoption; Dan teases a big smart audio episode next week; and Merlin starts trying to tackle an unusual Thought Technology that's become very important to him: First, Make a Hole.

Links:

• Your Twitter Feed Sucks Now. These Free Add-Ons Can Help | WIRED
• BlueLiteBlocker/BlueLiteBlocker: A Chrome & Firefox extension for filtering out tweets from Twitter Blue users based on if they follow you and their follower count.
• 30 Best Mac Menu Bar Apps: Supercharge Your Mac! - TechPP
• Home - Netflix
• Kasa Smart Plug Ultra Mini 15A, Smart Home Wi-Fi Outlet Works with Alexa, Google Home & IFTTT, No Hub Required, UL Certified, 2.4G WiFi Only, 1-Pack(EP10), White - - Amazon.com
• The endless uses for an always-on Mac – Six Colors
• BBC Precision The Measure of All Things 1of3 Time and Distance PDTV - YouTube
• Merlin's Wisdom Project
• humanity.horse
• unwilling.horse
• 🧵 Merlin's big announcement — So honored to announce that Werner Herzog will be directing a documentary about what it’s like to be on a casual 1-hour family hike with me.
• Documentary Now! - "Soldier of Illusion"

Try to make sure fear is always preceded by curiosity.

Links:

• (1) AI Generated Ad - Synthetic Summer. No real people featured - By Private Island - YouTube
• Amazon.com: Netatmo Weather Station Indoor Outdoor with Wireless Outdoor Sensor - Compatible with Amazon Alexa & Apple HomeKit : Patio, Lawn & Garden
• Söhne Mono fonts · Klim Type Foundry

Merlin has a lot of thoughts about AI stuff.

Links:

• The Nice Guys (2016) - IMDb

Dan's house continues to get smarter, and Merlin has some very good media picks.

Links:

• boygenius - the film - YouTube
• Ancient Warfare Expert Rates 10 Battle Tactics In Movies And TV | How Real Is It? - YouTube
• Watch DAVE Streaming Online | Hulu (Free Trial)
• Amazon.com: Google Nest Doorbell - (Wired, 2nd Gen) - Video Security Camera - Ash : Tools & Home Improvement
• Bram Stoker's Original Dracula Penguin Classic Books - Etsy
• Ricky Jay 52 assistants medium - YouTube
• The Day Today - Peter O'Hanra-Hanrahan - YouTube
• Amazon.com : Ajinomoto Ajipanda bottle 70g : Grocery & Gourmet Food

Dan has big updates about his smart home setup, and Merlin is getting intimate with a robot.

Links:

• The Future is a Dead Mall - Decentraland and the Metaverse - YouTube
• Folding Ideas - YouTube
• Dreyfus model of skill acquisition - Wikipedia — The Dreyfus model of skill acquisition is a model of how learners acquire skills through formal instruction and practicing, used in the fields of education and operations research. Brothers Stuart and Hubert Dreyfus proposed the model in 1980 in an 18-page report on their research at the University of California, Berkeley, Operations Research Center for the United States Air Force Office of Scientific Research.[1] The model proposes that a student passes through five distinct stages and was originally determined as: novice, competence, proficiency, expertise, and mastery.

DISCUSSED: Steve Buscemi is celebrated, and The Big Lebowski is congratulated; the guys continue their dive into the state of smart home hardware with a focus on switches.

Links:

• Michael Warburton on Twitter: "STEVE BUSCEMI served from 1980-1984 on Engine Co. 55 in Manhattan’s Little Italy. He donned the uniform once more when he voluntarily returned to his Station the day after 9/11 and spent a week of 12hr shifts digging through the rubble with his former FDNY colleagues. https://t.co/Z2xEtqecw1" / Twitter
• Arena Brains (1987) - RARE 80's VIDEO - Starring Ray Liota, Steve Buscemi And Michael Stipe - YouTube
• How Many Acoustic Panels do I Need? | Audimute
• Honey Nut Cheerios - Wikipedia
• Big Lebowski on Twitter: "[Walter]: Has the whole world GONE CRAZY?! AM I THE ONLY ONE HERE WHO GIVES A SHIT ABOUT THE RULES?! MARK IT ZERO! https://t.co/3mg9NfINH8" / Twitter
• Aurora Smart Bulb Dimmer Switch | Lutron
• Eve Energy | evehome.com
• Eve Button– All FAQs | evehome.com
• Eve Room | evehome.com
• Welcome to Bunch - Bunch.app — Bunch is a macOS automation tool that takes a folder of plain text files containing lists of apps and commands to launch and provides an easy-to-use menu for triggering them.
• HomeControl Menu for HomeKit on the Mac App Store

Dan is curious about AI voice transcription, and Merlin has yet more smart home advice for a new homeowner.

Links:

• How an 18th Century Sailing Battleship Works - YouTube
• GitHub - openai/whisper: Robust Speech Recognition via Large-Scale Weak Supervision

DISCUSSED: Merlin has some been analyzing a very misleading song about beaches, and Dan has been visiting more with ChadGPT.

Links:

• You're not going to believe what I'm about to tell you - The Oatmeal
• Kokomo, Indiana - Wikipedia — the ornriest town on earth
• gragland/chatgpt-chrome-extension: A ChatGPT Chrome extension. Integrates ChatGPT into every text box on the internet.
• wong2/chatgpt-google-extension: A browser extension that enhance search engines with ChatGPT
• liady/ChatGPT-pdf: A Chrome extension for downloading your ChatGPT history to PNG, PDF or a sharable link

DISCUSSED: Dan has a new iPad keyboard, and Merlin is intrigued by ChatGPT. Also, Merlin almost tunes his guitar.

Links:

• OpenAI
• I tried using AI. It scared me. - YouTube
• Fixing Gmail labels to attach to messages, not threads « Tom Scott
• What Is ChatGPT Doing … and Why Does It Work?
• ChatGPT writes Merlin some code
• ChatGPT shows Merlin some `sed`
• ChatGPT sells Merlin on tabs vs. spaces
• ChatGPT tells Merlin the best seasons of "Survivor"
• VS Code Themes
• Amazon.com: Logitech Combo Touch iPad Pro 11-inch (1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th gen - 2018, 2020, 2021, 2022) Keyboard Case - Detachable Backlit Keyboard, Click-Anywhere Trackpad - Oxford Gray; USA Layout : Electronics
• ShareGPT: Share your wildest ChatGPT conversations with one click.

DISCUSSED: Dan's takes some smart baby steps into home automation, and Merlin has a lot to say about everything.

Links:

• Obsidian — Obsidian is a powerful and extensible knowledge base that works on top of your local folder of plain text files.
• Obsidian Canvas - Obsidian — An infinite space to visualize and make sense of your ideas.

DISCUSSED: Dan begins a new journey into smart home living, and Merlin is excited about common misconceptions.

Links:

• List of common misconceptions - Wikipedia — Each entry on this list of common misconceptions is worded as a correction; the misconceptions themselves are implied rather than stated. (via Sam Enright)
• The Cabinet of Wikipedian Curiosities – Sam Enright — Carl Sagan was involved in this plan to nuke the moon for unclear reasons, including “a possible boosting of domestic morale”.
• Pluralistic: Tiktok’s enshittification (21 Jan 2023) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
• The Food Expiration Dates You Should Actually Follow - The New York Times
• The Thoughts of a Spiderweb | Quanta Magazine — Spiders appear to offload cognitive tasks to their webs, making them one of a number of species with a mind that isn’t fully confined within the head.
• Reconcilable Differences #200: The Genius Who Keeps Retiring - Relay FM
• Home Assistant
• “Monorail!” How Conan O’Brien Came Up With an Iconic ‘Simpsons’ Episode - The Ringer
• An Oral History of 'Marge vs The Monorail', the Episode That Changed 'The Simpsons'
• Home | Archive of Our Own — A fan-created, fan-run, nonprofit, noncommercial archive for transformative fanworks, like fanfiction, fanart, fan videos, and podfic

DISCUSSED: After settling some confusion about Anna Borg, the boys settle into an amble about the state of voice assistants and the future of the theoretically smart home. As ever, Merlin is pretty excited about music, but he also needs your help figuring out where in the hell he got this new software keyboard.

Links:

• Spotify – Mindhunter Season 1&2
• A House by the Park
• Spotify – “To say, ‘Hey, I love you.’” — Hit shuffle for a quick tour of some of the ineffably disturbing songs that obsessed Merlin as a kid.
• Spotify – “Icicles Instead of Tears”: Merlin’s 1979 — I was a very nervous 12-year-old Ohio boy who listened to the radio a lot. My family moved to Florida and sent me to military school. What a weird goddamned year.
• Build With Matter | Smart Home Device Solution - CSA-IOT — One protocol to connect compatible devices and systems with one another. Smart home devices should be secure, reliable, and seamless to use. And with Matter, they are.
• Introducing Matter devices | evehome.com
• What is Thread and how will it help your smart home? - The Verge — Why the low-power mesh networking protocol is poised to become the backbone of the connected home
• Common Gateway Interface - Wikipedia
• Ivory for iOS
• HOOBS™ – USER FRIENDLY HOME AUTOMATION FOR EVERYONE
• Home Assistant — Open source home automation that puts local control and privacy first. Powered by a worldwide community of tinkerers and DIY enthusiasts. Perfect to run on a Raspberry Pi or a local server.
• Steve Ahlman on Twitter: "Never forget what they took from us. https://t.co/oSyi7No4nD" / Twitter — "Never forget what they took from us."

DISCUSSED: Merlin is extremely happy with a suggestion that Dan made, and Dan has a bunch of apps he's excited about.

Links:

• Yahtzee - Wikipedia
• AmazonSmile: Ninja AF101 Air Fryer that Crisps, Roasts, Reheats, & Dehydrates, for Quick, Easy Meals, 4 Quart Capacity, & High Gloss Finish, Black/Grey: Home & Kitchen
• CopyLess 2 – Clipboard manager for Mac
• Lunar - The defacto app for controlling monitor brightness
• Dato — Sindre Sorhus
• Clocker on the Mac App Store
• Rectangle Mac
• Moom · Many Tricks
• Bitwarden Open Source Password Manager | Bitwarden
• ForkLift 3 - most advanced file manager and FTP client for macOS
• Raindrop.io — All-in-one bookmark manager
• Rogue Amoeba | SoundSource: A Superior Sound Control
• Hidden Bar - Hide menu bar icons on your Mac - Superbits
• Patricia Lockwood · Diary: Insane after coronavirus? · LRB 16 July 2020 — The first real symptoms were not mine, but my cat’s. Miette, who kisses me on the lips each morning to see if I have become food yet, became deathly ill with a stomach virus two days after my return
• Adam-12 Metal LUNCHBOX 2 X 3 Fridge Magnet Art - Etsy
• CleanShot X for Mac
• TablePlus | Modern, Native Tool for Database Management
• Cyberduck | Libre server and cloud storage browser for Mac and Windows with support for FTP, SFTP, WebDAV, Amazon S3, OpenStack Swift, Backblaze B2, Microsoft Azure & OneDrive, Google Drive and Dropbox
• Rogue Amoeba | Loopback: Cable-Free Audio Routing
• Paprika Recipe Manager for iOS, Mac, Android, and Windows

Typing on an iPad, rhyming compulsively, default media, and taking a young foodie out on the town.

Links:

• 7UP Commercial- Make 7...UP yours! - YouTube
• Amazon.com: Instant Cold Brew Electric Coffee Maker, From the Makers of Instant Pot, Quickly Cold Brew Coffee, Customize Your Brew Strength, Easy-to-Use, Dishwasher Safe Glass Pitcher, Brew Up to 32 Ounces: Home & Kitchen
• Amazon.com: Ninja AF101 Air Fryer that Crisps, Roasts, Reheats, & Dehydrates, for Quick, Easy Meals, 4 Quart Capacity, & High Gloss Finish, Black/Grey: Home & Kitchen

DISCUSSED: Merlin is excited about reading, and Dan sometimes puts his time in a box. Also: Breaking Bad.

Links:

• Living In Expectation of the Unexpected Gift — This text discusses how modern society has become heavily reliant on technology to manage and optimize our lives, but in doing so has resulted in a lack of joy and satisfaction in life. It suggests that instead of allowing technology to take over, we should take the time to question our motives and desires, and to seek out the higher activities that freedom should be won for.
• not disappointing myself - by Ava - bookbear express — This text is about the importance of listening to oneself and following one's true desires in order to lead a fulfilling life. It encourages readers to trust their emotional reactions and not to be too focused on external validation. The author explains that it is important to disappoint others in order to avoid disappointing oneself, and that it takes time to learn to listen to oneself. Ultimately, it is only by listening to the truest and most beautiful version of oneself that one can live a truly fulfilling life.
• Ideas That Changed My Life · Collab Fund — This text discusses 10 big ideas that have changed the author's life, including the influence of identity on beliefs, the importance of multi-discipline learning and understanding how people respond to incentives, the power of self-interest and persuasion, the value of room for error, and the need for sustainable sources of competitive advantage. The author also argues that personal experiences can lead to bias and suggests that people should explore multiple points of view when trying to understand why others behave as they do.
• Brent Beshore on Twitter: "Recently asked, “What are the ten biggest ideas that changed your life?” Great/hard question. Here's where I landed... 1) Imago Dei: Every person is inherently valuable independent of behavior and beliefs. Everyone matters. Treat people accordingly, without exception." / Twitter — This document discusses ten life-changing ideas. These ideas include: Imago Dei, Rationality, Meaningful = Hard, Base Rate, Messy, Margin of Safety/Redundancy, Serving vs. Served, Non-Linearity, Forgotten, and Invert. They all have to do with viewing life in different ways in order to achieve goals and improve overall wellbeing.
• Year of Rage: The Oscars Slap and Other Shocking Moments in 2022 - The New York Times — This text discusses the collective anger felt in the US in 2022 and examines the sources of the anger that have been present for several years. It examines the idea of 'LIFEMORTS', which are triggers for rage, and how they are all being activated right now during the pandemic. It also looks at the idea of 'angertainment', and how politicians use it to sow dissent and stoke anger. Finally, it suggests ways to manage the anger, such as acknowledging it and then trying to let it go.
• I’m a very slow thinker | Derek Sivers — The author of the text is a "slow thinker" who does not have an immediate reaction to interesting conversations or deep questions, but rather takes time to think and come up with a response later on. They don't mind if this makes them look stupid in the moment as they are not trying to win debates and often ask for questions in advance for interviews. The author believes that the first reaction is usually outdated and suggests that instead of immediately providing an answer, it is better to take time to think and come up with a response. They also suggest that by example, this could show other people that they can do the same.
• Things you're allowed to do — This document outlines various things that can be done to make the most of resources and gain knowledge and decision making skills, such as hiring a researcher or expert consultant, running surveys, visiting a physical therapist, buying task-specific devices, engaging a human productivity monitor, repairing or getting things repaired, and asking for free upgrades or coupons. It also includes examples of services that can be purchased such as grocery delivery, laundry service, nannies, giving to charity, task-specific devices, hotels, and personal assistants. Additionally, the document lists sources of experts and research and data.
• Theses on Sleep - Alexey Guzey — In this essay, Alexey Guzey questions common beliefs about sleep such as the need for 7 hours of sleep, potential harms of acute and long-term sleep deprivation, and the bidirectional relationship between sleep and mania/depression. He suggests that acute sleep deprivation may not be harmful and might even be beneficial in some contexts, and that humans can adapt to long-term sleep deprivation. He also argues that sleeping less than the recommended 7-9 hours per night can result in more wakefulness and therefore should not be seen as harmful. Guzey presents evidence from experiments, data from sleep studies, and personal anecdotes to support his claims.
• Being a working mother in America in 2022 was sleepless - The Washington Post — This article reflects on the experience of being a working mother in America in 2022, where child-care shortages, lack of sleep, and inadequate support systems have made it difficult to thrive. Despite the exhaustion and the challenges, the author remains hopeful, wishing for moments of rest and glimpses of better things. She encourages readers to struggle on towards those better things, and ultimately, to be able to get a good night's sleep.
• Readwise Reader | The first read-it-later app built for power readers. — Save everything to one place, highlight like a pro, and replace several apps with Reader.
• Andy Tryba on Twitter: "Time-boxing is an effective tool @elonmusk and @billgates use to manage their calendars. But few use it since it’s too complicated. Here is a simplified version I call the ABC Method: 🧵 https://t.co/qz2ApZc4MR" / Twitter — Time-boxing is an effective tool @elonmusk and @billgates use to manage their calendars. But few use it since it’s too complicated. Here is a simplified version I call the ABC Method: 🧵
• What is Timeboxing? 14 Examples and Use Cases [2022] • Asana
• Inside The Explosive Season 4 Finale | BEHIND THE SCENES | Breaking Bad - YouTube — Includes huge SPOILERS for "Breaking Bad." Don't watch until you've finished Season 4. Seriously.

DISCUSSED: Merlin recommends an exciting new beta; Dan gets a new e-reader; and Merlin has a lot to say about taking notes.

Links:

• Readwise's Reader Beta — "Huge news: after 1.5 years of private beta, thousands of testers, and a looot of incredible work by the team... @ReadwiseReader is finally in public beta! Save everything to one place, highlight like a pro, and replace several apps with one. https://t.co/xsbJnS0U5t"
• Kindle Paperwhite, Oasis, Scribe & More E Readers | Amazon
• AmazonSmile: Kindle Oasis E-reader (Previous Generation - 9th) – Graphite, 7" High-Resolution Display (300 ppi), Waterproof, Built-In Audible, 32 GB, Wi-Fi (Closeout) : Amazon Devices & Accessories
• Amazon.com: Kindle Paperwhite Signature Edition (32 GB) – With a 6.8" display, wireless charging, and auto-adjusting front light – Without Lockscreen Ads : Clothing, Shoes & Jewelry
• Rakuten Kobo eReader Store United States
• 2021 e-reader roundup: Kobo Sage, Kobo Libra 2, Kindle Paperwhite reviews – Six Colors
• Cornell Note Taking — The Best Way To Take Notes Explained | by GoodNotes | GoodNotes Blog
• The Cornell Note Taking System – Learning Strategies Center
• Amazon.com: Maruman MNEMOSYNE Notebook 8.27 x 5.83 Inches (A5), 7mm ruled 24-line, 80 Sheets (N195A), Black : Everything Else
• Chumby - Wikipedia — The Chumby was a consumer electronics product formerly made by Chumby Industries, Inc. It is an embedded computer which provides Internet and LAN access via a Wi-Fi connection.
• Chumby
• Note-taking - Wikipedia
• The Hero Item - After Show | Do By Friday on Patreon — In which Merlin goes off about ““time management.””

DISCUSSED: a classic odds n' sods episode encompassing a missing remote (and a failed system), some wallet FU, cool help with playlist management, unsubscribing in dribs and drabs, and a big-ass RV.

Links:

• We Toured The Most FUTURISTIC Motorhome in the World! - YouTube
• Building a Camper I can Tow with my Bike... Detailed Build - YouTube
• ChatGPT
• No. 3236: The Humble Index Card — Today, the humble index card. The University of Houston presents this series about the machines that make our civilization run, and the people whose ingenuity created them.
• Soundiiz - Transfer playlists and favorites between different streaming services
• Amazon: Your Email Subscriptions
• Avoiding Cloudy Iced Tea | Cook's Illustrated — Cloudiness in tea is caused by caffeine and tannins bonding with each other when tea is refrigerated or iced.
• Why is my Iced Tea Cloudy? | Red Rose — To prevent cloudy iced tea, you should allow the tea to cool down to room temperature before you add any ice or cold water.
• Inside (2023) - IMDb
• ‎Merlin's Weird Movies for Weirdos, a list of films by Merlin Mann • Letterboxd — Keep yourself occupied with these weird movies for weirdos. I want so many more movies like these.
• ‎Some Next-Level Shit, a list of films by Merlin Mann • Letterboxd — This is movie fandom on Difficult Mode.
• Solar Lights Outdoor, AmeriTop Super Bright 1600LM LED 6000K Solar Motion Sensor Lights with Wide Angle Illumination; 3 Adjustable Heads, IP65 Waterproof Outdoor Security Lighting (White) - - AmazonSmile — a/k/a "Solar Boy"
• Touring the MOST EXPENSIVE HOUSE in the United States! - YouTube

Merlin is still on Island Time, so discussion is mostly limited to Columbo, Star Wars, Merlin's playlists, Ellsworth, and, of course, wallets.

