19: Meat and booze camp with Shane Nickerson

Hey Jason. Hey, what's up? Not much. Scrambling to get off a client call for our little scheduled podcast here. Work always seems to get in the way. Airplane mode. It's our friend.

No shit. No shit. Yes, I've been out in barn mode. I'm covered in crap and spiders and definitely it's been an interesting morning basically having stuff thrown on my head all day. Right. But your absence got me to give me a second to catch up on my Candy Crush Saga progress. So I got hooked on that game a little bit ago and I recommend that anybody who sees

the Facebook updates from their friends, defriend them and never install the app and run screaming. Um, I mean, I've just, I see a stream of it in the little feed thing all the time. I have, I actually have no idea what it even is and I never will. So it's basically, it's like bejeweled, but with puzzles and it costs you a lot of money. It costs you like real money. Oh, it sucks you in for free. And then it's like you get stuck. It's one of those things where you only have X amount

of lives for X amount of time and then it takes time to regenerate the lives. Oh, so you can pay for extra lives if you're like close to a puzzle and you want to solve it. So, you know, buck will get you five more lives. A buck will get you a cheat on a puzzle. A buck will get you this. A buck will get you that. And once you hit a certain amount of levels, another buck to get to the next set levels. Wow. Wow. They nickel and dime you to death. So I'm literally just watching money disappear as I see those, that stream go by. Yeah. That's it. That's it. Every time you see one of

those, somebody has given them money. Wow. Crazy, crazy stuff. Yeah. Um, never played it. Never will. Not going to. And, uh, I wish there, I'm sure there must be a way to block that so I can, don't even see it anymore, but yeah, I'm pretty sure there is. Who knows? I used to know such things about Facebook, but they change everything so often. Yeah. Who cares? Yep. So we've got a little follow-up. Yes, we do. You want to go with this one? Uh, all you. This is interesting though.

Okay. So, uh, last week we did a story about, uh, Monsanto buying Blackwater and, uh, well, we linked to a site and it was one of the sites that we said, uh, well, we don't really know this outlet. And so, you know, caveat emptor, we taking, taking this one with a grain of salt. Yep. So this morning we get feedback from the owner of the site saying the next time that someone of your

crowd spams my site, I will hack your site. Yes. From PJ, from PJ at southweb.org. Thanks PJ. Thanks buddy. Um, well, you know, it's, uh, yeah. So there we go about that site. We know what that's about. It's not real. It's, it's a complete load of crap. Um, you know, run by obviously a teenager with, uh, angst issues. Yes. So, uh, I don't, you know, um, did, I didn't actually see

any spam or any comments, but, uh, no, I mean, we get, we get about enough traffic to, uh, I mean, like all 12 people went over and clicked at the same time. I don't know, maybe he's running on a server from 1996 and it just couldn't handle the load. Maybe, maybe. So, um, you know, as a followup for that as well, I didn't actually see anything about this story on any mainstream media at all. Zippo zero. So I'm not so sure about it and you know, fuck you PJ. Yeah. Sorry,

buddy. Hack away. Hack away. Yeah. You know, it's one of those things where you, you've just stated your intent. And if anything happens on my site, I know who you are and I know where to find you. So, and I will happily pass this one over to any federal authority that would like to take a whack at you. Yeah. So there you go. I want to think about those things before you put them in an email.

Oops. Yeah. It was a fun one to get this morning. I was like, oh, wow, that's cool. Good times. Speaking of hacking, WordPress 3.6 is out. Yep. You took my line. Yeah. I just did a bunch of updates yesterday on a bunch of sites.

And, uh, you know, you got to do that to make sure they don't get hacked. Yeah. It was pretty much my evening was going through and updating plugins and WordPress and so far so good. Yeah. It's, it's for, you know, one of the very few times that I've actually done a WordPress update that, that things didn't break. So everything seems to be running smoothly.

That's a point release. You know, it's not a big one. Yeah. So anybody out there with the, with your WordPress sites, you better go do your updates. Yep. Like everybody else. Like everybody else. So as soon as the exploits for 3.6 come out, we can all get hacked together by PJ. By PJ. Who's going to go on a rampage against all of our listeners.

All 12 of them. All 12. So we've got a couple of links that we've been kind of rounding up this week for a quick thing that it's, it's not really follow up, but it doesn't really fit into any of our other kind of segments. Right. Um, and I want to start with the one that you put up, which is basically, uh, is life hacking another way to make us work more?

Exactly. I've been starting to think that myself recently as well. Um, you know, you and I are both kind of into the life hacking thing. We're, we're always looking for ways that, uh, you know, we're tech people. So let's, let's use knowledge and information and science and technology to make our lives better and quicker and easier and faster. And I've started to realize that I just have like a list of 10 to 15 to 20 things that I try to do every single day and it's just starting to kill me.

So, yeah, I, I don't know if I've had the same, same, uh, results as you have, or this guy has, it's like his, his premise is, okay, you're being more efficient so then you can work more later. Right. And I kind of take the, the approach that's, oh, I've done my work. Now I want to relax.

I want to not think of work. Yeah. So, you know, I think maybe I'm, I'm just doing it right. Maybe you are. Maybe you are. It's, um, you know, I, I don't know where I fall on this. I mean, it's, uh, it's just an interesting, different take on it because I've been so immersed in, in the like life hacker concept recently. Um, you know, I'm even the life hacker site.

I like, I like that site. I like the tips. There's so much stuff, but I do start to feel myself burning out. And I think maybe that's just human nature and it's maybe just because I'm being a little bit too regimented about things and just, you know, I have to do my Lumosity and then I have to go do my little, you know, Buddhify app so I can get a little bit of a meditation and then, oh, now it's P90X time and blah, blah, blah. So.

Yeah. Yeah. I, you know, I get up, I do a few little things and do my work and go outside. Right. So I don't have, I don't have that list. I chopped down all that crap long ago. If I have a little bit of time, then I'll read some news or, or whatever. But yeah, it's like, I focus all my attention on getting as much work done as I can as quickly as I can so I can go about doing other stuff.

Right. Yep. Maybe I just need to life hack my life hacking. Yeah. I mean, just look at it. Here's the deal. Look at the goal. What's the goal of all the life hacking? If the, if your goal is more productivity and you just can work yourself to the bone, go for it. If you're 20, you're not 20. I'm not 20. Yeah, exactly. You know, I use it for the right reasons, which is to be able to work less.

Cool. Yeah. I don't know. It's a, it's a, it's a good read though. I enjoyed it. It's linked in the show notes. Yep. It's a good little article and definitely, I mean, it touches on a lot of the other things that, that we both really like too. I mean, you know, you got your, your Ferris is in there and your four hour body and your, you know, all that sort of stuff. So if you know, read the article, if that intrigues you, lots of other things in there to follow up on and check out. So yeah. And, uh, the show notes will be at grumpy old geeks.com slash

19 this week. This is the episode of 19. Yes. Pretty crazy. Yeah. The other thing that I want to talk about real quick is actually a post from Tim Ferris's blog. Um, it's called understanding the dangers of ego depletion. And this is something that we talked about before is where like every day you only have so much cognitive load and everything that you do,

you spend some and like any complex thing basically wears you down. And this kind of brings it into another article that came out this week that was really good. And it's called your app makes me fat, my serious pony. And, and it's a really good take because what it, what it basically points out is the harder your app is to use, the more people are going to be willing

to buy stuff later. Right. So it's in, when I think about that, I'm like, Oh, then I think about all the creepy landing pages that all these social media marketers come up with that are about a mile long. So by the time you get to the bottom of looking at all this text, looking at all these videos, you are so like ready to just end it all and hit buy. Yeah. You know, just the psychology behind that. You know, it's interesting because I just read another article that was very similar

to that, which, which I'll have to find after. And we'll throw in the show notes as well that talks about, um, the wave of, of the marketing that's out there right now, especially on the social thing that, that makes you sit through basically a 30 minute infomercial gives you no way to buy anything, no information about buying it until the 30 minutes is over. And their thought is if you sit through this entire 30 minutes, you're going to fucking buy the damn thing because you've invested all that time already. Yep. So it's, yeah, there's a lot of that going on right now, which is kind of an

interesting theory on how our brains work. So yeah, they're using psychology against us heavily now. And if you know what, what they're doing, it's easier to kind of avoid the pitfalls. Yeah. When you say, when you see those like telltale signals run, just turn, change the channel. Yeah. Click, close the page. Yeah. If you go on to any page that's trying to sell you something and you see no easy way to buy it at all whatsoever, and it's just a lot to read and a lot to watch first, don't bother. Yeah. It's like going to a restaurant and they don't have the prices on the menu.

