Ep. 321: "The XY Problem"
Hello?
Hi Don.
Oh, hi, girl.
How's it going?
That was a little hot.
Coming in a little hot.
Coming in a little hot.
I need some protein.
We're going to try something unusual.
I'm saying this to you because you're the only one listening right now.
We're trying something unusual.
I just want to let our listeners know.
We might have done this before.
It's been a long time.
We've been doing this for almost eight years.
Are you opening the kimono right now?
Yeah, it's wide open.
What?
Looks like a butcher shop window.
Well, well, well.
Well, what we're going to try to do is, owing to the chaos of the future, and none of us really knowing what the future will hold, we're trying to pre-record an evergreen episode.
Yes.
In which it will be virtually impossible for the listener to know when it was recorded mostly.
Right.
Yes.
So this could be 2011.
This could be 2013.
So we're going to confine ourselves to talking about Hitler and the Beatles because it's the only...
It's really all you can talk about that is truly evergreen.
Can you do that?
Can we just, sui generis, just start talking about the Beatles and Hitler?
We don't have to work our way to it.
It doesn't have to come up organically.
I got to warm up.
I came into this prepared.
Okay.
All right.
All right.
You can tell me if you don't want to do this, and I'll cut it out, even though I won't actually cut it out.
Sure.
I have a small running list that I keep of things involving John that we might wish to follow up on.
Oh, let's do.
That's as evergreen as it is.
And if it goes nowhere, it won't matter because maybe in the future, people's expectations of an entertainment society and culture podcast will have dropped.
In the future.
In which we will all soon live.
Yes.
Okay, great.
Well, these are on 3x5 cards, I'm assuming.
No, they're here.
They're in my text editor app.
Oh, good, good, good.
I'm ready.
Are you really ready?
I'm ready.
Item one, John's doors.
John, did you ever find a door that you liked that fits?
The front door.
The front door.
You had gone, you found a door you liked, but it didn't fit.
Right.
And you were copying to how complicated it is to get a retrofitted door for a door space, a door household that would fit and meet your criteria, but also didn't fit.
Wow.
So we've talked before.
I think I've mentioned my friend Ben King, who is a listener to the program, who is an architect who lives in Portland.
He's also the instigator of the motorcycle trip I took at some point.
At some point.
In the future or past.
In the past or future.
And Ben King is one of those men.
He grew up in Texas.
His father...
I think for his 16th birthday, bought him a truck that didn't run and said, if you want a car, fix it.
And then the two of them sat and took it apart and fixed it.
That's the kind of dad.
I would have been heartbroken if somebody gave me a broken vehicle.
Well, I know, right?
But that's the kind of Texas go get them.
He's cut from different cloth.
Yeah, exactly.
His dad was like, if you want a knife and fork to eat your steak, then you've got to make them.
whenever i prepare my daughter's meals i throw them so you go get that if you want it anyway it made ben king very resourceful he's teaching his kids the same way like he i think he drives them out as far as he can go on a tank of gas and drops them off and then they have to find their way home oh wow you know it's like old-fashioned stuff yeah
And so Ben King heard the episode about the door and he wrote me and he said, I have all the tools you need.
He's got a door connection.
He has all the tools you need.
If you find the proper door, you can retrofit the door.
He says, I can send you the wing it's in there and then the Hermanerms and the shoops.
You want to make sure the splints on your shoop are fully chamfered.
That's true.
I have to have the chamfered shoops.
And I have to use a turbo encabulator.
And then I'll be able to get the door in ship shape or door shape and get it in there.
And this is the type of project that my mom also thrives on.
And so I'm just waiting for it to be...
the right day okay the day when i wake up and say it's door day every day you wake up and you say what is the uniform of the day yeah yourself and so you're you're basically just opening your arms to the universe and saying is this door day is it door day right so lately i've been saying to uh my daughter partly as a way of getting five extra minutes of sleep i because she's standing in the doorway and she's like get up
and i roll over and i go pick out my outfit oh wow and then she's like this is obviously this is being recorded a very long time ago when john still had trouble waking up in the morning yeah that's right before i before i figured out my life and got up on time every day good morning everybody hello who's ready for pancakes and they're all sleepy-eyed like oh dad and i'm like pancakes
Anyway, so she she goes off, goes into the closet, is in there for a while and then comes out having put an outfit together that she thinks is coordinated.