Links:

• "Columbo" The Most Crucial Game (TV Episode 1972) - IMDb
• A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again - Wikipedia — "A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again" (Harper's, 1996, under the title "Shipping Out"): Wallace's experiences and opinions on a seven-night luxury Caribbean cruise.
• What purpose does Chewbacca's bandoiler have? - Quora
• The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special | Disney+ Originals
• Vinegar - Tube Cleaner on the App Store
• Quote by Ellsworth: “I’ll tell you what…”
• Jack Cassidy - IMDb — Fact: the great Jack Cassidy played three (3) different characters on "Columbo."
• Spotify – “No More Than a Thought” - A Gentle Introduction to Old 97’s — Some older bangers from your new favorite Christmas band.
• Spotify – “Always Talking to Myself” - A Gentle Introduction to The Police — Were you aware that The Police were once one of our most vital and exhilarating rock bands? No, really—I get it. But, if you never got that into them from THOSE songs, maybe try these.
• Spotify – “Fit Them Where They Belong” - A Gentle Introduction to Ted Leo and the Pharmacists — A band's band with songs so great you'd be forgiven for not immediately noticing how terrific the musicians are.
• Spotify – “The Switchback Will Make You Crazy“ - A Gentle Introduction to Richard Thompson
• Spotify – “In a Nutshell” - A Gentle Introduction to Michael Penn — Getting started with one of the great, under-appreciated pop geniuses of my generation. No, seriously.

DISCUSSED: Dan has a new concern; some thoughts on resistance; Merlin shares a new insight on creativity and sleep; Dan has FU directly from the Nosferatu band; Merlin serves a turducken of suggestions related to text editing; and, finally, Dan needs your advice on wallets, while Merlin makes a case for currency.

Links:

• Finding a native and fast text editor for the Mac in 2022・The Jolly Teapot
• The Archive (macOS) • Zettelkasten Method
• A Beginner’s Guide to the Zettelkasten Method | Zenkit
• Controller for HomeKit 6.0
• The First Minute of Every Phone Call Is Torture Now - The Atlantic — Technology is a condition. Like the weather, or the economy, or the pandemic, or traffic, or parenting.
• Purkinje effect - Wikipedia
• Triangle of Sadness - Wikipedia
• M - The Criterion Channel
• X - See How We Are - (Acoustic) - YouTube
• Chloë Grace Moretz Answers the Web's Most Searched Questions | WIRED - YouTube
• The Crown (season 5) - Wikipedia
• The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent (2022) - Reference View - IMDb — Where ☝️ that image ☝️ comes from.

DISCUSSED: Merlin is playing with his new dingus; Dan almost talks about wallets; try Tailscale to make your stuff work better together; why you (yes, you) need a VPN; Dan is getting enthused about Obsidian; Merlin is freshly re-enthused about Daytum; and finally Dan is very excited about a Dracula he saw.

Links:

• Tailscale · Best VPN Service for Secure Networks
• How to create your own VPN with Tailscale to get around stupid free WiFi network rules and protect your traffic – A Whole Lotta Nothing
• Midea Cube 50 Pint Dehumidifier for Basement and Rooms at Home for up to 4,500 Sq. Ft., Smart Control, Works with Alexa (White), Drain Hose Included, ENERGY STAR Most Efficient 2022 : Everything Else
• Vocaster Two | Focusrite
• Amazon.com: Focusrite Vocaster Two — Podcasting Interface for Recording Host and Guest. Two Mic Inputs and Two Headphone Outputs, with Auto Gain, Enhance, and Mute. Small, Lightweight, and Powered by Computer : Everything Else
• Obsidian
• Vocaster Two: Twice the features, twice the price – Six Colors
• Basic Editing in Visual Studio Code
• Daytum — Daytum helps you collect, categorize and communicate your everyday data.
• About • Daytum
• Invincible Czars - Nosferatu
• Nosferatu Centennial DVD Download (link) - Invincible Czars
• Nosferatu Death Ship - Invincible Czars Soundtrack - YouTube
• Guardian Firewall - Guardian Firewall
• Wipr — Enjoy a cleaner web.
• Ad Blocker Test
• AdBlock Tester: test your AdBlock extensions
• Can You Block It ? - A Simple Ad Block Tester
• Quarto

DISCUSSED: Halloween Follow-Up; exit interview for Season 4 of What We Do in the Shadows; how Apple could build users' confidence and stimulate their curiosity with better documentation; Merlin makes his case for spreadsheets as your potential place where stuff goes.

Links:

• K-Strass the Yo-Yo Guy Super Compilation - YouTube
• PSA: You can stop/silence the alarm on a family sharing member's iPhone, via Siri on your phone. : iphone — `Hey Siri, turn off the alarm on $Person's ‌iPhone‌`
• Mac keyboard shortcuts - Apple Support — "By pressing certain key combinations, you can do things that normally need a mouse, trackpad, or other input device."
• Siri Light Colors
• The Spotlight Search Tips Cheat Sheet for Mac — Discover how to find files faster, track flights and stock prices, convert currencies, and do a lot more with Spotlight on macOS.
• Color Hex - ColorHexa.com
• Google Sheets function list - Google Docs Editors Help — "Google Sheets supports cell formulas typically found in most desktop spreadsheet packages. Functions can be used to create formulas that manipulate data and calculate strings and numbers."
• TableFlip - Simple Table Editor for Mac — "_The_ Markdown table editor."
• IMPORTHTML - Google Docs Editors Help — "Imports data from a table or list within an HTML page."
• Ask about your data & get suggested content - Computer - Google Docs Editors Help — "You can ask questions about the data in your spreadsheet. Based on your data, you’ll get suggestions for formatting, charts, and analysis."

Fortunately, Merlin had thoroughly prepared for 62 minutes of lizards, Morgellons, animal powers, and Tom Cruise.

Links:

• Ruby on Mac: Get Ruby working on your Mac in minutes with a single command.
• The Vanishing of America's Drive-Thru Fotomats - YouTube
• PanWriter
• Plizzanet Earth with Snoop Dogg – Iguana vs. Snakes - YouTube
• Morgellons - Wikipedia
• Chemtrails,SA Geoengineering,Morgellons. The Dark Agenda of Synthetic Biology.Full Power point - YouTube

Sleep, practice, infrastructure, power, and OCD are themes. As per usual.

Links:

• ⭐️👉 How to wield power to improve the workplace : Invisibilia : NPR — "Bad bosses. Obnoxious coworkers. Unfair compensation. There are so many reasons people feel disempowered in the workplace. But how can our feelings about power enable or disrupt the larger dynamics we hate at work? This week, Yowei Shaw seeks answers from a power researcher and a union organizer." Do not miss!—mdm
• hayden #VALANCENATION on Twitter: "taika naptiti: a thread https://t.co/NgeRkDWr1C" / Twitter — Taika Waititi can sleep pretty much anywhere.
• Wired.com: 20 years later | Stopdesign — Twenty years ago today, Wired launched a seminal redesign of its website that helped catapult forward web technology and what our industry understood as possible for commercial websites.
• Amazon.com: Scrub Mommy Dual-Sided Sponge and Scrubber - 3ct : Health & Household
• Hunt for the Wilderpeople (2016) - Reference View - IMDb — A national manhunt is ordered for a rebellious kid and his foster uncle who go missing in the wild New Zealand bush.
• Plague Of Tics - This American Life — David Sedaris tells a story from his boyhood, when a voice inside his head commanded him to lick every light switch and tap his forehead with his heel. It's from his book Naked.
• Merlin's Playlist: "Pretty Maids" — These are runs of two or more consecutive album tracks that rule. If you play the first song, you must play the others. I do not, as @darth says, make the rules.
• How To Use The Phrygian Mode | Beginner Guitar HQ
• Leonard Cohen - "Suzanne" (1967) - YouTube
• Lou Reed - "I Love You, Suzanne" (1984) - YouTube
• Amazon.com: Farberware FDW05ASBWHA Complete Portable Countertop Dishwasher with 5-Liter Built-in Water Tank, 5 Programs, Baby Care, Glass & Fruit Wash-Black/White : Appliances — Merlin's hilarious but kind of adorable "dishwasher."
• The Now Habit: A Strategic Program for Overcoming Procrastination and Enjoying Guilt-Free Play: Fiore, Neil: 8601400338544: AmazonSmile: Books

Dan has Covid, so Merlin agrees to carry him, and yet Dan improbably carries them both.

Links:

• Amazon.com: ZHAOFAFA Fat Orange Plush Cat Stuffed Animals Toy,Lifelike Yellow Tabby Cat Kitty Toy for Boys and Girls Children Xmas Birthday Gift,11.8 /17.7 Inches (11.8 in（30 cm）) : Toys & Games
• AmazonSmile: SUPERBIO 13 Gallon Compostable Handle Tie Tall Kitchen Garbage Bags, 30 Count, 1 Pack, Heavy Duty Food Scrap Trash Bags Certified by BPI Meeting ASTM D6400 Standards, Eco-Friendly and Convenient : Health & Household
• David Bowie - Starman (Top Of The Pops, 1972) - YouTube
• Smarf | Heroes Wiki | Fandom
• 🦎 Bando on Twitter: "o western wind when will u blow https://t.co/ILGKlTi3hD" / Twitter
• Over ten years of Mann Family ideas for things to name notional pets. — Over ten years of Mann Family ideas for things to name notional pets.
• Universal Classic Monsters Collection - Peacock
• Peacock: "Frankenstein" (1931)
• Starman - "Top Of The Pops" Version - 2022 Mix • David Bowie
• David Bowie - "Hunky Dory" (1971)
• Roxy Music - "Virginia Plain" - Top of the Pops - 24th August 1972 - YouTube
• Roxy Music - "Do the Strand" (1973) - YouTube
• Hunt for the Wilderpeople (2016) - Reference View - IMDb
• Hunt for the Wilderpeople - Ricky Baker Happy Birthday Song - YouTube — Gold.
• Hunt for the wilderpeople scene (Funeral) - YouTube

There are a few odds and sods, but, yeah, it's mostly about adjudicating Peak Cruise.

Runner-Up Titles

• Bespoke Slime Hole
• Gavin Assumed
• Nom De Repair
• Species-Ending Annoyance
• Mosquito Tasks
• One Set of Footprints
• The Thing You Do Before It Breaks
• Creating Conditions
• Old People Jam-Up
• Don't Give Me Notes
• The Boston Janitor Movie

Links:

• summarize.tech: AI-powered video summaries — Get a summary of any long YouTube video, like a lecture, live event or a government meeting.
• Lexica — The Stable Diffusion search engine
• Crabs and Convergent Evolution: Carcinization Explained
• Animals have evolved into a crab-like-shape at least 5 separate times | Boing Boing
• Maintenance Is Sorely Needed In The Fight Against Global Warming — The noble but undervalued craft of maintenance could help preserve modernity’s finest achievements, from public transit systems to power grids, and serve as a useful framework for addressing climate change and other pressing planetary constraints.
• 'Why Buddhism Is True' Explores Links Between Evolutionary Biology And Meditation : Shots - Health News : NPR — I mean, our feelings were designed to get genes into the next generation. But that doesn't mean they were designed to help us see the world clearly or bring us happiness.
• 'Why Buddhism Is True' Explores Links Between Evolutionary Biology And Meditation : Shots - Health News : NPR — But as a practical matter, Buddhism works at the level of feeling. They don't interrogate the logic explicitly, but you deal with the feeling itself in a way that disempowers it.
• Kids in the Hall - Gavin - Butcher Shop - YouTube
• Kids in the Hall: Funeral Home - YouTube
• Kids in the Hall - Painting a Chair - YouTube
• Tom Cruise
• The Sleeping Beauty Trilogy by A. N. Roquelaure, Anne Rice: 9781101612651 | PenguinRandomHouse.com: Books
• Netflix - "A Futile and Stupid Gesture"
• The Hustler of Money - YouTube
• The H Is O [Adam McKay, 2000] on Vimeo
• Tropic Thunder - Wikipedia

Feeling bad about feeling bad is ultimately optional.

Links:

• Amazon.com: Beard Apron Cape for Men Shaving and Trimming with Suction Cups Adjustable Neck Straps Beard Apron for Dad Father Husband Boyfriend Brother Gift : Beauty & Personal Care
• Why Buddhism is True | Book by Robert Wright | Official Publisher Page | Simon & Schuster
• Stream 74 Heart of a Gambler by ✪ The Talk Show | Listen online for free on SoundCloud — Special guest Glenn Fleishman joins John Gruber to discuss Bitcoin -- how it works, the problems it solves, where it's going, and more. Also, Apple's "goto fail" security bug, and some Jeopardy and Blackjack game theory.
• Brief History of the Royal Family - YouTube
• wisdom/wisdom.md at master · merlinmann/wisdom — By Merlin Mann. It's only advice for you because it had to be advice for me.
• Daring Fireball: Diffusion Bee 1.0: Easy to Install Stable Diffusion for Apple Silicon Macs — Be warned if — like me — you have a busy week ahead. These AI image generators can be a real time sink.
• divamgupta/diffusionbee-stable-diffusion-ui: Diffusion Bee is the easiest way to run Stable Diffusion locally on your M1 Mac. Comes with a one-click installer. No dependencies or technical knowledge needed.

From choosing a pencil to relocating your ladder, one big and complex part of Knowledge Work is deciding how to do what you do.

Links:

• MacMenuBar.com | A curated directory of 700+ Mac menu bar apps
• Amazon.com : Staedtler Mars Technico Lead Holder (780 C) : Mechanical Pencils : Office Products
• Amazon.com : Staedtler 502 BK A6 Mars Rotary Action Lead Pointer and Tub for 2mm Leads, 502BKA6,Blue : Pencil Sharpeners : Office Products
• Amazon.com : Staedtler Mars Carbon Lead, 2mm, 2H, 12 Lead : Mechanical Pencil Refills : Office Products
• Amazon.com: How to Draw Adorable: Joyful Lessons for Making Cute Art: 9781954854475: Tipsey, Carlianne: Books
• AmazonSmile : AFMAT Long Point Pencil Sharpener, Pencil Sharpeners for Artists, Charcoal Pencil Sharpener, Manual Pencil Sharpeners for Art/Drawing/Sketching Pencils(φ6-8mm), Adjustable Points : Office Products
• Blackwing Matte Pencils (12 Pack) | An Iconic Pencil | Blackwing602.com
• Gigaverse — Radiolab — Overcast
• Gigaverse
• Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain: The Definitive, 4th Edition: Edwards, Betty: 9781585429202: AmazonSmile: Books
• yak shaving - Wiktionary

DISCUSSED: Your hosts talk about some of their favorite Mac apps available via Setapp.

Links:

• Setapp | The best apps for Mac in one suite
• Texas vs. Florida: Is It Better to Live in Florida or Texas? - Retirepedia
• Size of Texas compared to Florida
• Podcasting Conference Apologizes for Ben Shapiro's Presence — "PM has made mistakes," tweeted Podcast Movement. "The pain caused by this one will always stick with us."
• Preposterous TV censorship: Fight a Stranger in the Alps - YouTube
• Tucker Carlson has become Jiminy Glick.
• The Very Best of Jiminy Glick - YouTube

We've got a man on the boat.

Links:

• Murder of Dee Dee Blanchard - Wikipedia
• The Day Breaking Bad Was Born - YouTube — Exploring the origins of Breaking Bad, and the elements that made it great, until we find the first perfect episode.
• Seinfeld I MiniEpisode I Tim Whatley, I'm a jew I The Yada Yada - YouTube — "Chrissy, give me a schtickle of Fluoride."
• Setapp | The best apps for Mac in one suite
• Buy PDFpen or PDFpenPro | Nitro

DISCUSSED: A very moist man's lawyer learns how Dropbox works; Merlin introduces "The Bump"; Dan has a cool new calendar technology; and Merlin speed-rounds some odds and sods.

Links:

• Songlink/Odesli
• Ted Leo and the Pharmacists - "The Tyranny of Distance"
• Start Here (fs.blog)
• The Feynman Learning Technique — Information is learned when you can explain it and use it in a wide variety of situations. The Feynman Technique gets more mileage from the ideas you encounter instead of rendering anything new into isolated, useless factoids.
• There are two types of smoke alarm. One of 'em ain't so good. - YouTube
• Onelink | Smart Smoke Detector and Carbon Monoxide Alarm
• Amazon: Onelink Smoke Detector and Carbon Monoxide Detector | Battery Powered| First Alert
• Drafts on Twitter: "If you use TextExpander with Drafts on iOS, please read this update about TextExpander’s future integration plans: https://t.co/8ewSNATHHn" / Twitter
• TextExpander Changes Coming on iOS - News & Updates - Drafts Community — "If you use TextExpander integration on iOS, be aware that the direct integration in existing versions of Drafts will stop being able to refresh snippets and fill-in snippets will cease functioning after a TextExpander update sometime this Fall. Around the same time, TextExpander support will be removed from Drafts in an update."
• TextExpander - We’re Saying Goodbye to SDK — We’ve been hard at work on a new TextExpander keyboard that incorporates much of the in-app functionality enabled by the TextExpander touch SDK. In light of this, we’ve decided to sunset the TextExpander Touch SDK in favor of this new enhanced user experience.
• From TextExpander to Keyboard Maestro… again - All this — And I decided to tackle the one big advantage TextExpander had over Keyboard Maestro: the ability to make a new snippet quickly. By combining AppleScript with Keyboard Maestro itself, I now have a way to make a KM snippet out of what’s on the clipboard.
• Do-By-Friday/How To Bump.md at main · merlinmann/Do-By-Friday
• Calm Calendar
• Don't Talk to the Police - YouTube
• Former FBI Agent Breaks Down Interrogation Techniques | WIRED - YouTube
• This Is Why You Should NEVER Talk to Police - YouTube
• Alex Jones’ Damning Texts ACCIDENTALLY Sent to Sandy Hook Lawyer — “You know what perjury is, right?” attorney Mark Bankston asked the Infowars host on the stand. “You lied.”
• Tucker Carlson ‘Shitting Himself’ Scared That His Alex Jones Texts May Leak — …the Fox News star is deeply concerned about his personal texts with the raving conspiracy blowhard possibly leaking.
• Alex Jones's Lawyer Face Plants In EPIC Discovery Fail - Above the LawAbove the Law — Apparently, Reynal put the digital copy of Jones’s iPhone in a shared Dropbox folder, and then blew it off when Bankston sent a HEY, IDIOT notice. And now, it’s too late.
• Ron Filipkowski 🇺🇦 on Twitter — "Sandy Hook families’ lawyer confirms that a naked photo of Alex Jones’s wife was on his phone, but adds that Alex sent that naked photo of his wife to Roger Stone."

Frankly, it was a bit of a fever dream, but your hosts discuss sportsball, collective singular nouns, Coleridge's trap street, LEGO, and a handful of Merlin's recent wins.

Links:

• Matter — via Alex Cox
• Walk With Me | To The Best Of Our Knowledge
• TextSoap - Automate Your Text Cleanup
• SearchLink - BrettTerpstra.com
• Forgetfulness - Billy Collins Animated Poetry - YouTube
• MasterClass - Chris Voss Teaches the Art of Negotiation
• Firefox (film) - Wikipedia
• YayText: A text styling tool for Facebook, Twitter, etc.
• » 30 for 30 Shorts: ‘The Schedule Makers’
• Galaxy Explorer 10497 | LEGO® ICONS™ | Buy online at the Official LEGO® Shop US
• T. rex Breakout 76956 | Jurassic World™ | Buy online at the Official LEGO® Shop US
• Hagrid's Hut: Buckbeak's Rescue 75947 | Harry Potter™ | Buy online at the Official LEGO® Shop US
• How to get an upgrade: Tips from FBI hostage negotiator Chris Voss
• Amazon.com : Maruman MNEMOSYNE Notebook 8.27 x 5.83 Inches (A5), 5mm dot grid, 80 Sheets (N105), white : Office Products — Merlin's preferred desk notebook.
• Amazon.com: Tul Retractable Gel Pens 0.5mm Needle Point, Black (8 Pack) : Office Products — Merlin's preferred ink pen.
• The Greatest haka EVER? - YouTube
• Homepage - Wahlburgers
• Amazon: Small Ceramic Dipping Bowls, White Oblong Dishes (3 oz, 12 Pack) : Home & Kitchen — The ramekin, evolved. Watch out, chickens.
• Archers of Loaf - "In the Surface Noise" (2022) — The new Archers of Loaf single.
• Archers of Loaf - "Raleigh Days" (2020) — Merlin's favorite Archers of Loaf song since their 90s glory days.
• Archers of Loaf - "Harnessed in Slums" (1995) — Probably Merlin's favorite Archers of Loaf song.
• Archers of Loaf - "Wrong" (1994) — A close second place for Merlin's favorite Archers of Loaf song.

