It's a peccadillo circus

Well, Mat is back… But with no guitar.

No. No, I thought I’d switch things up a little bit… And what I’ve done is I’ve brought my piano. Look.

Love it. I didn’t know – actually, I did know that you played piano, because I think you’ve sent me a few piano tunes throughout the days… But I kind of forgot.

I know. I’m better on the piano than – I can’t really play the guitar, to be honest.

Well, you fooled us…

Yeah. I just learned some tricks… But you don’t need to learn how to play. It’s like coding. You don’t have to learn how to code. You just have to learn a few tricks. Like for the interview.

That’s right.

That’s true.

You just have to trick the interviewer that you know how to code.

I’ve been an imposter for a very long, very long time…

Right. You can’t code, but you can LeetCode. That’s all you need.

Yes.

I mean, genuinely though, we are seeing an uptick of people using ChatGPT in interviews.

Oh, really?

Yeah. What do you do? What’s your stance on that? Would you allow that, or no?

That’s a good question, because to a certain extent it’s like “Well, I want to know how much you know about this craft… But also, I want to know what you can do. And let’s be honest, if you’re going to be doing, you’re going to be using some assistance.”

Yeah.

And so why not just use the assistance while you’re doing the interview? I guess I would leave it up to the interviewer. What would you do, Mat?

Well, I’m with you. I think they are part of the tool chain that we have… So use it. I mean, are we really interviewing people to find out what they know in their brain now, or what they can do, like what they’re able to produce?

Right.

Yeah, I think it depends on what you want.

He just repeated exactly what you said, Jerod…

He did. He made me feel smart by just saying it back to me. Is that a trick of yours?

Well, I say it in a British accent, that’s what makes it sound smart.

It makes it sound better. It’s like he one-ups me by just saying it back with his accent. Not fair, Mat…

How about this idea, okay?

Okay…

We just add a flag to people’s column. Like, I’m interviewing Mat. Mat is AI assisted. Cool. That’s it.

Right. Just be honest about it.

Yeah. I’m actually quite cool with being AI-assisted. I’m not cool with just AI. Like, if you’re interviewing an AI… Come on. Come on, Meta.

You don’t want to be replaced. You want to be assisted.

Yeah. I mean, I’m a humanist, man. Okay?

See, I feel like you’re joining my team over here, because I’ve been saying this for a while…

Yeah, AI-assisted is the way to be.

I’m happy to have you. I think AI-powered –

“I’m happy to have you…” [laughs]

I think human plus AI equals better, but AI plus AI equals disaster.

For now… I’ve gotta say for now. I’ve gotta say for now.

Some people are avoiding using AI ethically, because they’re not happy with the copyright that was all stolen.

Right, right, right.

So they’re sort of opting out of it from an ethical point of view. And they really are kind of giving themselves a disadvantage… All credit to them for it, really, for that… But yeah, if your mission is to just get stuff done… Yeah, AI-assisted. I’m in. It’s not very popular to say that, you know?

Well, let me – if AI or the LLM, this chat is the evolution of what we had, which compares well to Google… Have you had an issue with people googling things? No, you have not. It’s actually expected.

Yeah. Now. But in the beginning, people said “You’re not allowed to use Google. You’ve got to do this.” And then some places – I think some places still do that. It’s like the whiteboard interview.

This is interview process only though, right? You’re thinking interview process only?

Yeah.

Okay. So if we go past the interview, I’m totally cool with – I want to know what your potential is, and what resources you can leverage. So I think of like two things: resourcefulness and resilience. Right? Those are the double Rs right there.

That’s the quintessential pair, let’s just say.

[singing] It’s double Rs… It’s the quintessential pair…!

Why did you stop? That was getting so good.

It’s just a jingle in case you need it. In case that comes up again.

In case there’s another quintessential pair that also starts with R.

Two Rs. Yeah.

That was a pretty good abstraction, actually. You didn’t say the words, so…

There you go. Yeah.

…we can reuse it. Adam, think of another couple of Rs later…

Okay. I’ll keep going.

So I think it was Socrates. I could be wrong on the details of the individual… But there is a very prominent philosopher/academic - I think it’s Socrates - who was against writing things down, publicly. He came out and said “We shouldn’t write.” This was like at the advent of writing, perhaps.

Right.

The two Rs… [laughs]

Yeah.

[00:07:43.09] Writing and [unintelligible 00:07:44.05] And he just thought that we would lose our brains. Like, we would stop being able to remember things. And I recall when programmable phones were picking up, and you no longer had to memorize people’s phone numbers. And there were some folks who were kind of offended by that… Because there was a social dynamic to like whose numbers do you have memorized? It kind of shows who’s important to you in your life. And there’s certain people like, “I’m just going to remember your phone number.” And 10 years later, they’re all off that. They’re all done. It’s over with.

Yeah, it’s gone. Purged.

Why would you want to remember phone numbers if you don’t have to? So…

Yeah.

I feel like some of it’s the more typical just “Don’t move my cheese” kind of stuff.

Yeah, I get it. I get why people – it was like with calculators in my… I remember my cousin wasn’t allowed to use a calculator in one of his exams… But I was younger, and we were allowed to use calculators, and he was outraged. I mean, it was an English exam, so it didn’t help, but still…

[singing] Sometimes your jokes don’t go down so well… Don’t worry. Don’t worry. It’s alright…

Just a little one for me there…

I like how you console yourself. I was just over here thinking how I just missed a huge opportunity when I said the two Rs, writing and [unintelligible 00:09:05.11] Because there actually were three Rs. If you recall, in early education, it was reading, writing, and arithmetic. And that’s not even a joke. That’s what they called it. I mean, it is a joke, but it’s hilarious. And I missed that opportunity… So I’m just recovering that and getting it in there for the record.

Get it in there. I’m going to close the loop too for you…

Yeah.

So Socrates - you were correct.

Yes…!

It says “The philosopher most famously known for being against writing things down is Socrates.”

Yes. I got it.

“Through his student Plato’s writings, Socrates expressed concerns that writing weakens memory, and can lead to a false appearance of knowledge, rather than true understanding.” And it goes on to say that he believed that writing was not an effective means of communicating knowledge.

He was saying that from a place of privilege, though. He had Plato to write all the stuff down for him.

Come on. Yeah. Right?

Some of us plebs have to write our own things down…

It was about being face to face, it seems. It says “To him, face to face communication was the only way one person could transmit knowledge to another.”

Yeah.

It seems a little one-sided… Now, see - here’s the thing, though, is that world was so much different.

Oh, yeah.

The amount of things you could know about was so finite compared to now.

When did he live?

I don’t even know. Forever ago.

470 BC.

Gosh, so…

I just feel like I asked that question so I could tell you… I didn’t. I actually was typing it in.

If you predate Jesus, it’s a long time ago, right? I mean, come on…

That’s right.

Yeah. But I get this, you know? When I’m communicating with somebody who is – I don’t know, let’s say they might be an idiot, okay?

Present company excluded…

Yeah, not you. No, definitely not. Nobody on the Changelog platform, as far as I’m concerned.

Fair.