You probably shouldn't be there. Yes. So yeah, that's, uh, that's really interesting. But the ego depletion thing, I really enjoyed that article as well. So that was, um, you know, I go back and forth on Tim Ferriss, but I really did like this article. So he did a great job with it.

Yep. Very cool. All right. We are here today in studio, sort of. I'm in, I'm in my mother's basement and, uh, everybody else is in sunny California, but it's not sunny today. Uh, well, good. That's all I got to say is good. Uh, we are joined by the awesome Mr. Shane Nickerson. Hi, that's a great setup for

me. I enjoyed being called the awesome anything. Well, you are Mr. Awesome. Yeah. It's me. Actor, comedian, producer, podcaster, writer, awesome all around dude. Well, thank you. That's very, very kind. So, uh, I want to get you on the show today cause I saw you, you made a great post the other day about, uh, the things you've learned as you're getting older. And I noticed, Oh, we're,

we're almost identical in age. Are you for, are you in your forties as well? I turned 42 on Monday. Oh yeah, we are. I'm, I turn a 42 on August 27th. Yeah. Well, I'm the baby. I just turned 40, but, uh, I'm in there. So you're over 40. You're one of us. Yes, I know. Yeah. I can't make fun of them anymore for being the baby. So, uh, I saw that you were, I was actually going to get in

touch with you a while ago about being on the podcast when we first started. And then I saw you had your own podcast. Yeah. I, my friend AJ Gentile, do you know AJ Gentile? You might know him. He has, he has, uh, he's been on the internet for a long time. Egg Radio. Do you know Egg Radio? Mm-mm. Okay. Well, anyway, he, um, I've known him back from the, the glory days of blogging, uh, in like the early two thousands, I guess. Um, and we've stayed in touch. And then he now

runs a studio called the joint studios and he called me and he was like, dude, come do a podcast. You'd be great. You, all you have to do is show up. And so I was like, man, if I can't do a podcast where all I have to do is show up, I'm never going to do it. So it was a no brainer. And I just started calling my friends and asking them to come on. I didn't really have a format and we just kind of talk about their journey. A lot of them are performers or actors or in the industry somehow. Cause that tends to be what my circle of friends is. Um, and we just talk about what they do and how they got

there and what makes them happy and what they've learned. Um, I'm at that point in my life where I just, I, I'm really hungry for knowledge from other people on what, you know, once you get over that hurdle of being, I guess, a middle eight or young adult into sort of a real grownup, right? What keeps you happy? How do you stay, how do you stay driven and have, keep having new dreams? And you know, it's hard. Yeah. Especially because, you know, when you get to kind of our age that a bit

of that drive is gone, we don't really feel the hunger and the need anymore. Uh, you know, especially, you know, if you've made it to at least some sort of level or some success that you're happy with, you're not burning for it. That's, that's the, that is a fact. Like if, if you can get to a point where you can eat a good meal every now and then and get a, you know, buy the nicer bottle of scotch and, you know, just feel pretty happy, pretty contentedness is like an enemy of creativeness. It's very dangerous. It is. Tell me about it. Yeah. And,

and so it's a real struggle, I think, to keep looking for that fire and finding new things to inspire you. And so I'm always in, I'm always impressed by how my friends do it. Cause I'm, you know, I have a lot of friends that just managed to keep producing stuff and find new shit. I don't know. I want, I want all that knowledge. I want to take it all.

Yeah. I think that's a, that's a big reason why Jason and I started doing our podcast as well as was it's a new challenge for us, something new and it forces us to keep looking and seeing things that are out there. So absolutely. I was definitely a lot more bored with the internet before we started doing this. I reached a burnout level where I was just like, eh, this is just so boring and there's nothing interesting out there anymore. And, uh, this kind of forces us to play around with it again.

Absolutely. And you, you know, you go, you do it kind of not knowing what it's going to be or why even sometimes you do stuff and you don't know why you're doing it. You just know you have to, and you end up just building all these new connections and all this, you know, new excitement for a new thing kind of feeds that creative mind and reactivates kind of dead or sometimes just stagnant parts of your brain.

Right. Yeah, definitely. I mean, when we started this half of, half of the original episodes, I think we're just as bitching about, you know, how crappy it is being online anymore and how we can't find work and, and all this. And in, in the past couple months, like I, it's completely reinvigorated how I look at the internet, like how I look at new opportunities. It's got my creative side completely rejuvenated. So, you know, podcasting has definitely been one of the highlights of this year for me. So I totally get where you're coming from. And,

and by the way, your show is fucking hilarious. Oh, that's nice. I was, I listened to your new episode last night and I was cracking up with the, all the impersonations. Oh, thanks man. I swear to God when I, the greatest part about that podcast is I don't imagine that anyone's ever listening. Like I'm not doing, I'm really not doing it for an audience. I'm, we're kind of there making ourselves laugh and I assume no one's ever going to download it. And not, not out of negativity, just because there's so many podcasts, who has time to listen to podcasts, but it's great to hear that someone, someone out there is hearing it. That's awesome.

No, that is, I mean, that's the funny thing about podcasting now. I mean, you referenced like blogging back, you know, 10 years ago. Now everybody is podcasting. Everyone it's, it's almost, it's impossible to really kind of be seen out there or stand apart anymore. So, but it doesn't really matter. Like, I mean, Jason and I originally set out and said, we're just going to do 10 and if we don't have an audience by the end of 10, to hell with it. And I actually do it for me. I mean, I really do. So if people listen, that's great. But if they don't, so what?

It's one of the first things, I mean, blogging, I guess, was similar, but it's one of the, one of the few things I do that I just really don't have an end goal for it. I'm not trying to get somewhere else. I'm not using it as a springboard into, I don't care. I just, it, it, it, it satisfies something in me and it's a good excuse to talk to my friends in a way that has become kind of unacceptable. You know, you just, nobody wants to talk about what they do at a party. Nobody wants to brag about their career. Everyone is just so close

to the vest on everything they do, not because they don't want to say it, because they feel weird talking about good shit. And so it's a perfect setting for me to drag out all the cool, good shit that people are doing and my friends are doing. And I feel like, why not talk about it? You can do it in a way that doesn't sound braggy or gloaty. And sometimes people can learn something from it, I think.

Yeah, that's a really interesting point too, because people don't generally like to talk about what they do and don't like to stroke their own egos or even mention their accomplishments in regular conversations. Yet we're surrounded by it nonstop with social media in short person. Everybody's totally comfortable doing it there, but not in a real conversation.

You're absolutely right. And even in social media, there's kind of an unspoken rule about how much you can do it. You have to couch it with real life stuff that doesn't have an ulterior motive, even though it sort of does, and you can almost always see through it. But I don't know. I feel like there's the backlash of people being overly critical of the way people present their projects and the things they're doing is that nobody ever wants to talk about them. So

there's two things that are bad about that. One, you don't get inspired by hearing the cool shit that people are doing. And two, your networking ability and your ability to maybe bring someone into something they might be right for or reach out to someone who might have expertise in an area becomes smaller because you don't even know what people do. I follow so many people on Twitter that I have no fucking idea what they do in real life. And if I did, maybe we could work together or

collaborate on something or our worlds would combine in a great way. But everyone's so like against talking about themselves. I don't know. I'm not saying everyone should be bragging all the time about what they do. But I don't think people should be ashamed to mention cool shit just because they're afraid people might be like, Oh, you dropped the name. Oh, oh, fucking humble brag. No, it's not dude.