And sometimes it's what I would have picked.
Sometimes it's not.
But I feel like once I have cast that that die, I have to wear what she she she's not going to come back and say, here's your outfit.
And then I go, oh, ha ha.
It was just a joke.
I'm like, okay, and I'm committed to it.
So, yeah, so that's the outfit of the day issue.
But the door, it just hasn't been door day yet.
Okay.
Yeah.
And in the meantime, you have something there.
Have you put up, like, wax paper or something?
Oh, it's the old door.
Old door.
Yeah, the old door, which I have never preferred.
Mm-hmm.
But now that I'm thinking of selling my house, of course, you do all the things that you wish you'd done 10 years ago.
What a slog.
I know it really is.
Oh, that would just, that would just put me right back in bed.
Even thinking about that part of part.
So last night I was sitting around and I was thinking about, or I was looking at the, I was looking at what was coming up in my life.
Okay.
And I was like, there's gonna, there's a lot of vacations, a lot of sort of forced vacations, uh, which is one of the,
That's one of the things in my life that happens sometimes where people are like, hey, there's a vacation.
It's all paid for, but you have to perform like a monkey at some point.
Oh, no.
And I go, okay, well, it seems like a vacation.
I can take my family along.
And they're like, everything.
It's all fine.
There's going to be a buffet every day, gravy on everything.
But...
At some point, we're going to ask you to toddle out with a little, like a lacy umbrella, and we're going to ask you to balance on a ball for 45 minutes.
And then everything's paid for.
It's like a big vacation.
And I go, oh, God, why did I choose this life?
That's not how vacations work.
But I'm looking at the upcoming period of my life and I'm thinking, oh, I've got all these vacations.
When is there ever going to be a door day?
I've got these vacations that aren't vacations.
Oh, you're experiencing an element of compression.
Time is compressing a little bit.
That's right.
Your windows are getting more narrow, not to mix metaphors here.
But the window for your door is getting more narrow.
The narrow, the window of the door is narrow.
And so what I've been thinking about, because my, my real estate agent is kind of a person that's done some real estate transactions for people in my immediate circle.
And my sense is that she would rather sell my house when I was not around.
Oh, interesting.
Because she's a professional.
She's got a project.
She's got a plan.
And at past a certain point, the homeowner just becomes a problem.
Yeah.
And this is not a criticism, of course.
But A, you're a talker.
You're going to want to talk to the people and find out if they're worthy of your house.
That's right.
But also, your house already has a lot of John's personality.
Right, and I think the real estate agent wants to take some of that out.
You need to be able to envision yourself living there.
You bake some cookies, you put a blanket on the couch, you try and make it cozy, right?
You put some crate and barrel furniture in there that I would never pick.
You put a tapestry or something, maybe some candles.
Oh, yeah, glassy baby candles.
Glassy baby candles.
Anyway, so she, I think, would be happy if I was on vacation, right?
And just gave her the keys and said, sell the house.
When I get back, I want it gone.
Which would be maybe stressful for me.
Maybe not.
I don't know.
I've never been through it.
How do you know when you're done getting your house ready?
Doesn't that seem like, it seems like that's a project that could theoretically go on forever.
And that's where she comes in because she's like, the house is fine.
Leave.
Okay.
And I'm like, but, but, but, but, but I just have to, these light switches are wrong.
And she's like, light switches are fine.
Nobody cares.
Goodbye.
Oh, wow.
And so maybe that's what will happen.
Maybe there will be a door day.
Maybe she'll come by and she'll say, the door is nice.
Put it in the barn.
Nobody cares.
The old door is nice too.
And then I'll have to confront like, oh, maybe she's got a point.
You know, it's like, what's the...
What's the cost benefit analysis here on a door day?
I bet for some, my mom used to be a real estate agent.
And I imagine it must be very complicated to do the math and science on selling somebody's house.
I bet there's a lot of factors that she's maybe thinking about and not saying, like trying to keep you focused on this certain kind of thing.
I mean, I bet everybody's different.
Everybody's different and she seems to think that if you take the carpet up and the hardwood floor underneath the carpet is totally thrashed, doesn't matter.