And I want to just go on the record saying that. No, but it’s kind of a nice clue when you’re texting with somebody or talking to them - like, you get clues about what’s going on. And you sort of lose a bit of that if things are augmented. But we want everyone to be their best version, surely, and we want everyone to have the best chance… So I’ve got to come down on the side of that. And there’s Apple Intelligence adverts that show – this one guy, and he just like normally would say “Yeah, light it up. Yeah, I’m walking here!” That kind of character.

Oh, my gosh…

And then Apple Intelligence changes it to be “Oh, I believe I was traversing the walkway before your vehicle approached…” You know, it changes it into something that sounds –

I had to interrupt this amazing story due to not paying for software. Loopback has introduced some noise, because we needed to use loopback to combine your piano and your microphone into a single one.

Yeah, there’s a loopback going on.

And because you haven’t paid for it - which I’m cool with; they are not. That’s the problem.

Oh, it’s on purpose.

It’s on purpose.

That’s cheeky. So I’m remembering this now. Adam, good job of identifying this. This is a good – it’s not shareware. What is it called? It’s like trialware [unintelligible 00:12:06.22]

Destructiveware.

[00:12:09.22] Yeah, it’s kind of annoying.

You can use it, but it will destroy your work.

Maybe right here we can insert one of those “A few minutes later…” and then we come back.

[A few minutes later…]

There you go.

We are now back from the noisiness of Loopback, and - destructiveware. You were saying that. What were you saying?

Well, first of all, I don’t know if Loopback need to be doing that. I get it, free trial, and then you want to pay for it… But it’s a bit cheeky, isn’t it? What did it sound like to you?

The worst.

White noise? Just like really loud white noise.

Yeah. It progressed and got louder and louder, to the point we couldn’t hear you at all.

I think they should give you like a seven-day or a 30-day – I mean, that was like a 45-minute trial. Maybe less.

Yeah, probably less.

But we are fans of Rogue Amoeba software, but not necessarily that particular move they did right there.

Yeah, that was not cool.

And whatever story you were telling, Mat… I’m sure it was hilarious.

I don’t remember now. Do you?

I don’t either. Should we just move on?

I think we should. Yeah, let’s move on to the good stuff. Here we go.

Let’s tell each other some lies.

Oh, gosh. I’ve got a lie for you.

Do you want to do these? Now, let’s explain what we’re doing here, Mat. Mat, this was your idea. It’s similar to a game I play on JS Party called HeadLies, where I do a similar thing, except for it’s just one person… So I’m very excited, because I’ve never actually gotten to participate. I’ve always been just the host. And today I’m a participant. So take us away, Mat. This was your idea. What are we going to do?

So we’ve got two truths and one lie. And these are tech headlines.

Right.

So we have to say the three, and then you’ve got to be able to figure out which is the lie, and which ones are the truths.

So each of us has brought three. And we’ll each go in turn telling all three. And then the other two people have to try to detect the lie. Do you want to go first? You’re the guest. Be our guest.

“AI has created new proteins that didn’t exist before.” That’s number one.

That’s number one?

Yeah. Number two, “A train in China has broken the sound barrier.”

These are headlines? These seem like summaries…

Well, that’s what a headline is.

I know, right?

Well, sometimes. Okay, keep going.

My version of this is not the same…

What’s your preferred news outlet? I’ll try and adapt it to that style.

The BBC, obviously.

Yeah, okay.

Okay, keep going.

And then number three, “AI has actually created a new color.” Again, that was a summary, not a…

Okay, so AI has created new proteins…

A new protein. There’s a super-fast train in China…

AI has created a new color…

A brand new color that’s never been thought of before.

[laughs] Okay, and then the train one - I think that one’s true.

It’s going faster than the speed of sound.

That is not that hard. There’s cars that have done it.

It’s quite fast, though…

I mean, a train doing that is significant… But you know, it’s China. They’ve got –

How fast is the sound barrier? [unintelligible 00:15:11.15]

It sounds like a question for a robot, not a human.

I think it’s about 700 miles an hour, from memory. But I could be wrong. I mean –

Is that right? Maybe cars haven’t done it. Planes have done it, not cars.

770, approximately.

Yeah, I take that back. I don’t think a car has ever done that.

1239 kilometers per hour. That’s cool.

Quite fast.

Maybe those cars out in the desert, where they’re just like…

Yeah.

I think they have broken it. I’m just waffling back and forth…

Yeah, the rocket car.

Yeah.

Yeah, I think they have.

Okay. So airplanes definitely break it then. But has a train in China broken it? Probably. I think they would figure that out.

Yeah, could be.

Okay, so I’m going with “AI has created a new color.” I think that’s impossible. You just – all the colors exist, and all you’ve got to do is get the right hex code.

I don’t know about this, Mat…

[00:16:03.24] Hex codes aren’t the be all and end all of color, Jerod.

Well, for me, they kind of are. Oh, you’re more of an HSL guy?

Hey, did you know that the yellow that you look at on a screen is a lie? It’s not the same as yellow if you’re looking at a yellow flower.

That’s why I’m picking that one as a lie.

Yeah.

I just – I don’t trust colors. Adam, what are you thinking?

Man, I’m still just thinking about these trains breaking the sound barrier… [laughs]

Maybe they haven’t.

It’d be loud, wouldn’t it? Imagine waiting for a train and that one zooms past and bursts your ears.

That’s the one I think is a lie. I think that’s the lie one.

You think the train one’s a lie?

Yeah, I think the train one’s a lie.

So you and I both agree that “AI created a new protein” sounds like something that they would be doing with it.

Totally plausible. Yeah.

What about “AI created a new color?”

Totally plausible.

How so? Don’t all colors exist and they just need to be hex-coded?

Or just need to be discovered…

Yeah, I think it’s a discovery thing. I mean, invent and discover is –

He did say invent.

Oh, okay. Well…

Yeah, but I gave a summary, not a headline.

Clearly you didn’t give a headline.

The train is the lie.

Alright, so Adam’s going with train. I’m going with color. Mat, is there some sort of like a prelude song that you’d play on the way up to this?

Yeah, probably. I would have thought so. [singing] “Have you ever considered a super-fast train? How about one that’ll blow your ears out and destroy your brain? Yeah, it’s super-loud, baby. Loud… And that one was true.”

Yes…!

Congratulations. That one was true. I’m afraid… [singing] “The color of a blooming… Thing… As Jerod said, the colors all exist.”

Yes…!

[laughs]

“So it can’t be that one… Adam looks pissed, but he’s fine. He’s fine…”

Love it.

Congratulations!

I will concede that it’s very – it’s more plausible for the train to have broken the sound barrier than it would be to invent a new color. However, I thought I had some prior knowledge to the Shinkansen, which is the most famous bullet train.

Oh.

And I knew its max speed because my son was such a fan of trains when he was growing up, like three, four, five; still is a fan… But we actually studied high-speed trains for a while. Like, just for fun, you know?

Yeah.

At like a four-year-old level, not like an academic level.

And none of them had broken the sound barrier.

No, none of them did, and they were all like the 400 range. So 700 and something is quite faster than 400, obviously… And imagine a train – here’s the thing with this speed train that you’ve got to think about… You have to consider so much further in the distance the dangers that are there. If you’ve got passengers on these trains… That’s the whole point of them, they’re passenger trains. And you go from here to there really, really fast. It’s like, the time to break or the time to stop is so much distance that you have to have like the proper railway to have this distance, and stuff. So I just thought it was like less likely. I thought, “Well, you know… Find a color. Pick color.”

