261: Apparatus Tycoon

Okay, should we go for it? Can I ask you a question? You can. What's the matter with the clothes I'm wearing? Can't you tell that they're out of style? You removed that item from, uh... From follow-up, I saw there was an item in there in follow-up that is related to what you just asked me, and you removed it. Merlin, you switched off your targeting computer. What's wrong? Stay on target. Listen, listen. It's actually the one about the tie.

Ready? What's the matter with the clothes I'm wearing? Can't you tell that your tie is too white? Maybe I should buy some old tab collars. Welcome back to the age of jive. That's two Billy Joules. There's one Billy Joel and another Billy Joel. Or you can think of it this way. Maybe one of them is The Stranger. Oh! Some are silk and some are leather. I just re-listened to...

The Strong Songs episode. The two-parter. Sorry, not Strong Songs. Hip Parade. Are you sure it's two pillow jewels? This is my question. This is why I brought it up. I took it out as a thing. It took me too long to realize because I think I'm getting a little... Broad. I agree. Thank you. Wow. That's the way to get you. Wow. Wow. Just once. Just once. You put the food down and the cat goes, wow.

Okay, well, let me ask you this. So what we're talking about here is a song. Should we just talk about this or should I give context? You can give context. It's quick. It's quick. I got nothing else. I got nothing else this week. This is 1980. glass houses. He, uh, had his, uh, rapid fire success. Uh, I don't, I probably won't remember to put this in notes, but I might, um, the two parter on, uh, or at least one parter. It's a parter.

on Billy Joel is really good. Because sometimes I return to Billy Joel. And I think about how much I admire Billy Joel. I don't talk about it. I don't talk about it. But I do believe it. 1980. You know, the guy's getting a little bit older, but he's had this crazy success where he had this like, you know, it was a little bit rocky at first, Piano Man comes along. It was sort of like a Parks and Rec type situation where he really never knew if he was going to be renewed.

But now, so he puts out The Stranger, and that goes great. And less than a year later, he puts out 52nd Street. That's even huger. And it's got some of his biggest bangers on it. 1980. Now, this is kind of technically the beginning of the pastiche era, like so many people in 1980, including Neil Young. Billy wanted to have a little fun with genre. This is before Innocent Man.

You know, this is before his other theme albums. And he starts out, he's got this, so he actually starts out with You May Be Right, and one of two different motor revving sounds on his albums. But anyway, he says, so here's the thing. He's worried. Punk rock has come along, you know? And New Wave and whatnot. And he's worried that he's not, maybe not worried, but he's interested in thinking about whether he's...

Kind of behind the times or out of it or not relevant anymore. And so he has this song called It's Still Rock and Roll to Me. And of course, the take home is, well, he's a middle-aged baby boomer. And hey, it's cool, man. It's all music. Good for him. He says, what's the matter with the clothes I'm wearing? Now, who's the voice that says, can't you tell that your tie's too wide? Do you think that's the world? That's the world. I've always thought it was that what's...

What's the matter yet? What's the matter with the clothes I'm wearing is Billy Joel, and can't you tell that your tie is too wide is the rest of the world telling him? Not that it's two Billy Joels. So, hmm. And then he says, maybe that's your best one. I used to wear tap collars. It's a cool look. Stones used to wear them, too. It's a good look.

So you're thinking that's the world. Now, it doesn't stick that way the whole time. What's the other one? What's the matter with the car I'm driving? Can't you tell that it's out of style? He's not a very good lyricist. Should I get a set of White Wall Tires? How dare you? You can't hang a graduation on the wall. You can. It's poetic license, artistic license. You got a poetic license to drive. You change a town from Bethlehem to Allentown because it rhymes better. That's not right.

Try again. One more. You can do it. Wait, stop, stop, stop. Don't overthink it. No, no, I got it right. It was Bethlehem and it was changed to Allentown, right? Nope. It's another town that ends in town. Stop. Don't overthink it. Where's he from? Oh, we're living here in Levittown. It was originally Levittown. I heard about that. Nope, I'm not sure about that. I heard about it from Chris Malamfy, the chart analyst. He writes the, why is this song number one? I'll call him for Slate.

And no matter what he says, he sounds like he's about to announce bad news. Like every time he starts the show, it always sounds like somebody just died or like, maybe like, you know, somebody just got divorced. It's like, hey everybody, Chris Mulanvy, Charter Analyst for the... It always sounds like he's about to announce that like, like somebody fell off a balcony or something. Anyway, Billy Joel, I think he's, I think he's really good. You still like Billy Joel? I do.

Are you looking forward to Bono's Little Man Tall World series coming? Nope. It's kind of hard to imagine how it'll be awesome. yeah like i've got his uh autobiography i figure what it's called it might have the exact same title thing yeah and it's read the audiobook is read by him okay i think it's also is it also called stories of surrender i don't know i thought it was called

Tall Tales of a Small Man or something like that. Yeah. But there's also a song. Somewhere else there's another song of something he's trying to work in. Songs of Repetition. Uh-huh. Yeah. I mean, so I've heard a lot about his life from him and I'm not sure that I need much more. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, sometimes those kinds of things can be so great, especially if somebody else sort of does them.

You could think of like, there's a needle you can thread. Like, I don't know. I know he's a controversial character, but I've always really enjoyed the Terry Zorioff movie, Crumb, about our Crumb. I've rewatched that in the last year or so, and it continues to beguile me with the combination of how attracted and repulsed you feel to Chrome.

And, like, you can do that. Like, you can get that balance. But it's difficult if it's your own story, you know? And probably, you know, even Bono's got a boss. But I'm guessing there aren't that many people who say no to Bono. Yeah. I mean, I don't begrudge him when he's doing it. I'm just, I'm not sure that I'm super into it. No, no, no. I'm sorry. I hope I didn't imply that. No, no, no, no. We're above that. It's just more like, you know, what can you make? That's awesome. Um, Hey everybody.

So that was kind of a thing it took me too long to realize, but John's made me realize it's not... That's the third kind we need now. I found one link. Who knows if it's right or not. It's a random WordPress site that supports the idea that it says, although the steel industry was centered in Bethlehem, Joel thought Allentown sounded better in the lyrics and was easier to rhyme.

He also concluded that people would think that a song about Bethlehem was a Christmas song. Okay. So the lyrics for Levittown became reworked into Allentown. So I'm not sure how that ties into Bethlehem, but apparently they're both in the mix there. I always like that name, Bethlehem Steel. That would be a good name for a metal band, too. What else you got? You got York. You got Philadelphia. You got Pittsburgh. You got Maristown. Marisy-Dotes and Dozy-Dotes and Little Amsy-Divey.

if Kate Winslet could eat IV too, wouldn't you? I wrote that right before we started all the way through and I checked it. Did you think that was funny the way you say that? And you didn't notice I made a pun on the word mayor. Yeah, I don't even know what that is. Is that another one of those things that actors recite to get their diction right before they go on stage? No, there's a song. I think it's called Mares Eat Oats.

No, you think like a red leather, yellow leather type situation? He thrusts his fist against the post, you know, all that stuff. Thrusts his fist against the post. And what? And still insist he sees the ghosts? Sissy girls? What? Levittown? Pear Pimples for Harry Fishnance? It's, uh... Wow, interesting. Is this from a sci-fi novel? Mearsy-Dotes and Dodie-Z-Dotes and Little Lambsy-Divy?

You know, people used to like songs like that, that were just kind of like fun, good mouthfeel kind of songs. I was going to say nonsense words. Did you grow up knowing how to do Banana Fofana? I only know it from a standup comedian. I know it from hearing it lots of places, but like hearing Jonah Hill.

do a funny, uh, he was on Graham Norton talking about doing a, so, uh, well, you'll never watch it. Um, uh, doing a scene with Morgan Freeman and they didn't talk the whole time. And then finally, um, Morgan Freeman goes, Jonah, Jonah, and he says, now do me.

And it makes me go more again, more again. And I don't know how to do it because I don't know. The song I think is called The Name Game. And I did not. I know it from advertisements on TV in collections, but I was not exposed to that song. And the song, I think the song is kind. a little bit annoying. It is. This episode of Reconcilable Differences is brought to you in part by Grist. You can learn more about Grist right now by visiting getgrist.com slash diffs.

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Okay. Well, you've got to really stick with it, though. It's probably like the Bible or something where you just got to stick until you get to the end. Hey, everybody, welcome back. It's Rectiffs. And we've got a bright and tight, gorgeous little show for you. And it begins with some follow-up from listener Adam Sharp. Yeah, I'm debating putting this in here. I'm glad you did. A couple episodes back, we were talking about... Euphemisms for the zipper on your pants being down.

And we came up with some and had some conversation on Mastodon about it. Your barn doors open is, in retrospect, the canonical one. That's what I would say. If I were in sixth grade and a buddy of mine had his flies down, as you say...

I would say your barn door's open. That one's common. So Adam Sharp rubbed in with his favorite ways of saying your zipper is undone from five other languages. So these are obviously translated back into English. Maybe they lose something in translation. Maybe there's some...

musicality or punniness to them that makes more sense in the original, but here they are. And the reason I debated putting them in is because I don't think they're that good. They're not that good, but I also like how clunky the translations sound.