Really?
Because people walk in and they're like, hardwood floors, that's great.
We'll finish them.
It's a project that everybody thinks they can do themselves or that they can have done.
And finishing the floor yourself is a thing that homeowners are prepared to do.
So she says, as long as you take the carpet up and there's hardwood floors under it, then the additional expense and agony of finishing those floors, maybe it adds a little bit to the selling price.
Right.
They perceive it very differently than you do.
Right.
They see that as this house will be empty and we'll do certain kinds of stuff to it.
Yeah.
We'll put a little throw rug over the unfinished floor and buyers will see it.
as like a fun thing that they get to do.
And maybe you make $1,000 less on the sale of the house, but you took up the carpet and it would have cost you $2,500 to do this.
So all of those calculations I'm not capable of making because I'm just like well I was gonna buy I was gonna build a seven-sided lighthouse made of dreams in the backyard And I was I'm gonna get to it.
She's like no go.
What about cool?
What's the thought of the pool?
Well, there's a lot of thought on the pool the pool the pool probably needs to look more like a pool and less like a hole for boards
Well, right now it looks like sort of a Nuremberg bonfire waiting to get or like some Texas.
I mean, I feel like I remember there being some lumber.
Yeah.
It's like a Texas A&M bonfire tower, except it's not a tower.
Okay.
And I was like, what if I lit it all on fire?
And they were like, the fire department would arrest you.
Yeah.
And so then I then I talked to some guys that like haul stuff.
And I was like, what about hauling all this out of here?
And they said, here's the funny thing.
It used to be that you could dump clean lumber.
into some recycling thing and they would turn it into wood chips or uh i don't know what they would do they'd turn it into mulch and they said now they charge you and they charge by weight but you're in like a logging area aren't you isn't the pacific northwest all about logging can't you call like lumber liquidators have them come out and turn into somebody's cabinets
Everybody wants money for everything.
Ah, John.
What a racket.
And so they said, and all this wood's been sitting out here.
It's all waterlogged.
And that doubled the weight of it.
Oh, no.
And so they're going to charge you an arm and a leg.
You got wet wood.
They're going to charge you an arm and hammer for this amount of wet lumber.
And I was like, what if I just put like five gallons of gasoline on it and set it on fire?
And they were like, you get arrested by the fire department.
Okay.
Okay.
So I said, what if I get a wood chipper?
What if I rent a wood chipper and sit here and make it into mulch myself?
Hey, free mulch.
Yeah.
And then they were like, now you're just into like crazy town.
Now you're just making mulch back here.
And that is not going to help you sell your house.
That's just mulch making.
You're just into this now because you just want to get a wood chipper.
Well, that's one way to look at it.
The other way to look at it is that somebody's really trying to sell you.
I'm moving a bunch of wet wood for a lot of money.
That seems like they've hardened on their position.
I mean, I've had a lot of haulers come around in my day.
So I put gloves on one day, and I was like, I'm going to do this myself.
And I went down into the pool, and I started moving logs around.
Seriously, 20 minutes later, I came out of that pool, and I was like, I am not doing this.
Your heart's not going to be up to that.
No, and also it was a thing where I was like, this is a cost-benefit analysis.
Even if I was just inside staring at the wall, I'd be getting more creative work done than out here moving these logs.
Got to think at scale.
Getting them ready for a mulcher that I'm never going to get.
Oh, see, that's that's wise.
That's very wise.
Mm hmm.
Yeah.
I mean, I'm trying I'm trying to learn from you.
When I cleaned out my office recently, much of the in a surprise to no one, much of what I had to get rid of was aluminum cans.
And so I started out doing what I thought would be the most responsible way to handle this, which is I individually crushed each can and put it in a contractor bag.
And then I individually crushed each eight or 12 pack container and put it in a different like, oh, that's cardboard.
This is this is recycling.
And I did that for two days.
Not all of two days, but, you know, broke it up a little bit.
But then I thought, you know what?
Why don't I just because they were the the this is I'm not proud of this, but like the way that I have retained these over a period of time is that they are full sized empty cans inside of the container that they came in.
So you can organize a little bit.
You know what I got to doing?
I got to sticking those in the cardboard straight into the contractor bags and just stacking them up that way.