Plus you won’t hear it coming, you know?

That’s right.

No, because it’s faster than sound.

Yeah, exactly. It beats the sound to you.

That’s actually – I don’t believe so. I think you would still hear it coming.

I was just joking. I also think you’ll hear it. But you’ll hear it a little bit later than it would arrive.

Delayed. Yeah, I was going to say, delayed. They can’t hear themselves. Could you hear yourself going too fast? If you’re going faster than sound, could you hear yourself?

Inside the train, the air is not moving that fast, I suppose. So they’ll be fine. But yeah, if you were just traveling that fast…

There’s weird physics around that, right? If you’re in a moving vehicle and you throw a baseball up in the air, you can catch it. But then if you throw it out of it, then it still travels – I don’t know how it works, but you start to break your brain thinking about that…

Wind resistance there. Friction elsewhere.

There’s inertia, there’s wind resistance… There’s lots of things going on.

Yeah. Because the ball is traveling at that speed as well, relative to you.

Right. It’s starting place is already that speed.

Yeah. It’s already going dead fast, even if you’re holding it.

But you don’t notice it. Much like us. We’re like turning around on this globe at like - how many miles per hour? But we have no idea.

[00:20:23.20] Yeah.

Seven. I think it was seven miles per hour we’re traveling around the world.

Oh, that’s not that fast.

Oh, one day per hour. No, one hour per hour.

Oh, yeah. [laughter]

Finally, I landed on something closely correlated and true. Okay, I have my two truths and a lie…

Okay.

And let’s see if you all can guess which one is the lie. Number one. Now, these are going to read more like headlines, because you know, I follow directions around here… But that’s neither here nor there. Number one, “As TikTok ban looms, Meta is sponsoring TikTok posts that encourage US users to migrate to Instagram.” That’s number one.

Number two, “Developer fires entire team for AI, now ends up searching for engineers on LinkedIn.” Number three, Miyamoto’s son -”, this is Nintendo’s Miyamoto… “Miyamoto’s son was so bad at SuperMario 64 that he questioned his parenting.” There you have it. Two truths and one lie. What are you guys thinking?

That first one sounded long for a headline…

Oh, now you’re judging mine, after those summaries you provided…?

Oh, my gosh…

Well, you know headlines have skewed more conversational in the last five years…

I think I know the answer to this, but Adam, what do you think?

Can I hear them again, please?

“As TikTok ban looms, Meta is sponsoring TikTok posts that encourage US users to migrate to Instagram.” Number two, “Developer fires entire team for AI, now ends up searching for engineers on LinkedIn.” Number three, “Miyamoto’s son was so bad at Super-Mario 64, he questioned his parenting.”

Man, they’re all terrible.

[laughs]

They’re all terrible.

Yeah, but which one is not true? Two of those are true, by the way.

Two of those are true. I’m thinking the last one’s not true.

Miyamoto’s son?

Yeah. I don’t know why… I can’t give any more credence to AI here in this podcast so far… Although - we’ll see.

Yeah, I’m going to go with that one though, the AI one… Because I can’t say AI, but what I can do is spot when Jerod’s been a cheeky monkey…

[laughs]

I think it’s a joke. It’s quite funny that someone would fire all their team, and then – do they use AI to search LinkedIn for people, though, at least, probably?

Well, you could read the rest of the article on techgig.com… Because I got that headline from techgig.com. That is a true headline. You are both – well, sorry. Oh, no. I foreshadowed. You are both incorrect. It’s not Miyamoto’s son. It’s not LinkedIn. The lie is “As TikTok ban looms, Meta is sponsoring TikTok posts and encourages US users to migrate to Instagram.” I made that up!

Well, that could easily be true, right?

Right. Actually, it’s kind of a good idea.

Yeah. If TikTok would let them.

Or maybe they are doing it, but no one wrote the headline.

Yeah.

Anyways, I feel bad for you guys, sort of… Like, I just hoodwinked you…

Yeah.

That’s the game, though.

Adam looks doubly mad…

I’m just angry about most things, you know?

But that’s the game, Jerod. Don’t feel bad. Do you feel bad in Monopoly when you’re like taking money off your kids?

Honestly, Mat, when I tell people I feel bad when I’m beating them in a game, it’s – I’m not really feeling bad. I just say that because I just feel like it’s the appropriate thing.

Oh, that’s sweet.

So…

That’s a lie then. I vote that one as the lie.

[00:23:57.26] [laugh] Finally, he gets one right. Okay, Adam, why don’t you do your turn, and share with us some truths and lies?

I’m bringing one close to home, really…

Okay.

…that goes back to Mat’s world, in a way. I’ve got three headlines… Two that are true, and then one that’s false.

Oh, that’s interesting. [unintelligible 00:24:20.17]

Just so you’re aware.

[laughs] Okay, okay…

Which order should I read them in? Should I read the true ones first, or the false one first?

Read the false one first…

You have to mix it up.

Okay, here we go.

[laughs] If you read the false one first, I’m sure to get it.

This is the false one, just so you know. “US nuclear arsenal relied on eight-inch floppy disks until 2019.”

Oh, wow…

Number two. “Scientists used slime molds to help design Tokyo’s rail system.” Number three, “Raspberry Pi is due to announce an SBC-style GPU to compete with Nvidia.”

Okay, okay.

Good.

So can you say the middle one again? Slime molds?

Yes. “Scientists used slime molds to help design Tokyo’s rail system.”

Don’t know what either one of them is.

I don’t either. I’m not sure what slime molds are. Like slime, from Ghostbusters slime?

Slimer?

Yeah. What do you think they got him in to help consult?

I’ve got headlines only. I’ve got no context here, okay? These are headlines only.

I’m just trying to figure out if it’s real or not, you know? If it’s Ghostbusters-based, I’m going to assume it’s a lie.

It’s like, sorry we’re late on the project, but hiring Slimer was a big mistake. [unintelligible 00:25:39.24] contributed nothing.

I won’t tell you this, but I’ll give you the details later, and you’re going to love this. I’ve got more context.

Oh, he’s going to give us details later. So that one, he’s got an actual article. I’ve ruled it out. That’s true.

Which one’s true?

Slime molds.

Okay.

Because you’ve just said you have an article on it.

I didn’t say on that one. I was saying on another one. That was a whole different one.

Oh, you just changed the subject and then told us you had information?

Yeah, I was thinking about something different. I was contextually somewhere else, you know?

Okay. What was the first one again?

Okay, yes “US - United States - US nuclear arsenal.” You know where the United States is too, right, Jerod? You know where’s that, the US? Okay. Mat, do you know where it’s at?

Yeah, but I thought you were just saying us, because you’re from there…

Yeah, just us.

Us. “Us nuclear arsenal relied on –”

[laughs] It is bad that you call your country “us”.

Here we go. Oh, it’s like AI.

Well, that’s kind of appropriate, isn’t it? I mean…

“Us nuclear arsenal relied on eight-inch floppy disks until 2019.”

Eight-inch floppy disks. Those are the big ones.