Yeah, again, they're not that good in English. Maybe they're great in their native language. Yeah, exactly. People don't think of, John, I'm always bringing that up. And I realize it's probably a little annoying to people, but people don't think about that. Like, they don't think about the fact that the Bible was actually written in Hebrew and Greek. That they're reading a translation of it. How many people wrote it, Merlin? Was it just one guy? I mean, it depends how you define guy.

You mean the one that created the universe in six days and then rested? Yeah. I don't think I'm writing that. No, Moses, they say wrote the Pentateuch, but I don't believe that either. All right. So here they are from Adam Sharp. Your post office is open. That's from Hindi. I mean, I guess it's like a mail slot. Hey, John, your post office is open. Sure. Maybe it's a mail slot thing. I get that. Okay. Do dicks come out of mailboxes in India? I mean, where don't they come out of?

Yeah, we shouldn't be culturally insensitive. Right. This is in Danish. The fairground is open. All right. It's a fun place to go. Fairground makes sense. Okay. Again, maybe there's a pun that we're missing there. Oh, God. Oh, God. This is a good one. In Japanese, this one is obviously really being hurt by translation because anyway, the window to society is open. The window to society. See, that's beautiful. What do you think society was translated from?

See, I bet it's one of those things where like, there's probably not even like a... like one glyph for it it's probably one of those you know what i mean it's like one of those things like oh it's a native american word that can mean grandfather or handbag and you're like huh they're like oh it makes sense you know to them the the window of society is open to society

The window. Yeah, like there's a window and you go through it to be transported to society. The window to society is open. Can I ask a question about this? I know this is not your quote, but can I ask you a question? Sure. Are you looking in the window or out of the window?

In this saying or in general? Which one is society? Society in my pants? I feel like you are indoors and society is outdoors and this is the window to society. You are looking from the indoors, out through the window, out onto society. So you're speaking for what's going on inside the trouser? So I would say that the thing in your underpants is looking out through your fly towards society. That's what I think is happening. I think that works. In that case, it's perfect.

Have you ever heard anything about what do they do in China? What do they say? Chinese, the gate of heavenly peace is open. The gate of heavenly peace. I mean, that gate, I'm not sure where the heavenly peace is on either side of that, but the gate of heavenly peace is probably also just really being hurt by translation and not understanding what that actually is. I think the original translation is my rancor, she is hungry.

rancor is not chinese hi um and then finally in spanish the pharmacy is open and the doctor asleep i like the leaving out of the is between doctor and asleep yes i love that The pharmacy is open and the doctor asleep. I'd like to hear Javier Bardem say that. I bet it'd be really pretty if he said it. I guess that's... The doctor being asleep. Hmm. Oh, because that happens to a lot of men. yeah like if you're talking about a guy because women have flies too right thank you anyway yeah yeah

I just, I mean, we went through the ones we could remember in English, and the ones in English make much more sense to me in English. But you know, everyone's got their own sayings, and I'm sure these work much better in the native languages. But there they are. People have to tell you their flies now.

Yeah, I've always loved stuff like this. I've always loved hearing things like that, you know, even though sometimes, you know, it's a little bit, you know, silly or hokey, but no, I think those are really good. If y'all have any... Ways to identify whether the window to society is unleashing the dragon. You know, let us know in comments down below. Mm-hmm. Really helps people discover the show.

yeah like the the artful there should be someone should do a phd thesis on the varying degrees of artfulness with which youtubers ask the people watching the video to add a comment because there's like on the one on the left side is i totally if you like this channel please leave a comment it really helps people it really helps the channel and on the right side of it is

Like it goes by and you go, wait a second. You just asked me to leave a comment. Like it almost sneaks by you, right? It's almost like it's so smooth. Well, some of the ones will do that. I mean, you know, I agree. First of all, I think there might be some kind of a standard bit of kit now where like, have you seen there's that one like horizontal animation that a lot of people are using? Is there like a... There's not just one, there's 50 of them, but I know what you're talking about.

Well, there's one that, well, I'll put it differently. One that I see a lot is an animation that looks like a drop-in kind of thing. Excuse me, where they probably just give you a little transparent movie, I'm guessing. But, you know, because everybody says like YouTube quote-unquote makes you do that. And I've never really looked into what happens if they make you do it and you don't do it.

fitness criteria is what it is because if you don't do it you're leaving money on the table though your competitors who do do it are going to come out ahead because they managed to somehow trick people into leaving a comment and every one of those comments gives you just a little bit more of that youtube juice and and you got to enjoy the psychology that the people attempt to put into that uh you know these are my um i don't know my my 30 37 favorite times

You know, there's a continuity error about Fonzie or whatever. Well, that's on the whole video level. On the micro level, it's like... No, I was going to say, though, then they say at some point, not always at the end, but even partway through, especially like during one of those Insufferable Iceberg videos, if I've forgotten anything, you know...

Have you seen something that I missed? Let me know down in the comments. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Controversial statement? Do you disagree with this controversial statement? Let me know down in the comments. Let me know down in the comments. Let me know down in the comments. Just the hell of it. No reason.

No, we read all we can and it really helps people discover the show. I feel like YouTube should just like, you know, sort of as a lark, like the Greek gods who are just sort of arbitrary and they're bored and looking for something to do. change their system so that comments have no effect on anything for like six months and see what happens um because everybody just stop asking for comments

Well, like, tell everybody, say, hey, by the way, comments used to be... They're asking because that counts as engagement, and YouTube is keeping an eye on them. Yeah, yeah, totally. 100%, yeah, right? So they just tell everybody, look, comments used to do something, but we're telling you, all YouTube creators, from now on, comments...

will never affect anything having to do with your videos, channels, or recommendations. And then just sit back and just watch what happens. Absolutely. Because some people, you just like wouldn't believe them. They would still keep doing it, you know? A cargo cult, yeah. But no, the reason I mentioned that one thing about that animation is...

I mean, doesn't it seem reasonable? You've seen what I'm talking about, where it's got the little bell that moves from side to side. There's a subscribe button. It shows a cursor clicking the subscribe button, and it shows a cursor also clicking the bell. But I've seen it like six times. It must be something. So how does you...

See, never mind. I'm simple. I don't understand how YouTube knows whether they've told you to leave a comment. No, no, that's not what they're saying. They're saying, like, people commenting has an effect on your channel. But what about the O-face? I heard Alex...

I feel like Alex has said that if you don't make an O-face, if you don't do all their engagement tricks they tell you to do, there's so many parts of this I don't understand. I don't understand how they communicate to people that you're supposed to make an O-face. Or Todd Arms. It's a system. They're not telling you anything. It's a system. If you choose not to do it, it is the common belief that your videos will not be recommended as much as your competitors. It's like tips on how to win Lotto.

So you quote unquote have to do it because everyone else is doing it because it helps your channel get recommended. Oh, I thought you were penalized if you didn't do it. You are by the algorithm. That's what I'm saying. Not by a person who comes down and yells at you. All right. It's just, oh, but the algorithm decides. That's right.

As far as people know, because again, how many people are scientifically testing this? Is this old advice that people, like you said, are cargo culting from five years ago? Has YouTube actually changed it? Maybe they've already changed it, so comments do nothing. You know, I don't want to get all John Roderick on you.

John Syracuse, but I have to say, I don't have a lot of fantasies about really anything, but especially about power and position. But I do sometimes think if I were in like a position of power, one thing I would do more, I'm not trying to give anybody ideas here. Okay. Let alone the terrorists. But you know, that thing, um, some people call it a canary trap that, uh, that thing where a famous version of this is.

Well, this is the Apple version. But one of the civilians might know better is that if there's like a top secret script for a TV show where everybody's trying to find leaks for the TV show. There's all kinds of things they can do, including like all of your pages have your name diagonally across it, like a watermark. There might be something in the corners. But a real canary trap and what is purported...

And I hope I'm right, but I'm not going to look it up. Supposedly, a thing they did at Apple, and a thing they've done in other places, including in national intelligence, is... So everybody's version, let's see, you got 20 people that are, I know you know this, I'm just talking to our listeners, but like you're sitting at a table and there's 19 other people besides the CEO or whatever, and everybody gets this, you know, same 20 page for your eyes only burn after reading document.

and get my back, tell me if I've got this right, but supposedly what you can do is go in, there's all kinds of levels to this. There's the thing of like, obviously like photo blue that won't, you know, reproduce, there's your name, but then there's the stuff that's not obvious. And that would be something like there's like a different...

A different word at a certain point on different pages. There's a difference in pagination for each person. The one I've heard is actually like, if the part that you know people are likely to leak, you put in an unusual, not unusual, but a traceable. set of words. Your word choice is different for each one. Have you ever heard this? And so if you see that leak and it's got this particular

And then I've heard all the way down to, like, stuff where, like, you know, there's stuff hidden, like, genius.com style in what you copy and paste and things like that. But have you heard of this? You've heard of Canary Traps, right?