It's just my life. Like this is where I am right now. And I, I want to share with my friends. If you happen to take that the wrong way, fuck off. That's how I feel about it. Well said. Well said. There's a fine line though. I mean, obviously the fucking, but the braggart, the braggarts are annoying, but, but if it's your friend, you want to fucking be excited for them. You want to see their cool picture. Oh, you're hanging out with fucking sting. Yeah. Sit, put that fucking on Instagram immediately. Of course you should. Don't worry about it.

Right. Maybe, maybe not sting. Anyone but sting. Anybody was, you know, sting 20 years ago. Cool. Not anymore now. Yeah. Yeah. So, uh, how do you see Twitter changing? Like as it's, as it's growing and people, you know, trying to pimp their own stuff and trying to keep that balance because you're on, you're, I mean, you're, you know, very, very well versed in Twitter. You use it very well. So how, how have you seen it change over the past couple

years, you know, people learning how to use it. And now that it's become like an established medium of chit chat as it were, how it's changed. I think that, um, that, that, that, the joyful, um, novelty of Twitter is gone. Um, I don't know if that's a bad thing, but there was a time when I think the most exciting part about Twitter was that at the very beginning of it, or at least when

it really first started taking off for a short amount of time, it was, everybody was on the same playing field. And, and that means from, from Lady Gaga to the guy who has three followers and no one really kind of knew what they were doing. And, and there was communication that it was really a novelty to see communication between a megastar and some random fan. It was because it, in a way it was the first time that could happen that immediately. So that part

of it is gone now. Now I think at least for the most part, uh, celebrities are pretty savvy about it. Um, some, you always see the new ones coming in who are just trying to figure it out. And those are, it's still fun to see those people floundering, but I only really know about a sliver of Twitter because I don't, I follow mostly entertainment people and funny people. That's, that's how I use it.

And I use it a little bit for news, maybe a little bit for like, I follow the Red Sox, like a tiny bit of sports, but it's mostly just for me, people that entertain me and it makes me laugh. So I see the comedy evolving on Twitter. That's probably what I noticed the most is that the evolution of comedy and, um, joke formats being replaced by newer, cooler, um, more, uh, forward thinking joke, joke formats. Um, that that's to me the most noticeable change. And I think people

don't use it as much, honestly, but you know, another big thing is that I really believe most people don't read Twitter at all. I think most people just use it as a, as a amplification system for their own voice. And then they'll happen to read whatever is around what they wrote. And then they just fucking fast forward through the other 900 things they didn't want to get to.

I, I've, I've always had that feeling about Twitter. Like, uh, I, you know, Jason knows that I'm kind of not, I'm not into Twitter. I'm like a Facebook guy because I think you get that more personal connection. I like my social media really to be about my friends and groups of people I actually know. Um, I, I burn out on Twitter instantly. I can't read. I don't follow, you know, I, I, every now and then I go through these phases where like, okay, I've, I've got this list of people on Twitter that I really liked that I really think are funny. And I just

never, ever look. It's just, it's a, it's too much of a wave of constant information for me to even process. Yeah, it definitely is. It, at first it was a problem for me where it was like, I felt like my brain, my brain was being stripped of serotonin or something like I, I, I couldn't stop thinking about it. I was, I was compulsively checking. And then you just do get to a point where you have to say enough is enough. I, I, I, for me, it was like my kids were coming into the room and I'd be like, hold on, daddy's got to catch up on the last 160 tweets he didn't read. And I'm like, what the fuck is wrong

with you? I don't even know half of these people. Like I'm trying to impress all these people. I don't know. And ignoring the people I love. Yeah. That's, that's always been, I, I definitely remember that, that feeling back in the day when it was just like, I can't, I can't miss anything. Something might've happened that was important. What, you know, and it drains you by the end of the day. You're, you know, you, you sat in your chair for like seven hours, just reading what other people are doing.

You haven't done a damn thing. Exactly. And you mentioned like using social media for, for just friends. I find it impossible. I tried it with path and then I ended up getting friend requests from those fringe people that are kind of your friends, but you feel bad saying no. And you kind of end up saying yes. But then again, you're bogged down with their bullshit that you don't care about. And I, I don't, I can't find a way to use social media to just follow my friends.

I can't figure out, I don't want to go through Facebook and like sort everyone. I'm not going to mute, you know, I just don't have the time. And so I don't know. I wish I could do that. I would love to have just family and like close, close friends. Yeah. I mean that you literally do have to kind of put in the time. Like for, for me, I just made a group called literally family and a group called close friends. And, uh, you know, as, as I see my Facebook feed throughout like the two or three weeks, I would just add people in to those groups. You know, I'm sure I probably missed a few people, but in general,

they're pretty spot on. And it does, you know, when I start to feel brain overload, it's great to just be able to see only what's happening with my close friends and filter out all the other stuff. So it is a lot of it is garbage. I mean, even people that you, you kind of care about, you know, after a while, really, I, I think checking in with your high school class once every 10 years is, is way better than knowing every step of their life.

It's just a lot of back. It's a lot of mental baggage to keep track of all the people because your brain wants to do it. Your brain wants to let know like, Oh, uh, that girl, I remember her. She was in my science class. She had a baby. Great filed. And like, it does that for everything rather than just maybe just ignoring it and just going to the people that really matter and saving the, I don't know, mental capacity for other stuff.

Yeah. Yeah. It's a really interesting point. It's how much do I need to know about people that I actually haven't seen in person for 15 years versus gee, what is my wife doing today? Yeah, exactly. Yeah. It's hogging the ROM. Well, we actually just covered that in the intro before you got here talking about cognitive load and ego depletion and how like it just, you only have so much per day, you know, and once the tank runs dry, the tank's dry.

Yeah, absolutely. And it also starts to eat into creative energy. So I know when I get busy work-wise, I, not only do I not have time to really focus on like composing a funny tweet, but I really don't care. And, um, and that makes it difficult to keep up, but there's something very liberating about just giving up and not keeping up and just checking in when you can.

And who cares? And you're right. I mean, the, the brain, you know, we are kind of addicted to this stuff. It is a bit of a drug. I mean, there are days where I've sat here and I should be doing something creative. I should be turning over to, you know, away from my desk and maybe go write some music or something like that. But instead I just get sucked into the feed and I'm just reloading. And, you know, it, you know, the brain thinks it's working when it's just like getting all this information about people that you don't ever even know or see.

Right. And you can just sit here for eight hours easily and not do anything at all for yourself. Mm-hmm. Yeah. I think maybe it's, uh, we're at the, we're just part of this era of time, this portion of time where we're adjusting to this influx, massive influx of new technology. And, and that means kind of in a, we're sort of still in a lawless land of not knowing what the etiquette

is. And, and it's almost like just being turned loose on a room full of like candy and drugs and hookers and whatever, like you just run in and you just can't get like, you're grabbing everything. You don't even know how to deal with it, but it's, it's sort of like the U S you know, we're like still an adolescent, but if you look at like Europe and France, like they've figured out like, Oh no, don't worry about why like kids can have wine.

They're going to be fine. That's that eventually will happen with all this technology where we have a kind of have a handle on it and it's not so new or novel. And we're not so excited by every new stupid fucking startup that has no vowels. You know, you know, you know where they're, they really have, have kind of nailed it in Europe as titties on TV. I think we need, we need to get to that point in our, in our cultural development. We're getting there.

I mean, the only thing that we, the only thing that's going to hold it up is if there's some like religious resurgence that shuts it down for another 50 years. Like there's all of a sudden the Quakers come back or something. I mean, we got to hope that doesn't happen. I think we're actually there guys. I mean, you know, the major networks are pretty much dead. Who watches NBC or ABC anymore? It's all about HBO and they've got a game of thrones is what I call tits and swords. I mean, it's all boobs. So we're there.