Yeah. Not even the save icon, is it that?

No, no, no. In fact –

Yeah, that won’t work for you.

How far does the eight-inch go back? Because I remember floppies, but I never used an eight-inch. It was always a three and a half inch.

I have handled an eight-inch one. I have had one in my hand, and they are floppy. This is where the name floppy disk came from, because I understood from the three and a half inch ones they weren’t floppy. They were rock hard, because they were plastic, as a plastic card, I suppose. They weren’t made of rocks.

[laughs]

But the bigger ones, the eight-inch ones - I think they were eight inch - they were actually floppy. Actually, no. I’m thinking five and a half. I don’t think I’ve seen eight either.

I mean, it’s a big old disk.

Yeah. It’s big. You can do some damage with that. I wonder what capacity, and how much you could get in.

Probably less than the five, and the half and three and a half.

Yeah, probably. I hope so. No, I don’t know, because it was that direction of travel, wasn’t it?

That’s true. But I think they got better at density, or something. You know, smaller storage space over time…

I could easily be using it for some reason in an old antiquated nuclear something…

For the viewing audience… Jason, we can splice this and we’ll see… This is a visual; audio audience only, I’m sorry.

Just imagine what eight inch, five and a quarter, and three and a half looks like.

I’m screen-sharing with our friends here, Jerod and Mat… My friends, our friends…

[00:28:13.10] Hello…

And on the left, you have the eight inch, in the middle you have the five and a quarter, I believe.

Five and a quarter, yeah. I was saying five inches. I cut the quarter in there.

Yeah. And then the three and a half, down at the very far right. And I think you’re correct, Mat, saying that that one is more of a plastic card. I think you said plastic card.

That’s the three and a half. Yeah. He said rock hard.

Rock hard.

Well, compared. I’ve had the middle one, the five and a quarter… And they were just very floppy.

Difficult to digest.

Yeah.

“Us nuclear arsenal relied on eight inch floppiness.” The one on the far left.

I think that’s false. I think you made that up. I mean, eight-inch… But it’s a nuclear arsenal; not a nuclear power plant, but arsenal. Like, actually firing nukes.

Yeah, but they have these antiquated systems, though, don’t they? And they don’t change them in –

This is a tough one. What was your third one again?

“Raspberry Pi, soon to announce SBC style GPU to compete with NVIDIA.”

Now, what’s an SBC style GPU?

Single-board computer.

Okay.

A single what computer?

Yeah, you know, the SBC is like super-cool, because you have this tiny little thing, and it’s a single board computer.

And so they’re going to compete with NVIDIA, like you’re going to be doing inference on these things, or something?

I mean, I can speculate some, if you’d like… What I would say is like it’s probably going to pair up with like the Raspberry Pi type thing… Because the Raspberry Pi doesn’t – it has GPU in it, but it’s like not super-amazing. It does some stuff. You could do a media center on it, but you probably can’t transcode 4K very well; or at least multiple streams. So I think those things have become popular, and so my guess - if this is true, of course - is that this SBC style GPU will pair up with a Pi to give you more GPU in this fanatic way of doing smaller computers, basically. Versus, let’s just say the most recent, the RTX 50 or whatever, 5090 or whatever they’ve just released… That thing is huge. It’s got three fans in it. Like, who wants that? You want a GPU that’s smaller, SBC style. I’m not trying to overly sell this or anything, but I’m just saying; this could be a truth.

Oh yeah, it could be. Exactly. It could be true for – it’s not.

This could be true.

I think it’s not. That’s what I’m going to pick as the lie. The Raspberry Pi lie.

That’s what you’re choosing as the lie.

Yeah.

Okay, tell me why.

Well, I can believe the U.S. having some old systems and it still happens to need a big old disc. I don’t know, the point of Raspberry Pi is all very low tech, LowFi stuff. They do have some bigger bits, but… I don’t know. Yeah.

Maybe they’re trying to diversify.

And you think – what’s the lie for you, Jerod?

Well, I wrote off the slime molds, because I think you were looking at the article while we were talking about it… Which means I didn’t think about it very critically. But I’m still thinking that that’s true.

Okay.

The Raspberry Pi story is exactly the kind of story that you would make up… So I’m leaning –

I would make up?

Yeah.

For a game…

Yeah. I mean, not just for in life [unintelligible 00:31:21.27]

Okay…

But I’m not sure where you’d see a report on the U.S. nuclear system and their floppies. To me, that just seems like – like, is that a news? Is that news recently?

Well, to go back to our initiative here, we were told by our new friend here…

Hello.

…obscure tech headlines. These are clearly obscure tech headlines. And so I scoured the internet…

[00:31:49.25] Oh, you’re saying that was a headline from 2019.

Well, it doesn’t matter when it came. No, they did this until 2019. It doesn’t mean that they – the news is new.

Yeah. I just don’t understand… Maybe there’s like a FOIA request on the nukes…

Right.

The documentation on nukes.

I can’t confirm where I’ve gotten this information, okay?

I just want to applaud you on your ability to put together three pretty good ones.

Okay, thank you.

Whereas you didn’t like mine, and I fooled you utterly… I’m liking yours. Mat, I feel like you’re about to break into some sort of song. Please do.

Yeah, not really, but…

Please stall for me.

[singing] “Tell me which one’s the lie, please…”

It’s a mini song. Is there more?

No, no, no. Well, there’s another verse…

I like this. Are you a fan of Mario Kart? Oh, no, sorry, not Mario Kart. Mario Party.

Yeah, yeah. Hang on… I’ll just do the second verse. Ready?

Yeah.

[singing] “I said, please…” That was it. It’s not great.

Yeah, that was… That was kind of weak.

They’re not all hits. That was an album track.

Yeah. Interstitials.

You didn’t say please, though…

I was thinking you’d write something about eight-inch floppies, but we can definitely move on…

I’m saving that for later. Yeah.

Which one is the lie?

If I meta game this and my goal is to win… I won the first round by guessing Mat’s, and Adam missing it. I won the second round by fooling both of you. And so if I merely tie in round three, I’ve kind of taken it all… So I’m gonna go with Mat. I’m going to say the Raspberry Pi is false. You’ve made that up.

It’s so plausible though, right?

It’s really good, yeah. It’s really good. [laughter]

I actually want – I want that to be true.

[singing] “Why lie about the Raspberry Pi? Why don’t you tell the truth…?”

Amen!

“I don’t know if you know the rules, but you kind of did it good… Adam, you did.”

Go Adam!

“You did it good…”

Break: [00:34:18.24]

Here’s the thing… This cool, this other truth one, the slime mold, okay?

What is the slime mold deal?

Okay, so they put bits of food to represent Tokyo’s various population centers on a map, and then they let a slime mold, which is supposed to be smart, right? Like, it’s genius, basically, which naturally seeks the most effective paths between food sources [unintelligible 00:36:53.03] And so this thing determined the network that could be a very plausible, very efficient path.

What…?

So they use slime molds to help design Tokyo’s rail system. This is true.

Oh, to design it. See, I thought they were building it with slime molds.

Well, it said it, to help design Tokyo’s rail system.

I know, but I didn’t pay close enough attention.

That’s amazing.