Yeah, although almost everything you said is from older technology that maybe isn't relevant for the modern era. Even stuff like one of the common tech sinks was intentionally put typos, different typos in every person's copy. But you just know today, someone would OCR.

that and then the typos would be autocorrected yeah and also you don't know which page you don't know which page it's gonna it's gonna be it's one thing i mean i think it would suck if somebody i know be really obvious probably given even like a modest set of um, tracers that you've put in, it'd be pretty easy to tell if a PDF shows up online and you're like, that's obviously Bob's copy. It says Bob.

across the page or whatever, or it's got, you know, it's got some kind of an acrostic or something in it. But... Yeah, you're right. You're right. Well, I think the new thing now is bad PDF redaction I've been hearing about. Do you hear about bad PDF redaction? Oh, that's been going on for years. Yeah, but the fact that it still goes on and that lawyers don't understand.

It's a user interface problem. That's what it is. Apple's preview has gotten better about actually literally warning you with an explicit dialogue that says, you probably think you just redacted something, but you didn't. That's built into the app now, but it's not built into every app.

um but yeah the problem like if you have some leaked thing like most people are smart enough who are in the business of leaking stuff you don't show the actual document because that's all got like the steganography stuff and like little gray pixels that identify who it is like

you ocr it you spell correct it like you do all the things because if they oh they change the font slightly at every fourth letter to write out a code to say whose document like all that stuff goes away if you ocr the thing you know and you smooth over the typos you're really sort of washing it down You're still stuck with things like, okay, well, what if it was just written differently? What if this paragraph had different wording entirely for each person's thing? But, you know?

I'll leave that up to the industrial espionage experts. I'm just out here reading websites. I will too. But it really does help people discover the show.

I never know quite how to describe these things in a way that's factual without sounding like an opinion. At some point in the past little while, I'll say in the last three weeks. I assume, because I was on a beta, Apple TV streaming apps have been a little wonky for me. And in particular, it's things like... Hulu, and Fubo, which don't really sound like companies. But anyway, long story short, we've been getting this weird, like, it'll take a long time for something to start.

you know, streaming. And when it does, it doesn't click into the full resolution. You can tell it's still really blocky and pixelated. And I can't, I couldn't. prove it but it seemed like it would get a little better if i turned off tail scale the the vpn everything app that i have all our stuff on and that's that seemed to speed it up a little bit

And so I kind of got in the habit of like leaving it off unless I was going to go on Hulu or excuse me, on Plex where it helps a lot. I just wanted to point out a funny thing. My kid has no time for me. My kid's done with me, like completely over it. Everything I do, I mean, I love the kid. It doesn't change anything. It's just, you know, I think I'm really kind of out at this point. But the kid is not too cool for school.

The kid's very cool for school, but maybe too cool for house. And so, like, you know, Grey's Anatomy starts streaming a little slow. I just want to point out something that my kid did. I did not see my kid catch... My trick. Did he hit the television with his elbow? Like Fonzie? Hey! Hey!

Whoa. Vinny Barbarino. He's not that cool yet. He doesn't, there's a level of cool that he is not yet familiar with. He's a different kind of cool. Okay. All right. Just, I feel like some people have not been exposed to that level of cool.

Does he ever look in the mirror with a comb in his hand and then just as he's about to comb his hair, stop and go, you know what? No, it's already perfect. It's perfect. And then he indicates that with his hands and he says, why are you in my office? It's not your office. This is where the family defecates. And sometimes it warms up.

because that's where the dehumidifier is i don't know i just thought this was funny and i it's just there's a there's uh in a minute i'll tie this to something else but it's just really funny because it was it was streaming weird and like i'm i'm not even really supposed to handle the remote at night

Because I do everything wrong and I rewind to hear, to watch a funny scene that nobody else is watching. Sounds like you. But don't you think that's part of the experience? It's part of your experience. Anyway, what do you do? I do that. I do that. I just thought it was so freaking funny. The kid, like, not in a mean way, but, like, grabs the remote out of my hand, because I'm going, oh, I think I'm blind. Maybe I should...

The kid goes, and, like, is able to go and do the right taps. Like, do that upper right one, the TV one, to, like, pop up to bring up the switcher. The kid goes, pop up. Um, or go to home screen, open tail scale, turn off tail scale, pop, pop, go right back to the app. I didn't know the kid even knew.

Because I can't tell what the kid did. He's seen you do it slowly and laboriously 800 times. I'm clicking. You're using the remote with two hands. You're holding the remote with one hand. Your other hand is poised over the remote like a pointer finger, like a 3D printer. You know, I think I am closer to that than I would like to think.

But, you know, it really is the old bit about, you know, I'm clicking, I'm I'm young people. Young people see old people the same way as like when someone listens to your podcast with smart speed on all the time, then they hear you at one X. They're like, oh, you sound drunk. I think that's how. look to your son. I made the category error a long time ago of not trying too hard to act cool at home. And I realized that's where I screwed up.

I mean, I don't have any, I don't have any authority because let's just be super clear. I don't want any authority. Like you people who want authority, none of you deserve it. I don't want any of that. I don't even really need respect. You don't want to buy anything bought, sold to process. I don't want to process anything.

And it's just funny because, apropos of something else, this week I was listening to a band I like called The Move, led by this guy named Roy Wood. And I'm always reminded of this video I shot when the baby was like two.

of me playing i just flip little like one minute flip video of me and the kid can't is too it's really little and toddling you can tell it's a long time ago because the kids still had a soccer jersey on But I was talking about Roy Wood, and I asked the baby if the baby likes Roy Wood, and the baby shakes his head.

Long story short, you might have seen this video at some point. Baby walks over. But it's the part about that's extraordinary. It's extraordinary to me that the baby shook his head and said, no, I don't like where I would. I don't like the move. I don't like any of that. And then it kind of helps, helps himself up with the wagon, the little red rider toddles over, walks directly up to the component stereo system and knows to hit like probably tape one.

to like switch away from CD. Baby walks over and knows what button to hit. The baby is not literate yet. And the baby knows how to go over and change the input on the stereo to have it not be the music daddy likes. And it really reminded me of that. Yeah. That's, you know, they learn. They learn what they need to learn in the environment. If you're brought up in an environment or objectionable music is playing.

We're always trying to teach things and like, oh, we got to pass on our wisdom. And oh, my God, heaven forfend that our kids don't pick up all the stuff that mattered 50 years ago, because how will they possibly conduct themselves over the next 50 years if they don't know what life was like, really? in 1979. And I, if that's not obvious from my tone there, that's something where like I pick and choose little bits of stuff I might bring up, but like I have.

I have nothing to offer my kid about things to go and do differently because it's 2025. And I think it's ridiculous the way people do that. I wanted to toss that out to you because I thought it was a sweet story, but also because like, have you, do you remember or notice things like, like that happening?

Like the classic example, have you ever seen the photo when the baby climbed up on the table and climbed up on the chairs on the table? Madeline used to put the chairs on the dining room table so the baby wouldn't climb on the table.

Mom turned away one time, came back. The baby had not only climbed onto the table, but was on top of the chairs that were on the table. And it's a wonderful photograph. Yeah. And you're like, when did the kid figure that out? Like people who find out after a month that their kid's been sneaking out of the crib at night. I mean, do you remember those feelings, though, of like, how did you pick that up? And then how did you get good at it fast?

pretty on top of what my kids can and can't do but on the topic of like you know your son fixing the tail scale thing and everything and by the way i don't know much about tail scale but from the brief description of your situation i would One thing I would try is to see if you can force your Apple TV to use a DNS server that is local to you because it sounds like tail scale might be making it.

connect to a server that is streaming content from farther away than it intends to. Maybe I'm wrong. I'm using NextDNS. So TailScale has a neat ability to integrate with NextDNS, which I do.

But I'll shut that off and see if it makes a difference. I'm just wondering if like if your Apple TV is saying, I'm going to get this Hulu video from this place and it's trying to get it from like Wyoming or something when it should just be getting it from down the street. Well, you use tail scale. Wait, sorry, I forget. You don't use tail scale. I don't use tail scale at all. So I don't know if it messes.

with your DNS at all. Well, I mean, my understanding of tail scale is much to the chagrin of, I shouldn't say a single word about this. There are a lot of clients for tunneling things out there. And a big selling point of a lot of them is that you can say, hey, look at me, I'm in Italy. And like, that's not what tail scale does. I think almost zero to.

obfuscate your location because in particular, it's doing almost zero to obfuscate your IP address. That's not the kind of VPN that that is, right? Yeah, but anytime you're sort of taking traffic that would otherwise go one way and going someplace else, there's a possibility that you're confusing something. Well, when I run speed tests to, like, test out various kinds of, I mean, I know it's not perfect, but at least it's...

Theoretically, always wrong in the same way, hopefully. I don't even know if that's true. But, you know, when I do speed tests, I'll sometimes try it. I'll try it with, you have been the victim, the recipient of so many of my speed tests during our friendship. where i'll go somewhere remember that time i went to like yosemite and the upload speeds in a cabin were faster than they are at my house no 29 palms we're 29 palms but um i um i'll you know sometimes we'll do it wi-fi

Wi-Fi on and off, you know, so I can do cellular versus Wi-Fi. I'll do, you know, it is definitely faster, especially to start a download when it's off. But I'll try that. That's a good tip. It's the same thing, though. Like, some speed tests let you pick, like, pick Boston, pick New York. Like, you get to pick a place where your speed doesn't go. I have servers I favorited. Right, but other ones...