You make a good point. You make a very good point. Yeah, but that's still cable. You know, like FX is getting close, but it's usually just man-ass on Sons of Anarchy. So it's, we need, we need, but who doesn't love man-ass? Firm. You're right though. HBO is, I mean, this delineation between cable and network is so ridiculous. Everyone has it all. So it's just TV.

We're kind of the last generation that I think even knows that delineation. I mean, it's a day. They just don't even understand major broadcast network. What the, what, what? There's no difference to them. Well, yeah, cause they're pulling all their shit down off of Amazon prime or from, you know, torrent. Yep. Definitely. So I wanted to talk to you. You said you were, um, well, like when you're working, you don't have time to tweet and your day job is pretty damn interesting.

And I saw that you're going back in, into production for a new season. Yeah. So we have another season. Tell us about what you do. Okay. I'm a, I'm a TV producer. Um, and I've been working with Rob Dyrdek, who's a skateboarder and business per businessman, uh, for the past almost, I'd say almost 10 years, not quite 10 years, about eight years.

Wow. Yeah. Um, started on Robin big, which was a sort of a comedic take on the odd couple for MTV, uh, about a skateboarder and his big black bodyguard. Um, and then, uh, we did three seasons of that and another, then we started another show called fantasy factory, which was, it's basically a work improvised workplace comedy. Um, but it's a crazy workplace and it's about, you know, a skateboarder and his circle of people around him and the people that work in the

building and the adventures that they go on and the crazy shit that you can think up every week. Yeah, exactly. And the crazy shit that we can think of exactly. And so we did five seasons of that. And then it, it was kind of in this weird dead zone where it looked like it wasn't going to come back. It wasn't like, it wasn't so much canceled as just, it got too expensive for it, for the network. So I, we battled them and pushed them. And in the meantime, we were doing ridiculousness, which is a kind of an America's funniest home videos for MTV. Um, did

three seasons of that going into our fourth and, and then finally, like I, we reworked the budget and we cut out a lot of the bloat that sort of happens over time in a TV series and, and convinced the network to take a shot at doing a sixth season. So we're starting a sixth season of fantasy factory. We're in pre-production right now. And we just, um, uh, sold another series to the network, which is like, um, it's a cooking show. It's well, I don't want to

say too much about it cause the press release hasn't come out yet, but it's, it's MTV's angle on competitive cooking show. And there's, and it's definitely a comedy and it's real fun. It's a great idea. And, um, we're doing 20 episodes of that starting in September. So my schedule is going to be full for the next five to six months.

That's awesome, man. It's awesome. I really can't wait to have fantasy factory come back. I love that show. Oh, thanks. I love it too. It's such a passion project for me. I just, it's the most fun I've ever had doing a show. So my question, do you, do you guys actually have writers for that show or is it just kind of off the cuff? You just come up with like an idea board and just run with it or do you like a writing room?

We don't have a writer's room for that show. We have, um, myself, a guy named Christian Duguay, who's been, been a part of every season of that and Robin big and ridiculousness. Um, Rob is very, very heavily involved. He, he is the ultimate final voice on everything we do. Um, and it's really all filtered through his amazing imagination and his sort of unique take on life. So we definitely, uh, we spend a lot of time breaking big story ideas. We know

kind of the stuff that he has coming up and then we build stories around that. Um, the best way I can describe it is I would compare it to a curb your enthusiasm as far as structure where we know the, a lot of times we know the A and the C and then we just let the cast and Rob find the B in the scene. So we don't, there's no script, but we do know kind of where this, we know where the story's going and we have to break it into acts. And so we've have a, we have a pretty strong formula now for how to shoot the show. And because of Rob's schedule, we have to be very efficient. He's got a million other things going on. This

is just one aspect of his life. So we got it figured out by season six. It was, it was a clusterfuck for a few seasons, but, um, we've got it dialed in now and it's great because it literally is like, think of the craziest thing you can think of. Yeah, let's do it, you know, and let's figure out a way to make it funny. And they can, you know, between all of us, we can usually do that.

Yeah, definitely. Definitely. Yeah. Some of the shit you guys do, I just can't, I can't even believe you've done it. The car and the rail slide, I think in the giant skateboard. I mean, there's just, if you, if, if our listeners have not seen the show, go back and, uh, where, can they find it online anywhere like at Amazon or Hulu or Netflix?

I don't think it's on Hulu. I think, I don't know if MTV plays nice with Hulu, but, um, uh, definitely Amazon, definitely, um, uh, iTunes. I don't know about the Google marketplace, although, uh, does Google sell TV shows? They do, right? It's probably there if it's on Amazon and iTunes, but it's definitely, oh, and you can find it on Xbox too, I think, but we're right now working on, um, so we're going to do like a kickoff special before the season starts where, and it's one of our, one of my favorite editors who's been a part

of all of this and he knows all of the material almost as well as I do. So it'll be a kind of a, a 30 minute retrospective of all, all the cool shit we've done, which has been really fun to put together just to kind of walk down memory lane on that show. Awesome. Well, yeah, guys, check it out. Um, it is, it is definitely one of my favorite shows. That's why I'm glad we could get Shane on. And, uh, we're, um, we're going to move on to our next segment

now. All right, we are back and, uh, we're talking Kickstarter again. Um, in particular, uh, Spike Lee just recently addressed Kickstarter critics with his own little video talking about how it's completely okay for him to take all of your money to make his movies. Cause that's the way he's always done it. Well, here's my thought on Kickstarter. Uh, and it doesn't matter if you're Spike Lee or Zach Graff or, uh, or any other established filmmaker that has access

to money in other ways. I don't think it's a fair system. I think if you're an investor in a film, whether it's $10 or 10,000, you should get a return if the movie does well. Exactly. And if it does, and until that happens, I think the whole system is flawed. I think it's basically, it's, it's panhandling. Um, and, and it's not fair. So, you know, I understand passion projects and I feel like the idea of Kickstarter is great. And I think at a grassroots

level, it's awesome. If friends want to support each other, um, to, to help make stuff that they believe in, or if you have artists, friends that don't have the capital to create something that they think can be awesome and they can get enough people to believe that it's also going to be awesome. Yes. Kickstarter is a great thing, but even that, if that turns into a very lucrative, um, project for the people that made it, I do feel like there should be a return on that investment. And, and the fact that there's not, the fact that you're paying people in

like signed CDs and posters and like bullshit, like perks, I think, I just think it's a pyramid scheme. You know, I really do. I mean, it's like, it's like paying actors with craft services almost. Yeah, it's, it is. It's like, okay. So that's exactly it. Remember, well, you guys aren't actors, but for a lot of, for a long time, it was like the incentive was, um, meals and, uh, meals and, or you got your reel, you got the reel, the tape and meals provided. So

you get your tape on what you did and a meal, which was kind of a incentive because you could put some new piece of content on a reel that would, I mean, hopefully attract an agent, but the whole business model of acting has changed. That's a whole other conversation, but Kickstarter, you can't just reward people with like crap. You just can't, I don't think. But then again, if people are going to hand over their money, I don't, I'm not opposed to it. I just think it's stupid. People do seem to be very willing to do it. I mean, it's, you know, Spike Lee's

is doing fine. Adam Carolla's got hit his mark of a million bucks for his movie too. But I agree a hundred percent. I mean, that was what I was railing out all along. You're, you're basically an investor getting no return. Their, you know, their argument is, well, we're going to give you the DVD, but, uh, you know, I didn't give you a hundred bucks in advance for the DVD. And then we were hearing all the stories of, you know, vaporware and things like that. And, you know, you've given the money and the product never shows up, which is, oh yeah, that's, and I

think that happens a lot. I, I know for sure most people don't, um, fulfill their, their incentives. I know like a lot of people just are like, yeah, sure. Put it, we'll do it. Yeah, sure. And then they just never do. Cause what are you going to do? We're going to send an angry email like, Hey, where's my signed piece of shit poster? Like, who cares?