I think at a headline level you’d think that they use the slime mold to mold the train track kind of thing…

That’s what I was thinking.

I understand that. And then obviously “Us Nuclear Arsenal rely on eight-inch floppy disks until 2019”, this is a recent headline.

Really?

And the details behind this is that the Air Force finally modernized systems that ran on ancient hardware around 2019… But not before plenty of raised eyebrows in the tech circles.

Why?

Because they were using eight-inch floppies.

Because they were using eight-inch floppy disks.

Well, they [unintelligible 00:37:43.18]

Five and a quarter?

No, they must have jumped up to three and a half inch…

Yeah. And then, honestly, I just was like – I like Raspberry Pi’s, they’re cool… NVIDIA and GPUs are all the rage… And I just heard a headline. Basically, if you’re a CPU maker, you’re getting into GPU making. If you’re a GPU maker, you’re getting into CPU making. NVIDIA has CPUs coming out, and Intel has GPUs coming out. So they’re flip-flopping. So what’s the other thing out there that’s maybe going to do this? Raspberry Pi. And an SBC style GPU, that attaches to these other smaller things would be totally cool.

Yeah, it would be cool. If they do it within a year, should we come back and take Jerod’s points off him then?

Yeah, I think so. Yeah, we should.

I’ll concede those points.

Well, they’re going to hear this, right? They’re going to hear this.

Right. This is pretty much like market research for them.

We should totally be doing this. Like, let’s get rid of these 8-inch floppy disks that we were thinking about. And let’s do these SBC style GPUs.

Yeah, that’s good.

I think we should take a moment to mourn that 8-inch floppy *bleep*.

Oh, it’s happened. [laughter] It’s happened.

Freudian slip…

8-inch floppy disk…

It’s happened.

Try it again. [unintelligible 00:39:04.29]

It’s a family show, Mat. It’s a family show.

Normally, I’m the one that has to be told that.

[laughs] The eight-inch floppy disk manufacturer, that company that had the contract forever, that they could just keep selling their floppy disks to the government at some astronomical price, you know? After probably 40 years of that one big contract, they finally had to stop printing money and get a real job.

How many – what’s the N+ on the floppy disks do you think they had?

N+?

Yeah, like how many in reserve do you think they had to have to ensure the US arsenal, the US nuclear arsenal was safe? How many floppy disks?

Well, they probably didn’t think they were going to need it until recent events… And then they’re like “You know what? We actually should make sure this stuff works.”

[00:39:59.01] Let’s get 100 behind this. N + 100, you know?

Yeah.

We’ve got the one in the drive… We’re safe. Then we’ve got 99 others sitting over there, waiting, just in case.

I wonder what’s on the disk then. Like a code, you think?

A GPG key, or something like that.

Got to be, isn’t it? It’s not going to be like source code for the missiles, or something…

Yeah, let’s speculate this system. What could it actually do? If it ran on this hardware, is it running – is it like a USB version of a software that runs on the USB, but instead it runs on the floppy?

Well, you used to boot off of a floppy, so maybe it’s actually like the…

Boots into memory?

Right. It boots into memory and then runs off the memory.

Right. So this floppy gets put in, the program is accessible, it boots into memory… Boom goes the US arsenal.

Yeah.

The nuclear arsenal.

Yeah, probably like that.

So the eight-inch floppy originally stored 80 kilobytes, in 1971. And then it went up to 256… Eventually maxing out at 1.2 megabytes. The five and a quarter introduced in 1976, single-sided, single density, 160K. And then they figured out double density, 360K. Eventually, they did a double-sided double density, 720K… And then double-sided high-density, 1.2 megabytes. So they finally made their way back up to the eight-inch. Maybe this is why the US nuclears are just like “We’re cool with the eight-inch, man.”

Three and a half inch introduced in 1980, started at 720K, double-sided high-density, 1.44. That’s the most common. And then extra-high-density, 2.88 megabytes.

This is making me think of a museum. Is there a place in the world where there’s a technology museum that isn’t somebody’s random basement, or some weirdo?

Absolutely there is.

There is?

Yeah, we were there. I’m not sure if we were there in the building together, Adam, but I’ve been there. It’s in the Valley.

In San Diego, right? I mean, San Jose.

Yeah, it’s called the Computer History Museum. Is that what it’s called? It’s really cool. I thought we were there together, Adam. Maybe I was there with somebody…

Were we there together? Maybe we were.

I think we were.

It must be ancient history then.

Well, there is no ancient computer history, because computers aren’t ancient.

We haven’t been to San Francisco together, I would say in about eight years… It feels like. At least six.

Yeah. If you go to computerhistory.org…

Yes, it’s the Computer History…

…they have actually a pretty cool Instagram as well that I’ve checked out, where they still post stuff regularly, and they have new stuff coming in… I’m trying to find the actual address of the place to confirm. You were saying it’s in San Diego? It’s in Mountain View. I think we were there together, Adam. Mountain View, California.

I’ve been to Mountain View.

Was that when we were out to see user testing, maybe?

Yeah, that might be right.

My brain was a little scattered. We were doing something brand new, with high stakes, so…

[unintelligible 00:43:04.04]

[laugh] Yeah, totally.

That’s what you can’t remember.

No, he said high stakes. Oh, wait. That still works.

[unintelligible 00:43:10.25]

Yeah, high stakes is where you go afterwards. Yeah.

I did have some other Raspberry Pi lies…

Okay, let’s hear them.

Do we need a theme tune for Raspberry Pi lies?

Raspberry Pi lies writes itself.

It does, doesn’t it, really? Let’s see if it does. What key should it be in? Pick a key, any key.

A P. It should be in P.

Oh, that’s not one. That’s not one key.

How about A minor?

Yeah. That’s A minor. What do you think, Adam? Higher or lower?

Uh, higher, always, as you know. [laughter]

He likes high stakes.

[singing] “I want my Raspberry Pi lies, baby, feed them to me. I want to think that they’re making GPUs, and gonna sell themselves to China. Tell me where we’re gonna be in a thousand years time… But tell me through Raspberry Pi lies…”

[00:44:21.20] Well, they weren’t really full-on lies. They were more like directions that I didn’t flesh out. So I was thinking…

“They’re more like directions that I was fleshing out… So I was thinking…”

I was thinking drones, like a Pico drone. Like make your own drone from a Pi.

Like a Pico drone.

Yeah.

I want that.

And then I was thinking – like, something solar, because I was like “Well, these things are so small… You want them to be in obscure places.” Like, what if I wanted a switch? Like a WRT switch that’s running open source stuff, that’s not like power-accessible. Have a battery, maybe, or like a power pack… What if it was solar power, you know? So I was thinking like something solar, that direction.

Yeah.

That’s about it.

I’d have gone for the US military disks, if you’d said either of those two.

That’s true.

But then I was thinking “Well, GPU… That’s in the headlines now. It’s CES recent, so…” There you go. Boom.

The challenge with solar is you need so much surface area.

Well, if it’s small, though… Let’s say if it’s sub five watts, which is what it would probably be like; probably sub two watts. It’s just a switch, and maybe Wi-Fi.

How much surface area do you need for that?