Don't let you pick and instead just try to choose themselves. And if the thing that's going wrong with your Apple TV is it's making poor choices about where to get the content from, doing a speed test is not going to help you because in a speed test, you might be saying, oh, yeah, get it from San Francisco. And that's just testing. You know, it's not testing.

the problem, which is like, where do I think the closest server to me is for Hulu? That's maybe where things are going. I'm going to write that down, John. That's a really good tip. Kids are wild. Like ChatGPT, but more attitudinal. I was going to say for my kids, I'm firmly, I'm glad this is becoming more of a meme because I've been saying it for years and I've seen it rotate around a few times more recently.

But I'm fulfilling what I feel like is the apparently one of the many duties of Gen X, which is to be the only generation that knows how to use computers. So I have to help my parents with their computers and I also have to help my kids with their computers. So no, they're not diving into the main generation. You got people.

Above and below, you know. Yeah, no, my kids are not... fixing anything technically my kids can't even watch television without me like this it's i say it every day when i'm gone you guys are not going to be able to watch television you're not going to be able to have a refrigerator you're not going to be able to have a dehumidifier you're not going to be able to have a lawn you're not going to be able to have anything

Because none of you know how any of this works, nor are you interested in learning. So it's just me. Can I ask a follow-up question? Mm-hmm. Answering the way you want to be as specific as you want. It's difficult to answer this without being specific about domain.

But just the question on top of mind for me is... You're asking me if I'm the master of my domain? Well, I personally, as you know, I'm the master of the house. Yeah. Something, something, something, something free for all. Servant to the core? So servant to the poor, not servant to the core. Sorry. I knew that Seinfeld episode before I'd heard Les Mis. I'd heard the confrontation.

My friend who put that on a tape for me in college, you know, meant like you can never change 24601. But I only knew Master of the House from George singing it. My parents went to see Les Mis when it first opened on Broadway, and then they brought home, I guess, the cassette tape soundtrack. Is that how you got that version you like?

Yeah, that's exactly how. They bought it after they saw the show in New York shortly after it opened there. We're talking here about a version of On My Own that's really good. Which one is it? It's not... I know her name. It's not Leah Salong. It's not her. It's an Asian woman. She's got dirt on her. Does it help if she's got a hat and dirt on her face? Does that help? It's K-A-H-O space S-H-I-M-A-D-A. That's a cool name. Yeah. But.

what was I talking about? I was talking about, um, lame is master of the house. Are you the master of your domain? Yeah. And you're asking me a question about domains. How long? It's hard to do. how long would it be before they noticed that you were gone? And if you can say comfortably, how long would it be before things started to truly fall apart, like on a level of the doors won't open?

or there's rats in the trash. Like, so do you know, do you follow my thing? Like, would they notice you missing like in a day or a week or a month? And then like, well, put differently. How about this? Have fun with it. Just have fun with it. Jazz it up. What, what, what? What would be the first catastrophic or pseudo-catastrophic, semi-catastrophic, semi-catastrophic event where they would go, you know, John, Dad was right. Would it be fast? And what would it be?

They would notice immediately because people need something from me all the time. I'm in high demand. From the moment anyone is awake in the house to the moment anyone goes to sleep, I'm the last one to go to sleep. And when I wake up immediately, there are things for me to do. They would notice immediately. When I go to bed at night, the entire kitchen is thoroughly clean. Everything's put away. I've wiped everything down. I go to bed. I wake up in the morning. Dishes.

You know what I'm saying? It's like a Hans Christian Andersen thing. That's why you gotta be the last one to go to sleep, because if you let anyone go to sleep after you, they're gonna go downstairs and mess up the kitchen. What about who turns the light off at night is my question. They're supposed to turn the light off before they go to bed. Yeah. You know? Sorry, I was trying to do a callback to something you said a month or two ago.

What would it be? What would they know? So here's the thing, and I understand the thing about your kids. Your kids don't know how to cook. They don't know how to use Unsharp Mask. Like, I know all of that. They refuse to learn. They don't know how to control the lights or the sprinkler or the television. Now, do you think that's on you?

No, because they won't let me teach them. I would like to teach them. They don't. I feel the same way about Husker Du. I can't get my kid in. So my daughter's going to go off to college in the fall.

before she goes one of the things i want to teach her and i've been i've been like trialing this with her for months to try to build up to the point where she will allow me to tell her a thing is i want to teach her how to manage passwords because i won't be there to log her into things So on to teacher, this is where the passwords go, how they're stored, how you recall them, how they are auto-filled into forms, like...

This is how you log into things. And here are the things you have to log into. You've got your personal account and you got your school account. And it's not the same as your high school account. And like just sort of like accounts and passwords before she goes many hours away from me. There's at least a little more to it than you first realize, especially, if I may say, especially if you're in the Apple ecosystem. Because I realize it's not always Apple ID that'll cause the problem, but...

I mean, what does it really come down to with passwords? The part that's frustrating for me and for other people is it's one of those things where like, yeah, I know you don't care about this right now, but the moment that... you do care about this or worse, the moment you super care about this, it's way too late. And that, I don't, I don't flourish. I don't thrive.

by talking that way to people. Like I really, I don't, I really don't, I don't talk like that anymore to people. I don't teach people things. I don't, I'm not like pouring it in. What I'm just trying to say is, you know how you're a little, remember how that was a little earlier?

is a little frustrating to you because you thought you had the right password, but you didn't know to have the email address be this. Like that's, that's, that's a very, everybody does it. That's the kind of, there's all kinds of stuff like that. where we do that and we manage to recover.

But the like having all your stuff in a secure place and why we do that. I mean, it doesn't have to be scary. A lot of it's really about convenience. Hey, guess what? This stuff has come a long way. If you just use. Apple's very capable built-in passwords app. It'll sync across your devices and like suddenly your life will get so much better and you don't have to worry about turning into the next Pete Hegseth.

Who I think has really got a reckoning coming, if I could say. His password stuff sounds pretty bad. The problem with my kids is they don't even have, I don't think, any mental model of any of this. So if you ask them to describe it or like what it like, they don't have a mental model. It is really just sort of like brainstem. What's in front of my eyeballs? Mash, mash, mash. It's working. It's not working. Dad, fix it. Like they don't have any mental model.

And no curiosity about finding out how to do better. What are the entities in this diagram? What's a computer? What's a web browser? What's a password? What's a login? What's an account? What's an email address? Nothing. It's just a void. It's just a big fog of nothing.

Because they just, they don't want to know about it. As my daughter would say, it's none of my business. That's what she says about everything she doesn't want to know. It's none of my business and I don't want you to tell me about it. So I don't. And so she doesn't know. And the other complicating factor is for whatever reason.

Both of my children at various times have somehow, and I'm not going to say somehow because I probably know how and you'll know how as soon as I say it, somehow found themselves in a situation where they're using a Mac with Chrome as their default browser. How did that happen, Merlin?

Because, well, the first thing I think of that's probably not it is they're used to using Chrome because of Chromebooks. But it's also, it's probably because it launched one time and then they said, go ahead and make this my default browser. Because Chrome constantly... Constantly bugs you to do that. ...with dialogues that say... And do you think they read that dialogue before they clicked the default button? I'm thinking not. Right. So, and that probably happened, like, in seventh grade.

If I make this box, if I can make this box go away, I'll be able to do the thing I want. Right. And so, you know, as someone who knows a little bit about this stuff, you know, is there any complication? with using Chrome as your default browser on a Mac when it comes to passwords? There's two or three different levels of how that could happen. And has that complication changed over the years and perhaps recently?

Yes. Yeah. Well, no, tell me what I might be missing. I'm thinking of stuff like, well, you give away a lot of the cool functionality of being in the Apple ecosystem. That would be my thought about it. And you can do stuff like, but like with Firefox, it's always making me. So I've got like three browsers that I use for different things. I've got Safari that I use for everything. I've got Firefox that I open when I want to test it.

whether or not it's Safari. And I've got one called Vivaldi of all things that I use for when I have to use the cockamamie, you know, recording app. But I mean, for at least a year or two, I won't even allow Chrome on my. Oh, my Mac. But you tell me, what's your angle on the Chrome part? I heard you guys talking about the Apple Google deal and the $60 jillion that may or may not change hands.

That kind of bugging. But what are you thinking of with the big screw-up with Chrome? In my children's early life, Chrome had no awareness of anything in Apple's keychain. It had its own. Oh, that's what I was going to say. Firefox will prompt you. Well, maybe it's Apple that's prompting you. But Firefox, if you enter in the little six-digit code, it pops up. You can do password fill-in. But I have to do that like every time. Yeah, so Chrome didn't have that.

at all for most of my kid's life. They had their own password things and it would automatically remember your passwords and it would autofill them for you. It might sync them with using your Google account or it might not, depending on how forcefully Chrome pressed that feature onto my kids. But there's that. OK, then several years ago, Apple rolled out an extension for Chrome that just.

did the thing that you said it's like okay now chrome if you use this apple chrome extension is aware of stuff in your keychain and you could if you enable this extension it will disable Chrome's autofill. Optionally, there's a setting you can turn it back on, but it will disable Chrome's autofill and give you that six-digit code thing or whatever. Now it will start autofilling things from your keychain, but you could also choose not to disable Chrome's autofill because maybe...