Merlin has thoughts on survival, aging, and whether to bother trying to understand whatever NFTs are. Next up, the triumphant return of "Cool Thing I Learned This Week" brings updates on iOS dictation and a very Merlin video about organization.

Until such time as the world ends, we will act as though it intends to spin on.

—Nick Fury, The Avengers (2012)

Links:

• 5 Principles of Organization - YouTube — via Brad Siefert (@bksiefert)
• Siri: Everything You Need to Know - MacRumors
• iOS 16 dictation: Much improved, but up to Google Pixel standards? - YouTube
• Light as a feather, stiff as a board - Wikipedia
• wisdom/wisdom.md at master · merlinmann/wisdom — "It's only advice for you because it had to be advice for me."
• Quotes to get right. #runx — "Authoritative-ish citations are added and updated as available."

Your hosts discuss dramaturgy, package managers, and monospaced fonts.

Ladies?

Links:

• Ruby on Mac: Get Ruby working on your Mac in minutes with a single command.
• MonoLisa - A font family designed for software developers. Font follows function.
• iTerm2 - macOS Terminal Replacement
• Fonts - Apple Developer
• Download the Atkinson Hyperlegible Font | Braille Institute
• Inconsolata - Google Fonts
• The Elements of Typographic Style: Bringhurst, Robert: 9780881791327: Amazon.com: Books
• wisdom/wisdom.md at master · merlinmann/wisdom

DISCUSSED: Dan misses going to the movies; cool ways to save your bacon in Git; and Merlin is excited about a (new to him) app for personal tracking and quantization.

Links:

• Dangit, Git!?! — Git is hard: messing up is easy, and figuring out how to fix your mistakes is impossible. Git documentation has this chicken and egg problem where you can't search for how to get yourself out of a mess, unless you already know the name of the thing you need to know about in order to fix your problem
• Bearable | Mood & Symptoms Tracker App | All of Your Health in One Place — Track anything and discover how it affects your health.
• John Dickerson on Twitter: "For you sleep obsessives. https://t.co/nDlqkhWFvC" / Twitter
• [OC] 2 years of my GF and I tracking the sleep quality impact of various choices/behaviours. These were the 8 most significant effects : dataisbeautiful
• Exist · Understand your behaviour.
• Gyroscope · Your Personal Health Coach
• AFI’s 100 YEARS…100 MOVIES | American Film Institute
• Amazon.com : Packer's Pine Tar Soap 3 Pack | The Original Men’s Bar Soap With Natural Pine Tar and Pine Oils | All Natural Pine Soap Bar with No Harsh Chemicals. (3 BAR PACK) : Nutritional Supplements And Vitamins : Beauty & Personal Care
• merlinmann/dbf-voice-log: Alex and Merlin want to just say things into the air. — Alex and Merlin just want to yell things into the air.
• fish shell
• Seconds Pro Interval Timer on the App Store

DISCUSSED: Merlin runs the table this week with: unseasonable heat; the joy of realizing when someone obviously loved (and probably had to fight for) the thing that they made; and finally, an extended meditation on a phone charger and the decisions that seek to bridge past and future.

Links:

• Blot – A blogging platform with no interface. — Blot is a blogging platform with no interface. It turns a folder into a website.
• How to use Blot - Blot — Blot turns a folder into a blog. When you put files inside your blog’s folder they become blog posts.
• Posts - Blot — A collection of guides to formatting your posts and pages.
• Metadata - Blot
• Configure - Blot
• Why I Went HTML Only :: Barry Hess :: bjhess.com
• The most minimal blog you can find – The Jolly Teapot
• SF Symbols - Apple Developer
• Fonts - Apple Developer
• DEWENWILS Remote Control Outlet Wireless Wall Mounted Light Switch, Electrical Plug in On Off Power Switch for Lamp, No Wiring,100 Feet RF Range, ETL Listed,Programmable - - Amazon.com
• Watch Keep Sweet: Pray and Obey | Netflix Official Site
• Quick Journaling | Drafts Directory
• Prophet's Prey (2015) - Plot Summary - IMDb — When Warren Jeffs rose to Prophet of the Fundamentalist Church of Latter Day Saints, he took control of a religion with a history of polygamous and underage marriage. In a short time, Warren managed to expand these practices and the power of his position in unprecedented ways.
• AmazonSmile: Anker 633 Magnetic Battery (MagGo), 10,000mAh Foldable Magnetic Wireless Portable Charger, 20W USB-C Power Delivery for iPhone 13/13 Pro / 13 Pro Max / 12/12 Pro and 12 Pro Max (Black) : Cell Phones & Accessories — Merlin likes this.
• Assemble diary | Drafts Directory
• Prophet's Prey (2015) - Reference View - IMDb
• Notes - Blot
• wisdom/wisdom.md at master · merlinmann/wisdom — "It's only advice for you because it had to be advice for me."
• Merlin Mann on Twitter: "You can tell when somebody really loved what they were making." — "You can tell when somebody really loved what they were making."
• T. Rex Dinosaur Fossil Exhibition 76940 | Jurassic World™ | Buy online at the Official LEGO® Shop US
• Bro Thor’s New Asgard 76200 | Marvel | Buy online at the Official LEGO® Shop US
• LEGO® Friends Toys | Official LEGO® Shop US
• Peoples Temple - FoundSF
• Bacon Ray - "Dance of the Monotremes" (The Swab, 1999) — On Merlin' band's last record, they made a song that included every fact they knew about the platypus—ultimately celebrating the distinctive parenting skills of a loving monotreme mother.

A classic odds n' sods episode. Merlin needs help with a journaling via voice solution; your hosts look at password enhancements in the Apple betas; praise for Apple's SF fonts and SF symbols; a trippy video about paper sizes (and the universe); and, oh, those whacky Mormon sects.

Links:

• A-Series Paper Size Dimensions (inches, cm, mm) - Neenah Paper
• A5 in Inches
• Charles and Ray Eames - "Powers of Ten" (1977) - YouTube
• CGP Grey - "Metric Paper" - YouTube
• Powers of Ten (film) - Wikipedia — Charles and Ray Eames
• Move beyond passwords - WWDC21 - Videos - Apple Developer
• Apple Passkey Demo with Hanko Authentication API
• Fonts - Apple Developer — These typefaces offer the control and flexibility to optimally display text at a variety of sizes, in many different languages, across multiple interfaces.
• SF Symbols - Apple Developer
• Meet the expanded San Francisco font family - WWDC22 - Videos - Apple Developer
• What's new in SF Symbols 4 - WWDC22 - Videos - Apple Developer
• Quick Journaling | Drafts Directory
• Windsor (typeface) - Wikipedia

Dan & Merlin are live from the show floor, sharing their thoughts on the WWDC 2022 keynote address.

Links:

• Apple Events - Apple
• ATP 486: Field Day at Apple Park — Accidental Tech Podcast
• Upgrade #410: Apple Park Vibe Check - Relay FM
• Can Stimulating the Vagus Nerve Improve Mental Health? - The New York Times
• This Optical Illusion Has a Revelation About Your Brain and Eyes - The New York Times
• The Office Monsters Are Trying to Claw Their Way Back to 2019 - The New York Times
• Apple WWDC 2022 keynote in 24 minutes - YouTube
• Apple Events - Apple
• Body Language Behaviors From a Retired FBI Agent to Improve Confidence
• Former FBI Agent Explains How to Negotiate | WIRED - YouTube
• Former FBI Agent Explains How to Read Body Language | Tradecraft | WIRED - YouTube
• MacBook Air 2022 vs MacBook Pro 2022: Which new MacBook should you buy? | Tom's Guide

On memory, security, and sleeping injuries.

Links:

• The apps I use to read and write for this blog (Interconnected)
• Working Copy, Git on iOS

Considering the value of finding something new to suck at.

Runner-Up Titles

• Stop Trying to Meditate and Just Breathe
• I’m That Guy in My Own Head
• The Confidence of the New Idiot

Links:

• Willem Dafoe Breaks Down His Career, from 'The Boondock Saints' to 'Spider-Man' | Vanity Fair - YouTube
• Reconcilable Differences #182: Disapproval Has a Scent - Relay FM
• Celery and Cum - After Show | Do By Friday on Patreon
• AudioDharma
• Amazon.com: Mindfulness in Plain English: 9780861719068: Gunaratana, Bhante: Books
• Sleep Hypnosis for Anxiety Reduction & Reversal - YouTube — Welcome to this guided self hypnosis experience for helping you reduce and reverse your symptoms of anxiety, along with allowing you to create your best and easiest bedtime sleep.
• Sleep Hypnosis for Calming An Overactive Mind - YouTube — Welcome to this guided hypnosis for sleep and sleep meditation experience, with spoken suggestions for relaxation accompanied with a soundscape of soothing background sleeping music.
• AudioDharma - Andrea Fella
• Buddhism Plain and Simple: The Practice of Being Aware Right Now, Every Day: Hagen, Steve: 9780804851183: Books
• Buddhism Is Not What You Think: Finding Freedom Beyond Beliefs: Hagen, Steve: 9780060730574: Books: Amazon.com
• William Ackerman - "Bricklayer's Beautiful Daughter"
• Outkast - "Roses" (Official HD Video) - YouTube
• "I forgot my mantra." - YouTube

It's a very special "Oops! All Automation Check-ins" episode. But, of course—as always—there's also a philosophical component.

Links:

• Black Bear Head Mask Full Face Plush Bear Costume Deluxe Halloween Party Animal Head Masks : Toys & Games
• Defining a Hyper Key · GitBook — BetterTouchTool (starting with version 3.540) allows you to use Caps Lock as a Hyper Key. A Hyper Key is a magical key which automatically presses all the standard modifiers (ctrl+shift+cmd+opt). Why would you need that? Because on macOS many of the easy to reach shortcut combinations are already used by the system or by some app. By using the Hyper Key can can define shortcuts in BTT that are pretty much guaranteed to not be used anywhere else (who would want to press e.g. ctrl+shift+cmd+opt+ P). This makes room for tons of easy to remember and easy to use shortcuts.
• Celery and Cum | Do By Friday — This week's challenge: Catch up with Bunch.
• StopTheMadness
• StopTheMadness for Safari Support
• HomeControl Menu for HomeKit on the Mac App Store
• Controller for HomeKit – Your Smart Home Companion
• insidegui/PodcastMenu: Put Overcast on your Mac's menu bar — PodcastMenu is a simple app which puts Overcast on your Mac's menu bar so you can listen to your favorite podcasts while you work.
• BrettTerpstra.com
• Markdown Service Tools - BrettTerpstra.com
• Charlie Parker - A Night in Tunisia (featuring the Famous Alto Break) - YouTube
• folivora.ai - Great Tools for your Mac!
• Keyboard Maestro 10.1: Work Faster with Macros for macOS
• Use macOS keyboard shortcuts – Apple Support (AU) — You can customise some keyboard shortcuts by changing the key combinations.
• Stream Deck | elgato.com

DISCUSSED: Dan's new tenants flip him the bird, and Merlin has strong feelings about email.

Runner-up titles:

• Glass Surfing
• I Don't Believe in a Lizard Binary
• A Game Stop and a Bathroom
• A Mother Son Relationship That Is Weird
• The Allergies of Childhood
• Medium-Sized Important Breakthrough
• The Cultural Installation of Fear

Links:

• Stories Behind Some of the Weird Stuff on ‘Severance’ - The New York Times
• The complete FUN TO IMAGINE with Richard Feynman - YouTube
• Busted! How to Handle the Police Until You Get a Lawyer - by Mary Griego - YouTube
• Google Search Operators: The Complete List (42 Advanced Operators)
• Welcome to Bunch - Bunch.app
• Introducing Bunch - Bunch.app
• Fonts - Apple Developer — Get the details, frameworks, and tools you need to use system fonts for Apple platforms in your apps. These typefaces offer the control and flexibility to optimally display text at a variety of sizes, in many different languages, across multiple interfaces.
• BBC - Richard Feynman: Fun to Imagine — Gifted physicist Richard Feynman (1918-88) was known as the 'great explainer' due to his ability to help non-scientists imagine something of the beauty and order of the universe as he saw it. In this series, Feynman looks at the mysterious forces that make ordinary things happen and, in doing so, answers questions about why rubber bands are stretchy, why tennis balls can't bounce for ever and what you're really seeing when you look in the mirror.
• 1Password 8 for Mac | 1Password — The world's best password manager is now even more powerful. Designed for uncompromising protection and productivity on macOS.
• StopTheMadness — StopTheMadness is a web browser extension that stops web sites from making your browser harder to use.
• StopTheMadness for Safari Support
• Blue Ruin (2013) - Reference View - IMDb
• Green Room (2015) - Reference View - IMDb
• All About Swallows' Nests and Nesting Habits - Birds and Blooms — An open cup made of pellets of dried mud mixed with grass and lined with feathers.

Your hosts are finally back in action with vital updates on #productivity and #creativity. Also, ginger ale and egg substitutes.

Links:

• 'Severance' creator Dan Erickson's Reddit AMA: 15 burning Lumon questions answered
• Raycast — Raycast is a blazingly fast, totally extendable launcher. It lets you complete tasks, calculate, share common links, and much more.
• GitHub - raycast/script-commands: Script Commands let you tailor Raycast to your needs. Think of them as little productivity boosts throughout your day. — Script Commands let you tailor Raycast to your needs. Think of them as little productivity boosts throughout your day.
• Raycast Manual — -
• 7 Best Egg Substitutes for Baking and How to Use Them (w/ FREE Chart)
• Amazon.com : King Arthur, Gluten Free Fudge Brownie Mix, Certified Gluten-Free, Non-GMO Project Verified, Certified Kosher, 17 Ounces : Grocery & Gourmet Food
• Is Garfield a ripoff of Heathcliff? – Restaurantnorman.com
• Reed's Extra Real Ginger Ale - 4pk/12 Fl Oz Cans : Target

DISCUSSED: Updates on new Plex functionality; praise for Severance; plus some updates on Merlin's new setup—and pursuing the life that you'd like to have.

Runner-Up Titles:

• Shoulders Come in Pairs
• Meaty and Sad
• Sucked Up Into My Body Cavity
• Really Hurts Your Roller Skating Muscle
• It's a Nice Box
• I Saved Some Nice Boxes

Links:

• Wayfair | Inbox Zero Desks
• Inbox Zero Ashrfi Height Adjustable Standing Desk | Wayfair
• Tropic Thunder (2008) - Reference View - IMDb — Through a series of freak occurrences, a group of actors shooting a big-budget war movie are forced to become the soldiers they are portraying.
• James Hong - IMDb
• Akro-Mils AkroBins | Plastic Storage Bins | Stackable Storage Bins | Hanging Storage Bins — AkroBins are the industry-leading hanging and stacking plastic storage bin. Heavy-duty, bins stack together or hang from Akro-Mils louvered racks and panels, rail racks, and louvered carts for high-density storage.

DISCUSSED: Big news from Plex; Merlin has an expansive new computer project; and Dan continues to make his way at a new gig using his trusty calendar.

Links:

• End the Streaming Struggle with Plex | Plex — So we started to dream up a rather big dream—a system that unifies all of your subscription services, all of your watchlists, and all of your recommendations into one easy-to-use app.
• Maestral — Maestral is a lightweight Dropbox client for macOS and Linux. It provides powerful command line tools, supports gitignore patterns to exclude local files from syncing and allows syncing multiple Dropbox accounts.
• Take Control of Photos – Take Control Books — This book introduces you to the many features of Apple’s Photos app on Mac, iPad, and iPhone, with advice on navigating the interface, editing your images, searching your library like a pro, syncing with iCloud Photos, sharing photos with others, and creating photo books.
• Move your Photos library to save space on your Mac - Apple Support — To save storage space on your Mac, you can move your Photos library to a different storage device.
• Win Workplace Negotiations - Sessions - MasterClass — Increase your influence, gain trust, and find your voice at work—all in 30 days. In this session with former FBI negotiator Chris Voss, you’ll learn 12 proven tactics to use every day at work, for big meetings or small moments. And you’ll get plenty of no-pressure practice to help you ace high-pressure situations.
• Track. Discover. Share. - Trakt
• TV Time | Your TV shows calendar (TVShow Time)
• JustWatch - The Streaming Guide
• OWC: "THUNDERBOLT DEVICE DAISY-CHAINING" — "Thunderbolt daisy-chaining allows you to connect multiple Thunderbolt devices to your computer"
• The Beths 'A Little Death' | RNZ Music Live Session - YouTube — The Beths perform 'A Little Death' live for RNZ Music onsite at Jonathan Pearce's K Rd studio.
• Samsung T7 Portable SSD 2TB - Up to 1050MB/s - USB 3.2 External Solid State Drive, Blue (MU-PC2T0H/AM) : Electronics — TRANSFER IN A FLASH: Transfers files nearly 9. 5x faster than external hard disk drive (HDD). Reads up to 1,050 MB/s / Writes up to 1,000 MB/s on USB 3.2 Gen 2 supported devices
• SAMSUNG T5 Portable SSD 2TB - Up to 540MB/s - USB 3.1 External Solid State Drive, Black (MU-PA2T0B/AM) : Electronics — Superfast read-write speeds of up to 540 MB/s
• Queen & David Bowie - "Under Pressure" (Classic Queen Mix) - YouTube — "This remix is very close to the final album version. The bass lines seem to be a bit more prominent in the mix and the overall sound is a little less muddy. Freddie singing "that's okay!" has been removed right before Bowie sings, "it's the terror of knowing..." It is unknown who did this remix. It is rumored that this is actually an old mix from around the Hot Space time period". Info taken from www.QueenVault.com
• Understanding "Under Pressure" - YouTube — In the history of music, there have been many great duets, but for my money, there's one that stands above them all: Under Pressure, by Queen and David Bowie. It's the result of two generational talents coming together to create a song neither could've made on their own, and it's absolutely brilliant, from the iconic bass riff to the lyrics to, yes, Freddie Mercury's pitch-perfect voice. It tells a timeless story both lyrically and musically, and it captures the best of everyone who helped make it.
• Cable Labels by Wrap-It Storage — The velcro cable tags Merlin likes.
• Would I do it tomorrow? The one question you must ask yourself before you accept any invitation. — "Anytime anyone invites you to do anything, ask yourself this question before you accept: 'Would I do it tomorrow?'"
• Merlin's Wisdom Project — A work in progress

DISCUSSED: Dan is doing new things that require a new approach to his calendar. Merlin proposes some appropriate Calendar Kyber Crystals.

Links:

• Twenty-Six Cameras: The Aviator (2004) with Merlin Mann — Special guest Merlin Mann joins the show to review the 2004 Howard Hughes biopic: The Aviator! We look at all the blueprints, hit romance corner, and try to understand what we really need.
• wisdom/wisdom.md at master · merlinmann/wisdom — * Your calendar represents a portfolio of promises to your future self. Treat it that way. * Thus: The only events allowed on a serious person's calendar are commitments about time, location, and effort that will die if they are not successfully completed on a specific day. Full stop.

DISCUSSED: Dan is back from reporting on the show floor; recommendations for some Back to Work-adjacent podcast episodes; incidental thoughts and advice on presentations as performance; everybody wants a better email app; and Dan shares his thoughts on The Batman;

Runner-Up Titles

• Two Bags of Dongles
• Just a Butt in a Chair
• Dirty Little Secret About Daddy
• A Face in the Brady Bunch Grid
• The Washington Fulfillment Society

Links:

• CleanShot X for Mac
• Win Workplace Negotiations - Sessions - MasterClass — And you’ll get plenty of no-pressure practice to help you ace high-pressure situations.
• How to Use Calibrated Questions to Negotiate Strategically - 2022 - MasterClass — Calibrated questions are “how” and “what” questions structured for maximum effect.
• Chris Voss FBI hostage negotiator on being assertive — No matter how conflict-averse you are there are a few key ways you can persuade people to give you what you want—whether you’re arguing at home with your spouse, trying to get a free upgrade at a hotel, or, in Chris’s case, negotiating with terrorists.
• Returning to the Office . . . While Black | The New Yorker Radio Hour | WNYC Studios — The Radio Hour’s KalaLea talks with four Black professionals and compares their experience to that of Robert Churchwell, a Black reporter hired by the Nashville Banner in 1950. Churchwell was excluded from the white newsroom and worked from home for five years.  
• Giant Penny | Batman Wiki | Fandom — The Giant Penny is a staple of the batcave which is one of Batman's many trophies. It is a gigantic decorative penny with the head of Abraham Lincoln on it and which weighs 216 lbs. The penny's head-side says, "In God we Trust", "Liberty", and the year 1947
• Beyond Bullet Points: Using Microsoft PowerPoint to Create Presentations That Inform, Motivate, and Inspire (Bpg-Other): Atkinson, Cliff: 9780735620520: Amazon.com: Books — (this really old edition is IMHO 'the good one'—MDM)
• Presentation Zen: Simple Ideas on Presentation Design and Delivery (Voices That Matter): 9780135800911: Business Communication Books @ Amazon.com
• Back to Work Episode 38: Sorry. You Can't Have a Candle. — On improving presentation culture. Dan and Merlin talk about bombing the deck, advancing the slides, and striving to improve the self-perpetuating bad culture of presentations.
• Keynote - LockPickingLawyer - YouTube

DISCUSSED: Dan and Merlin talk about Apple's latest event and consider what the future looks like from Cupertino.