You forget. Yeah. I'd say of all the Kickstarter and I do support Kickstarter things, by the way, I'm not like anti-supporting people. I've supported maybe 10 projects or eight. Um, I think maybe out of those, maybe three people to the point now where I just, I, I specifically just put no reward needed. Don't bother. Like, I don't even want to put the pressure on you to pretend you're going to fulfill this.

Yeah. It's interesting. We just did a, uh, we funded, uh, Zane Lamprey's new show. Like both of us who, even though we rail on Kickstarter, we liked Zane. So we, we funded his show and he, he posted the math on the money that comes in and like at a $500,000, $175,000 of that goes to perks.

Yeah. It's like, it goes to your t-shirts and all that. So yeah, that just doesn't make any sense. That's a waste of money. Totally. Yeah. I, I don't, I, I'm, I'm on the fence, I guess now that I'm kind of thinking about it. I've supported things I really believe in. I supported Tara and Makerspace and I supported Sean and his iGeiger, um, back when it's called iGeiger. Now it's called what? Safecast. Um, but, or iGeige or whatever it was, but there's definitely, there's, there's

things I feel like are worthy of grassroots support. Do well-known, established, probably multi-million dollar millionaire filmmakers need to turn to the public to sort of panhandle for, I don't think so. I mean, I really just, I don't know.

I don't think so. Not without an incentive that makes it worthwhile to this, to the people. And one of the things I think Spike, that Spike Lee addressed that was kind of interesting, you know, the, a lot of the criticism says, okay, I'm coming in looking for all this money, even though I don't, I can get it somewhere else, but I'm sucking the air out of the room for the people who are on Kickstarter because they've only got so much money to spend.

And so those people aren't going to be funding other projects that need it more. But his, his argument was, well, I'm bringing in a bunch of people that were never on Kickstarter and now they're going to start contributing to, you know, other projects, which is an interesting kind of economical take on it. I think both those arguments are bullshit.

I don't think it's happening either way. Anybody that's going to Kickstarter to fund Spike Lee isn't going to be searching around for some, you know, tiny little unknown director's project. It's just not going to happen. They're going there just to fund Spike Lee and that's that. And alternatively, I don't think that Spike Lee being there is taking money away from any other projects.

I think there's such a vast difference between, you know, these major, major directors and their studio projects versus people that are surfing around Kickstarter for really cool little oddball projects. So, yeah, I, you know, I have no problem with Spike Lee. I think what he's doing is fine.

I think what Zach Braff did is fine. I just personally feel like if I'm going to give my money to somebody who's that well established, I'm not going to do it without knowing that there's some reward if it does well. Yeah. But I don't think, I don't, you know, what, to your point, I don't think he's stealing from other people.

Nobody's going there. Nobody is all of a sudden saying, oh, Spike Lee's here. Oh, forget it. I'm not going to support your $5,000 thing. I'm going to support Spike. I don't think that's happening. Okay. But maybe it is. Fair point. Just an opinion. Okay. Well, I think we're all in agreement this week. Surprisingly.

Security. Ha! So, some news this morning. Mr. Edward Snowden has been given asylum in Russia. Duh. Yeah, for a year. Up to a year. So, he's hiding out with a couple Americans and hopefully he's not going to get disappeared, black bagged, shot in the back of the head, given some, you know, tainted rubles on the street and keels over.

And this just comes on the heels of yesterday's, or yeah, yesterday, the day before yesterday, yesterday's big news on X-Keyscore, which basically says the NSA is just, they're just taking everything. Yesterday's news was, as far as I'm concerned, game over.

I mean, it's, we don't even need to do the security segment anymore because there's no fucking point. This is over. They can see everything that you do anywhere, anytime for, it's all over. It's just over. I mean, I'm terrified. But there's...

There's no coming back from it? There's no coming back from this. No. I think the only thing that's going to come back from this is civil war. Honestly. If they keep going on this path with just persistent surveillance all the time, then it's just going to, it's going to reach a boiling point or it's going to go the other way and people are just going to get used to it like they've been doing and it's just going to be a persistent surveillance state and you can't do anything without knowing that somebody's watching and somebody's listening.

And for our narcissistic society, some people might like that. Hey, on the plus side, we know somebody's listening to our podcast, Jason. Yeah. We can take a plus one in the audience box. Hello, NSA. But so, how do they parse all that information? I mean, there's so much information.

Are they writing algorithms that look for certain patterns of words? Yeah. There's actually... Yeah. There's a program that Google started and the NSA has been one of the biggest contributors to. It's called MapReduce. And basically, the whole point of it is to take a large set of data and whittle it down to exactly what you're looking for.

And that's how Google basically builds their index, their search index of the entire web. Well, you've got to figure. I mean, Google already is frighteningly good whenever you're trying to search for... At predicting, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And they've got to, you know, whatever the government's got has got to be about 100 times more advanced than that minimum.

I don't know about that because they're... I mean, like I said, they're one of... The NSA is one of the biggest open source contributors back to MapReduce. Right. So I think that they're probably on par with Google as far as searchability or just a little bit ahead and maybe releasing chunks so other hackers can kind of dive into it or other Google engineers.

Yeah. Because it helps them to have basically free coders to work on this project because MapReduce is completely open source. Right. We have open sourced our own surveillance. Maybe the NSA should kickstart her. They really should. Maybe we should kickstart her an anti-NSA.

Yeah. With Snowden in Russia, apparently. You know, I just can't tell. I never can tell, not just with this, but with these big major shifts in the landscape of the way that the world works. If it's like aging guys just panicked about change or if it's a real...

like sign of the demise of the country, it's a very young country. So, you know, it's hard to say like, well, no, don't worry. It's been through everything because we really haven't been through everything. We've been through a few hundred years, but I mean more than that.

But I don't know. Is it us panicking over what's inevitable or is it a major terrible problem? Well, I think my personal feeling is it ends up always being about money. And this is just more command and control and money funneling towards whatever our government wants the money to go to.

It's more middle class reduction. It's more fear. It's more control. I mean, basically, they can target anybody, anytime, for anything. And I'm more concerned about what they're going to learn psychologically in terms of mass human behavior, et cetera, et cetera, when you have this kind of oversight over basically everybody and what they do.

It's just going to become more easy for the government to kind of predict and spin things ahead of time, use mass psychological warfare to kind of guide things in directions that maybe things wouldn't go if they didn't do that. That's the stuff that terrifies me. Don't you think that's already been happening for generations?

Yeah, of course. But not with this kind of directional ability and this much access and this much information. But conversely, though, we have the same heightened access. And I mean, we have more of a voice in a way than we've ever had as individuals.

And they no longer can get away with just beating somebody down without there being a camera on it and somebody posting it immediately to Reddit or to LiveLeak. So is it possible? I mean, because I always feel like there's an us versus them. Like this government is this really super smart organization that has all their shit figured out.

But it's just us. It's people like us working in government. You know, where's the line? I don't know. I just I wonder if we give them too much credit for what they're able to do. Can they really infer like psychological information that can be used against us from a bunch of data that comes in that I can't I mean, an almost unquantifiable amount at one.

They're getting so much data. What do they do with it? Store it. Store it for later use. That's what that's that's their whole their their whole defensible situation was they're like, we're not we're not looking at it. We're just keeping it. We don't need it for now. But in the future, we might need to go back to it and look at it to find out patterns about what people have been doing to build a case against them.

You know, that's the whole storage argument that they're they're putting forth right now. And to your point about them being smart enough and they're just us, you know, one of our previous guests, Dr. David Titor, was on and he basically worked in the, you know, the intelligence agencies for a while.