Again, if you have no mental model of how this works, you can get it to the point where two things are trying to autofill in the form. But if you're like, I don't like that, turn off the Chrome one and just leave the Apple one on. But none of your passwords are in the keychain because you've spent the last five years putting your passwords into Google's thing. So now you have to export your password.

from Google's thing and import them into your keychain, which is now the passwords app, but my kids know none of this. They have no knowledge of any of this. And the only reason I would care at all is because one of the things that I'm, the reason I'm not saying you need to get off Chrome everywhere.

It's because I still feel like sometimes for me, if I use a website and it's not working in Safari, I always try Chrome. That's why I said, I mean, for practical purposes, it's the same thing. But like, that's why with Firefox, because I had like. Of all things, a weird problem with search not working on Instacart, on two different Macs, on Safari, and it worked fine in Firefox.

So like, that is a great way to just quickly. Chrome is the default browser. Chrome's got the biggest market share. Web developers. Well, I feel like I remember not that long ago, you were still pretty gay bones for Chrome. I'm still, I'm looking at it right now. I run Chrome as one of, it's my secondary browser.

i like it but i'm just saying that but i know how the computers work my kids don't so i like i i kind of i kind of think it's okay for them to use chrome despite the fact that it might hurt their battery life fine it's just because it's the it's the browser with the highest chance of working on whatever website they're using including their school Kind of like IE used to be.

Exactly. So it's like, you know, it's there is a complication with the password auto filling, which I'll have to explain to them. And by the way, why do I want them to use the Apple thing? Why can't they just keep their passwords in Chrome? Well, the Apple thing wants to share passwords because they want so many of our passwords. They want my Netflix password.

my HBO password. They want my Hulu password. They want my Atlantic password. They want my New York Times password. And how do I share them with them? I can share them with Apple's password system. My concern... Uh, and I guess not my kids, but like the way the part that bums me out a little bit is like, I don't need you to, you don't need to be into this as much as me.

or as little as somebody else. It's not a question of like your level of commitment to sparkle motion, but it's just more like, I don't know. I hate to make it sound like I'm trying to raise a ruggedized child, but. The resilience will be greatly improved if you have, I loved your phrase, mental model. But you don't need to know and understand this. Nobody really knows and understands all of this. But you just gave a good example really quickly. You went by fast.

But, I mean, I used 1Password for years. I still really like 1Password for a lot of reasons that are just, like, it's fast, and I've got that command slash thing in my bones. Anyways, but I... I imported all that into passwords a while back, but I can guarantee you I've got some... Some slop, that's not what I mean. I've got some loosey-gooseys. Like, I'm sure I've got probably 5 to 20 passwords that are in a different bucket than I think in my mental model, which won't matter at all.

until it does. And here's when it matters. Let's say you had to create a second account for something. So you dash over to Chrome or Firefox or whatever. Let's say you had to test something. Let's say you had to change the, let's say you had, okay, you're having trouble changing a password, for example.

Maybe you're trying to use that app to schedule things on acceptance day, you know? And you've got to run around, you've got to go fast, two-factor code, DLED, as far as not working. So what do you do? You hop into Chrome or similar. And you do it. And it says, do you want to save the password? And you say, yes, please. You with me? Well, where is your password now? Well, if you don't have a general mental model for that, it would be totally reasonable for you to assume.

That password is back in passwords.app or 1Password or whatever. But there's a chance it's now in Chrome and that's the only place it exists. Do you know what I mean? The thing is like... You, David Allen used to say, you know, be careful about creating inboxes for yourself. You know, be careful about, you know. uh bringing in these these new source but like also your storage can be a problem because if you're putting that in different places and you didn't know it

I mean, that's like, you know, again, like keeping your fire extinguisher in a safety deposit box or something. It's very secure. You're already several steps up the ladder because you know that there are places where passwords can go. you know where two of them might be and you know what a web browser is and what its relationship is to the places where passwords might go. So you're already way ahead of a lot of people. Neither of them will come around to this. Not interested.

Not interested in learning at all. Is that right? Not for me. What I tell them is, okay, well, maybe you can find a YouTube video about it because that seems to be the only way they learn. If there's an app or a YouTube video about it or their friends tell them about it, they can learn. For me, no. And the worst is they come to me and they tell me stuff and it's like, all right, interesting. And I say, you know, I've been trying to tell you that fact since you were eight.

And you've never let me finish this. Oh, come on. You're better than that. Now you've come to me and you're telling me, hey, dad, listen to this interesting thing that I learned today. You're better than that. Don't do that. they'll come to me and they'll be like i know they all do that but it's our job i can't tell if they're trolling me they'd be like

Did you know that Apple has a system where you can save your passwords? You're always trying to tell me password stuff, but I just learned this. I'm relieved to learn this. I'm super relieved to learn this because you're one of those people in my life who really likes being right.

and being able to like show why they're right. And you often appear to be able to do that. I don't have that much interest in that. Like, I don't know. Maybe I'm right. Maybe I'm wrong. I don't know. But like, I don't have. You may be right. You may be crazy, but it just may be a lunatic you're looking for. He walked through Bedford Stuy alone and even rode his motorcycle in the rain. But I'm not that worried about that. I don't have self-esteem anymore in this economy. I don't think so.

But I, it's, it's, I'm glad you're, I'm glad to know that you're like that with everybody though. You know? And when you do things like you tell your co-hosts, you correct them on how many honorable mentions are allowed and that kind of thing.

I'm just glad you know that you have honorable mention inflation. You could, you're saying you couldn't have like six. No, it's too many. You can have, you had one, you brought it down to one. Yeah. You know, I was going to do PS2 as my other one, but I didn't.

And the show was plenty long. Well, Casey had already gotten the PS2, right? Yeah, you can pick other things other people. I know, I know, I know. But you like to, one likes to be unique. And it wasn't an S tier, tier, tier, tier match? What do you call it? It was not a tier list. It was top four. Tier list. All these moments will be lost. All these moments will be lost. You want me to repeat it? You think I don't know? Why don't you finish the phrase?

Like tears in rain. Come on. But you see, they spell it T-I-E-R and it becomes a pun. I get it. I see. I see what you're doing there. What tear would you put that joke in? If it were CGP Grey and that was a flag, I think he'd make it an F. He'd say D because of too much meta conversation. FB. Oh, really? Because remember, he did tears inside the tears for the flags. He had five levels. He had tears inside of F.

Hey, everybody. It's Reconcilable Differences. Did you have a question about the apparatus? I do. This might be quick, depending on what your answer is, but I guess we'll find out. This is a thing that you were posting pictures of for years now. I don't know. I'm sure how many years. I think it's been at least a year and a half. I think it's longer. I mean, you can do the research. It was around the time I first got on to, what's ivory? Mastodon.

Really? I thought it went back to the Twitter days, but I can find it. But yeah. Anyway, you are posting photographs of a thing that I presume is somewhere near where you live because you're taking these pictures. uh and it started out as a picture of what appeared to be some kind of plumbing pipe fixture thing near the side of a building and you would post pictures of it as time progressed and the

The number of things attached to this pipe thing would keep expanding. The first time you posted it, I think it was like, huh, look at this weird thing. In this building. It's a weird thing that doesn't look like any other thing I've seen outside of residence in our neighborhood. And just for the context, it is a place pretty near my house.

When I roll by, I would think, huh, that thing's kind of crazy. And I'd always kind of admire it a little. And I think I took some early photos because this is a, I won't go into it, but I've talked about this before, but it's a, it's a, like, I think it's like a. Eight plex, maybe? It's at least a four plex. And so they had to do some earthquake remediation. This place had been under some kind of construction with people still living in it for like, I think, five years.

It's really weird. And then suddenly, this thing that I started referring to as the apparatus appeared on the side. And I thought, huh, that thing seems complicated. That was fun. But just, I'll throw it back in a sec. The thing that got me excited was then I noticed on subsequent visits, there'd be more stuff attached to the apparatus. Yeah, it was expanding. And then still more stuff.

and then they'd make changes to it and then they'd add another dial and then they there'd be like inspection tags and at one point there was like apparently it's okay because it wasn't hooked up but at one point there were like stripped raw wires, just like a fistful of wires just sticking out of it. And I became fascinated with it and delighted by it and started sharing it with people. And over time, I like to give people updates on how the apparatus is doing.

Yeah, so when you first posted it, especially in its early times when it was just a wee bud, when it hadn't blossomed into what it would become. conceivably you could look at it and it could be one of those kind of like internet kind of not i'm going to say engagement bait but let's say a curiosity it's a curious in the kinder sense it's a curiosity because if you if you post a picture of this it's kind of implicitly offering up to people

Look at this weird thing. And kind of sort of asking, like, does anyone know what this is? And so people would look at it and say, that's a, you know, outlet valve for... I did get some really good help from people. Do you want me to spoil it and say...

No, no, just let's walk through it. Don't spoil me to the end here. But in the beginning, it was small enough. It's like, oh, that's like an outlet valve. Well, I mean, like, okay, so like everybody, there is weird, everybody's got weird stuff on their house. or their business. And you see things like that. A lot of times, I don't know what it's for. I can probably figure out, okay, that looks like a vent for a dryer, or that looks like a little chimney.