And then the guys arrive and they're like, oh, it doesn't matter what any of this is.
It all gets processed somewhere else.
It doesn't matter.
Like you could have dead rhubarb and a newspaper and an aluminum can and it wouldn't matter to us because somebody else takes care of that.
Sure.
And you were like, but I've got this whole thing.
I got a whole system.
Let me just tell you about it.
Well, you know, it's interesting you say that.
I was, like you, I think, recently asked a friend of the show, John Siracusa, for some advice about something.
Yes.
And he ended up, because he's the way that he is,
saying something like, well, I wish you had told me what it was you actually want to accomplish instead of guessing the methodology for doing something based on your reckon about what you needed to do.
And a very helpful listener to that podcast wrote in and sent me the Wikipedia, the Internet Science page for the XY problem.
Have you ever heard of the XY?
It sounds like a gender thing, but it's not.
I'm not sure.
The XY problem is a communication problem encountered in help desk and similar situations in which the real issue, X, of the person asking for help is obscured.
Because instead of asking directly about issue X, they ask how to solve a secondary issue, which is Y. Oh, this is a Pacific Northwest thing.
This is me, dude.
We can all agree on cheese, too.
Well, yeah.
I mean, I think we should explore this because I spent a lot of time thinking about how to implement my dumb half solution for something that if I had taken a broader view of what I was trying to accomplish and articulate it differently, I'd be solving a very different kind of problem.
In your case, that wood needs to go somewhere and it's not going to be you dragging out the logs.
There's going to have to be some bigger scale to either that or like cover the whole thing and make it a landfill.
Like what else can you do?
Right.
This is the XY problem.
If I had written Circusa and I had said, what's the best wood chipper?
And he said, why?
Yes, yes, yes, yes.
That's exactly it.
And then he's going back down the ladder and he's like, let's start with the swimming pool full of logs and not start with what's the best wood chipper.
Yes.
I wrote him.
So I wrote you not very long ago, sometime in time.
Sometime in the prehistory of this show.
And I said, I need a computer.
What do I get?
And you were like, well, I would get this kind of computer generally.
But really, this is a question for John Circusa.
Well, and why did I say why?
Because I'm going to get notes if I recommended the wrong thing.
I'd rather go straight to the XY source.
I said, I think, paraphrasing myself here, I think what I said was, this is not a good time to buy a Mac laptop when, in fact, the Macintosh iMac family of products are extremely good.
They're not crazy cheap, but what I said, and John did actually agree with this, that the port situation, dealing with the port situation would make you lose your goddamn mind.
I'm an any old port in the storm guy.
Is that how you are?
Yeah.
And when I look at the back of a computer, I want any old and every old port.
It's nice to be able to plug stuff in, A. It's nice to be able to plug lots of stuff in, B. And it's nice to not have to change your entire world to, not to get technical here, but you would have to get all in on the USB-C system.
And I know how you feel about buying new dongles.
Well, the thing is, I have a lot of legacy equipment.
Oh, is that what you got?
I have legacy equipment.
That's such a sweet way to put it.
I like to be able to plug in my legacy equipment.
Sorry, honey, I'm operating with legacy equipment.
This is all legacy equipment.
Where's my DVD?
It's an XY problem.
You want to feel happy.
You want to be loved.
Let's get straight to the solution here.
Yeah, where's my CD-ROM?
Yeah.
And so anyway, on your advice, I texted Circusa and I don't I hardly ever do this.
I never ask him for advice, but I texted him.
I was like, what kind of computer?
He's good at it.
He's very good at it.
And he was like, and he said, what are the things?
What are the parameters?
And I was like, here's what I do.
Here's what I have.
Here's what I need.
And he was like, you don't know what you need.
Oh, oh.
And then he was like, and he designed a computer for me and then said, get this.
And so then I went to my Apple guy.
I got a guy at Apple.
His name's Todd.
Hey, Todd.
Todd's a pain in the ass.
He listens to the show.
Hey, Todd.
But he is a manager of an Apple.
Oh, he works right at the Apple.
Well, he doesn't work at the Apple.
He's not at one Apple.
One of the glass stairs places.
He looks at one of those places.
Yeah.
And I said, here's the computer that I want.
I got it from John Circusa.