And when I asked him, I'm like, do you think, you know, we're going to knock off Assange or did we plan 9-11 or all this crap? He's like, dude, we're not that good, you know? Yeah. So I do think it's just a bunch of people. But the fact that this is going on is is it just a it just creeps that creeps the shit out of me.

Yeah, it definitely is. And a big concern for me is is that the fact that we are just people and there are some really bad people out there and all this technology that they have available to themselves now can can just, you know, you used to have to have like a whole group of people working on these projects.

Now, one dude sitting in a computer can do basically just about anything he wants. And I worry about the one guy who isn't being there's no oversight and he doesn't have a group of people that he's working with anymore. So there's no common consensus sitting in a room somewhere going, hey, hold on a second. Maybe we shouldn't be doing that.

Well, that's Snowden. Yeah, that's exactly what Snowden did. Snowden was one dude with a computer that was able to find out all this shit and then took it upon himself to go ahead and release it. How will he be viewed in 30 years as a trader or as a hero? That's tough to tell. Probably a mixture of both.

Yeah, even I'm on the fence with it every day. Me too. The more I think about it, the more I'm like, he did the right thing. And the other days I'm like, he should have gone through channels or but, you know, it's still it's it's one of those things where, you know, it's like you look at Bradley Manning. Did he do the right thing with what he did, you know, and you look at what he released, you look at the videos that he released.

And I think he did the right thing. But he's going to spend the rest of his life in jail for it. And Snowden is going to be either on the run or spend the rest of his life in jail for it. And I part of me thinks that's completely bullshit and wrong. And I think what they did was a public service.

But the other half says, well, you know, are they actually enemies of the state? It's it's we haven't really been in this kind of situation with this much public scrutiny on this type of, you know, leaked information before. So I think everybody's kind of come to grips with it.

There should be some there should be some transparency, though. And I think that, you know, I think that was information that the public needs to know. Now, the fact that they're not that concerned by it is a much larger issue. But he obviously sacrificed his life, knowingly sacrificed his life to to to to divulge what he thought was something that every American should know.

And for that, I'd say it's it's at least tremendously brave. I don't know if it was I don't know if it was very smart, but it was tremendously brave. It really was. He threw everything he had and knew about and knew away knowingly. That's you have to feel pretty strongly about something.

And I don't know if his life was just shitty and just he just figured like, well, shit, at least I'll be famous. I doubt it. No, I'm sure there was completely the opposite. No, he was living in he was living in Hawaii with a hot stripper girlfriend. I mean, it doesn't get much better than that. Yeah, there's no real ulterior motive.

I mean, it's I don't think his goal was I can't wait to live in Russia. I mean, he he clearly just maybe didn't even think far enough ahead and just said, I got to do this. This is something people need to know about people. This would blow people's fucking minds. Yeah. And did it? Well, I think it blew some people's minds.

I think some people are just like, it isn't that bad. Fuck it. I guess there's a Wednesday new iPhone come out. I mean, that is how I feel like most people deal with news this these days. And until there's like a pandemic or an alien invasion, I don't see how it can possibly change. Yeah. And, you know, I definitely think that he did it the wrong way.

It's like, OK, why are you going to do this from a hotel room in Hong Kong? It's like, yeah, dude, get where you're going to go. Then release it. Don't you know, I don't plane ticket. I have a feeling he had no idea the shitstorm that he was about to unleash. I just really I don't think he was prepared.

Oh, no, he totally was. I think he totally knew. I think he was expecting to be seen more as the folk hero type person. I don't think he had any concept. There would be so much rage and anger against him. But who knows? I don't know how to feel about him. I just don't I don't have maybe I don't have enough information either.

But I lean towards thinking when somebody does something that I don't know what seems so stupid, but revolutionizes the way people think about the entire planet. Maybe it was a good thing. You know, maybe it was a good thing. I definitely think it was a good thing. I mean, again, I'm torn.

I still always feel he should have gone through channels, but at least we're talking about this stuff again. I mean, all the Patriot Act has been kicking around for how many years now? And we're finally talking about it and going, hey, hold on. And having some sort of discussion about how we feel our government should be treating us.

So, yeah, it's good to have that discussion, if nothing else, even if we can't ever change it. I think I definitely think most people are very skeptical about what the government does. I'm at the point where when they released that news today about that they're going to just shut down US embassy on Sunday because of an unidentified threat.

To me, that could just be them saying, like, sort of justifying this need for this intelligence. Like, don't worry, guys. We have you protected. See, all of this stuff we're doing, it's working. I don't know. I mean, that's very cynical and probably not true. But my mind does go there that they manufacture events to sort of make us feel like our safety is in their hands, that they have us covered.

Absolutely. I totally agree. And that's the first thing I thought, too. And you know what? I'm still on the side that I think that's what they're doing. They're justifying themselves. Even if they're not, the fact that we don't trust them anymore is bad. The fact that we really don't know if they have our best interests in mind is bad.

And honestly, I don't know if any populace has ever truly believed that their government has their best interests in mind. I think it's an age-old struggle. Like you said, when it comes down to money and power, money and power is usually going to win until they're crushed. Exactly.

By volume. Oh, look. Another random tangent. So I have a question for you, Shane. Yes. You have let me down greatly. Uh-oh. You win Android on me.

Oh, man. I'm so excited about Android. Did you read the new article in the Wall Street Journal about how the FBI and local law enforcement can basically just break into your phone and turn the camera on and listen through the microphone on any Android system they want? Oh, you don't think they can do that with Apple?

Well, I'd like to think not. That's a new feature in iOS 7. It's coming soon. Yeah. I don't know. Here's what it is with Apple. I love my MacBook. Shit, I even like my iPhone. But I got really tired of hearing myself complain about iTunes.

iTunes has evolved beyond the point of usefulness. It is completely anti-intuitive. And I don't know how to find shit. It makes me feel like an old man. It makes me feel like my mother on my computer. And I was just like, man, fuck this. Just out of spite, I'm going to try a different operating system.

So I've had my eye on the Galaxy for a couple of generations. And then when that Active commercial came out, I was like, fuck it, man. I have an iPhone 4S. I've been waiting for the 6 or whatever's next. And I'm just going to try it.

And if I hate it, it's only a couple of years. I mean, who cares? It's a phone. And I don't want to be tethered to Apple. You know what? I got sick of myself. I got sick of being an Apple fanboy. They're annoying. I didn't want to be one anymore. I was just like, I'm one of those fucking guys.

People look at my phone. People look at my 4S and they're like, oh, you're still on the 4, huh? I'm like, who fucking cares, man? It's a telephone. It doesn't matter. And then I realized that was me for a long time. But you know what the problem is? The thing that really bummed me out the most was, though, in what's the Game Center?

Is that the Apple thing? Yeah. Yeah, Game Center. You were my only close competition in Game Center. You were like the only person that was even remotely close to me in points. You had like 16,000. I had 20,000. I was always like, oh, shit, Chain's going to catch up. I've got to go play some more games. And now I've got no reason to play any damn games.

No, that's not true. I haven't left Apple behind. I still have an iPad. We have five iPads in our house. I have two minis. No, three minis plus my first generation, which is an end-life unit. But still, I'm riding it out. And, oh, no, I guess four. Well, no, if you count my iPhone, we have five.

Because now my iPhone is basically just a tiny little iPad. Yeah. But, no, I like – look, I don't – it doesn't – first of all, who cares? But secondly, I like Apple. I just – I wanted to try something where I had a little more control of what's under the hood. And I like being able to uninstall bloatware.

I like being able to kind of tinker around and freeze apps that aren't working and know what – I just know more about what my phone is doing. Right. I don't like this closed-source bullshit. I don't even know if I'm using that term right, but I feel like I am. No, you are. You are. We'll let you go with that one. Okay, well, you know, you make a very impassioned argument there, so enjoy your phone.