For where your oven is. Or that's where the wires come into the house that carry electricity, maybe. Well, like, yeah, but like that big bundle of like, I don't know if that's for the telephone or the cable TV, but like, you know, you know, all those kinds of things. But there's also like weird like San Francisco things that I don't exactly understand. They're about a general, I think about a general topic I'm going to call.

And I don't really know what that is, but like, for example, it's not unusual at all to roll up to like a, you know, a house like ours and there'll be these, this weird, like a tube underneath your doorbell. And it's like. some of those appear to be for, uh, like some kind of venting, you know, say again, that's for the ants to get in. That's the office.

But also, for example, there's also like a little built-in house trumpet in some houses where they have a big hole, like a Dr. Seuss hole, and you can like yell to people through the hole. There's those kinds of things. But this... combines several different kinds. What looks to me as a non-engineer, it looks to me like this is covering a lot of stuff involving venting or pressure. There's valves.

There's, I mean, it looks a little bit like a little bit, not Rube Goldberg exactly, but very Dr. Seuss to me. Yeah. So when, again, when you posted it in the beginning, it was like, this could be a thing. People try to guess what it is, what kind of, what system, what building system is this part of? And this looks kind of like a thing that's on my house, or this is the kind of thing that's in common in business buildings. But here's the thing.

That was in the beginning when you first posted it, and it was smaller. As you posted more and more pictures of it, I hadn't been commenting on it. I hadn't been looking at your replies too much. But as you posted more pictures of it, at a certain point, I said to myself, I said, This has got to be not an art installation, but like people on the job having fun by just thinking like.

Hey, what other parts you got on the truck that we can attach to? Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I was about to think of Mousetrap, but that's not, there was a game when I was a kid that was like Mousetrap, but you would build pipes for a bathroom. Remember that?

It's kind of, doesn't it kind of look like that with all the like little, I don't know if you have a photo in front of you, but it's got all these weird like areas joined together with joints. It kind of looks like something you drew in a game on your phone.

Yeah, it looks like if you can imagine if you're in the trades and you have and you have like what kind of connectors do you have? What kind of elbows? What kind of valves? Do you have dials? Do you have hoses? Like I think I really feel like one of the things that really pushed it over the top was.

At a certain point, a red metal dome appeared on the wall above it, the kind that has like a fire drill thing from your high school where there's a metal thing that clangs against the inside of the dome to sound the alarm. It's got a clangy bell like a boxing ring or a bank. Right. That appeared.

connected to this apparatus by a tube that loops around on itself like six times. And it's like, oh, they're just taking everything they have in the truck. This is literally every valve, every dial, every gauge. I figured it was a make-work project, to be honest. It truly looks like... something that's supposed to be like a piece of art of like the whole idea is uh we're going like you'd see this in your museum like we're going to take every possible valve and fitting and connector and gauge

And connect them all together to sort of be a comment on modern life. Like a comment on industrialized, the industrialized world, like taken to its extreme. Yeah, or as they say on 99% Invisible, on our built world. It seems like a commentary on the way, like the culture and finance and culture behind what ends up making the world our built world that we end up living in.

Yeah. And, you know, I'm someone who's been watching like This Old House and similar programs since basically since it started airing, since I could talk. I watched, I voraciously consumed all of them. I still watch all of them. I'm not unfamiliar with how things are built. And the reason I thought this about this thing is like, look. All those pieces, those are the expensive parts.

Like just a run of straight pipe is expensive, but every single node and nodule and feature of this thing, that's one of the expensive bits. There's no way that anyone would connect all those together. And forget that I can't make sense about what it's doing. fine it's maybe some some system that i'm not familiar with like why would you ever spend this much money

for this type of thing on the outside of it. It's got to be some kind of art, but like it passed over the line. I'm like, this cannot be real. Now it's too ridiculous. Like you're putting pictures of like, ha ha, look at this thing. Isn't it funny? We get to a point where you're like, okay, that's cool. Now you're having fun with me. yeah no it's like it's so far past the like okay before i could that could seemingly be part of a building but now it's so clearly just a joke or an art thing or

Like, and not that it's of your making. I mean, it could be college students who just, who are art students who just come out and add pieces to it sometimes. Yeah, but no, like there's like hundreds or thousands of dollars worth of like fixtures on display there. And the fact that it evolves and continues to get new tags and new...

bells and new valves yeah like it doesn't seem to possibly fulfill any purpose but anyway that's what i've always thought of this and i came across an image of it i don't know where maybe you posted something about it more recently and i thought you know what i never got closure on this

Because again, I just assumed it was a joke, but you never came in in your typical fashion as you would never do and explained. Actually, I found out I talked to the guy and he told me here's what it is. So I'm wondering at this point, I just I basically need to know what the hell is it? I think what you're asking me is what's the status of the apparatus?

I saw this. I'm trying to tag. I have so many photos of this, and I'm trying to just quickly add a tag. As well you should. Someone should be documenting. So you do find it interesting, though, right? Yeah, because it's like... I guess it's less interesting if it's just someone trying to make a piece of sculpture. Although even then, it's interesting they're willing to spend that much money and time on it. Well, I saw this in notes today, and so I did make a point of... Stop popping in.

I'm hopping over and I'm taking a photo. Okay, so the first one I'm going to send you, if I may, this is from September 27th, 2023, okay? And... In my very quick search, that's the first one I could find. So even in September of 2020... It's just a baby. Yeah, I know. And his feet aren't even long enough to hit the ground.

And what do we got here? We'll try to figure out a way to put this in notes. But what we've got here is a lot of, to me, very costly looking equipment. Oh, sorry, long story short. I can find this somewhere by searching, but... I was contacted by a couple different people who said, gosh, I'm so sorry. I'm not up to John Syracuse levels of quoting people about engineering. But one person said they recognized this as a kind of...

venting type thing, I guess. But this is the kind of thing you'd have on like a small museum, that this is a lot of equipment for a place this size, but it does actually do things. We can find out. But anyway. I'm sending you the first one. And look how beautiful everything is. It's all galvanized. And I agree with you. It looks very costly. Like, just look at that test versus off handle.

And then look at that corrugated, the tube thing connecting. I mean, I know y'all can't see this right now. It's, it is legit kind of ludicrous how many different things have been attached to this with attachment things and appear.

I just don't understand how many different things this thing could be dealing with. These are all different kinds of sizes and gauges. This thing's obviously not done yet, but that's the first one I've got is 2023. Does that match with what you remember? Yeah, vaguely. Yeah, that's the thing about this is in the beginning, it definitely looks purposeful. But boy, even in the beginning, there's a lot of stuff. There really is. A lot of expensive looking stuff.

And you're left to wonder. And we'll put a link in the show notes to one of your later posts because I already have one. I'm asked that I'm posted about it. So you will be able to see this. Go look in the show notes. Look for a picture of the apparatus 2024. Yeah. And you'll see what it looked like at that time.

But it's on the outside of a building. There is a pipe coming from the ground that sort of, a black pipe coming from the ground looks like it might be a gas pipe that connects to this. And then you're off to the races.

Yeah. And then there's just tons of stuff. And by the way, there's another thing that seems to go into the house and there are gauges and there are vents and there are just things at all angles. This is before the inspections tags start coming before the bell, before the hose. Like it's just. It's already obscene. Part of it was in concert with the fact that I would go by and I find myself, I would laugh aloud because I would think, oh my God, I think they're still adding stuff to this.

Don't you wish there was a guy there, like the guy who was standing by the big hole at John Roderick Street? Don't you wish there was a guy there with a hard hat so you could talk to him and say, hey, what is that? This is my ravine. Like really for me, but stuff will keep getting added. I just sent you what's going on down there. I just sent you one from November 2nd, 2023, where you can see now they've.

really really big deal um they've added some kind of some a lot of tube tubes some kind of you got a switching box you got a junction box or a switching box and then that now we've got a new uh um vertical tube that goes up to a giant candy apple red bank alarm bell. Yeah, I do wonder if kids don't know what these are because fire alarms in schools don't look like this anymore, but you remember these in the hallway of your schools, right?

Absolutely. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, it was unmissable. But the part that made it funny is like, yes, first of all, the very first time I saw it, I thought it was funny. But it was the way that it continued to sort of build. I've got two more for you. This one, how about... April 9th, 2025. So this is last month. And yes, I do check in. Now, have a look at that.

Oh, let me get you the full view so you can see. Oh, they painted the wall. They did, and they planted things. Oh, the paint job on the junction box. What's going on there? Well, dude, zoom in a little bit near the test and drain tag and look. at the rust and corrosion on these parts. Do you like the thing with the little door that's open that's on a 45 degree angle instead of a line?

And there's that Ariba networking thing sticking out of the side taped onto the electrical thing that is now painted halfway. I mean, how did they need that box? But then also there's so many switches and now there's caps. Again, if you want to follow this, I should figure out a way to just put these all out, but I can put these on my blog probably. That's what I'll do. Remind me to put them on my blog. But like notice for example, but look at, I was going to say, look at that horizontal arm.

above the spkr uh you know where those two come together at a 90 degree angle that is like fully rusted yeah and by the way those those horizontal things What in the world are they doing? Because they're attached to the wall. Right. But what are they doing? That's a huge piece of metal, and there's two of them within millimeters of each other. Does that remind you a little bit of something you'd see? And like that maybe like a Watto. They're greeblies. The Watto would be selling.