Links:

• Mac keyboard shortcuts - Apple Support
• AmazonSmile : Dry Erase Lapboards | 9 x 12 inch Large Whiteboard | Pack of 12 White Board Set | Great for Teachers, Students, Children, Classroom | Reusable, Durable, Portable, Single Sided Whiteboard : Office Products
• California Conference for Women on Twitter: "Breaking the spell of high conflict requires us to actively listen. @amandaripley shares a method of listening called "looping." #CalWomen https://t.co/skUatwOY5t" / Twitter — > Breaking the spell of high conflict requires us to actively listen. > > @amandaripley shares a method of listening called "looping."

Links:

• uBlacklist for Safari on the App Store — "Blocks sites you specify from appearing in search engine results"
• uBlacklist for Safari | Search Engine filter for Safari
• Why Are There So Many Bad Bosses? - Freakonomics — "When these firms select people to be managers based on their current job performance, they are actively making themselves worse off. In other words: the Peter Principle is as real as Laurence Peter said it was. And, I’m editorializing here, it would also seem to be incredibly stupid."
• 495. Why Are There So Many Bad Bosses? — Freakonomics Radio — Overcast
• Robert Sharl on Twitter: "⁦@hotdogsladies⁩ This is the business. OHTO Super Promecha Pencil PM-1500P | Cult Pens https://t.co/Inzfsujt55" / Twitter
• AmazonSmile : OHTO Super Promecha Drafting Pencil, 0.5mm (PM-1505P) : Mechanical Pencils : Office Products
• Tweaks for Twitter
• Amazon.com : Staedtler Mars 780 Technical Mechanical Pencil, 2mm. 780BK : Steatdler Mechanical Pencil : Office Products
• Amazon.com : Staedtler Mars Carbon Lead, 12 x 2mm, HB (200-HB) : Staedtler Mars Lead Refill Hb : Office Products
• Amazon.com : Staedtler 502 BK A6 Mars Rotary Action Lead Pointer and Tub for 2mm Leads, 502BKA6,Blue : Pencil Sharpeners : Office Products
• Peter principle - Wikipedia — "…employees are promoted based on their success in previous jobs until they reach a level at which they are no longer competent, as skills in one job do not necessarily translate to another"
• Casting the X-Men in the Marvel Cinematic Universe - The First Class - YouTube
• Wells for Boys - SNL - YouTube — Introducing Wells for Boys, part of Fisher-Price's new Sensitive Boy line.
• Logo Programming Language — The Logo Programming Language, a dialect of Lisp, was designed as a tool for learning. Its features - interactivity, modularity, extensibility, flexibility of data types - follow from this goal.
• Mac keyboard shortcuts - Apple Support

DISCUSSED: the Russians are coming; Dan has thoughts on Marvel TV shows, and Merlin has thoughts on Hawkeye specifically; Merlin bravely and boldly recommends watching a film that's often considered the greatest ever made; in Follow-Up, Dan has an update on Taskpaper as well as wanting advice on how to fire Photoshop; Merlin seems weirdly excited about his new pencil; yet more praise is heaped on Rogue Amoeba; and, finally, in an unexpected twist, both your hosts realize they did the same thing last week.

Links:

• Reconcilable Differences #176: The Curse of Convenience - Relay FM — As a main topic, your hosts dive deep on spaces.
• Amazon : Kaweco Sketch Up Pencil, Brass, 5.6 mm : Arts, Crafts & Sewing
• Why Should I Tell You?: A Guide to Less-Extractive Reporting – Center for Journalism Ethics — I’m still early in my journalism career, but I’ve already encountered a number of situations that have made me question the role journalists should play as they cover people who are in some way suffering.  
• Drive (2011) - The Quadrant System - YouTube
• Pixelmator Pro
• Acorn 7 | Full Featured Photo Editor for the Mac
• Affinity – Professional Creative Software
• DaVinci Resolve 17 | Blackmagic Design
• Amazon.com : Staedtler Mars Technico Lead Holder (780 C) : Mechanical Pencils : Office Products
• Use Synology NAS as UPS Server to safely power down your other servers/computers : synology
• All about the new ML Super Resolution feature in Pixelmator Pro - Pixelmator Blog — Our latest ML-powered feature is called ML Super Resolution, released in today’s update, and it makes it possible to increase the resolution of images while keeping them stunningly sharp and detailed. Yes, zooming and enhancing images like they do in all those cheesy police dramas is now a reality!
• Pixies - Monkey Gone To Heaven (Official Video) - YouTube — 5…6…7
• Wheat and chessboard problem - Wikipedia — If a chessboard were to have wheat placed upon each square such that one grain were placed on the first square, two on the second, four on the third, and so on (doubling the number of grains on each subsequent square), how many grains of wheat would be on the chessboard at the finish?

DISCUSSED: your hosts can't complain (but, sometimes, they still do); a provisional craving for secular pre-cana; what are your canonical family holidays?; Dan has to sign something; a quick clarification on eels; Dan has some camera struggles, but Merlin offers advice that's costly and not actually all that useful; as Merlin re-approaches his World of Text, he is obviously getting even more gaybones for VS Code; and, finally, Merlin begins sketching his new project about energy, fuel, and courageous non-vacations.

Runner-Up Titles

• A Defensive Fist
• My Uneasy Gait
• Your Backdoor Camera
• A Brace of Nips
• If I’m to Be Your Gamera

Links:

• markdownlint - Visual Studio Marketplace — Markdown linting and style checking for Visual Studio Code
• GistPad - Visual Studio Marketplace — Manage your code snippets and developer notes using GitHub Gists and repositories.
• Ulysses — Powerful features and a pleasant, focused writing experience combined in one tool, made for people who love to write and write a lot — this is Ulysses.
• Lunar Lander (video game genre) - Wikipedia
• Amazon Official Site: Blink Mini
• Blink for Home
• Blink - Home Assistant
• Wireless Security Camera Systems | Home Security Cameras | Arlo
• Arlo Pro 3 Spotlight Camera
• Pre-Cana - Wikipedia
• Lint (software) - Wikipedia
• Back to Work Episode 85: Schrödinger's Soap Holder — This week, Dan and Merlin discuss how to use a public restroom.
• R.E.M. - Camera - YouTube
• Watch Cologuard® Commercials | Cologuard® Patient Site | Risk Info
• merlinmann/wisdom: Merlin Mann attempts to capture the best advice he's heard and learned from.
• Macromedia HomeSite - Wikipedia
• Back to Work Bathroom Episodes

DISCUSSED: boiling ATX water and the long-term return of the Bang-Bang Machine; thought-provoking insight on youth, hustle, and work-life balance from Slate Political Gabfest; and Dan tries his hand at TaskPaper.

Makebelieve Help, Old Butchers, and Figuring Out Who You Are (For Now)

Links:

• New to HomePod or just unsure what to do with it? Try these useful voice commands - 9to5Mac
• Slate Political Gabfest - The “Am I Normal?” Edition — For this week’s Slate Plus bonus segment Emily, John, and David offer advice about how to establish a work/life balance.
• ‘Errors’ at Treatment Plant Force 1 Million in Austin to Boil Their Water - The New York Times — It is the second time in a year that residents of the Texas capital have been told to boil water before drinking.
• Time for Timer PSA: "Hanker for a Hunk o' Cheese" (1970s) - YouTube
• Time for Timer - Wikipedia
• ‘Time for Timer!’: Saturday morning cartoon PSAs from the 70s | Dangerous Minds
• Portlandia - The Knot Store - YouTube — "Welcome to The Knot Store…my name is Alan."
• Jeff Goldblum Reviews Impressions of Himself | Vanity Fair - YouTube — From David Duchovny's SNL skit to Tom Hiddleston and TikTok comedians, here are some of the best impressions of Jeff Goldblum.
• Makebelieve Help, Old Butchers, and Figuring Out Who You Are (For Now) on Vimeo
• L Taraval Improvement Project | SFMTA — Once completed, the nearly five-mile long corridor from West Portal to the Zoo will boast new transit priority traffic signals, bulbouts to make pedestrian crossing safer, new trees, high visibility cross-walks, safety boarding islands and increased accessibility. All of these changes will make Taraval more inviting for everyone that lives or travels there.
• Ulysses — "The Ultimate Writing App for Mac, iPad and iPhone"
• Band of Brothers (TV Mini Series 2001) - Reference View - IMDb

DISCUSSED: 🐇🐇; Dan shares follow-up on surviving his Covid week; a listener emails the show with a fascinating offer; your hosts discuss childhood mail; in Breaking News, the actor, M. Emmet Walsh is still alive; it's fun to say "Jackery"; praise for Maira Kalman; some initial thoughts on Apple's Universal Control; and finally, advice on the wisdom of running betas.

Runner-Up Titles

• The Elephants of Style
• A Birthday Party for Monkeys
• Poor Professor Lumens

Links:

• Fred Rogers inducted into the TV Hall of Fame - YouTube — Fred Rogers' induction into the TV Critics' Television Hall of Fame is especially touching when Jeff Erlanger, who had visited on Mister Rogers' Neighborhood as a boy in a wheelchair, surprises Fred by making the presentation on stage.
• Next Stop Grand Central: Kalman, Maira, Kalman, Maira: 9780698118881: AmazonSmile: Books — At Grand Central Station, Chief of Police George Coppola finds lost people, and Mr. Chidchester, head of the Lost and Found, finds lost dogs. Marino Marino makes oyster stew, while thinking up interesting math problems. A man in a porkpie hat buys cherry pies. Maira Kalman's stylized artwork, along with entertaining text, brilliantly captures the excitement of Grand Central Station, "the busiest, fastest, biggest place there is."
• The Elements of Style [Illustrated]: Strunk Jr., William, White, E. B., Kalman, Maira: 8601400937754: AmazonSmile: Books — The only style manual to ever appear on a bestseller list now refreshed by one of our most beloved illustrators.
• merlinmann/taskpaper-config: Merlin's TaskPaper Configuration Files
• Do By Friday — A weekly challenge show hosted by Alex Cox and Merlin Mann.
• Cinemorgue Wiki | Fandom — Cinemorgue Wiki is an encyclopedia that is dedicated to documenting which actors or actresses "died" in which movie or TV show.
• M. Emmet Walsh | Cinemorgue Wiki | Fandom
• Reconcilable Differences - Relay FM — John Siracusa and Merlin Mann try to figure out exactly how they got this way.
• BEST SEX POSITION FOR YOUR ZODIAC SIGNS - Dimepiece LA — "Scorpio Helicopter."
• The Power Station - Some Like It Hot - YouTube
• Robert Palmer - New Day Rising - YouTube
• Jackery Explorer 1000 Portable Power Station
• Jackery Explorer 500W Portable Power Station
• Jackery Explorer 300 Portable Power Station
• 100W Solar Panel, Foldable with USB & DC ports – Jackery
• Multi Mount System | elgato.com
• Birthday problem - Wikipedia — In probability theory, the birthday problem asks for the probability that, in a set of n randomly chosen people, at least two will share a birthday.
• Browse National TV Ads - iSpot.tv
• Planet Hulk - Wikipedia
• Comparing Lumens and Watts by LEDified — One of the most common questions that consumers have about LED lighting is how lumens compare to the wattage rating, watts being something that we are all so used to seeing on incandescent bulb packaging.
• What is Apple Universal Control and how does it work?
• How to Set Up Universal Control Between Mac and iPad - MacRumors
• Universal Control for iPad and Mac was worth the wait - 9to5Mac

An epic journey that begins with Dan's viral week and ends with a misunderstanding about the first Chicago album.

Links:

• Amazon.com: Weiman Stainless Steel Cleaner Kit - Fingerprint Resistant, Removes Residue, Water Marks and Grease from Appliances - Works Great on Refrigerators, Dishwashers, Ovens, and Grills - Packaging May Vary : Health & Household
• YANSS 224 – How to have better conversations with loved ones (and just about anyone) about difficult topics (and just about anything) – You Are Not So Smart — In this episode of the You Are Not So Smart Podcast, we sit down once again with Misha Glouberman, an expert on conflict and conversation, to discuss how best to improve your communication skills and turn what you suspect will be a difficult interaction into something marvelous and fruitful – the sort of talk that strengthens your relationship with the other person and leaves you both feeling like you gained and learned something – the kind you’d like to have again.
• Patrick Lucas Austin (@patbits) / Twitter — technology columnist @TIME / #BlackLivesMatter /
• OCTO LIGHTS Fluorescent Light Covers for Classroom Office - Eliminate Harsh Glare Causing Eyestrain and Headaches. Office & Classroom Decorations - Astronomy 005 - - AmazonSmile — Reduce harsh fluorescent glares and escape the indoors without leaving your desk or cubicle. Whether at home, in school, or at the office, liven up any fluorescent lighting system with the Octo Lights' astronomy design light filters to make every day feel like you're stargazing or sojourning through the stars.
• Memory: The Origins of Alien (2019) - Reference View - IMDb — An in-depth voyage into the sci-fi film "Alien" with the visionary filmmakers who created it. See how one of the most terrifying movies of all time came to life 40 years ago, inspired by ancient mythology and our universal fears.
• Memory: The Origins of Alien - Official Trailer - YouTube — Take an in depth voyage into the sci-fi masterpiece ALIEN with the visionary filmmakers who created it. See how one of the most terrifying movies of all time burst to life 40 years ago, inspired by ancient mythology and our universal fears.
• HBO Max - "The Suicide Squad" — The most deranged supervillains in the country are plucked out of prison and enlisted by the government as a ragtag intelligence team.
• ‎Merlin's Weird Movies for Weirdos, a list of films by Merlin Mann • Letterboxd — Keep yourself occupied with these weird movies for weirdos. I want so many more movies like these.
• ‎Some Next-Level Shit, a list of films by Merlin Mann • Letterboxd — Okay. Your concerns have been heard. Those ““Weird Movies”” weren't weird enough for you, huh? Well, buckle up, Buttercup.
• Mitchell and Webb's Kitchen Nightmares - YouTube
• Jodorowsky's Dune streaming: where to watch online? — Shot in France, England, Switzerland and the United States, this documentary covers director Alejandro Jodorowsky (El Topo, Holy Mountain, Santa Sangre) and his 1974 Quixotic attempt to adapt the seminal sci-fi novel Dune into a feature film.
• Jodorowsky's Dune | Official Trailer HD (2014) - YouTube — In 1975, Chilean director Alejandro Jodorowsky, whose films EL TOPO and THE HOLY MOUNTAIN launched and ultimately defined the midnight movie phenomenon, began work on his most ambitious project yet. Starring his own 12 year old son Brontis alongside Orson Welles, Mick Jagger, David Carradine and Salvador Dali, featuring music by Pink Floyd and art by some of the most provocative talents of the era, including HR Giger and Jean ‘Moebius’ Giraud, Jodorowsky’s adaptation of Frank Herbert’s classic sci-fi novel DUNE was poised to change cinema forever.
• The Holy Mountain | Alejandro Jodorowsky (4K HD Trailer) - YouTube — The scandal of the 1973 Cannes Film Festival, writer/director Alejandro Jodorowsky's flood of sacrilegious imagery and existential symbolism in The Holy Mountain is a spiritual quest for enlightenment pitting illusion against truth.

DISCUSSED: Memories of Super Dave; KEYnote by LockPickingLawyer; Dan gets conspiracy theory-curious; the tapestry of entertainment by cults; Dan helps Merlin understand Git; and Merlin gets a new hub.

Links for this episode:

• LockPickingLawyer - YouTube
  
• Keynote - LockPickingLawyer - YouTube
  
• The Super Bob Einstein Movie (HBO)
  
• "Curb Your Enthusiasm" Palestinian Chicken (TV Episode 2011) - Reference View - IMDb
  
• Superdave Osborne on Letterman, 1990 - YouTube
  
• Super Dave - King Of The Road - YouTube
  
• Entertainment Made By Cults - YouTube
  
• So... YOU can't hear auto tune? No problem, NOW YOU CAN SEE IT!!! - YouTube
  
• Fixing Led Zeppelin with Autotune - YouTube
  
• That Mitchell and Webb Look - "Corner Shop" - YouTube
  
• Eleventy, a simpler static site generator.
  
• Git and GitHub for Poets - YouTube
  
• What can Avengers: Endgame teach us about Git?
  
• Chemtrails,SA Geoengineering,Morgellons. The Dark Agenda of Synthetic Biology.Full Power point - YouTube
  

Taskapalooza begins.

Rock me, Joseph Alberto Santiago.

Links for this episode:

• Kiss - "Love Gun" - YouTube
  
• Why 70% Isopropyl Alcohol Is a Better Disinfectant Than 99% Isopropyl Alcohol - Mun Global
  
• Calm Calendar
  
• TaskPaper – Plain text to-do lists for Mac
  
• Pixies - "Wave of Mutilation" - YouTube
  Dan does not like the guitar bends on this song.
  
• Pixies - "Gigantic" (Live, 1988) - YouTube
  
• Meat Puppets - "Up on the Sun" - YouTube
  
• Wings - "Listen to What the Man Said" - YouTube
  

Wrapping up the year with thoughts on unearned Covid optimism, defining "normal," Roomba training, Microsoft Visual Studio, plus a new (and decidedly more positive) reframing for New Year's resolutions.

Links for this episode:

• @thesunnypodcast | Linktree
  
• The Always Sunny Podcast on Apple Podcasts
  
• The Gang Goes Jihad — The Always Sunny Podcast — Overcast
  
• This Is How Michael Caine Speaks - The Trip - BBC Two - YouTube
  
• Steve Coogan & Rob Brydon in The Trip - James Bond & Liam Neeson - YouTube
  
• The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma: van der Kolk M.D., Bessel: 9780143127741: Amazon.com: Books
  
• VSCodium - Open Source Binaries of VSCode
  
• Visual Studio Code - Code Editing. Redefined
  
• The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk, M.D.: 9780143127741 | PenguinRandomHouse.com: Books
  
• The Zombies - This Will Be Our Year - YouTube
  
• The Kinks - Better Things (Audio) - YouTube
  
• Smart Maps and Map Editing
  
• Getting Started with Imprint™ Smart Maps
  
• Adding New Areas/Rooms To My Map (My Map Doesn’t Look Like My Cleaning Area)
  
• Random impressions - YouTube
  
• 5by5 | Back to Work #371: Avocado People
  Also, your hosts finally (finally!) address a listener's excellent and very difficult question about her millennial employee's use of social media. Lot of levels!
  
• 5by5 | Back to Work #372: Hole That Rabbit
  In extensive follow-up, your hosts talk about the listener who was having trouble with addressing employees and social media use. This goes lots of interesting places.
  
• (1) Robbie Collin on Twitter: "Steve Coogan, Rob Brydon and Michael Winterbottom have literally done this four times" / Twitter
  Steve Coogan, Rob Brydon and Michael Winterbottom have literally done this four times
  
• Alan Partridge - Sports reporter, 1994. Part 1 of 2. - YouTube
  
• Sold out every day! The hamburger that won the 1st place in the US Best Burger Awards 3 times!
  
• DUKTIG Play kitchen, birch, 28 3/8x15 3/4x42 7/8" - IKEA
  

Talking Spider-Man and phones for kids.