But can I say that already, Vine doesn't work right and Instagram is a pain in the ass, so I'm already bummed about a couple of things on it. Actually, those are pluses. I'm down with that. I'm going to go get one today. Yeah, Vine – I can't believe Vine is still around, actually. I thought Instagram would have killed it completely, but I guess there's some dedicated users.

Yeah, it's – there's a lot of fun – like, it's become just really just short little comedy videos for me, but, yeah, it's kind of stagnant, honestly. I've been trying to delete all of my photos on Instagram except for a few because I want to keep my account because I've got a three-letter account. And I want to keep my account, but I want to get rid of my photos on Instagram because I backed them all up.

I'm just – I'm tired of – this goes into another conversation for another segment, but I'm trying to do it. I can only delete them 10 at a time through the app. I've got three – I started with 600 photos. I've got 300 left. So every time I get a minute, I've got to go and delete 10. There's got to be – no, there's got to be a third-party app that zaps your Instagram photos.

It's API limits. Oh, really? Oh. Yep. So what are you going to do? Is it your hatred of Facebook? Is that why? It's my hatred of services that are monetizing on my content without giving me a cut. Yeah, but they're all doing that.

That's why I don't – that's why I've got my own blog back up. That's why I basically pulled everything out of like all the social media stuff that I use. The only one that I really like post again to is Twitter just because it's 140 characters. It's throwaway and it's uncopyrightable. Right. And they're not really monetizing it.

Although, did you read – did you see the story where they – I don't know if it was Twitter or another – I think it was Twitter who took people's names and put – like wrote tweets that they didn't write and used them in a commercial? No. Yeah. I wish I had the story. I don't have it. Oh, okay.

Well, we'll dig it up and throw it in the show notes. Yeah. So I'm just on this jihad now. I'm trying to take back as much of the web as I can because in the old days, we owned the web. You know, it was – we had our servers. It was our content in our buckets that we could control.

And nowadays, we put everything off to somebody else. We don't know if they're going to go out of business. We don't know if they're going to change their privacy policy. Whatever. It's like I just want to keep stuff in my bucket. Yeah. I'll be able to pick up my bucket and take it to another house. Put down my bucket. I live here now.

You know? That's how I want to do it. Yeah. So I'm pulling my stuff off, putting it on my blog, and some stuff I'll repost links to the content on my blog so people can come back and hang out. You know? And I do use a group commenting system. I use the WordPress.com commenting system.

So, you know, there's a couple million, tens of millions of people that can come comment without having to do anything. But as far as where the content lives, it lives on my hard drive. Period. You're in the minority. I know. I'm trying to – I want to start taking back the web, damn it. I want people to really – You're going to web like it's 1990.

God damn it. That's great. You know why it will never happen? It's because people will always sacrifice security, privacy, and control for efficiency and ease. For free and easy. That's the – you know, that's why Facebook is kicking ass. That's why I still have a Facebook account even though I complain about it more than Apple.

Every now and then it's nice to be able to just sign in with Facebook even though I'm giving up – I'm basically giving people the keys to my entire soul. It's somewhat, somewhat. I mean they're pretty good with the knobs and the fiddling on how much privacy you can give to an app. But as we all know, that's just a switch in a database and can get flipped anytime.

Yep. Yeah. So, yeah. Basically, at the end of the day, we're just all screwed. It's over. It's over. I hope you're wrong. I hope you're wrong about that. Hopefully, there's a new generation. Hopefully, our new export is going to be personal security and being able to keep yourself secure online.

And we'll have a lot of young web developers and code writers that are figuring out how to beat this right now like a bunch of old dudes and old ladies that don't really understand what's happening around them. There will be a bunch of kids that really do understand and are as savvy as the government is.

Well, they're out there, but the problem is they screw up, get arrested, and then go to work for the government. Yeah. Eventually, though, the scale will tip. And there will be – these kids will grow up in the world and will grow up being able to write their own apps and write their own shit.

And, I mean, I'm hopeful. This is just me being hopeful, by the way. But how is that going to happen if everybody just posts all their stuff on Instagram or Facebook and they say, oh, well, I don't need to know how that's done. Somebody else has done it for me. I don't think – well, I don't – I personally don't think that a younger generation will be as enamored with Instagram and Path and Facebook and all these right now, for us at least, novelty apps.

Because they'll always – they'll have always been there. They'll be kind of looking for their own thing. It won't be a big deal that you can post a picture online and people will respond to it. Where for us, when that first happened, it was like, holy shit, look at all these fucking likes. Like, for them, that's just a part of their existence. They don't know any other way.

My kid is better on – I'm not kidding – better on an iPad and better at Minecraft than I am, and she's 10. Yeah. So this is just their world. They're going to master it better than we ever will. Well, you guys, you're the exception because you really know the – you know what's under the hood of a lot of this shit.

I don't. I'm one of those guys that's like, cool, pretty new design. Oh, great logo. I'm in. Well, I got to give – like, my little brother, he turns 22 today, believe it or not. Happy birthday, Gregory. He, at least, in his generation – so I got to at least watch this middle generation, and they've kind of given up on a lot of this stuff and are off doing their own thing.

They do direct communication like we used to do. Yeah. It's basically flip-flopped from, you know, we all used to hang out and call each other on the phone and talk and all that kind of stuff. And we gave it all away and put it all online, and they grew up with seeing us do that, and they've gone the other way, back to the way we used to be.

Yeah, that's what I'm hoping. I'm hoping that the novelty of all this will be lost on them, and it'll just be a tool more than it is, like, a fun game. It seems to me that that is what's happening. We had a comedian, Felicia Michaels, on our podcast a while back, and she's got two kids that are, like, in their teens.

And she was saying that they just – they don't stick with any app for, like, more than a couple weeks. It's just, you know, they'll use this for a while, and then they'll switch over to this. So there's not any kind of, like – they're not getting stuck. There's no loyalty. They're bouncing around and just trying things left, right, and center. So hopefully they'll keep on doing that.

Yep. I think that's probably the future. Cool. Well, I know, Shane, you have to go off in a few seconds here, so I wanted to thank you for stopping by. Definitely. Yeah, thanks, man. I do – thank you for having me. I want to ask you about one link you sent me, which is that camp for grown-up kids.

Is that going to be in another segment? Because I just want to find out about that. That looks so fun. Here's – did you see in the camp that it's all vegan food for three days? I'll do it. I'll – shit, I don't mean – I mean, I'll – That was the only bummer for me.

It does sound really cool. It was a link a friend of mine sent me called campgrounded.org. It's a digital detox camp for – I guess they're trying to get it ready for next summer. The whole idea is, you know, it's like a week-lock thing. No phones, no laptops, no nothing.

I like it. Old school, 70s style, just like, you know, the camp that we all probably went to when we were kids. All sorts of activities. The only bummer for me, like Jason mentioned, is it does get a little too hippy-dippy for me. You know, I don't really need the yoga and the vegan food. But everything else sounds awesome.

If we could trade that for steaks and a bar, I would be down. I think maybe we should start our own then, man. I don't know. That's actually a pretty good idea. Let's do it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And again, you have to go to NorCal, I guess, as the kids say, to go to this. We need a Southern California version of this.

Yeah, we'll just do one up in Idlewild or something like that, and it'll be all barbecue grilling meats and a ton of beer. That's a good one. And no phones. Yeah, let's just go someplace where there's no service, and it'll count. Perfect. San Francisco. Or downtown L.A.

Or anywhere in L.A. on AT&T. Yeah, exactly. Oh, can we bring guns? Can we have guns and beer and steaks? Can that be our detox? Maybe. That's a grown-up thing. You can do your own with Ted Nugent. I'll skip on the gun one. You can have a jerky class.

Hey, man. Homemade jerky is pretty good. Don't knock it. It really is. Back when I was first starting in an office, I got one of those Ronco dehydrators, and you can make jerky out of anything. It's fun, but there's some things you shouldn't make jerky out of, like bologna.