Probably not much. I mean, the size of a Pi, probably… Pi solar. Could you imagine this Pi solar? Raspberry Pi, if you’re not listening to this podcast for ideas…

You should be.

Yeah, you should be. Yeah. I mean, here you go.

I like the drone idea. I kind of want a phone case that’s got that on it, so if I do find I’ve lost my phone around the flat, I can press a button on my watch… Yeah, and it just flies to me.

Yeah, that’d be cool.

I mean, it might slice some people on the way…

Well, there’s some really small drones out there. So back I want to say about six or so years ago, maybe seven years ago, in the early days of drones… They were expensive. They still kind of are expensive now. But there was these really small ones you could buy on Amazon, and they’re like tiny, little toy things. So I’m thinking that’d be kind of cool, to build a drone from a Pi… But you probably can do that already, you know? All you need is a case, and compute. And then I suppose servos and stuff like that to do the motors.

Yeah, you just need a good old fast fan.

Yeah. One fan, go up [unintelligible 00:46:47.20] What’s next? Is this show just based on truths and lies? Is there more?

Well, we finished, haven’t we?

Yeah, I won.

Is this the show?

Jerod, you won that, didn’t you?

I would say that I should get some points too, because I let you win. [laughter]

Alright, you can have some of Mat’s points.

Yeah. I mean, I don’t need them.

He’s not going to use them.

I can’t spend them in this country. The exchange rate is terrible for points on game shows. That’s why you don’t get many Brits appearing on American shows…

Yeah…

We should have prizes, and then just give them to me at the end.

Yeah. If you win.

What can we give as a prize? Well, I’ll tell you what, Jerod - you can master this episode. How about that?

Oh…

There you go.

That’s nice.

It’d be fun.

I can do that.

It’d be fun.

Maybe I’ll put in some applause, and congratulation sounds, maybe like that confetti… You know that one?

Yeah…

We should reach out to Loopback though, and Rogue Amoeba, to see if they want to sponsor the show…

[00:47:51.25] They should. We should have an episode that’s just white noise, until the check clears…

That’s right.

[laughs]

“This show, brought to you by Rogue Amiba.”

“Brought to you by shhhhhh-”, you know?

It’s a shame it’s that sound. It could have been a lovely little ditty, or a Snoop Dogg track…

I’ll tell you what –

Well, the licensing fees, you know…

…I do think it’d be kind of cool to augment whatever’s being done. And like if you were speaking, now you’re not Mat, now you’re Snoop Dogg, what you said, you know…

Or they could do the Charlie Brown parent thing… Like, you just are “Wah, wah, wah, wah…” That would actually be pretty cool.

That’d actually be kind of funny.

Yeah.

Good marketing, because you could probably use it like an unintended consequence. Next thing you know, like –

Right. Or bad marketing, because people won’t upgrade. They’re just like “I want the Charlie Brown sound, so I’m gonna keep it.”

That’s right. “Well, where’d you get that?” “Well, this free trial of Rogue Amoeba software called Loopback. Just go get it. It’s free.” That’d be cool. [laughter] That’s good marketing. More ideas for these people…! [unintelligible 00:48:47.18]

I know… Well, you’re an idea guy.

Oh, man…

Break: [00:48:54.24]

One other thing we could talk about was - just to throw some flowers at Mat, in addition to your amazing piano skills… I hear you recently won an award yourself, didn’t you?

I did, yeah.

Can you tell us about this?

Is this true or is it a lie?

No, this is true. I couldn’t believe it.

I was gonna have you tell the story and have Adam guess, but you’ve already ruined it. This is true.

Well, I’ve said it’s true. I mean, if I was lying, that is what I would say, to be fair…

Yea, that it’s true.

I have ruined it. It is true.

[00:51:49.00] Yeah, it’s completely ruined. Go ahead, tell us the story.

This was the OpenUK, which is an organization that works and celebrates open source software… And I think because of a little package I wrote with a friend of mine called Testify - you may have heard of it… Have you heard of it, Adam?

I do declare. It’s a version of testifying.

That is. Declaring, testifying…

He has voided the answer. Cool.

You know I’ve heard of it, Mat.

Have you?

Well, from you, on GoTime.

Yeah. I don’t stop banging on about it, to be honest…

Yeah, you just won’t shut up about it.

Yeah. Actually, what I’ve found out from Jonathan Amsterdam, from the Go team at Google - it’s the most imported Go package in the world, by about three times, or something.

Wow.

So it’s like an assertion package that helps you assert equal…

Write some tests.

Yeah, it helps you with your testing.

Doesn’t Go have that stuff built in?

Well, it deliberately doesn’t. And what you’re told to do, really, by the Go team is to write native Go code, and that’s your test. And there’s nothing new for someone to learn…

And you don’t want to do that.

Well, I just wasn’t used to it… And I was used to this assertion library. And it turns out – I mean, it’s the most imported Go package by three times, or whatever… It turns out, I think, people want that. But there’s a weird little rub around when you pass variables into methods. In certain cases, it can change. You don’t really want that happening in your test suite stuff.

Isn’t that called shadowing, or something like this?

I don’t know, honestly.

Okay. Is this like a Go Piccadilly, or is this a programming thing?

It’s a Go-specific Piccadilly.

Yeah. [laughs] Did I use that word right?

I have no idea.

[laughs]

I doubt it.

Probably not… I’ve been using words wrong all day.

Yeah. Maybe you meant Piccalilly, which is [unintelligible 00:53:42.28]

Perhaps.

[unintelligible 00:53:45.25] But it’s real yellow, and not fake computer yellow… Unless you’re seeing it on a computer.

Yeah, you can’t be trusted any longer. You’ve been telling these…

You can’t trust yellow. No, no.

Now I’m just googling Piccadilly, see if it’s a real thing…

It’s a place in London. There’s an area.

Oh, that’s right. It’s like a square.

Yeah.

Isn’t it a square?

No, it’s a circus.

What’s a circus? A circus is where the elephants are.

Yeah.

So there’s a circus in London…

Called…

Piccadilly.

Piccadilly. That’s it.

And this is where like elephants stand on their two heels, and then lions jump through?

Yeah. It’s a very popular tourist attraction.

Is it a circle?

It’s not really like much of a circle, but it probably was originally.

Okay. Is that what a circus is? A circle?

I’ve only put that together talking to you now.

I mean, let me just say, the US audience here - we don’t know what a circus is, unless it’s Barnum and Bailey’s.

That’s the best circus in the world.

That’s right. So you’re not doing a very good job of explaining why Piccadilly is a circus.

No, I can’t help it.

You also called it a place.

A place.

So we’re very confused. Adam, are you confused?

I’m also confused, about something else. So tell me if you know this URL… GitHub.com…

I do.

Yup. Yup. I’ve heard of that.

Slash [unintelligible 00:55:02.10]

Say what?

Nearly…

Does that ring a bell to you, Mat?

Stretchr.

Stretchr.

Oh, is this Testify?

Yeah. That’s the startup that we had when we made Testify. So we put it in the company name… Not my own personal name. Now I’d be world-famous, had I…

You already are. You won an open source award.

Oh, yeah. I forgot – I didn’t finish telling you that. I got a medal… They sent me a medal.

What color was it?

Golden.

Oh, golden. That’s first place.