Links for this episode:

• Magneto | Marvel Database | Fandom
  
• Dimensions | Into the Spider-Verse Wiki | Fandom
  
• Griffin Explains Electro's Origins in Amazing Spider-Man 2 | Blank Check with Griffin and David - YouTube
  
• Merlin's Wisdom Project (Draft)
  

Merlin's Best of 2021™ kicks off with the return of "Cool Things I Learned This Week."

Links for this episode:

• The Talk Show #331 – “John Was the Problem,” with Merlin Mann
  Merlin Mann returns to the show to discuss two brief topics (with a few asides): my dream of opening a steakhouse, and Peter Jackson’s Beatles documentary Get Back.
  
• Overcast - ‘John Was the Problem’, With Merlin Mann — The Talk Show With John Gruber — Overcast
  
• Watch The Beatles: Get Back | Disney+
  
• ttscoff/KeyBindings: DefaultKeybindings.dict for Mac OS X
  
• Five-Minute Coronavirus Stress Resets - The New York Times
  
• Release v1.4.0 · swiftbar/SwiftBar
  
• How to Calm Down from Extreme Emotions in 30 Seconds - Mindfulness Muse
  
• The Mammalian Diving Response: An Enigmatic Reflex to Preserve Life?
  
• 5by5 | Back to Work #372: Hole That Rabbit
  In extensive follow-up, your hosts talk about the listener who was having trouble with addressing employees and social media use. This goes lots of interesting places.
  
• 5by5 | Back to Work #371: Avocado People
  Also, your hosts finally (finally!) address a listener's excellent and very difficult question about her millennial employee's use of social media. Lot of levels!
  
• SonicCloud Personalized Sound - Home
  
• Hearing Test Apps — Mimi Health
  
• iOS 15 brings powerful new features to stay connected, focus, explore, and more - Apple
  
• Eagle - Organize all your reference images in one place
  
• Merlin's Wisdom Project
  
• Mimi Hearing Technologies | Mimi Hearing Test now integrated into Apple Health
  
• Accessibility - Hearing - Apple
  
• Higher-order volition - Wikipedia
  Higher-order volitions (or higher-order desire), as opposed to action-determining volitions, are volitions about volitions.
  
• Meta-emotion - Wikipedia
  Meta-emotion is "an organized and structured set of emotions and cognitions about the emotions, both one's own emotions and the emotions of others".
  
• Stur Drinks
  
• Mr. Show The New Ku Klux Klan - YouTube
  
• dead kennedys - nazi punks fuck off (in studio) - YouTube
  
• Dead Kennedys - Holiday In Cambodia - YouTube
  
• AmazonSmile : Kassa Large Whiteboard Wall Sticker Roll - 17.3" x 96” (8 Feet) - 3 Dry Erase Board Markers Included - Adhesive White Board Wallpaper for Fridge, Office & Kids Room - Peel and Stick Paper Decal : Office Products
  
• The Technium: Always-On Spatial Audio
  
• This Conversation Will Change How You Think About Trauma — The Ezra Klein Show — Overcast
  

A classic odds and sods episode covering: Rush lyrics; personal pronoun tips; Fitness+ meditation; more melees with various voice assistant ecosystems; a big shout-out to the iconic Listener Rachel A.; and Merlin's newfound love of Keyboard Maestro.

Links for this episode:

• The Wisdom Project (Draft)
  
• Keyboard Maestro 10.0.2: Work Faster with Macros for macOS
  
• David Smith extends his Apple Watch battery – Six Colors
  
• Wearing an Apple Watch in Glencoe - David Smith, Independent iOS Developer
  
• 20-Minute Calm Meditation with JoAnna - Apple Fitness+
  Just put the bag down.
  
• The Popular Family Safety App Life360 Is Selling Precise Location Data on Its Tens of Millions of Users – The Markup
  
• Merlin's Keyboard Maestro Macros
  Key commands to add Notes and Reminders in Safari.
  
• Naming and organizing your Movie files | Plex Support
  If using the (non-“legacy”) Plex Movie agent available in Plex Media Server v1.20.1 and newer, you can also include the IMDb or TheMovieDB ID number in curly braces to help match the movie. It must follow the form {[source]-[id]}.
  

The Boys are back, and they're not sure how big this thing gets.

Links for this episode:

• Amazon.com: Celery Man : Alexa Skills
  Good morning, Paul. What will your first sequence of the day be? Alexa, load up Celery Man!
  

DISCUSSED: Dad stuff; flying too close to the smart home sun; appreciating the magic of Wes Anderson; the virtues of UPS battery backup; and, finally, Merlin starts tentatively sketching a unified field theory for rethinking how we think about and use space.

Links for this episode:

• Drew on Twitter: "@hotdogsladies I had the same problems with Google Docs rich copy/paste. Turned out to be TrackerZapper. Might be worth toggling that to see if that fixes it." / Twitter
  
• Why Do Wes Anderson Movies Look Like That? - YouTube
  
• Futura & Wes Anderson: a love story - YouTube
  
• How Wes Anderson moved beyond Futura - YouTube
  
• The Needle Drop — What Fuels the Best Movie Soundtracks? - YouTube
  
• The Wes Anderson Style Explained — The Complete Director's Guide to Wes Anderson's Aesthetic - YouTube
  
• Wes Anderson Explains How to Write & Direct Movies | The Director's Chair - YouTube
  
• You Know It's Wes Anderson IF... - YouTube
  
• Wes Anderson: American Express "My Life, My Card" in HD - YouTube
  
• Amazon.com: CyberPower CP1500AVRLCD Intelligent LCD UPS System, 1500VA/900W, 12 Outlets, AVR, Mini-Tower : Electronics
  
• Amazon.com: CyberPower CP425SLG Standby UPS System, 425VA/255W, 8 Outlets, Compact
  
• 'Megaspider' is biggest of its kind we've ever seen, Australian reptile park says - CNN
  
• Did Olivia Rodrigo steal from Paramore? (analysis) - YouTube
  
• The Velvet Underground — Official Trailer | Apple TV+ - YouTube
  
• What We Do In The Shadows
  From the very talented designer's portfolio site.
  
• Tank Chats #68 T-34 | The Tank Museum - YouTube
  
• Inside the Chieftain's Hatch: T-34-85, Episode 1 - YouTube
  
• The Wisdom Project (Draft)
  
• It's All Too Much: An Easy Plan for Living a Richer Life with Less Stuff: Walsh, Peter: 8601419123933: Amazon.com: Books
  
• Beef with Broccoli | Kenji's Cooking Show - YouTube
  
• Chinese-American Beef and Broccoli With Oyster Sauce Recipe
  

DISCUSSED: please stop changing the clocks; our kids are not us; the people of England have spoiled or corrupted several very good words; The Ellis Island Bit; surnames mean things; getting pelted with rocks and garbage; a Michael Penn playlist for 1 to 3.5 of you jackals; some Mad Max talk; it's always two things with Kevin Kelly; and, finally, some Marvel talk.

Links for this episode:

• Spotify – "In a Nutshell" - A Gentle Introduction to Michael Penn
  Getting started with one the great, under-appreciated pop geniuses of my generation.
  
• Apple Music – "In a Nutshell" - A Gentle Introduction to Michael Penn
  Getting started with one the great, under-appreciated pop geniuses of my generation.
  
• Merlin's Wisdom Project (Draft)
  Or: “Everybody likes being given a glass of water.”
  
• Simple Product Management Tricks - Jacob Kaplan-Moss
  
• The Technium: Class 1 / Class 2 Problems
  
• HomeKit Troubleshooting: When Your Philips Hue Lights Don't Work - AppleToolBox
  
• New Catch Phrases Collection on Letterman, 1984-91 - YouTube
  

This is what happens when Merlin stays up til 2 a.m. watching a movie and then has to record a podcast at 9 a.m.

Because, your day is a continuum.

Links for this episode:

• YANSS 218 – How anxiety hides in our unhealthy habits, why you can’t think your way out of it, and science says you should do instead – You Are Not So Smart
  Dr. Brewer teaches us map our brains to discover our triggers, defuse them with the simple but powerful practice of curiosity, and to train our brains using mindfulness and other practices that his lab has proven can work.
  
• 5by5 | Back to Work #531: Where Grog Got Eaten
  
• Psychiatrist Breaks Down Mental Health Scenes From Movies & TV | GQ - YouTube
  
• AMERICAN PSYCHO: How a box office failure became the most important film of a generation - YouTube
  
• Making of Aliens 1986 documentary (2003) - YouTube
  
• Superior firepower "Making of Aliens" (2003) [eng] - YouTube
  
• Alien Next Door: Spiotto, Joey: 9781785650260: Amazon.com: Books
  See a new, caring side to the legendary science fiction monster as he tends to Jonesy the cat, endeavours to keep his house cleaner than the Nostromo, and searches for his place on a cold, new, alien world: Earth.
  
• Women in Refrigerators (Website) - TV Tropes
  Women in Refrigerators is a site by comic book writer Gail Simone, created in March 1999, to list super-heroines who have been "either de-powered, raped, or cut up and stuck in the refrigerator" in an effort to illustrate that female superheroes are disproportionately likely to be brutalized in comic books, usually to further the character arc of male super heroes.
  
• Watch James Cameron's Story of Science Fiction Season 1 | Prime Video
  Award-winning writer, director and producer James Cameron explores science fiction’s roots.
  
• Mac & Dennis Move to the Suburbs | It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia Wiki | Fandom
  
• The Burgundy Loaf - YouTube
  

Dan has all the waiters singing at him, and Merlin tries to buy the non-existent SIMS 4 for the Mac.

Main topic is considering how best to set up a device that provides structure and motivation without all that beeping, beeping, beeping.

Links for this episode:

• On the Internet, We’re Always Famous | The New Yorker
  What happens when the experience of celebrity becomes universal?
  
• Jane Jacobs Versus The Kardashians - by Steven Johnson - Adjacent Possible
  Is talking to strangers on the Internet making us crazy?
  
• What's That Feeling? Oh, It's Fall Regression - by Anne Helen Petersen - Culture Study
  Instead of masking that brokenness, lean into it. Give the wound some oxygen. Be vulnerable and needy with one another. Go ahead and consider or even make big life decisions. You’re not acting emotionally
  
• Why Do Actors Keep Working With Wes Anderson? - The New York Times
  “I often employ people with their own pets in the background.”
  
• John Dickerson - EB White quote
  "It's quite possible that the Presidency of the United States has become an impossible job for one man, and what we need two men-an Acting President, to answer questions, make decisions, attend meetings, and listen to reports and gossip, and a Passive President, who merely watches, reflects on it, and finally, if a thought occurs to him, gives the country the benefit of it."
  
• macOS 12 Monterey: The Ars Technica review | Ars Technica
  
• Casio MT-40 - Wikipedia
  
• SuperDuper!
  
• The Missing Package Manager for macOS (or Linux) — Homebrew
  The Missing Package Manager for macOS (or Linux)
  
• Merlin Mann - "Sick of You" (1992)
  (Drums by Casio MT-40)
  
• Merlin's Wisdom (Draft)
  
• Yesterworld: The History & Downfall of McDonaldland and the Disney-McDonalds Happy Meal - YouTube
  
• Sir Ian McKellen, On Acting - YouTube
  
• AmazonSmile : Kassa Clear Dry Erase Board Sticker - 17.3" x 78” (6.5 Feet) - 3 Dry-Erase Markers Included - Transparent Adhesive White Board Film for Refrigerator, Desk, Office - Glass Dry Erase Board Alternative : Office Products
  

DISCUSSED: Your hosts talk about music, Apple Watch, and getting out of your kid's way. Also: life and MacBooks Pro.

Links for this episode:

• Michael Penn - Try - YouTube
  
• Michael Penn – Try Lyrics | Genius Lyrics
  I would choose to accuse you
  Strike the fire
  Issue a decree
  Ask you why
  Watch you take the fifth as I
  Give you the third degree
  
  
• Michael Penn: Try (Video 1997) - Reference View - IMDb
  Music video for Michael Penn's 'Try', shot by Paul Thomas Anderson and other cast and crew from 'Boogie Nights' in a single take in the longest hall-way in North America.
  
• Exile from Dongletown – Six Colors
  
• Under the Radar - Relay FM
  From development and design to marketing and support, Under the Radar is all about independent app development. It's never longer than 30 minutes.
  
• 2022 Apple Hardware Calendar by Stephen Hackett — Kickstarter
  A custom wall calendar for Apple nerds, featuring important dates concerning the company's various hardware products.
  
• Merlin's Wisdom (Draft)
  An admittedly ambitious project to document as much of the best life stuff I've figured out in one place. A work in progress.
  
• Children of Men: Don't Ignore The Background - YouTube
  
• Children of Men 2006 Long Take - YouTube
  
• Children of Men 2006 Long Take 2 - YouTube
  
• Children of Men 2006 Long Take 3 - YouTube
  
• Everyday Use - Wikipedia
  The story follows the difference between Mrs. Johnson and her shy younger daughter Maggie, who both still adhere to traditional black culture in the rural South, and her educated, successful daughter Dee, or "Wangero" as she prefers to be called, who takes a different route to reclaiming her cultural identity.
  
• [Fiction] Everyday Use, By Alice Walker | Harper's Magazine
  “Maggie can’t appreciate these quilts!” she said. “She’d probably be backward enough to put them to everyday use.”
  
• Blow the dust out of the connector - The Old New Thing
  “Okay, sometimes the connection gets a little dusty and the connection gets weak. Could you unplug the connector, blow into it to get the dust out, then plug it back in?”
  
• Night Ranger - Don't Tell Me You Love Me (HQ) Official music video - YouTube
  "I've got a pistol for action."
  
• 'Crazy Train' from "Thirty Years After The Blizzard" DVD - YouTube
  

DISCUSSED: Dan and his son are up to Daniel Craig in their Bond journey, and this leads to an exploration of how our feelings about movies and their characters can change over time; considering the media you're scared to rewatch since it's probably not as good as you remember; your hosts dive further into browser extensions and why they're so critical to filtering your world.

Links for this episode:

• StopTheMadness
  
• StopTheMadness Test
  
• Tweaks for Twitter
  
• StopTheScript
  
• Jeff Johnson (@lapcatsoftware) / Twitter
  
• TrackerZapper for Mac
  
• Muffling and Muting Tweets in Twitterrific (iOS and macOS) / Twitterrific / Knowledge Base - The Iconfactory Support
  Muffling does not remove filtered tweets from your timeline entirely, but instead minimizes them, out of the way of your reading experience.
  
• Fixerrific
  
• 12ft Ladder
  
• Kenzo World - YouTube
  Margaret Qualley is amazing.
  
• The Facebook Files - WSJ
  
• Vivaldi Browser | Now with built-in Translate, Mail, and Calendar
  

DISCUSSED: Exploring rural voices; the things that kids (and we) have had stolen away over the past couple years; what movie would get your butt back into a cinema seat?; an opinionated dive into Safari's new approach to tabs (and why it feels so concerning); and, finally, Merlin shares a bunch of Safari extensions that do new stuff—or do old stuff in a cool or interesting way.

Links for this episode:

• Safari Keyword Search hits 2.0, comes to iOS – Six Colors
  
• Using Safari at night gets easier with Noir – Six Colors
  
• Safari Keyword Search
  
• GitHub - horimislime/safari-markdown-linker: A handy Safari extension that helps user copying URL as markdown format
  
• Noir – Dark Mode for Safari
  
• Super Agent - Automatic Cookie Consent
  
• Downie - YouTube Video Downloader for macOS - Charlie Monroe Software
  
• GitHub - johnspurlock/app-privacy-report-viewer: Local viewer for App Privacy Reports in iOS 15
  
• Time Magazine December 13 1976 Howard Hughes Exclusive: His Secret Life: Time Magazine, Pink Room Pp: AmazonSmile: Books
  
• Daring Fireball: The Tragedy of Safari 15 for Mac’s ‘Tabs’
  
• Youtube Downloader - Online Youtube Video Downloader | YT1s.com
  
• HTML Color Codes
  Get HTML color codes, Hex color codes, RGB and HSL values with our color picker, color chart and HTML color names.
  
• Greg Pierce on those weird Safari tabs
  
• "Mac is Catholic, DOS is Protestant" by Umberto Eco
  I am firmly of the opinion that the Macintosh is Catholic and that DOS is Protestant.
  
• Search Templates
  
• Solarized
  

DISCUSSED: Merlin considers a black market medical purchase; the anatomical anomalies of the problematic sleeper are considered; some favorite YouTube finds are discussed; and, finally, your hosts begin scratching the surface of iOS 15's many clever and life-enhancing new features.

Links for this episode:

• Safari Keyword Search hits 2.0, comes to iOS – Six Colors
  
• Using Safari at night gets easier with Noir – Six Colors
  
• Safari Keyword Search
  Safari Keyword Search is a simple extension for Safari on macOS amd iOS that enables keyword searching from the address bar. This is a simple but powerful feature that gives you access to several search engines using simple keywords. For example, you can search Wikipedia for information on monkeys by typing w monkeys in the address bar.
  
• horimislime/safari-markdown-linker: A handy Safari extension that helps user copying URL as markdown format
  Markdown Linker is a Safari App Extension that helps user copying website's URL as markdown format.
  
• Noir – Dark Mode for Safari
  
• Super Agent - Automatic Cookie Consent
  
• Downie - YouTube Video Downloader for macOS - Charlie Monroe Software
  
• johnspurlock/app-privacy-report-viewer: Local viewer for App Privacy Reports in iOS 15
  Local viewer for App Privacy Reports in iOS 15
  
• iOS 15: 10 hidden features you need to know | Macworld
  
• Ep. 439: "Dick Meningitis" - Roderick on the Line - Merlin Mann
  
• Ep. 125: "All the Great Shows!" - Roderick on the Line - Merlin Mann
  The Problem: John wasn’t actually a big fan.
  
• All The Great Shows - The Story of John Roderick
  All The Great Shows is one of the most famous bits of the show. It has been introduced in Episode 125 of Roderick on the Line.
  
• Nelson's Weblog: life / cpap-obstructive-sleep-apnea
  
• Rick Beato - YouTube
  
• What Makes This Song Great? Ep.31 RADIOHEAD - YouTube
  
• For Mia · Owen Beverly
  Produced by Rick Beato
  
• Rick Beato Songs, Albums, Reviews, Bio & More | AllMusic
  
• Rick Beato - The Beginning, Benefits of Good Pitch and The Future of Music — Niclas Jeppsson
  I did a record a few years ago with an unsigned artist named Owen Beverly, a 19-year-old singer-songwriter. He ended up not getting a record deal but we made an incredible EP which I ended up getting a lot of other projects from. It was a failure because he couldn’t get a record deal because he couldn’t pull off the song live but the record did incredibly well and got me a lot of work. 
  
• Outkast - Hey Ya! (Official HD Video) - YouTube
  
• Spotify – Magazine
  
• What Really Happens When Lightning Strikes Sand | Discover Magazine
  
• Dallas couple asked to leave restaurant for wearing masks inside | KXAN Austin
  
• Casting a Fire Ant Colony with Molten Aluminum (Cast #043) - YouTube
  
• AmazonSmile : Leather Journal Cover for Field Notes, Notebook Cover for Moleskine Cahier, Handmade Vintage Leather Cover for 3.5" x 5.5" Notebooks, Coffee : Office Products
  
• AmazonSmile: Logitech BRIO Ultra HD Webcam for Video Conferencing, Recording, and Streaming - Black : Electronics
  
• Matt Haughey (@mathowie) / Twitter
  
• Guardian Firewall - Guardian Firewall
  Guardian is the safest and most secure way to protect your privacy and data while using apps and browsing the web on your iOS device.
  
• The Future of This Channel - YouTube
  
• iOS 15: How to Use Visual Lookup in Photos to Identify Landmarks, Plants, and Pets - MacRumors
  
• The Drunk Lover EP | Owen Beverly and INDIANOLA
  
• Improving saves from Twitter and YouTube
  

Dan and Merlin almost talk about iOS 15.

Links for this episode:

• The Different Types of Twilight, Dawn and Dusk
  
• Blues Traveler - Hook - LIVE! - YouTube
  
• iConnectHue | The essential Philips Hue Lights App for iPhone and iPad
  
• "If I Leave Here Tomorrow" - Netflix
  
• Mom and Daughter Libby Adame, Alicia Galaz Killed Adult Star Karissa Rajpaul With Butt Implants, LAPD Says
  

Reporting live from the show floor and looking at options for time tracking.