Yeah, they're Star Wars greeblies. It's like, don't you worry why all these little pipes and stuff are on the outside of the blinding falcons. Suffice it to say they're all necessary, but you look at this picture and you're like, what are those things doing?

half portion they're not holding the pipe anywhere the pipe is connected to the wall above and connected to like the ground like and they're within millimeters of each other and they and even if you're looking into them you're looking into the mouth of madness like why why would the support have see there's like three rings on the support there's a tube and there's ring one ring two and then like the third interlocking ring why would you need that middle one is that support or is that transit

It doesn't go anywhere. It doesn't do anything. There's nothing in it. It's hollow. It's, yeah, what is it? Goes nowhere, does nothing. GNDN tubes from Star Trek. What do you think of that little thing down below? They've added a new meter. where they bound some, looks like copper wire around. It looks kind of like a water meter. Yes. That's not an angle. It's not straight though. It's 45, 45 degree angle. Why? I don't like to be normative. And then here's what I took this afternoon.

It's not that different, but you can see this is where we are now. So that is between 2023 and now. And you can see this thing. This thing needs some love. Let me give the full view as well. Yeah, that zoom in is great because that rusted thing that I'm talking about.

what in the world is the purpose of all the things? What is in the world? What's the purpose of that thing? Period. And given what you think its purpose is, please explain all the parts of it and how they contribute to its purpose. I think I've got it. So imagine, we're talking about those two Tatooine arms title. Yeah, the rusted things that are a 90 degree angle. That have 75 parts on them. Okay, now if those didn't exist and weren't there at all...

What you'd have is this, I don't know if the word's junction, but you've got a side road off the arterial going down with probably a couple hundred pounds of metal. I bet those are to support that so it doesn't put strain on the main vertical.

You think they're supporting it against gravity? Because I think they are. Oh, I'm not saying they're doing it well. This is certainly not how I would do it, but this is a very Lego solution for this. I don't think they're supporting it against gravity at all, but let's assume that they are. Explain the middle rings.

I think there's probably a thing that goes, okay, you can kind of see it in the top one. There's a, almost like you do with a zip tie. So basically you've got a thing that goes around this approximately five inch, four or five inch.

diameter pipe, and then a very ruggedized, over-engineered bolty thing holds that in place because this looks like something from a goddamn bridge you think it's part of a u-joint that's wrapping the pipe like i get what you're saying but like but how does that keep it from falling down if you support something against gravity how would that do it well that would keep it that would keep it

That part, anyway, moving from side to side. I mean, I'm not sure we keep it anywhere because look what is connecting these rusted things to the building. They seem to be already sort of coming out of the building. Like, how well connected to the building are they? The left one, at least, it looks like it's bolted in. And they got another set of those. What do you think?

What would you think of me starting to add things to this? Would that mess up the project? I do like how your zoom in has a picture of a tag, maybe to spoil the ending here, where it says a total fire protection company. uh and an address do not remove by order of the state of blah blah blah yeah and it's an inspection sticker for april uh some year that i can't see so this is purely some part of the fire protection system but

Boy, is it complicated. Boy, is it now rusting. And it's not even that old. It's only a few years. And it's not like it's out there in those, you know, New England winters you've got in San Francisco. Yeah, it's about a year, year and a half, two years old. Yeah, it's not a particularly challenging weather environment.

just put apparently completely untreated steel outdoors and lo and behold, it's rusting because you do occasionally get rain. I don't know what you call them, but those buckles or buttresses are like whatever it is that are the things that are either joining sections.

I don't know how it works, but all those things you see that are like ring-ish things with two bolts on it. Yeah, the little clampy things. I can't believe that this was the plan from anywhere near the beginning. There's so many of those squeezy pipey things. So many. Just like, what are they clamping?

It clamps nothing. If you start from like the red one that's sort of at the bottom there, red, silver, silver, silver, like between the red and the silver one, am I to believe that that stretch of pipe is separate? And that if those clamps weren't there, there would be gaps. Yeah. Is this pipe made out of like one centimeter sections all joined by these clampy things?

I mean, and the thing is, at a certain point, you start out, like I say, you start asking yourself, well, what's next? Because there's still room that could add things to this, that could add things that are purely ornamental. But, like, it is... It is, okay, okay, how about this? I remember this being featured, I think, in the This Old House forum. I forget what it was called, but there was that wonderful series of home jobs. Of like stuff people had like fixed, like DIY'd.

that was you know i'm talking about like terrible what do you call that like terrible diy stuff where you're like yeah i'm running i'm running my all my extension cords to run the house all like go under the drain for the you know or whatever there'd be like a hole in the wall or the the famous one you see

line a lot is like someone didn't bring their international adapter for like the uk plug and so instead they use a nail clipper and a paper clip to connect their us plug to the uk plug life hack Yeah, and it's just hanging there. Uh-huh. Exposed metal all the way down. Hello, governor. I have some bad news about your boy. I'm really glad you brought it up.

I'm going to keep checking on it. Oh, let me ask you this. Is there anything that you would like me to get better details on? Well, so do you have an answer for me? What is this thing? Really? the word i keep searching for and keep ending up on is venting but like i think it is a control it's it's control um devices for dealing with water and gas, internal, like gas, it's like all the things that run in pipes.

This is a very big, very over-engineered way to use this. And that's why I say, and I can go, I can, I don't remember where it was. I'll see if I can't find anything on the internet anymore. But the person who wrote this really nice long kind of, several people wrote about it and guessed what it was. But one fellow who sounded like he knew what he was talking about.

I remember him saying something like, this is smaller than the one we had at a museum that I worked at. Right? But I think it's for getting, safely getting... pressurized things in tubes, like keeping that safe in the house. I don't know. And yet it's a thing that exists outdoors. So let's do this. Shall I make this a blog post?

where I could have lots or like a selection of a lot. I mean, don't give the internet a mystery, as you say, but in this case, sure, give them a mystery. Yeah, I'd like to know more about it. I mean, I would not mind actually a little bit of detail. on even like, if there's one part of this that makes sense to you, you know, it's like they say, it depends on what part of the apparatus you're holding, you know, the old wise men.

But now it makes me happy that it's around. So let me ask you, though, is there anything you want a better view of? Anything where you want to see how it's progressed? Do you want to know how many PSI? you know, the motherboard is off-gassing. I can kind of see how they think they're connecting some of these supposed support thingies here. But it really just is. I mean, you should have Dr. Drang look at this and say, if you wanted to.

If you wanted to support that pipe against the force of gravity. Is that how you would do it? Would you ever do, like, because, for example, so look on the left, the left of the thing where it's got a, the big brass looking like fireman plug thing, right? Um. On the which part? Far left. It's got a big circular brass fitting where you go to connect like a fireman hose or something.

Oh, so is it now the one that's now capped with the red cap? It says, you know, something SPKR. SPKR? Yeah, yeah. That's got a red Holdiani cap now. But that looks like a fire hose. That looks like a fire hose. Yeah. So... You have a good look at that one with those two quote unquote supports, like the two rusty things. Look at what is, you can see it, you get a good view of how the support that goes to the right is connected. That's support. It reminds me of like a Warner Brothers cartoon.

I mean, it really seems a little bit like when they're waiting, when the firemen have the trampoline and the person just falls next to it. And I think if I understand what you're saying, those two Tatooine supports. Like they may be useful at keeping it from rocking side to side, but that is not.

That is not the way loads work, especially over that length. Yeah, because they're connected to the wall with a single pivot point. If that thing weighed 50 pounds, I'm sure it weighs more than that. Just the weight of the arm should be rotating it against, because you see the screw that is like the bolt that's bolting, like the rivet, whatever.

everything's pushing it is connecting it to the wall that's a single point that it's connected to the wall and that is the axis along which it's trying to stop rotation

I feel like if you just put that in the wall. It's going to be like that Marriott with the walkways that fell down. I think the pipe is holding the support up, not the other way around. Because if you just put that support in the wall like that with no pipe and waited a day, it would rotate downwards. I hear you. That changes a lot about the whole situation.

If you end up studying this and finding things that you want to know more about, you know, I hate to put it this way, John, but there's one thing we haven't tried yet. I hate to admit it. Should we see what the dingus says?

You can ask the dingus whatever you want. It's probably just going to find your own toots about it. Interestingly, the... the the ball valves at the bottom do you see those like red handles like little airplane wings yeah the things the things with two little airplane wings they're like flat uh they have rubber red rubber coating on them and they're flat pieces of metal

You see two of them down near the bottom, one on the right, one on the left. Are you on the current day photos? I'm on one of the older ones that shows the whole thing. But yeah, you can. Oh, I see. Not the zoom. Oh my God, this thing used to look so much better. Yeah.

Whoa, whoa, what's that carburetor thing down there? What does that do? The thing looks like a little, like a, like a carburation system? What in the hell? Also, did you look at the bell today, John? Have you seen how the bell looks? The bell is not well. And I got an accidental selfie with it that I'm sending you right now. But look how rusty that bell is. Rusty Bell would be a good name for a country singer.