Perhaps you're familiar with him.
Perhaps you're familiar with his work.
And Todd was like, well, here's the thing.
That's a custom computer.
We have to have it made.
And it's going to take 21 days.
You can't get it off the shelf.
Can't get this off the shelf.
So just let me introduce myself.
And I said, well, is this fine?
Like, what is Syracuse doing to me?
And he was like, no, it's great.
It's amazing.
We just have to make it.
And it's going to take 21 days.
And then it's going to sit on our shelf.
And if you don't get it...
If you don't pick it up within 20 days, I don't know what happens.
They sent it back to Amsterdam where they're made.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
He said, this is going to have to get made in China.
And I was like, do you make these in China?
I want mine made in America.
It was designed in California.
Designed in California.
That's like the new Rain Spooner Hawaiian shirts in Hawaii.
Oh, really?
We call them Aloha shirts.
Aloha shirts.
That's right.
They are designed.
Now, they always were made in Hawaii.
Now, they're designed in Hawaii, made in Korea.
Oh, interesting.
It's like a farm-to-table thing, except it's Hawaii to Korea.
Korea to Hawaii.
And I was like, boo.
I want my shirts made in Hawaii.
I want my Aloha shirts to have real Aloha.
Mm-hmm.
Anyway, so now I had to factor in the 21 days it would take to make the computer.
Also, you're going to be traveling.
That's right, because there's only then a 20-day window where I can pick it up.
Let alone you need a window for your door and you need a window for your Mac.
Right, and what if I'm on vacation?
I feel like I'm the only person who thinks about this stuff and it makes me seem crazy.
Other people don't think about this.
They don't account for all the things.
You have to account for all the things.
all the things you've got to account for all if you i'm sorry i'm not trying to take you off your mac because i do want to hear this i'm very interested in how this turned out whenever this happened in the past but people don't account for all the things they act like they act like the world is just these these free floating just little things we could just move around we could fit any amount of anything into anything and like they don't think of all the things they don't think of the things that can go wrong
They heap deep it all the way, all the way down.
People, like, things are late.
Things break in transit.
Like, there's all kinds of stuff that happens that if people don't account for that, this is the affliction of the project manager.
It's like, I can't not think of all of these things.
Right.
Yeah.
Well, the thing is, I think normals would just go to the store and they would buy a thing.
Yeah.
They wouldn't even ask John.
So what's Todd's advice?
What does Todd suggest?
Well, Todd works in the glass cube.
Mm-hmm.
And Todd's advice is typically in the family of whatever you want.
And I'm like, well, that's not advice.
Tell me some advice.
And he's like, whatever you need, I'll get it for you.
Oh, no, that's not good.
And I'm like, but I want – and he's like, well, we could do this or we could do that.
And then he just runs to – he's like Ariella when you say, where should we go to dinner?
And she just names 25 restaurants.
Don't do – that's not helping me.
I'm like, you just named every restaurant in the town.
If your only tool is an apple, everything looks like an apple store.
Yeah, and he's like, everything's fine.
I mean, you could get anything.
You could do all this on an iPad.
I'm like, that's not what I'm saying.
I didn't say that.
How many USB-D adapters are on an iPad?
You don't want to be recording a podcast on an iPad.
God bless you, my friends that do that.
You don't want to be doing that.
Adam Pranica has a big iPad with a folding keyboard.
Yes.
And he brings it, and he sits here, and he's like...
yeah i have that like you but i mean he that's his only computer you can within reason you can do it yeah you can do it it's i mean you know it's he does he edit stuff on there too
Isn't he a filmmaker, John?
Oh, yeah, he is.
He's got to have a bigger computer that's making movies.
You need all the ROMs.
Yeah, I mean, there's all kinds of levels to address this on.
I mean, there's the phenomenon, for example, like you could have a pretty good toolbox with pretty good tools, but sometimes you still might need to go to the rent-up place to get a tiller.
Like, you don't need a full-time tiller.
No, but you put a doorknob in a door.
How many times are you going to do that?
Now, Ben King has a doorknob in a door.
Ben King's got the tools.
He's got the flams in the flidgers.
Sure.
He's got a Beeble that does the thing.
I'm like, how many doorknobs have you put in?
He's like, that's not the problem.