Links for this episode:

• Toggl: Time Tracking, Project Planning and Hiring Tools to Help Teams Work Better
  Reliable time tracking software loved by 5M users
  
• Timery for Toggl
  
• Timery for Toggl: The MacStories Review - MacStories
  
• RescueTime
  
• rknightuk/TrackerZapper: Menubar app to remove link tracking parameters automatically
  TrackerZapper is a Mac app that sits in your menubar and silently removes tracking parameters from any links you copy.
  
• Clockify - 100% Free Time Tracking Software
  
• On The Job - Professional Time & Expense Tracking and Invoicing - Stunt Software
  
• Invoices, Estimates, Quotes and Time-tracking with Billings Pro on Mac, iPhone and Apple Watch - Marketcircle
  
• Hours - Time Tracking App Online - Try Hours For Free!
  
• Time tracking radically simplified - Daily for Mac
  
• Timemator - Automatic Time Tracking for Freelancers (Mac & iPhone)
  
• Day-Timer Personal & Professional Planners, Organizers & Refills
  
• The paradox of abundance – Jon Udell
  

DISCUSSED: The rules of "Rabbit Rabbit"; exploring the magic of Domino's probability-altering powers; forests versus trees and past versus future; Chevy Chase and a familial ninety-ten inversion; and, finally, praise for Lulu Miller's mind-blowing thoughts on the downsides of imposing "order" onto chaos.

Links for this episode:

• Organizing Chaos — On the Media — Overcast
  
• Organizing Chaos | On the Media | WNYC Studios
  
• Why Fish Don't Exist | Book by Lulu Miller | Official Publisher Page | Simon & Schuster
  Part biography, part memoir, part scientific adventure, Why Fish Don’t Exist is a wondrous fable about how to persevere in a world where chaos will always prevail.
  
• Why Fish Don't Exist: A Story of Loss, Love, and the Hidden Order of Life , Miller, Lulu - Amazon.com
  
• No Such Thing As A Fish | Nosuchthingasafish
  Each week Dan, James, Anna and Andy discuss their favourite facts unearthed in the past seven days.
  
• The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma: van der Kolk M.D., Bessel: 9780143127741: Amazon.com: Books
  
• Opinion | This Conversation Will Change How You Think About Trauma - The New York Times
  The core argument of the book is that traumatic experiences — everything from sexual assault and incest to emotional and physical abuse — become embedded in the older, more primal parts of our brain that don’t have access to conscious awareness.
  
• Transcript: Ezra Klein Interviews Bessel van der Kolk - The New York Times
  
• They Podcast | Blank Check with Griffin and David Wiki | Fandom
  They Podcast is a miniseries covering the films of John Carpenter beginning in August 2021
  
• @BlankCheckPod | Linktree
  
• Domino (character) - Wikipedia
  In addition to her exceptional marksmanship and hand-to-hand skills, Domino possesses mutant probability-altering powers, similar to those of the mutant Longshot.
  

Links for this episode:

• Scotch-Mount™ Extreme Double-Sided Mounting Tape | 3M United States
  
• Community (TV series) - Wikipedia
  
• Magneto | Marvel Database | Fandom
  
• Story Structure 101: Super Basic Shit | Channel 101 Wiki | Fandom
  
• (10) Blade Runner 2049 Cells Interlinked Scene 1080p - YouTube
  
• Matter
  
• List of James Bond films - Wikipedia
  

DISCUSSED: Nicholson movies; Synology yums and yucks; difficulties of shows about music; upcoming rabbit rabbit plans.

Links for this episode:

• One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest What’s Up With the Epigraph? | Shmoop
  
• 1962–1966 - Wikipedia
  a/k/a "The Red Album"
  
• 1967–1970 - Wikipedia
  a/k/a "The Blue Album"
  
• The Beatles’ RED & BLUE Albums - Their BEST Compilations? - YouTube
  
• The Chaotic Story of Dexys Midnight Runners & "Come On Eileen" | New British Canon - YouTube
  
• Dexys Midnight Runners - "There, There My Dear" - YouTube
  
• Dexys Midnight Runners - "Geno" (TotP, 1980) - YouTube
  
• Dexys Midnight Runners - "Jackie Wilson Said (I'm in Heaven When You Smile)" - YouTube
  

DISCUSSED: Catching up; Merlin's Travel Results; praise for Best in Show, SCTV, and public libraries; Dan has a new computer.

Links for this episode:

• Reconcilable Differences #162: A Pile of Bed - Relay FM
  Remembering various animal actors, enumerating genres that need a name, considering the philosophies behind "bag in a bag," and contrasting college with the ordinary crucibles of post-adolescent life.
  
• Home | Nanoleaf » USA » Consumer IoT & LED Smart Lighting Products
  
• Best in Show (film) - Wikipedia
  
• Top Gun Auditions - SNL - YouTube
  
• AmazonSmile: Inteset 4-in-1 Universal Backlit IR Learning Remote for use with Apple TV, Xbox One, Roku, Media Center/Kodi, Nvidia Shield, Most Streamers & Other A/V Devices : Electronics
  
• AmazonSmile: IKEA 172.283.40 Frakta Shopping Bag, Large, Blue, Set of 5: Home & Kitchen
  
• Best in Show (3/11) Movie CLIP - We Met at Starbucks (2000) HD - YouTube
  
• Best in Show (1/11) Movie CLIP - Two Left Feet (2000) HD - YouTube
  
• Best in Show (5/11) Movie CLIP - Where's Winky? (2000) HD - YouTube
  
• Schitt's Creek - Moira's Commercial - YouTube
  
• Knocked Up: We Can't Legally Ask You to Lose Weight - YouTube
  
• Inteset Universal Remote Control Device Code Lookup
  
• The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right: Gawande, Atul: 9780312430009: Amazon.com: Books
  

A celebration of M1 devices, the benefits of learning how to learn, and considering when a new learning curve might be worth the climb.

Links for this episode:

• Gordon Solie - Wikipedia
  
• Final Cut Pro - Wikipedia
  
• 2022 Mac Pro Rumored to Use Intel's Ice Lake Xeon W-3300 Chips - MacRumors
  
• System Of A Down - Chop Suey! (Official Video) - YouTube
  
• Descript | All-in-one audio/video editing, as easy as a doc.
  All-in-one audio
  
• Aldus Pagemaker - The Interface Experience: Bard Graduate Center
  
• System Of A Down's Toxicity at 20: inside the new issue of Metal Hammer | Louder
  
• Tabs versus Spaces - YouTube
  

Find the tool you need—but, keep asking yourself, "Soooooo…now what?"

Links for this episode:

• The paradox of abundance – Jon Udell
  
• Could Gen Z Free the World From Email? - The New York Times
  
• Difference Between Temples, Synagogues & Shuls | JewishBoston
  
• School Lunches, P-Hacking and the Original “Pizzagate” — Maintenance Phase — Overcast
  
• 469. The U.S. Is Just Different — So Let’s Stop Pretending We’re Not — Freakonomics Radio — Overcast
  
• Tony Buzan | Inventor of Mind Mapping
  
• How To Mind Map With Tony Buzan (Using 3 Simple Rules) | MindMaps Unleashed
  
• AmazonSmile : Cambridge Limited Business Notebook, Legal Ruled, 8-1/2" x 11", Top Bound, Action Planner, Black (06092) : Wirebound Notebooks : Office Products
  
• Wild Animals: Chimp Uses Twig to Fish for Termites - YouTube
  

Things get pretty silly, yet somehow land on some extremely Back to Work points about time management, compression, values, and moving your own goalposts. For some reason, McDonald's becomes an important controlling metaphor.

Links for this episode:

• Could Gen Z Free the World From Email? - The New York Times
  “It’s actually crazy how outdated it is.” People born after AOL Mail was invented seem to prefer to communicate in almost any other way.
  
• Is work from home working?
  White-collar workers are heading back to the office. Will anything be different after a year and a half away?
  
• Wes Anderson Horror Trailer - SNL - YouTube
  
• Deceptive Practice: The Mysteries and Mentors of Ricky Jay
  
• Hofstadter's law - Wikipedia
  It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter's Law.
  
• Alison Agosti on Twitter: "When is one of these white male billionaires gonna try to have a baby it’s the true final frontier" / Twitter
  When is one of these white male billionaires gonna try to have a baby it’s the true final frontier
  

DISCUSSED: Dan begins a journey into new worlds of voice control and home automation.

Links for this episode:

• Run Farther, Faster: tips from Endure author Alex Hutchinson.
  To run farther and faster, you must first train your mind.
  
• Macdrifter
  
• Dan Moren
  
• Inside The Cameras Of Wes Anderson’s “The Grand Budapest Hotel” | by NYU Local | NYU Local
  
• J.F. Sebastian | Off-world: The Blade Runner Wiki | Fandom
  
• Eve | evehome.com
  
• 4 more victims found in rubble; death toll rises to 32
  
• Spoon - "Gimme Fiction" (reverse track order)
  

DISCUSSED: Some ups and downs of living the smart speaker lifestyle.

Also: the dramatis personae of The Land of Make Believe; feeding the demon dogs; and learning to be careful with the words we put in front of other words.

Links for this episode:

• I Midwest Hate Myself | Do By Friday
  This week’s challenge: explore smart lighting.
  

DISCUSSED: Merlin and his wife realize the moment they crossed a line; in Follow-Up, your hosts celebrate the late great Fred Willard; in further Follow-Up, the state of the union in smart voice devices is considered; and, finally, the long arc of calendar talk starts to wind down with some hard talk on disambiguation and actually really getting real.

Links for this episode:

• BusyCal - The Best Calendar App for Mac
  
• Flexibits | Fantastical | The calendar and tasks app you won't be able to live without.
  
• He Layeth on High - YouTube
  

DISCUSSED: Dan finally gets more three-six-five, and Merlin gets extremely deep in the stack. Also, just a little more calendar talk, including a model for deciding where something goes.

Links for this episode:

• Most Days on Vimeo
  I'm Merlin, and I'm making a video most days. Sometimes.
  
• S. I. Hayakawa - Wikipedia
  
• Amazon.com: Language in Thought and Action: Fifth Edition (9780156482400): S.I. Hayakawa, Alan R. Hayakawa, Robert MacNeil: Books
  
• Watch Special When Lit: A Pinball Documentary | Prime Video
  
• Sir Ian McKellen's acting process - YouTube
  
• Extras David Bowie - YouTube
  
• Arcade | Plex
  Let the gaming begin. Play old school Atari classics plus your own collection of game ROMs and emulators on your favorite devices, courtesy of Plex Labs and Atari. It’s a guaranteed win!
  
• GE Profile™ Opal 2.0 Nugget Ice Maker - XPIO13SCSS - GE Appliances
  
• Watch The Sci-Fi Boys | Prime Video
  
• Watch Never Surrender: A Galaxy Quest Documentary | Prime Video
  
• Watch Eye of the Beholder: The Art of Dungeons and Dragons | Prime Video
  
• Watch The Image Revolution | Prime Video
  
• Watch Plastic Galaxy | Prime Video
  
• Watch Astonishing X-Men: Gifted Season 1 | Prime Video
  
• Watch Chris Claremont's X-Men | Prime Video
  
• Watch Starring Adam West | Prime Video
  
• What's new on Descript
  

DISCUSSED: Merlin runs into some problems reporting live from the show floor; is social media making us as happy as we'd like to think?; thoughts on pro wrestlers and the films of John Carpenter; finding the triggers for action that you didn't know you needed; recommendations for videos and Firefox extensions; why we use the web browsers that we use; your hosts dive into their favorite announcements coming out of WWDC; how exactly do you decide where something should go?; Dan reveals he has become the third kind of calendar person; exploring the ineffable (but indisputably real) value of finding technologies and experiences that you actually enjoy; and, finally, Merlin shares a novel misunderstanding with a voice dingus.

Links for this episode:

• Fakespot Fake Amazon Reviews and eBay Sellers (Firefox extension)
  Protect yourself from bad sellers and fake reviews on Amazon and more
  
• ReviewMeta.com Review Helper (Firefox extension)
  ReviewMeta analyzes millions of reviews and helps you decide which to trust
  
• Mental health days: Learning from Naomi Osaka - The Washington Post
  
• Why There are Now So Many Shortages (It's Not COVID) - YouTube
  
• Randy Savage - Wikipedia
  
• Download Firefox Browser — Fast, Private & Free — from Mozilla
  
• Fakespot | Analyze and identify fake reviews and counterfeits
  
• macOS 12 Monterey upgrades Continuity with Universal Control | TechCrunch
  
• Jazz in the Background | Spotify Playlist
  
• Words That Mean Nothing - In These Times
  Our political discourse is dominated by issues that don’t exist
  
• Cancel Culture — You're Wrong About — Overcast
  
• How China Broke the World's Recycling - YouTube
  
• How Universal Control on macOS Monterey works - The Verge
  It’s simpler — and cleverer — than I expected
  
• The Chemical Brothers - Let Forever Be (Official Music Video) - YouTube
  
• Lucas With the Lid Off on Vimeo
  
• Why Planes Don't Fly Faster - YouTube
  
• VideoWriter - Wikipedia
  
• Original Talking Moose - YouTube
  

DISCUSSED: Part one of a deep dive into calendars.

Links for this episode:

• 206 - Narcissism — You Are Not So Smart — Overcast
  
• Dark triad - Wikipedia
  In psychology, the dark triad comprises the personality traits of narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy.
  
• Increase Apple TV screen contrast - Apple Support
  In Settings on Apple TV, go to Accessibility > Increase Contrast > Focus Style, then choose High Contrast.
  
• Kaleidoscope (software) - Wikipedia
  
• Larry Miller (comedian) - Wikipedia
  
• I Think You Should Leave with Tim Robinson - Wikipedia
  
• ATP 432: I Shouldn't Need to Wiggle — Accidental Tech Podcast
  
• Chris Voss FBI hostage negotiator on being assertive
  I disable bombs for a living. But I hate confronting people.
  
• Never Split The Difference | Chris Voss | TEDxUniversityofNevada - YouTube
  
• The art of misdirection | Apollo Robbins - YouTube
  Hailed as the greatest pickpocket in the world, Apollo Robbins studies the quirks of human behavior as he steals your watch. In a hilarious demonstration, Robbins samples the buffet of the TEDGlobal 2013 audience, showing how the flaws in our perception make it possible to swipe a wallet and leave it on its owner's shoulder while they remain clueless.
  
• selective attention test - YouTube
  
• 463. How to Get Anyone to Do Anything — Freakonomics Radio — Overcast
  
• The Lick - YouTube
  
• Adam Neely - YouTube
  

DISCUSSED: Merlin is full of beans this week.

Links for this episode:

• Adam Neely - YouTube
  
• Once More, With Feeling
  
• Thread Benefits
  
• HomeKit over Thread | evehome.com
  
• Bacon Ray - "Sundays in a Row" (1995)
  
• Wrong Tools Cost Lives — Cautionary Tales with Tim Harford — Overcast
  
• Sublime Text 4 - News - Sublime HQ
  
• Mr Show - Thrilling Miracles! - YouTube
  (see if you can spot a young Judd Apatow in the audience)
  
• Company Broadway revival starring Raul Esparza Great Performances 2006 - YouTube
  
• PBS Great Performances, Stephen Sondheim's Company-Not Getting Married Today - YouTube
  
• Raul Esparza - Being Alive - YouTube
  

DISCUSSED: A classic, old-school “Odds ’n Sods” episode that includes: Apple’s audio upgrade announcement; AirTags and the promising future of UWB; lots of thoughts on anxiety; caffeine weaners; tongue-rolling; and a salt and pepper of media recently enjoyed (and now recommended).

Links for this episode:

• PSA: AirTag can be used as an NFC tag for Shortcuts automation - 9to5Mac
  
• ts1/BLEUnlock: Lock/unlock your Mac with your iPhone, Apple Watch, or any other Bluetooth LE devices
  
• AmazonSmile : Tieman's Fusion Coffee, Low Acid Dark Roast, Ground, 10 ounce bag (pack of 6) : Grocery & Gourmet Food
  
• How Well Can You Hear Audio Quality? : The Record : NPR
  
• Unwinding Anxiety: New Science Shows How to Break the Cycles of Worry and Fear to Heal Your Mind - Kindle edition by Brewer, Judson. Health, Fitness & Dieting Kindle eBooks @ Amazon.com.
  
• Belkin Secure Holder with Key Ring for AirTag – Black - Apple
  
• troglodyte mode
  
• The Computer-free Automation of a Jukebox (Electromechanics) - YouTube
  
• Quentin Tarantino and the Poetry Between the Lines - YouTube
  
• Spotify: Weezer - "Pinkerton"
  
• Apple Music: Weezer - "Pinkerton"
  
• [Sleep Anxiety audio Merlin likes]
  
• Do you inherit the ability to roll your tongue? - BBC Future
  It’s long been thought that the ability to roll your tongue is a clear-cut case of genetics. BBC Future finds it’s not that simple.
  

DISCUSSED: Merlin has been cracking nuts, and Dan is enjoying a beverage; in Follow-Up, Dan has made great progress with his new voice assistant; Merlin has thoughts on choosing a dingus ecosystem that’s right for you; words mean things, and often you want the right “procedure word”; Merlin has some good Back to Work-adjacent media recommendations; do we really want to rebuild The Embarcadero Freeway? Really?; and, Dan has some new scholarship on the films of Stanley Kubrick.

Links for this episode:

• Opinion | That Anxiety You’re Feeling? It’s a Habit You Can Unlearn. - The New York Times
  
• Efficiency is the Enemy
  
• Unwinding Anxiety: New Science Shows How to Break the Cycles of Worry and Fear to Heal Your Mind - Kindle edition by Brewer, Judson. Health, Fitness & Dieting Kindle eBooks @ Amazon.com.
  
• Watch YouTube TV on your Google Nest Display - Google Nest Help
  
• Procedure word - Wikipedia
  
• (7) Collative Learning - YouTube
  
• Embarcadero Freeway | CNU
  
• Old San Francisco: A Look At Before And After The Embarcadero Free Came Down | by UpOut SF | Medium
  
• An ode to the Embarcadero Freeway, the blight by the bay
  
• Amazon.com: Celery Man: Alexa Skills
  

DISCUSSED: Dan is actively gaslighting Merlin, and this can be proven; please stop stealing focus; praise for Ferris Bueller in general and the knees of Sloane Peterson in particular; passing thoughts on fear, procrastination, impostor syndrome, and solving the right problem; Merlin is delighted to discover a much-improved Little Snitch; Dan has thoughts on his Ford’s weird button; in gadget updates, Dan has found some useful headphones and has thoughts on trying to use his new Google dingus; finally, just in general, try to keep your hands away from the dragon’s mouth.

Links for this episode:

• Little Snitch
  As soon as you’re connected to the Internet, applications can potentially send whatever they want to wherever they want. Most often they do this to your benefit. But sometimes, like in case of tracking software, trojans or other malware, they don’t.
  
• How to overcome impostor syndrome.
  How to overcome impostor syndrome.
  
• Why You Should Talk to Yourself in the Third Person
  Evidence suggests that there are real benefits of talking to yourself in the third person—in your head, not out loud.
  
• Does Distanced Self-Talk Facilitate Emotion Regulation Across a Range of Emotionally Intense Experiences? - Ariana Orvell, Brian D. Vickers, Brittany Drake, Philippe Verduyn, Ozlem Ayduk, Jason Moser, John Jonides, Ethan Kross, 2021
  Research indicates that a subtle shift in language—silently referring to oneself using one’s own name and non–first-person-singular pronouns (i.e., distanced self-talk)—promotes emotion regulation.
  
• Amazon.com: AFTERSHOKZ Air Open Ear Wireless Bone Conduction Headphones, Slate Grey, AS650SG
  
• Front Door Camera Package - Google Store
  
• Twitterrific: Twitter Your Way
  
• Air – AfterShokz
  
• <p>Wireless Industry Leading Noise Canceling Overhead Headphones</p> | WH-1000XM4/B | Sony US
  
• Vincent Adultman | BoJack Horseman Wiki | Fandom
  His right hand is a broom and his left hand is a mannequin hand.
  

Merlin has a whole new setup, and Dan has a whole new TV.

Links for this episode:

• My Secret Sauce of Blogging
  This is where I give away all of my blogging secrets. I’ve decided to divest myself of any advantages Macdrifter has built over the past 12 years.
  
• The Technium: 99 Additional Bits of Unsolicited Advice
  I have another birthday, and another bunch of unsolicited advice. 
  
• How to overcome impostor syndrome.
  I’m Great at My Job. So Why Do I Feel Like a Fraud?

  How to overcome impostor syndrome.
  