Yeah. I think everyone gets that though. It wasn’t like a race… But there you go. So yeah, it was the Open UK Honours, New Year’s Honours list. And genuinely, it is quite nice to get that. Normally I don’t win things like that, but… Quite honoured to get it, really.

[00:55:55.17] What do you think is that stretchr.com, spelled this funny way? S-T-R-E-T-C-H-R.com. What do you think is there?

Well, I know that we let the domain expire, and someone else got it. So…

Yeah, that’s why I was confused. Like, what do these folks have to do with Testify for Go? Because it’s a stretching company. Like, you go there and you get stretched.

What’s that? What do you mean you get stretched…?

So I was thinking like “Mat, what is going on with your software?” What did you write this for to be stretched?

Well, originally this was like a MongoDB style API, so for web and app developers; you’d be able to just start posting data to RESTful endpoints. They didn’t have to exist. And it would create the RESTful – you know, the data, it would just persist it, and then when you’d get it, and get the list, and it would all just work. So that was the idea, to make development quicker, and it gives you like a backend… So kind of like a schema-less data store thing. And the idea was –

Oh, you’re describing what your idea was, not this stretching idea they’ve got.

Yeah.

I see.

From what you’ve said, it sounds like they’re going to stretch you, like Stretch Armstrong, or something.

Yeah, they’re doing something different altogether.

But I need to make sure that that domain name is not on the project.

It is. That’s how I found it. It’s on the GitHub organization…

I’m going to go and change that right now.

Yeah, I would definitely change that, because that’s confusing. I don’t think anybody cares… I guess actually three times as many other folks who download or install any packages - or whatever you call them - in their Go programs and software, they care. But they’re not on your org, looking at what URL goes back to the source for Stretchr.

No, but it is a concern. And I checked the emails to make sure that there were no emails that were, you know…

I would do this, though. I would first email these folks at the new Stretchr, and I would let them know that you’ve been promoting their stuff for a few years now, and that there’s royalties to be paid.

Okay, yeah.

Yeah, I’d let them know that first, prior to – and take a screenshot and share that with them, and then say “I’ve since stopped, but you owe me backpay.”

Maybe I could take that payment in stretches. So they could just come and just –

That’s right. “I’m willing to barter. I could use a stretch.”

A body stretch. Can I close the loop on Piccadillos?

Please do.

Have you ever seen the movie Good Will Hunting?

Yeah, at least once.

So Robin Williams character, Sean, tells Will this story about how his wife farts in her sleep.

Oh, yeah, she farts.

And will cracks up about it. Sometimes she farts so loud she wakes herself up.

Alright. Yeah. I’ve done that.

Yeah. And they’re laughing about it… And Sean says “That’s the stuff that I remember”, because she’s dead, right?

And that’s not a spoiler, because that’s like the start of the plot. So trailer spoiler – can you have a trailer spoiler? It’s probably in the trailer. Trailer spoiler… Okay. And he says “That’s the stuff I remember, the fact that she farted in her sleep”, which is funny. [Little things like that, that happened. Those are the things I miss the most. Those little idiosyncrasies that only I know about. That’s what made her my wife… Only she had the goods on me, too. She knew all my little Piccadillos.] And he goes on from there. He’s referring to idiosyncrasies, and he uses the word Piccadillos. And I just assumed that that was a word. But I can’t find that word anywhere else except for when Robin Williams said it… As you two were talking about stretching or something, I’m not sure what you guys were talking about.

How would you spell that, in your version of it, Jerod?

Well, I spelled it like Piccadillo Square – or sorry, Circus. Or Circle. And that was wrong. But according to this website here called Wikiquote, it’s spelled P-E-C-C-A-D-I-L-L-O-S.

[00:59:58.22] But you sort of know what it means, even though it’s not a word.

You totally know what it means. Actually, it is a word, I was probably just spelling it wrong. “A small sin or a fault, a slight trespass or offense. A petty crime, a trifling fault.” So that’s what I was talking about with Go. It was like this little sin of Go, shadowing variables and stuff…

Come on…

I see.

And not having built-in test assertions.

Yeah. Well, the Go team – actually, Testify is banned at Google.

Oh, is it? And you don’t use it anymore. I know that.

Yeah, I do use it because there’s lots of projects that use it.

But not in new stuff.

Yeah, I don’t. Because I just have a smaller version, which is on my own GitHub, just called is. And it’s just like three or four methods. Testify has so much power in it. It’s one of those things where if you’re a pro user and you’re doing a lot of testing, Testify is for you.

And it’s super-popular, so probably a bunch of people came by and added their own little peccadillos…

Yeah. And they fixed it, so now there’s armadillos in it… Everything.

All kinds of dillos. [laughs]

Yeah.

So many dillos…

Actually, we did have the policy – we had a policy of anybody that contributed to PR was added to the project. So this was like an experiment, really, which I probably regret, only because it meant that it just blew up, it ballooned. The API is enormous.

Now, did they get awards too, or what happened there? Did you even mention them?

Who?

Who?

Mention who?

Exactly. [laughter]

I don’t know who I’ve slandered there, because I genuinely didn’t hear it…

Mat, when you took this open source award, this medal, this gold medal, did you mention all the little people that helped you along the way? All these contributors?

The peccadillos…

Yeah. Of course I did. I mean, I didn’t give a speech anywhere, but I said it to myself out loud in the mirror.

Oh, there wasn’t a speech? This wasn’t like an award show, or something?

No, it’s just…

Oh, man. I was hoping to put the footage up, and stuff.

That’d be nice. Well, we could make that.

Let’s do it right now.

You should do an acceptance speech that we could send to them. Oh, that’s a lot of pressure…

This is good.

You could sing it.

Now, I would have improvised it anyway…

Mat, here is your award for being great in open source. Go.

Wow.

Who do you want to thank?

I just want to thank all the little people first… They’re tiny, or they’re really far away. Either way… But they’ve helped. And you don’t have to have contributed a lot to open source, like I have with Testify, the most important project in the world, I think… Jerod, were those your words?

Maybe…

But thank you very much for this lovely medal. And I’d like to thank all my family as well… I’m holding it because it came with a ribbon, so I’m just holding it up. Yeah. And keep open-sourcing, everyone. Bye! That sort of thing.

[laughs] That sort of thing.

Not bad.

Now, if you had to do that in song, for instance, what would that sound like?

Well, I’d only have one hand, because I’m holding the medal.

Well, just go strong hand only…

Okay…

“Hold my strong hand…”

Hold my strong hand… [singing] “I want to thank all the little people… I don’t know why you’re so tiny… But you helped me make this project by typing things in on your tiny keyboard… Oh, baby, one day you’ll be big…! Thank you for my award, thank you for my award… Thank you for my lovely medal…”

Speaking of medals, Jerod, were you referencing, like I was, Scary Movie 2?

At which point?

When you said “Take my strong hand.”

No, I was laughing at you, because I know you said that previously during a #define game after Taylor Troesh gave you that little hand at Strange Loop…

[01:04:11.28] That’s right. [laughs]

And you held the little hand up and you said “Take my strong hand.” I was laughing because I knew that was a callback, and I knew Mat didn’t know that was a callback, so I was also laughing for that reason…

Still got it. I’ve still got my hand.