That's not the point.
The Bieber flams it to Chum, like where it's all straight up and down.
That's right.
He's got them.
He's got them arranged somewhere.
Yes.
And when he's like, oh, what I need to do here is is Sprocket the Jimmer.
You think Todd's avoiding this because he doesn't want to get in trouble if you don't like it?
Why is Todd doing that?
I think so.
And also I feel like Todd is in a managerial capacity and not in a technological capacity.
Okay.
All right.
So Todd is not an Apple genius who's sitting in the back telling me that my RFD card is broken.
Oh, interesting.
It's like asking a regional manager for KFC franchises whether you should get the famous bull.
Maybe not the best person to ask.
Right.
He's up front giving people performance reviews.
He's saying, I don't care the double down.
It's all good.
It's all good.
Yeah.
And he's like, rims, rams, whatever, you know, like 110, 111, whatever you need, whatever, you know.
And so I feel like when I'm asking questions that are not even questions I understand that I'm bringing from John Siracusa.
And he's like, oh, he said, do you want the...
the terror gigs or do you want the giga tears and i'm like i want them i want the one that is the best that is the cheapest as per usual yes what is the cheapest that is the best that's good yeah right what's the cheapest that's what i look for this is why i i piss and moan about the wire cutter site nowadays which i've been bitching about a lot on other shows but i want to go in and you know what i usually want i want to know what's the one most people get and why
Oh, I see.
This is an Amazon thing, though.
You've gotten this from Amazon, where it's like, what's the Amazon favorite?
I'll tell you a short anecdote.
Today is Science Fair Project Day at my kid's school, and we spent a week working on our Science Fair project.
And to kind of tell the story, it's a little boring, but it's kind of interesting.
It's a little bit of an engineering problem.
So it's really cool, though.
So basically, the teacher says, go to this website.
called Science Snacks, and it has lots of science... Is that snacks with an X?
It's part of the Exploratorium.
Exploratorium Science Snacks.
And you can go there, and you can find a hands-on-ish experiment that you can do.
Basically, it's ideas for science fair projects.
And they're pretty cool.
And so we're doing one on magnets.
And so what we do is we take something called a cow magnet.
Don't ask.
You put a cow magnet into a test tube.
You put the test tube into a bottle where you've poured one-fifth of the volume of the bottle.
You poured in iron filings.
You tape up the top.
And now you can see what the magnetic fields look like.
It's a pretty good, kind of straightforward.
But she made a great poster for it.
She did one of those little tripartite Hegelian science fair charts.
Yep, yep, yep.
But, but this is so boring.
Forgive me.
But like, I'm trying to, again, I can't not think of all the things.
And so I have to sit there and be like fucking Socrates with her and go, okay, do we not agree that the cow magnet is this big in circumference?
Yes, we do.
Do we agree that that needs to fit into a test tube with room to move up and down so you can see the fields move?
Yes, we do.
Right, right, right.
Do we agree, then, that that test tube with the cow magnet has to fit into a bottle of a certain size?
We do not want a bottle that's too large, and we certainly don't want it in terms of its aperture, nor do we want a bottle that's too narrow.
And so far, Socrates is winning.
Yeah, sure, because you've got three elements now, and they all fit together.
And we understand there's a cascade.
I'm taking steps here.
I'm saying the cow magnet has to fit in the test tube.
The test tube has to fit into the bottle.
Her solution is, let's go to Walgreens and buy a bunch of different soda.
And I said, now, I can't guarantee this, but I'm pretty sure the aperture of a soda bottle is not going to accommodate a test tube that could hold a cow magnet.
So it doesn't matter if it's root beer or if it's orange.
It's the same problem.
XY problem.
Yeah.
XY problem, John.
Right, right, right, right.
You see where I'm going with this, perhaps.
I do see.
I do see, yes.
I finally solved it by finding a very odd-shaped bottle that we had that would work for this.
And then she announced this morning that she needs a second bottle.
What came in the bottle in the first place?
Salad dressing from House of Prime Ribs.
You can buy House of Prime Rib salad dressing to go to take home?
They're not doing it right now, but there was, yes, you can buy it at the restaurant and it's real good.
It's got beets.
It's real good.