• Why You Should Talk to Yourself in the Third Person
  
• Does Distanced Self-Talk Facilitate Emotion Regulation Across a Range of Emotionally Intense Experiences? - Ariana Orvell, Brian D. Vickers, Brittany Drake, Philippe Verduyn, Ozlem Ayduk, Jason Moser, John Jonides, Ethan Kross, 2021
  Research indicates that a subtle shift in language—silently referring to oneself using one’s own name and non–first-person-singular pronouns (i.e., distanced self-talk)—promotes emotion regulation.
  
• The Bureau (TV series) - Wikipedia
  
• Amazon.com: SAMSUNG 55-inch Class Q80A Series – QLED 4K UHD Smart TV with Alexa Built-in (QN55Q80AAFXZA, 2021 Model): Electronics
  
• Amazon.com: Jay Strongwater Kong Pave Gorilla Figurine: Home & Kitchen
  
• Easy macOS Loads By Way of Homebrew Bundle — Liss is More
  
• Amazon.com: RECUR Large Albino Gorilla Toys King Kong White Realistic Hand Painted Walking Gorilla Ape Wild Animal Figurine Model – Replica Gorilla Godzilla vs Kong 2021 Figure Gift for Collectors Boys Kids 3+: Toys & Games
  
• Reconcilable Differences #147: Pan-Pan! - Relay FM
  As something like a main topic, Merlin offers a sheepish series of recent anecdotes regarding technology and hasty decision-making. He seems not to remember this being his idea (he did that), which he is surprisingly not all that sheepish about. But, let's be honest. Technology can be terrible and very confusing.
  

DISCUSSED: Merlin is reporting live from the show floor; sleep is complicated; food is complicated, too; Dan tries to build muscles the right way; he also has strong feelings about TV shopping; Merlin just wants someone to tell him which is The Good One.

Links for this episode:

• Feeling Blah During the Pandemic? It's Called Languishing - The New York Times
  The neglected middle child of mental health can dull your motivation and focus — and it may be the dominant emotion of 2021.
  
• The Importance of Routines, Even Interrupted by a Pandemic - The New York Times
  By setting routines for myself, I was able to shield myself from chaos. Then the pandemic happened. I set out to get them back on track.
  
• Reviews and Ratings - RTINGS.com
  
• HDMI 2.1: What you need to know - CNET
  
• ::: LG | webOS TV Developer :: Discover webOS TV
  
• Android TV
  
• LG Smart TV w/ webOS: A World of Content | LG USA
  
• LG CX 65 inch Class 4K Smart OLED TV w/ AI ThinQ® (64.5'' Diag) (OLED65CXPUA) | LG USA
  Merlin's beloved fancy TV.
  
• LG CX OLED Review (OLED48CXPUB, OLED55CXPUA, OLED65CXPUA, OLED77CXPUA) - RTINGS.com
  
• TV Tools - RTINGS.com
  Take things into your own hands. Use our tools and find the best TV for your needs
  
• TV Size to Distance Calculator and Science - RTINGS.com
  Use our size to distance calculator to see which size TV you should get based on how far away you'll be sitting from the screen.
  
• Reconcilable Differences #150: The Stands - Relay FM
  "Next, the focus turns to TV stands. While pretty much all of them are incompatible with John's house, this generates a careful visual interrogation of the bizarre manner in which Sony thinks your home works."

  [Siracusa, picking nits at his best]
  

DISCUSSED: some important movie follow-up; films (and other media) can be a powerful way to talk about things we aren't supposed to be talking about; Merlin has some links to help think about what comes next as we get back to ““normal""; plus, follow-up on Dan's Kindle journey, including some really useful tips.

Links for this episode:

• Pinboard: Merlin's Covid Bookmarks
  
• Welcome to Kindle Unlimited
  
• Dan's Godzilla Movies
  
• Some Kung Fu Movies for Dan
  
• The Celluloid Closet (1995) - Reference View - IMDb
  A documentary surveying the various Hollywood screen depictions of homosexuals and the attitudes behind them throughout the history of North American film.
  
• Dirty Ho (1979) - The Prince's Bodyguard - YouTube
  
• Dirty Ho (1979) - Wine Tasting - YouTube
  
• Dirty Ho (1979) - Final Fight - YouTube
  

DISCUSSED: fake southern accents lead to some movie talk; Merlin apologizes; Dan does not want to spend a night in The Box; please utilize the restroom that conforms to the color of your gender; a guardsman pitches Merlin's wife; Merlin goes off on a surprisingly long tangent on kung fu movies--especially the work of The Great Gordon Liu; Dan needs a syllabus to get Cash even more into Godzilla movies; there are some words on DC movies; your hosts begin a dive into the Kindle ecosystem that turns into a dive into ""The Kindle Ecosystem""; Friend-of-the-Show, Moisés, provides some beneficial real-time follow-up regarding the king of monsters; Merlin needs some movie backstory but also wants wants to make it extremely clear that he is very attracted to an English actress.

Links for this episode:

• Standard Ebooks: Free and liberated ebooks, carefully produced for the true book lover.
  "Free and liberated ebooks, carefully produced for the true book lover."

  (The awesome website Merlin couldn't remember)
  

• We Have All Hit a Wall - The New York Times
  
• The 36th Chamber of Shaolin - Wikipedia
  
• Gordon Liu - Wikipedia
  
• Dirty Ho (1979) - The Prince's Bodyguard - YouTube
  
• Dirty Ho (1979) - Wine Tasting - YouTube
  
• Amazon.com: Kindle Paperwhite – Now Waterproof with 2x the Storage – Ad-Supported
  
• Ex-Men: Gambit - YouTube
  
• Shin Godzilla - Wikipedia
  
• The Libby App by OverDrive: Free ebooks & audiobooks from the library
  
• calibre - E-book management
  
• Free eBooks | Project Gutenberg
  Project Gutenberg is a library of over 60,000 free eBooks
  
• Welcome to Open Library | Open Library
  
• Amazon.com: Kindle Unlimited: Kindle Store
  
• Letterboxd: "Some Kung Fu Movies for Dan"
  Merlin does some quick curation.
  
• Mr Show - Senator Tankerbell (season 1) - YouTube
  
• Terrigen Mist | Marvel Database | Fandom
  Terrigen Mist is a mutagenic, or mutation-causing, substance arising as a vapor from the Terrigen Crystals, which are able to alter Inhuman biology.
  
• Rogue (Anna Marie) (Earth-616) | Marvel Database | Fandom
  Rogue was not able to control her absorption power at first
  
• Rebecca Hall - IMDb
  

DISCUSSED: iOS has gotten really good; still, there's some Apple stuff we'd love to see get better; some Covid updates; anxiety and OCD in these fraught times; finally, Dan and Merlin need your advice for some networking upgrades.

Links for this episode:

• How COVID-19 Affected People With OCD and Anxiety - The Atlantic
  The pandemic’s retreat doesn’t necessarily mean life will get easier for people with OCD.
  
• Is the Pandemic Breaking Our Backs? | The New Yorker
  Test-driving a batch of posture-enhancing devices that are supposed to make you stand tall.
  
• Amazon.com: TP-Link WiFi 6 AX3000 Smart WiFi Router (Archer AX50) – 802.11ax Router, Gigabit Router, Dual Band, OFDMA, MU-MIMO, Parental Controls, Built-in HomeCare,Works with Alexa: Computers & Accessories
  
• Firewalla | Firewalla: Cybersecurity Firewall For Your Family and Business
  
• Dramatic Drop in Colds and Flu Raises Question: Masks Forever? : Shots - Health News : NPR
  
• Cargo ship news is bad news.
  Max Cho, a product manager at Google, joins Felix Salmon and Emily Peck to talk about that cargo ship stuck in the Suez Canal and its effect on supply chains, the bloodbath at Medium and the media in general, and what the post-pandemic return to the office will look like.
  
• Netflix - "Brian Regan - On the Rocks"
  
• Maria Bamford’s One-Hour Homemade Christmas Special! on Vimeo
  For you, my friends, a free- ONE HOUR HOMEMADE CHRISTMAS SPECIAL - enjoy and download at your leisure- it's yours. Sell it at the Flea Market out of the back of your van with packs of socks and old phones!
  
• ReviewMeta.com - Amazon Review Checker
  ReviewMeta analyzes Amazon product reviews and filters out reviews that our algorithm detects may be unnatural.
  

DISCUSSED: DST and rebooting sleep; some quick documentary talk; a challenging H.R. Giger poster; updates on sane prepping, looking at some interesting sources for electric power; on rational prepping; oh, boy, fatbergs; and, finally, a quick dive into the joys of "The Everything Button" and the myriad benefits of learning the key commands.

Links for this episode:

• Bitfocus AS
  
• Do By Friday
  
• Paletro
  Command Palette in any applications on macOS
  
• Mac keyboard shortcuts - Apple Support
  By pressing certain key combinations, you can do things that normally need a mouse, trackpad, or other input device.
  
• 30 keyboard shortcuts Mac users need to know | Computerworld
  
• Memory: The Origins of Alien - Wikipedia
  
• Jodorowsky's Dune
  
• Amazon.com: [Upgraded]BigBlue 3 USB Ports 28W Solar Charger(5V/4.8A Max), Foldable Portable Solar Phone Charger with SunPower Solar Panel Compatible with iPhone 11/Xs/XS Max/XR/X/8/7, iPad, Samsung Galaxy LG etc.
  
• 1900 Galveston hurricane - Wikipedia
  
• Drafts 26: The Customization Update – nahumck.me
  
• Glen Campbell - Galveston - YouTube
  
• Fatberg - Wikipedia
  
• 40-ton 'fatberg' the size of a double-decker bus removed from Londo.. - ABC7 San Francisco
  
• Amazon.com : Jackery Portable Power Station Explorer 1000, 1002Wh Solar Generator (Solar Panel Optional) with 3x110V/1000W AC Outlets, Solar Mobile Lithium Battery Pack for Outdoor RV/Van Camping, Emergency : Garden & Outdoor
  
• Amazon.com : Jackery Portable Power Station Explorer 240, 240Wh Backup Lithium Battery, 110V/200W Pure Sine Wave AC Outlet, Solar Generator (Solar Panel Not Included) for Outdoors Camping Travel Hunting Emergency : Garden & Outdoor
  
• Amazon.com: Jackery SolarSaga 100W Portable Solar Panel for Explorer 240/300/500/1000 Power Station, Foldable US Solar Cell Solar Charger with USB Outputs for Phones (Can't Charge Explorer 440/ PowerPro): Garden & Outdoor
  
• AmazonSmile: Anker PowerCore II 20000, 20100mAh Portable Charger with Dual USB Ports, PowerIQ 2.0 (up to 18W Output) Power Bank, Fast Charging for iPhone, Samsung and More (Compatible with Quick Charge Devices)
  
• (HD Trailer) The Holy Mountain | Alejandro Jodorowsky - YouTube
  Warning: Not Safe for…Anything
  
• Acorn 7 | Full Featured Photo Editor for the Mac
  
• Drafts | Where Text Starts
  “Easily one of the best iOS apps I’ve ever used.” – Merlin Mann
  
• iOS Changelog - Drafts User Guide
  
• Consensual Disruption | Do By Friday
  This week’s challenge: reboot your sleep.
  

Diving deep on the power of infrastructure. Yes, for you, too.

Links for this episode:

• The new, improved StyleStealer for Marked 2 - BrettTerpstra.com
  This tool is great if you’re on online writer who wants to see how their work will appear on the destination blog or publication. It’s also great if you like to Markdownify articles and be able to read them later with their original look.
  
• Consensual Disruption | Do By Friday
  This week’s challenge: reboot your sleep.
  
• Consensual Disruption - After Show
  We've unlocked this extremely good after show for you monsters.
  
• THE SHINING (1979) analysis by Rob Ager
  
• (2) Collative Learning - YouTube
  
• FH Mini #24 - Goofs Twofs — The Flop House — Overcast
  
• Phish - "Farmhouse" - YouTube
  The Phish song Merlin likes.
  
• Deborah Ann Woll talks D&D, Acting and Storytelling - YouTube
  
• Ethan Schoonover
  Games, Technology, Education, Communications
  
• MkDocs
  Project documentation with Markdown.
  

DISCUSSED: Merlin has a lot to say about fizzy water and the drugs of Florida; someone please help Dan get his old Twitter name; talking recent media and deciding when a kid is "ready" for it; some Marvel talk; Jack Kirby ruled; finally, hey, tell us what you'd like to hear on topics related to preparation and infrastructure.

Links for this episode:

• How to stop overthinking.
  "I’m newly married but I can’t stop thinking about an old flame."
  
• AmazonSmile | iSi Classic MeshSodamaker for Making Carbonating Beverages, 1 Quart, Stainless Steel: Seltzer Bottles & Chargers
  
• Siouxsie And The Banshees - Cities In Dust - YouTube
  

Preparing isn't just for preppers. But, how do you incorporate scope and infrastructure without turning into a nut?

Links for this episode:

• Four-Day Work Week Gains Popularity Around the World - Bloomberg
  
• Merlin Mann's Best Tweet Ever
  
• Deepfake TikTok videos of Tom Cruise watched by millions | News | The Times
  
• Dan Benjamin is creating Videos | Patreon
  
• The Dark Knight with Aubrey Gordon | Why Are Dads?
  We unpack the plethora of dad issues presented in Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight with the delightful Aubrey Gordon.
  
• Bill Hader Reveals All the Things Seth Taught Him at SNL - Late Night with Seth Meyers - YouTube
  

DISCUSSED: Dan has updates on Texas's recent weather events and the unanticipated cascading effects on complex and interconnected infrastructures; then, for dessert, your hosts explore the delights and insights of the "isolated tracks" rabbit hole.

Links for this episode:

• Van Halen - Dance The Night Away - Guitar Track - YouTube
  
• The Who- Won't Get Fooled Again - John Entwistle's isolated bass (live) HQ SOUND - YouTube
  
• The Beatles - While My Guitar Gently Weeps (Isolated Bass) (Surround Sound) - YouTube
  
• Deconstructing And Your Bird Can Sing (Isolated Tracks) - YouTube
  
• Eddie Van Halen - Unchained - Isolated Guitar Track INCREDIBLE - YouTube
  
• Eddie Van Halen Talks Revolutionary Gear Mods and the Death of Rock in his First-Ever Interview from 1978 | GuitarPlayer
  
• Jas Obrecht – “Eddie Van Halen: The David Lee Roth Years” (2010) | The Beat Patrol
  “Pat Travers blew you off? I can’t fucking believe that! Why don’t you interview me? Nobody has ever wanted to interview me.”

  —Eddie Van Halen (1978)
  

• Texas energy supplier under fire for five out-of-state board members
  Texas controls its own electrical grid, but at least five of the fifteen people serving on the operator’s board of directors do not appear to live in the state, a fact that has angered some state officials as Texas navigates widespread blackouts that have left millions without power.
  
• Austin Today - YouTube
  
• Dan Benjamin is creating Videos | Patreon
  
• Charles looks forward to 2066
  "Just set a 2/23/2066 reminder for myself to nag our now-12-year-old that when I was HIS age (57), I was running playing soccer w/ him most days like a much younger rhino. So maybe get up out of that zero-g La-Z-Boy holo-chair orbiting Io & get your 102-year-old dad a space beer."

• Van Halen - Unchained - 6/12/1981 - Oakland Coliseum Stadium (Official) - YouTube
  
• Backfire effect - RationalWiki
  The effect is claimed to be that when, in the face of contradictory evidence, established beliefs do not change but actually get stronger.
  
• Ryan Deiss on Twitter: "@danbenjamin @maddow Here’s a redneck clip that will probably get me trouble with NBC. :) https://t.co/dHWxdK8YBE" / Twitter
  

DISCUSSED: As The Lone Star state struggles with a surfeit of anomalous weather events, your hosts dig into the challenges inherent to all sorts of complex, interconnected systems.

Links for this episode:

• Brandon Friedman on Twitter: "Water stored in the bathtub froze solid last night. That's how it's going in Dallas. https://t.co/cJdUMDT6pN" / Twitter
  (Show art swiped from this tweet by Brandon Friedman.)
  
• Coldest temperatures in decades continue; more wintry weather mid-week | kvue.com
  
• Causality
  Chain of Events. Cause and Effect. We analyse what went right and what went wrong as we discover that many outcomes can be predicted, planned for and even prevented.
  
• Cautionary Tales – Pushkin
  We tell our children unsettling fairy tales to teach them valuable life lessons, but these cautionary tales are for the education of the grown-ups — and they are all true. Tim Harford (Financial Times, BBC, author of “Messy” and “The Undercover Economist”) brings you stories of awful human error, tragic catastrophes, daring heists and hilarious fiascos. They’ll delight you and scare you, but also make you wiser.
  
• Causality — Overcast
  Chain of Events. Cause and Effect. We analyse what went right and what went wrong as we discover that many outcomes can be predicted, planned for and even prevented.
  
• Cautionary Tales — Overcast
  We tell our children unsettling fairy tales to teach them valuable life lessons, but these Cautionary Tales are for the education of the grown ups – and they are all true. Tim Harford (Financial Times, BBC, author of “The Data Detective” and “The Undercover Economist”) brings you stories of awful human error, tragic catastrophes, daring heists and hilarious fiascos. They’ll delight you, scare you, but also make you wiser. iHeartMedia is the exclusive podcast partner of Pushkin Industries.

• Bernard Purdie - Wikipedia
  
• “Babylon Sisters” by Steely Dan — Strong Songs — Overcast
  
• Foo Fighters - Monkey Wrench - Kiss Guy - Austin, TX. 4-18-18 (Yayo Sanchez) Multi-Cameras - YouTube
  
• Led Zeppelin - "Fool In The Rain" - Isolated drum tracks - YouTube
  
• I’ll Do The Procrastination Episode Tomorrow
  In an episode that could not be put off any longer, Merlin Mann joins John to unpick the habit of procrastination, how to identify when you’re doing it, why you’re doing it and how to stop yourself from doing it and get yourself back on track.
  
• Bernard "Pretty" Purdie: The Legendary Purdie Shuffle - YouTube
  The great Bernard Purdie breaks down exactly how The Purdie Shuffle works. Do not miss.
  
• Steely Dan - The Making of "Aja" - YouTube
  
• Cautionary Tales - La La Land: Galileo's Warning on Stitcher
  Galileo tried to teach us that adding more and more layers to a system intended to avert disaster often makes catastrophe all the more likely to happen. His basic lesson has been ignored in nuclear power plants, financial markets and at the Oscars... all resulting in chaos.
  
• La La Land: Galileo’s Warning — Cautionary Tales — Overcast
  Galileo tried to teach us that adding more and more layers to a system intended to avert disaster often makes catastrophe all the more likely to happen. His basic lesson has been ignored in nuclear power plants, financial markets and at the Oscars... all resulting in chaos.

• Marie-Louise Munter (@missmunter) / Twitter
  Friend of the show!
  
• House of Prime Rib | 1906 Van Ness Ave, San Francisco | 415.885.4605
  
• Sloan - The Good In Everyone - YouTube
  
• Easy Rider - Airport dealer - YouTube
  
• Random Walks
  A random walk is the process by which randomly-moving objects wander away from where they started.
  

DISCUSSED: Doing pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty good; Dan discovers a shark is menacingly circling one of his product names; there's a reason Merlin is not in the corner office; your hosts fondly recall the Avon products of their youth; Dan shares a terrific anecdote about George Harrison and Phil Collins; please don't use my things for things those things aren't things to be used for; Mission: Impossible movies are very good; if you want to really appreciate something, it helps to make yourself be an amateur again; a recommendation for a very smart Mac location managing app; Merlin presents a lengthy and disordered jeremiad on HomeKit, HomeKit apps, and the new iOS playground; which is mostly all just to say: why are email apps still so terrible?

Links for this episode:

• Phil Collins recalls the time George Harrison played the biggest prank on him - Smooth
  Despite two hours of Collins' enthusiastic conga contributions, it was all seemingly a wasted effort when Phil Spector asked the congas to be played – and everyone realised Collins' microphone had been turned off for the entire two hours he'd just been playing.
  
• Phil Collins Was An Extra In The Beatles “A Hard Day’s Night” Movie | FeelNumb.com
  The “fans” that were there that night were each paid a standard union fee for their appearance and among them was Phil Collins, then a 13-year-old child actor who years later found fame with the band Genesis and as a solo artist.
  