He still has his – there it is.

“Take my strong hand…”

So this is this is a Scary Movie 2 quote?

It’s actually a Mandela effect.

Oh, it’s not actually in there.

Yeah, people largely – I’m talking like a massive population… Strongly, emphatically believe that he said “Take my strong hand.”

Who?

In the in the movie.

He.

I’d have to show you the clip. I don’t know the person’s name.

But he actually said what?

“Take my little hand.”

[laughs] Why the hell do they think he said strong then?

Exactly. Mandela effect, bro.

But why?

I don’t know why Mandela effect happens. It just does.

Huh.

Yeah, a lot of people believe. I mean, there’s a lot of people who – I believe it. I remember that.

You just told us he said that like five minutes ago.

I know, but he didn’t. The truth is that he said “Take my little hand.”

Huh.

“You take my little hand.”

I didn’t know a lot of people watched that movie and had commentary on it.

It’s a lot of people. Yeah, it’s a very popular unpopular film. I mean, it’s Scary Movie 2.

Yeah, exactly.

Come on. It’s a sequel.

That’s exactly my point. You’re making my point for me.

Come on now.

I could imagine you saying – you know, when Darth Vader says “Luke, I am your father”, he never says that.

Well, that’s a shame, honestly.

And that’s a shame; that’s what everybody thinks he said.

Why? So why does everybody else believe that?

It’s the Mandela effect.

The Mandela effect.

Because it’s kind of like what he should have said if George Lucas was a slightly better writer…

I love that compression, though. You don’t have to explain anything besides Mandela effect. That’s just it.

That’s right.

That’s the beauty of memes and compression.

But Mandela did exist, right? He’s not part of the Mandela effect, is he?

Well, he’s the inventor of it, unbeknownst to him.

Are we talking about Nelson Mandela? Who are we talking about?

Nelson Mandela. Yeah. So to my knowledge - this is what I know about it. The Mandela effect came about because there was a large - again, a large population of people who emphatically believed that he had passed away years before he did not pass away. So he passed away much later, truthfully, but people believed he had died many, many years before that. And there’s a lot of people, and they’re like “I remember seeing the headline. I remember seeing the news reports” etc. Meanwhile, he did not. And so this birthed this, I suppose, the name to the phenomenon that seems to have happened throughout history, where a large population misremembers or has memory of an alternate dimension.

Oh, right.

Now, if you go back to the –

“Oh, right.” Like that was just a totally normal thing to say. [laughter]

What’s the thing…? I’m trying to remember what the… If somebody else would be a scientist here, they would know what I’m talking about. There’s a place over in your area, Mat, in the European region, I suppose, where they have like these…

In CERN?

Yeah, CERN, this collider. Yeah, yeah. Tell me, what’s it called again?

The CERN particle accelerator.

The CERN particle accelerator. There you go. I like the way he says it. So they believe that when this began to happen, it started to create fractures in timelines, and like alternate realities. Now, I don’t know how plausible this is, but it’s crazy as it’ll get out there. Like, you’re smashing particles together, and you’re rippling time, and space, and whatever. The Mandela effect, there you go.

They should have called it the Jimmy Carter effect, because I thought he was dead a long time ago.

Me too.

It turns out he made it to a hundred.

That’s why tomorrow I’m not celebrating. Everybody’s going to mourning, I’m gonna be like “Listen, the guy had a good life. He died twice.”

[01:08:04.09] Yeah, I witnessed one of these. There was a guy - he still is a guy - called Frances Campoy, who is big in the Go community. I think he works at Apple now. Yeah. He’s great. I love him, actually. I should text him probably. Yeah, anyway.

Text him right now.

Yeah.

And then while you do that, sing. [laughter]

And accept the medal. You’ve never finished your story.

So we were after some Go conference, and he was talking about seeing Freddie Mercury in Barcelona. And my friend, David Hernandez, who I did the Machine Box project with, he was like “Yes, I was there. I saw that, too.” And then there was a guy there who was a big nerd on Queen and Freddie Mercury, and he said “No, he can’t have been, because he died the year before.”

Whoa.

And they’re like “No, no, no, no. It was –”

See?

And they had it. The Mandela effect.

That’s one of those moments where you think that perhaps you’re in great harm, you know? Like, you’re in harm’s way.

Do you?

Well, it’s like a twist at the end, where you’re like “Wait a second, the call’s coming from inside the house?”

Oh, yeah.

Like, it couldn’t possibly be. He’s been dead for years. And you’re like [unintelligible 01:09:15.06] Because you just had lunch with him, for instance.

Right. And you have the refrigerator door open, and as soon as you close it… [unintelligible 01:09:24.29]

Right. And his hook is hanging on the rearview mirror of your truck.

Oh, yes. I knew what you did last summer. I knew it! I know what I knew.

So Freddie…

Exactly.

Oh, my God…

The two F’s.

Oh, yeah.

Both Freddies.

It reminds me of a song. The one about two R’s… How’d that go?

Oh, no. There’s no memory. There’s no memory.

[laughs]

Double R.

Yeah, I don’t remember it either.

It’s actually triple. Reading, writing, arithmetic.

It’s good, isn’t it?

Yeah. Why is he not singing? We keep prompting him to sing, but he won’t do it.

You know that kid on that movie where Bruce Willis is dead the whole time? Trailer spoiler, and also in the whole film…

[laughs]

He’s dead. He’s dead the whole time. And then they show you –

You don’t have to watch the movie at all if you know this situation.

Right, right, right.

Yeah. By now, I think that ship has sailed.

I’m going to go back and rewatch that movie, actually.

That’s a great movie. By the way, if my kids are listening to this, stop right now. Actually, a few seconds before this, because we’re going to watch that together. And I don’t want them to be spoiled.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But they love the Mat Ryer episodes.

Tell them now to stop listening a minute ago.

I just did, but… Dang it.

It’s great.

I’ll have to go back in time.

Well, you can edit that.

Yeah, you could.

Edit myself in in the future. Actually, it’s in the past. It depends on how you think about it. Okay, but yeah, good movie. I do remember that.

Jerod, I think you should talk to your kids and not rely on communicating with them through a podcast.

[laughs] I’ll consider it. I’ll take it into consideration.

Yeah. No, but the little kid’s like “I see dead people.” And it’s like “Yeah, everyone can. You don’t go invisible when you die. That’s not a film. This is not a film, kid.” And if I was Bruce Willis in that, I’d be saying that to him. I’d be like “What are you talking about, mate? Of course you can see dead people.”

[laughs]

Did you see then – who was it? There was a comedian that told this story about this film…

Did Mat just take his joke, and act as if it was his own?

No, no, no… But it reminds me of it, because they said it was – oh, it was Nate Bargatze. And we love him, because he’s a very tasteful comedian. He doesn’t have to cuss, or…

Yeah. He’s clean, he’s hilarious…

He’s not saying anything egregious at all. And he said it was more plausible to the listening and watching audience that his wife didn’t want to talk to him, than him being dead. [laughter] That was a version of his punchline. It was more plausible that this woman was ignoring him for a year, the whole film, basically, ignoring him completely, than for him to be dead.

Yeah.

What a shame.

No, that’s a good point.