I sent you the pictures. Yeah, the bells already. I mean, it's not like it's a New England winter. Oh, no. That's so bad. They're using the toe jam grabber. To stick into the top part. You're looking at the outlet picture I sent you. Oh, I sure am. I love the ones with water. Those are some of my favorites. Anyway, so look at the things I circled in my picture that I sent you. Okay.

Which, stupid preview, turned into perfect ovals. And those appeared... What do I recognize these from? So that's a ball valve inside the pipe. to stop and start the flow of things. And that's the kind where there's a ball in there, and when you turn it, that squeezes the ball into the area to keep it... No, the ball, it's a sphere with a cylinder cut out through it.

and when you rotate it so the cylinder is in line with the pipe stuff flows when you rotate it the other way uh you just the sides of the ball and it's not it impedes flow okay okay uh but anyway that position those things are in those are both off you can tell

Yeah, because the way all these valves work is when the handles are in line with the pipe, it allows flow. And when they're at 90 degrees to the pipe, that's false. Can you tell what it is that's flowing here? And what is this little fireman's key? I don't know what that is. I don't know.

Shut. It says shut. I'm sorry to be so simple, John. I went to a liberal arts school in Florida. Do you think we're dealing with liquid here? Do you think we're dealing with, I'm guessing gas. I mean, the pipe coming out of the ground definitely looks like a gas line.

It looks like a steel gas tank. But the fireman's hose, not the fireman's key. That's a different book. But the fireman's hose, that looks very hosy for water. Like, maybe that's the supply water. Do you see the red drip inside the hosy thing, though? in uh in uh but by the by the uh by the the big thing yeah by the uh what do you call it by the spkr uh-huh okay look inside there there's like this little red drippy stuff see i've got all mine have the cap on

I have one when the wall was still beige that does not have the cap on. Yeah, I prefer that. What do you think of the foliage? You like that? Oh, I see. Here we go. I'm zooming in. Okay, so I've got an auto speaker. It still looks brass. It hasn't rusted. Only the fittings holding up the bars have rusted at this point.

The bar itself appears to be mostly intact. It looks like the kind of thing you hit somebody with includes. The loose pipe that is... Loose pipe! I think I understand. I'm not an engineer, John, but I think I understand what you're saying. Like, if I did this as a project... And I'm looking here at November 2nd. You can find it. But, you know, with that bolt and what appears to be a bolt and a, not a washer, but.

something like washer. Well, if that got a load on it, is there a possibility that all it would do is turn on the axis of where... Is there a chance the track could bend? Not in your life, my Hindu friend. I think I messed up the lyrics. No, you're pretty good. You're pretty good.

He can't open his pudding cup. I find this very much more concerning if it's not a joke, if it's not an art installation. All right, well, I'll go in. You know what I'll do is I'll just go in, like, maybe we could live stream it, but I'll go in and just look for whatever else is going. Now, if you want to know...

privately some other stuff i got a lot i got a lot of i've been taking pictures of my neighbors oh it's like it's like day of the it's like day of the doctor you know i've been i've been working my whole life for this I'll send you some notices that used to be up. Those are all there. I'll get some more photos. I saw a big sign just today when I was walking the dog. There was a portrait orientation piece of poster board, white poster board.

on it in black com like comically like black hand painted like i don't even know what they used to do it i guess maybe like a one inch wide sharpie or something it said hey exclamation point bring back our flowers Hey, bring back our flowers. Somebody stole their flowers. Hey, exclamation point. Bring back our flowers, exclamation point. Handwritten on a white piece of poster board propped up against the fence of somebody's house facing the side. I bet it's near where the flowers used to be.

I walk by the house when I walk my dog like every day, okay? I'm not aware of what flowers they might be talking about. I haven't been on Nextdoor in literally years, but when I would look at Nextdoor... I mean, next to, you know, people of color being in the neighborhood when nobody's supposed to be in the area, plant stealing is a big one on next door. Like they took my cactus. Why would somebody take my cactus? They took my cactus.

You know, please. What is it? Hey, bring back my flowers. Yeah. Bring back our flowers? I almost took a picture of it, but I didn't want to be that person. But maybe tomorrow I'll take a picture of it if the sign is still there. But honestly, I have no idea which flowers. And I will say that they're... I will say there is someone who lives in this house who is a bit of a flower thief, but I am not aware of any flowers that could have been stolen from that property.

Without naming any names, you're saying like, this is not anything related to anybody, but like if, for example, somebody had four phones and was playing Pokemon and they saw a flower. No, it's not her. She understands the concept of personal property.

You know who doesn't understand the concept of personal property? No, who? Children. Children. And that's because everything is theirs. I think it's all for them. You just ask my wife, all of her shoes get stretched out because my daughter has bigger feet, puts them on. All for you, Damien. And then when she complains, yeah, when she complains, my, you know, my daughter says, she says, you need to learn how to share mom. Oh my goodness. Because everything that is hers is also my daughter's.

But she's also not good at password management. She's also the lavender thief. Going to college. That's a nickname I had for her for many years. Is that a name of an Agatha Christie book? It's the name of my daughter, the lavender thief. She has been known to take some lavender because she believes that it is in a place that is public or it's just part of nature or some other excuse. But anyway. Have you two disagreed about the provenance of the lavender?

But what I'm saying is, I don't understand what could have been stolen from the house with the sign because there's no flowers there to speak of. It was probably like a little flower in a pot. Now, I've told you here. I've had to cut back on my plants here because it's pretty dark in my office. It doesn't get a lot of sun. That means not to put them outside, but it's San Francisco. So like anything you put outside is for anybody.

That's just understood. So I put out a mother-in-law's tongue in a beautiful pot on wheels. I started doing stuff like I'd like, like, you know, sort of like to show that this is not abandoned. I would like hang a spritzy bottle on it or something because it needs sun. And my mother-in-law's tongue needs sun. You're just worried people are going to come and pee in it.

No, not at all. I don't worry about that. I remember Will Shipley had a camera on his porch long before most people had security cameras, and the only thing he would post is pictures of people who would come onto his porch and pee in his plants, those potted plants that are on his porch. Do you know?

The first time that I was ever in the New York Times, off the top of your head. I don't. I didn't know you were ever in the New York Times. Oh, and maybe with the Shinji thing, right? Are you talking about the evangelist? Digital prophet, yeah. The digital prophet. No, no. I had taken a photo with my camera on my telephone of a man. So you remember where that photo of us is by the Walgreens?

Remember, like roughly. So you remember there's a playground and there's that Walgreens. And so like looking at that photo of me and you, Walgreens would be like right behind us and to the right. Walgreens is gone now. It's gone. Across the street, if you look straight across the street, on the one side there's a KFC, on the other side there's the public library that I took my kid to three times a week, my baby. And there was a man urinating.

on a tree outside the library. And, you know, it's super weird sometimes when people do stuff in there. Sometimes people do stuff and they act sketchy. And it's difficult for everybody. What's weirder is sometimes people do stuff and they don't act sketchy, which makes it seem surreal. So an older man, a local man, just walks up, urinates.

and then takes his leave. And I took a photo of the man from the back urinating on a tree. Yeah, on a tree is, of all the place to go outside, not bad, right? It's right by the library. Sure. It's right by the ramp. It's better than going up to someone's porch and peeing in their plants. Well, we also had a problem inside the library where there were people who made a, I don't know if you ever get this at a local bathroom. Like, for example, hey, Jim, be ready.

Back in Sarasota, they're on, you know, Tamiami Trail 41. The public's by my house. They had somebody called the Phantom. And that was somebody who they eventually discovered. It was a woman who had some.

issues, who would come into the public's, go into the public restroom on the toilet, and she would poop in lazy circles all around the toilet. And she'd do that a couple times a week. She'd just come in and do that. That's going to be a pretty good core strength to do that. You know what I mean?

And focus. Yeah. Dedication to your craft? Well, you know, you're not going to get it the first time. I mean, it's like Bob Fosse. You can easily slip and hurt yourself. Absolutely. Now then, on the other hand, here in San Francisco at our library... There was a guy who just liked to ruin the bathroom. And so like one time, you know, my baby was such a baby that, you know, I wouldn't let the baby go to the bathroom alone.

Right. So I bring my baby into the men's room with me. And there was a guy in there who obviously had a lot going on one time. The man walks out of the bathroom, the only stall there. He has just, he's just laid down some serious track. On top of which, he's taken every roll of toilet paper that's sitting there for future people to use, and he stuffed it all into the toilet and walked away. Yeah, that's the move. Why do people do that, John? Is it a sex thing?

is it sexy i feel like it's it's like the attempt to fix which rapidly you discover that there is no fix and you're just like shove shove shove leave leave leave shove shove shove leave leave well i remarked about it To the man and to the librarians as the person was walking out. And of course, my kid hates this. I have no problem at all confronting people about bad behavior in public. And my kid hates it. It's amazing you're still alive.

I think it's amazing the world's still how it is. And that I have to be out there putting- You haven't fixed it by now. It's not mine to fix, but I do put myself on the line. I'm the one, I'm the watcher on the wall. Yeah, it's not Roderick on the line.