• dustinrue/ControlPlane: ControlPlane - context-sensitive computing for OS X
  ontrolPlane - context-sensitive computing for OS X
  
• Homebridge
  Bringing HomeKit support where there is none
  
• HomeDash | The Ultimate HomeKit App
  The HomeKit App for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch.
  
• Home+
  With Home you can control more than just your HomeKit accessories.
  
• Mark Cuban is co-founding a podcast app where hosts can talk to fans live and monetize their conversations - The Verge
  
• Burj Khalifa | Mission Impossible | Fandom
  
• Bare Bones Software | Super Get Info Support Home
  
• Fincher and VFX - YouTube
  Merlin curates a short list of videos highlighting David Fincher's subtle but powerful use of VFX for ordinary-looking (or even invisible) effects in his films.
  
• ArtStation - Ted Lasso Stadium, Barnstorm VFX
  
• "Curb Your Enthusiasm" Porno Gil (TV Episode 2000) - Reference View - IMDb
  A bizarre chain of events starts with Larry accidentally being invited to have dinner with a former porno star, Gil, (Bob Odenkirk).
  
• Simplify Gmail v2: The inbox and keyboard shortcuts - On Simplify
  "3. Rewarding you for reaching inbox zero"
  
• Ding Dong Avon Calling - YouTube
  

No way am I even going to attempt a description this week.

With that said:

[this is a good one]

Links for this episode:

• harrumph! still crazy ("Rabbit rabbit!")
  "It's the end of the month and you know what that means...."
  
• Donnie Darko: Movie Explanation - A Detailed Explanation Of What happens In Donnie Darko - My ASP.NET Application
  
• Goodfellas Painting | Painting From the Movie Goodfellas
  
• Over the Garden Wall - Wikipedia
  
• Roundball Rock - SNL - YouTube
  
• "I Think You Should Leave with Tim Robinson" - Netflix
  There is no such thing as an ordinary interaction in this offbeat sketch comedy series that features a deep roster of guest stars.
  
• "Netflix Presents: The Characters" (Tim Robinson) - Netflix
  Tim Robinson breaks out characters like a frenzied Rat Pack wannabe, a disturbed limo employee, a gun shopper with bathroom issues and more.
  
• I Think You Should Leave | Hot Dog Car Sketch | Netflix Is A Joke - YouTube
  Time to get to the bottom of this. Seriously, who crashed this hot dog-shaped car?
  
• 'Focus Group' Sketch | I Think You Should Leave w/ Tim Robinson | Netflix Is A Joke - YouTube
  We don't make the rules: Paul HAS to marry his mother-in-law!
  
• Baby Of The Year [Full Sketch] | I Think You Should Leave | Netflix Is A Joke - YouTube
  Drama, bribery, show tunes, and beauty... which baby will win the most heated competition of the year?
  
• Netflix Presents: The Characters | Tim Robinson | Netflix - YouTube
  "You guys pay WHATEVER you think is fair!"
  
• iOS 14.5 features, release date, beta, and everything you need to know | Macworld
  Several welcome features are coming soon to your iPhone.
  
• The Pot Roast Principle | Psychology Today
  "I don't know why I cut the ends off, but it’s what my mom always did. Why don't you ask your Grandma?"
  
• The Making of "Peg" - Steely Dan - YouTube
  
• Over The Garden Wall | Potatoes and Molasses | Cartoon Network - YouTube
  Wirt, Greg, and Beatrice get all mixed up in the musical antics of a schoolhouse of animals, a lovelorn teacher, a grouchy old benefactor, and an escaped gorilla.
  

DISCUSSED: There are things that one wants to see less or fewer often; is this particular button actually hooked up to anything?; there is literal must-see TV and you must see it literally immediately; everything is catching on fire; four basic steps for being a successful adult (who has to deal with other adults); thoughts on creativity and focal length; the process of unpandemicizing, or: do we still know how to put a Casual Corner in a mall?; Dan is loving his iPad; Merlin introduces a theory on The Velocity of Writing Instruments; and, finally, a quick celebrity cameo.

Links for this episode:

• XY problem - Wikipedia
  

DISCUSSED: Dan continues to explore the exciting possibilities of his latest hardware acquisition.

Links for this episode:

• Wisdom From Merlin
  Or: “Everybody likes being given a glass of water.”

  It's only advice for you because it had to be advice for me.
  

• Paperlike, the iPad Screen Protector: write and draw like on paper
  

DISCUSSED: life's relentlessness continues apace; Cash enjoyed Dan's modified Godfather trilogy; celebrating Lil' Inappropriate Books; a terrific recent use of "Layla"; some Inside Baseball talk about a recommended app segment; then, for the balance of the episode, your hosts start diving into Dan's exciting new acquisition and how best to put to good use.

Links for this episode:

• ‘Y’all don’t wanna hear me, you just wanna dance’: A cognitive approach to listener attention in OutKast’s ‘Hey Ya!’ - Matthew Voice, Sara Whiteley, 2019
  
• Toolbox Pro
  
• John Cazale - Wikipedia
  
• Solfège - Wikipedia
  
• Music That Sounds Like The Lyrics - YouTube
  
• iPad Pro - Apple
  
• Goodfellas Proud Boys
  "As far back as I can remember, I’ve always wanted to be a patriot."
  
• I Knew It Was You: Rediscovering John Cazale (2009) - Reference View - IMDb
  
• HomeDash | The Ultimate HomeKit App
  The HomeKit App for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch.
  
• Home+
  Home 4 is the most advanced iOS app to control and automate your HomeKit accessories.
  
• RoomScan LiDAR — Locometric®
  
• Jay J. Armes - Wikipedia
  
• the double amputee you can play with: J. J. ARMES - YouTube
  
• Cool Stuff: Pixar Artist Josh Cooley's Lil' Inappropriate Golden Book Movies R Fun – /Film
  
• Movies R Fun!: A Collection of Cinematic Classics for the Pre-(Film) School Cinephile (Lil' Inappropriate Books): Cooley, Josh: 9781452122335: Amazon.com: Books
  
• Velvet Crush - Teenage Symphonies To God - Amazon.com Music
  

DISCUSSED: Merlin looks at a shelf and then, for some reason, discusses it; walls and Japanese beds and jokey-sized dishwashers all benefit from wheels; life is different when you live on a boat; it's important to find the right tool for the job; some people see forests, while others see trees; Merlin performs his very good Gordon Ramsey impression; Merlin also performs his very good David Lynch impression; in Follow-Up, we learn the extremely unsatisfying reason Personal Requests weren't working on a HomePod; there is discussion of the power of Siri alongside frustrations with its poor documentation; interesting bugs are discussed; your hosts explore the similarities between good documentation and good recipes; weird comic book feet are explored; tips on good media your hosts are enjoying; and, finally, there's some rapid-fire app and scripting recommendations.

Links for this episode:

• Personal Requests not working : HomePod
  "Turn off hey siri recognition on your iphone and set it up again."
  
• How To Control Your Apple TV with the HomePod – Shane Whatley
  
• My favorite shortcuts to use with my Apple TV | iMore
  These shortcuts and automations are great to use with your Apple TV.
  
• Siri Shortcuts plus HomePod is amazing! : appletv
  
• Conversational Siri Shortcuts for the Smart Home! | HomeKit Siri Shortcuts for the Apple HomePod - YouTube
  
• Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World - Wikipedia
  
• Noodlesoft – Noodlesoft – Simply Useful Software
  
• American Gods (TV series) - Wikipedia
  
• Order of operations - Wikipedia
  In mathematics and computer programming, the order of operations (or operator precedence) is a collection of rules that reflect conventions about which procedures to perform first in order to evaluate a given mathematical expression.
  
• simple machine | Examples, List, & Facts | Britannica
  Simple machine, any of several devices with few or no moving parts that are used to modify motion and the magnitude of a force in order to perform work. They are the simplest mechanisms known that can use leverage (or mechanical advantage) to increase force. The simple machines are the inclined plane, lever, wedge, wheel and axle, pulley, and screw.
  
• Garner's Quotations: A Modern Miscellany - Kindle edition by Garner, Dwight. Literature & Fiction Kindle eBooks @ AmazonSmile.
  
• Coach John Wooden - Pyramid of Success - UCLA
  Coach Wooden's 'Pyramid of Success' is his 15 building block initiative in the form of a pyramid. The cornerstones were Industriousness and Enthusiasm, climbing to such strived-for human traits as Intentness, Team Spirit, Poise and Confidence, all leading to the top of the pyramid to reach the ultimate goal of Competitive Greatness.
  
• AmazonSmile: Cover Run: The Dc Comics Art of Adam Hughes (Adam Hughes Cover to Cover) (9781401227821): Hughes, Adam: Books
  
• Dreyer's English: An Utterly Correct Guide to Clarity and Style - Kindle edition by Dreyer, Benjamin. Reference Kindle eBooks @ Amazon.com.
  
• The 40 Worst Rob Liefeld Drawings
  But he doesn't "draw" comics. Oh God, no. Just…ugh, just let me show you.
  
• Craft - Create Amazing Documents
  Built for digital devices from the ground up, Craft brings back the joy to writing.
  

DISCUSSED: Making a problem go away is not the same thing as solving the problem.

Links for this episode:

• Craft - Create Amazing Documents
  Built for digital devices from the ground up, Craft brings back the joy to writing.
  
• Craft Review: A Powerful, Native Notes and Collaboration App - MacStories
  Craft is the strongest 1.0 note-taking app I’ve ever used. It offers a thoroughly native experience, taking advantage of all the best system features across its respective platforms, while also retaining the power and versatility of modern web-based services like Notion.
  
• MacStories Selects 2020: Recognizing the Best Apps of the Year - MacStories
  Craft, a note-taking app for iPhone, iPad, and Mac, is the kind of new experience that not only singlehandledly redefines a category, but it’s so exquisitely well thought-out, so elegantly designed, it pushed me to reconsider the very basics of my note-taking workflow.
  
• XY problem - Wikipedia
  The XY problem is a communication problem encountered in help desk and similar situations in which the person asking for help obscures the real issue, X, because instead of asking directly about issue X, they ask how to solve a secondary issue, Y, which they believe will allow them to resolve issue X.
  
• Air quality matters but don’t trust Foobot on it | by DHH | Medium
  So in summary: There’s nothing wrong, and even if there was, it would be too expensive to do it right!
  

DISCUSSED: The generational struggle to understand things we can't understand, dealing with other people, and Star Wars.

Links for this episode:

• Craft - Create Amazing Documents
  
• Craft Review: A Powerful, Native Notes and Collaboration App - MacStories
  
• MacStories Selects 2020: Recognizing the Best Apps of the Year - MacStories
  
• Ultimate Fakebook - Far Far Away - YouTube
  
• Blank Check with Griffin & David — Overcast
  Not just another bad movie podcast, Blank Check reviews directors’ complete filmographies episode to episode.
  
• In A Galaxy Far Far Away… - The Phantom Podcast — Blank Check with Griffin & David — Overcast
  
• Skullcrusher Mountain - YouTube
  

Sometimes, no one can see the ball—let alone reach the ball.

DISCUSSED: Habits, cycles, and patterns of thinking. Why it's difficult to rehearse success—but surprisingly easy to rehearse failure.

Links for this episode:

• Linky Linky - This has to become a regular thing.
  

Brought to you by:

• Backblaze(Get a 15-day free trial at Backblaze.com/backtowork).

• Squarespace (Start your free trial site today, at Squarespace.com and when you sign up make sure to use the offer code ITSYOURSHOW to get 10% off your first purchase).

Discussed: the paths of thought and emerging from a rut the size of the Grand Canyon.

DISCUSSED: From Jerry Lewis to a drinking bird in a scant 80 minutes.

Links for this episode:

• Opinion | Your Brain Is Not for Thinking - The New York Times
  
• Hook – Find without searching
  Hook’s nimble context-sensitive navigator is loved by people who need to focus on project info, such as professors, researchers, lawyers, software developers
  
• King of Comedy: The Life and Art of Jerry Lewis: Levy, Shawn: 9780312132484: Amazon.com: Books
  
• Jonah Hill 'hospitalised' after snorting so much fake cocaine on Wolf of Wall Street | The Independent | The Independent
  
• Jerry Lewis and Dean Martin Reunion 1976 MDA Telethon - YouTube
  
• Top 100 | Project Gutenberg
  
• 5 Hours of The Shipping Forecast on BBC Radio 4! - YouTube
  
• The Evening Read
  
• Dan Benjamin - YouTube
  

DISCUSSED: lot of projects going on!; praise for Nicki Minaj; some recent TV shows that are important to your hosts; Merlin is a little obsessed with a new Mac productivity app; interrogating problems with deliveries and porch pirates; vehicle theft can be very confusing; and, finally, some insight nobody asked for into Merlin's ambitious new hardware project.

Links for this episode:

• The Omni Show: How Dr. Luc P. Beaudoin Creates “Cognitive Productivity” Software - The Omni Group
  
• Hook – Find without searching
  Link
  
• Netflix
  
• HBO Max
  
• Billions (TV series) - Wikipedia
  
• How 'Jeopardy!' host Alex Trebek became America's most beloved TV icon, as told by contestants - The Washington Post
  
• The Woke Oracle | Do By Friday
  This week's challenge:draft your Diamond Dogs from Ted Lasso.
  
• "Monster" - Kanye West, ft. Nicki Minaj, et al. - YouTube
  

DISCUSSED: Merlin's additions to Bunch have him stepping on his own dingus; maybe it's time to invert the permissive legacy model for who gets access to us (as well as how and when); there's no amount of technology that can make other people be decent; Oh. Hey. Defaults? Be better; also, please quit stealing my focus; Dan is not buying anything new; your hosts talk about the various (often non-obvious) costs of adding, changing, or removing features; maybe building your whole business on Facebook wasn't such a great idea; passing discussion of Bloom County, Muppet dogs, and a Tilikum bottle; the tale of Underscore's unexpected success, and the costs it brought; talk of affordances; and, finally, Just cough up some dough, Mac!

Links for this episode:

• Can U2’s Songs of Innocence Be Removed From Apple Account?
  
• ELECTION PROFIT MAKERS
  
• Strong Songs is creating podcasts about music | Patreon
  
• Blackfish (film) - Wikipedia
  
• The Manchurian Candidate (1962 film) - Wikipedia
  
• Opus the Penguin - Wikipedia
  
• The Flop House Animated - The Porthole of Time - YouTube
  
• Bunch - BrettTerpstra.com
  
• 15 Early Telephone Etiquette Rules We Should Bring Back | Mental Floss
  
• Semantic satiation - Wikipedia
  Semantic satiation is a psychological phenomenon in which repetition causes a word or phrase to temporarily lose meaning for the listener, who then perceives the speech as repeated meaningless sounds.
  

Brought to you by:

• Teamistry (Search for Teamistry anywhere you listen to podcasts)!

• Command Line Heroes (Search for Command Line Heroes anywhere you listen to podcasts)!

• Remote Works (Search for Remote Works anywhere you listen to podcasts)!

DISCUSSED: Merlin has a lot to say about the benefits of making lists; this leads to an old-school stemwinder on "Journal" calendars, functional playlists, shared Notes, the lessons of the cutlery drawer, desire paths, arbitrary grids, "Reference" albums, urban bike hooks, auxiliary paper towel holders, and more; praise for The Boys; the magical combination of Halide and Pixelmator Photo; Dan resurrects a beloved podcast; and, finally, Merlin endorses a really weird British weather report that can help you sleep.

Links for this episode:

• Desire path - Wikipedia
  
• The Pot Roast Principle | Psychology Today
  "I don't know. That's just the way my mom always cooked it. Why don't you ask her?"
  
• Star Trek Dr. McCoy Pop Art T-Shirt
  
• My Happy Place - YouTube
  Videos I watch pretty often when I need a little pick-me-up.
  
• "The Boys" (Prime Video)
  
• Halide
  
• Pixelmator Photo
  
• QUIT! with Dan Benjamin
  Dan's amazing podcast QUIT! has returned!
  
• The Secret History: Howard Hughes, Bizarre Billionaire - YouTube
  
• 5 Hours of The Shipping Forecast on BBC Radio 4! - YouTube
  
• The Shipping Forecast.mp3.zip
  
• The Shipping Forecast: A Miscellany: Compton, Nic: 9781785940293: Amazon.com: Books
  
• What are Affordances? | Interaction Design Foundation
  

Brought to you by:

• Squarespace (Start your free trial site today, at Squarespace.com and when you sign up make sure to use the offer code ITSYOURSHOW to get 10% off your first purchase).

• SaneBox (Visit the link and get a $25 credit applied to your account on top of the 14-day free trial).

DISCUSSED: hey, it's an advice episode!; San Francisco has a lot of available office space; a musical unguent for your soul; a cool font that makes accessibility pretty; getting in front of your next wave of depression; the Emotional Police are here to cite you for your numerous infractions; and, finally, Merlin highly recommends a recent podcast episode about why we're all so exhausted and what we might want to do about it.

Links for this episode:

• Visualizing the Vacant Office Space in San Francisco
  In other words, there’s roughly 8.7 Salesforce towers, or 516 Salesforce tower floors, worth of empty office space in San Francisco at the moment, which is roughly enough space to accommodate between 67,000 (based on an average, pre-Covid, density) and 91,000 (a la twitter) worker bees.
  
• Nick Lowe & The Southsea Alternative Choir - (What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love & Understanding - YouTube
  
• Download the Atkinson Hyperlegible Font | Braille Institute
  
• Everything is Exhausting | To The Best Of Our Knowledge
  
• Everything is Exhausting — To The Best Of Our Knowledge — Overcast
  
• Help for people who suffer seasonal and pandemic depression - The Washington Post
  
• Watch SEDUCED: INSIDE THE NXIVM CULT Online: Stream Full Series on STARZ - Free Trial
  This four-part documentary series follows the story of India Oxenberg's perilous journey through the dark and criminal world of the notorious self-help-group-turned-sex-slave-cult NXIVM.
  
• Reconcilable Differences #141: The Panopticon of Frasier - Relay FM
  No spoilers, but if you're a big fan of Facebook, you might want to skip this one. Because, oh boy, do your hosts ever go off.
  
• Marked 2 - Smarter tools for smarter writers
  Marked is a previewer for Markdown files. Use it with your favorite text editor and it updates every time you save.
  
• Why Zoom School Is So Awful for Parents and Kids
  We're only a few weeks in. We can't keep doing this.
  
• President Donald Trump: The 60 Minutes 2020 Election Interview - YouTube
  
• How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy: Odell, Jenny: 9781612197494: Amazon.com: Books
  
• Salesforce Tower: Official Web Site
  
• John Mulaney: New in Town - Ice-T on "SVU" & Old Murder Investigations - YouTube
  

Brought to you by:

• Linode (Get started on Linode today with a $100 in free credit by visiting linode.com/backtowork).

• Feals (Become a member today by going to Feals.com/backtowork and you'll get 50% off your first order with free shipping).

DISCUSSED: Sending good vibes to The Dude; Merlin has a couple awesome app recommendations; some Follow-Up on the Apple Event, including what your hosts are ordering and what they're each excited about; which kinds of things your hosts do and do not find useful about the Apple Rumor Industrial Complex; Dan tries on a new iOS camera app; Merlin recommends a clever web cam app; some of our voice friends hear well, others understand well, and some sound good, but none (for now) do it all; finally, Dan finds some productivity insight, courtesy of The Buddha.

Links for this episode:

• An overly complex hack for finding books on cluttered shelves (Interconnected)
  
• Memos - Private Memory
  
• Bunch - BrettTerpstra.com
  
• Reincubate Camo - Use your phone as a pro webcam, free
  
• Marriage Logic Map
  
• Adittapariyaya Sutta: The Fire Sermon
  
• Jeff Bridges Breaks Down His Most Iconic Characters | GQ - YouTube
  
• Jeff Bridges Remains 'Chill' During Troubling Times - YouTube
  
• Jeff Bridges, John Goodman And Steve Buscemi Talk ‘The Big Lebowski’ In Extended Inteview | TODAY - YouTube
  
• 10 Questions for Jeff Bridges - YouTube
  
• Dakota Johnson & Jeff Bridges Answer the Web's Most Searched Questions | WIRED - YouTube
  
• Too Many Cooks | Adult Swim - YouTube
  

Brought to you by:

• Teamistry (Search for Teamistry anywhere you listen to podcasts)!

• Linode (Get started on Linode today with a $100 in free credit by visiting linode.com/backtowork).

• LinkedIn Talent Solutions (Get $50 off your first job post by going to LinkedIn.com/BACKTOWORK).