Oh, that just sounds wild. It's awful. All right, guys. Well, thanks for having me. Cool, man. So real quick before you jump off, where can people find you? You can find me at Shane Nickerson on Twitter, or you can find me at shanenickerson.com.

And then I have a blog, but it's all the info is at shanenickerson.com. All right, and we'll link that in the show notes. And thanks, man, for stopping by. I really appreciate it. Oh, it's my pleasure. Thanks for having me. Yeah, you too. Bye. All right. Later. Bye. Comment of the week. This week's comment of the week comes from Jerry.

He writes, I am enjoying your selection of books. My undergrad degree was in ancient history. All I wanted was to get an army commission, and Seneca I have read often. I was pretty geeked to hear you guys talk about his books. Finally, someone who gets it. Well, thank you. Much thanks to Jason for that, actually.

He's the one that introduced it to me as well. And thank you to Tim Ferriss for that, because he introduced it to me. There you go. Your selection of Who Owns the Future was also good. We're still working on it, and it's fucking great. I think everybody should go read that. Yeah, we're going to pick that one up next week.

Yeah. I would like to send one your way, Transparent Society by David Brin. If you like Suarez's books, you will like this one. I have read Transparent Society. That's actually quite an older book these days. I think that came out almost 10 years ago or so. It's late 90s. Yeah, late 90s. Great read at the time.

I actually don't know if it holds up anymore, because things have changed quite a lot. But David Brin is a fantastic writer. So I actually do want to go back and check that out again. It's worth a skim, especially with all the news that we're talking about right now, about everything being transparent, at least to the government, not the rest of us.

Yeah, I haven't actually read it, so it's on my reading list. So thank you, Jerry, for the tip. And I'm definitely going to check it out, because I love Suarez. Well, his first two. And we'll go from there. Thanks for the comment. Yeah, thank you, Jerry. And if you want to leave a comment, please do. Go to iTunes, give us a five-star rating, leave a comment, and we might rate it here.

Or you can get us at podcast at grumpyoldgeeks.com, or go to the website and use the form. Welcome to this week in shit we put on our computers. So I found a new app, which is actually not that new.

I've heard of it for a while. It's called Follow Up. It basically lets you take anything from your inbox and send it off to the service and say, in three days, 26 minutes, remind me about this email. So it takes it out of your inbox and out of your head.

And then at the time frame, it sends it back to you and says, here, there's your email. Do it. That's a fantastic idea. I like that. Dude, it's great. And the email address that you send it to is like, you basically say the time in the email address.

It's like two days at followup.cc. And then you just send it to it, and then it'll send it back to you. So you set up all your email addresses in the system. So it knows, like, it looks for the from, and then just puts it in the bucket and then just sends it back to you. And they've got a really cool bookmarklet for your browser.

So you can be on a web page and say, okay, like, every day at 10 o'clock at night, that's when I go back and I do my, like, roundup for the day. So I will say, like, on any web page that I'm looking that has, like, a long article or a video that I don't want to put in Instapaper, like if it's, like, heavily on the graphics or whatnot, I'll put it for my end-of-day roundup.

And at 10 o'clock, I get all the URLs back that I just need to kind of flip through, and I'll sit in bed and, you know, have a little tea and go through all the pages that I checked out that day that were cool. It's a super nice service. I am amazed by it. That's fantastic.

I really need to start using something like that. I just have, like, my temp folder that I throw things in that I, you know, I'm a big fan of having, you know, I chase the dream of zero inbox, which I never can achieve anymore. But, yeah, that's amazing. I love that idea because I've got emails that are just sitting in my inbox that are from three months ago that I just, you know, I have to save them for whatever reason and want to keep them somewhat in mind and not just filed away.

This is perfect. No, it's amazing. And as far as inbox zero goes, I did that this week. I had 700 emails in my inbox. I'm just like, email bankruptcy, select all, archive, full nine yards. Oh, wow. I've never done that. I should try that someday. Oh, my God.

It feels so good. And then if you keep up with it, I mean, I've got 10 in there now, but they're easy to get rid of. It's just my automated links for the day of interesting stuff I need to check out. Yeah, followup.cc, it's amazing. And it's paid, so they're going to be around.

There's, like, you can do, there's, like, a free version where you get, like, five reminders a month and there's different levels. And I think for 90, I'd have to look it up, but I think 99 bucks a year you get unlimited. That's great. I would probably be unlimited. I'd need that. Yeah, yeah.

And you can snooze things. It's just, it's really cool. Very cool. I am so stoked about this thing because I get emails in, and normally I just let them sit. Right. Not anymore. I just shove it off to them, and later on when I know I'm going to have the free cycles to just knock it out, boom, done.

This is a life hack that you want, period. Right. Sounds like it. I also have a couple, an app that is, you know, part of my life hacking goals that I'm doing right now. I'm actually attempting to finally quit smoking.

Oh, my God. I know, I know, finally. It's been a long time. So, you know, I did the e-cigarette thing. It's really kind of not the same, and it's a lot more difficult to make that transition over than one would hope. But part of the process that I'm using now is little bits of meditation throughout the day.

I am trying to associate the relaxation and the break that I use cigarettes for now, and, you know, I have my cigarette, and then I do a three-minute guided meditation or something like that. And eventually I'll start to kind of transfer over a little bit. That's the theory anyways. I'll let you guys know how that worked out.

But I did want to start trying to get into meditation anyways, just little bits here and there, because the benefits are proven scientifically. You know, just Google it, and you'll find out there are real scientifically proven benefits to meditation. So I went into the app world trying to find something decent that would help me out.

And there are a gazillion apps, as you can imagine, most of them free. All the free ones really suck. I mean, no offense to all these people out there. They don't so much suck as in they're incredibly limited. Like, you basically get, like, two or three different meditations in the app, and that's it.

And I'm just not capable of doing that. I need more, especially for guided stuff. I found an app called Buddhify, which has got a cool name anyways. And it's, I think it was $2.99. And they've got a good, probably, couple hundred different guided meditations in there.

A lot of them, some of them are based on mood. Some of them are like, are you home right now? Are you out walking? This one's good for walking. So there's all different types of meditations in there. And I haven't gotten bored with it yet. It's pretty cool. It's pretty fun. They're short. They're sweet. And it's a good way to start getting into the idea of meditation if you've never done it before, which I haven't.

So I'm enjoying it. Buddhify it. Check it out. It's pretty cool. I will definitely check that out, especially if they've got a couple hundred of them. Yeah, there's a lot in there. So I haven't had the same one twice yet. So do they have in-app purchase for upgrading your meditations? No, it's just the one purchase, and that's it.

So hopefully they'll... Jackpot. Yeah. All right. That's a pretty good deal so far. Oh, I'm definitely going to check that out. I mean, I've been a meditator since I was 19. And I took 10 years off, but I've been getting back into it. And I tell you what, if you spend... If you just start out with five minutes a day, and then eventually, if you can get up to 30 minutes a day, it's a life changer.

Yeah, I want to get there. That's what I keep hearing from a lot of people. So right now, I'm doing two, three-minute sessions a day, which is pretty nice. And I'll just keep building up from there. So you're doing the meditation after you have a cigarette? Yeah, for right now, I'll go out, and I'll have my smoke, and then I'll pop on one of the things and just kind of sit on my balcony and run through it.

So it's pretty nice. You should try doing it before. I might do that as well. Because that should at least get you to the mental capacity where you can say no. Uh-huh. If you do it after, that's kind of like, you know... Yeah. It's a little late. True. Yeah, okay. Well, you know, I'm just getting started here.

Okay. Good luck, my friend. Good luck. Thank you. I'll check that out. Yeah, check it out. It's a cool app. Keep up with the Grumpy Old Geeks on the web at grumpyoldgeeks.com, on Facebook at facebook.com, slash grumpyoldgeeks, or email them at podcast at grumpyoldgeeks.com.

Have a good week. Okay, last one to kill a bad guy buys the beer. We're driving to Florida.

We're driving to Florida.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

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