But also they're not doing it right now, but sometimes they do delivery through a service and you can get House of Prime Rib delivered to your house, which is something we do a couple of times a year.
Really?
That's a pretty good gig.
But that was the perfect bottle.
You've still never taken me to House of Proud.
Haven't I?
You've been talking about it to me for 18 years.
I don't really go places anymore, but I wish they'd bring the delivery back.
It was very costly.
But anyways, that's what I'm trying to say is like, you know, and again, I copped to being bad at the XY problem, but I can problematize any of these things.
I could problematize your door.
I can problematize your lumber.
I'm not as hypercritical as John Sarkoosa, but I'm pretty fucking good at going like, well, have you accounted for this?
Well, right.
And it is, you know, the Socratic method...
of asking questions not just of your daughter when she's uh doing a science project but of yourself in all things all things you've got to account for all the things you have to think about the this project management bullshit you have to think about the dependencies this can't begin until this thing ends correctly and oh by the way it has to happen by this date but not before this date
If you want to apply for camp, you've got to be ready to jump through some hoops.
There's all kinds of stuff with that.
So in the case of the computer or in the case of something like Wirecutter, the reason I get frustrated is what drives me crazy is buying something on the slightly cheap that's the substandard version of the one all the normal people get.
Right.
That was slightly more expensive, but 100 times better.
Well, even like it's just it's frustrating to think you've got the thing, whether that's a TV or a hammer or a pool for a lumber.
It's frustrating to realize you're stuck with the one that's not maybe not even the good one.
It's not even the not that good one.
It's the one they recommended because it's cheap.
And in that case, that's frustrating to me.
Who's your friend with the tools?
Ben.
Ben.
Now, in the case of Ben, if you were contemplating getting a bespoke tool for your door project, he'd probably be pretty good at going, you don't need this one that's $10,000, and you definitely don't want this one that's $5.
There's one for $38 that will last for two years, and you'll be happy with it.
You need that expertise of somebody who can say, they can basically take all the different axes and go, this is the one that's probably right for you, and you won't regret.
Well, so I've started to think this way about travel, too.
For a long time, it's like, oh, the cheapest.
But I don't want the cheapest anymore.
What I want is the best for the cheapest.
The best for the cheapest.
John wants the best for the cheapest.
I like this.
So I'm ready to pony up for my travel to not be the worst.
There's very little redundancy or net.
Net as in walking on a wire.
There's very little net when you buy the cheapest version or something.
You're going to be cast upon the winds of United Airlines if you get the cheapest.
Yeah.
And you're going to be in you're going to be in boarding group Z. And if you go up and you say, hey, can I get a boat?
They're going to look at your thing and they're going to go, ah, board your ticket group Z. And so we don't.
This is why I always dress as a general.
So I get to be seated with the troops.
Yes.
And I bring my comfort oxen.
But this thing, and you know what?
No, no, no, no.
Don't do it.
Don't do it.
They should be on a different flight, and you should receive a discount.
Well, yeah, there should be planes now for people that want to take comfort animals.
Everybody should have their turkey on there.
I do not 100% agree with you on this, and I don't want to get into a thing about it, because who knows when this happened in the past.
But I will tell you this.
I know people who are crazy phobic about their clinical, about their fear of animals.
And the idea of a friendly animal with a patch on its vest jumping on them makes them want to shit themselves.
They're not going to leave the house.
And they're everywhere now.
It's just fine.
You just bring a dog in a restaurant now.
That's fine.
You and your bare feet, and your fucking dog can come in.
Yeah.
Your comfort vole or whatever.
And the thing is that people, I got so many replies from people that were like, lighten up, man.
Why don't you just become a nice person and enjoy dogs?
And I'm like, sitting next to me on an airplane?
And they're just like, yes.
These are phony baloney.
These are not those dogs where you spend $20,000 to teach them how to be around people and dogs.
This dog doesn't know shit.
This dog is a piece of shit dog that somebody keeps in their purse and they think
Oh, I get to fly on an airplane now.
Look at me on Instagram.
The world has gone to shit.
I'm in my Lululemon plans.
Is it cool if I take my shoes off?
Yeah.
Is it cool if I take a shit on my chair because that's what I like?
What about my comfort?
What about my anxiety?
What about my comfort?
You know what?
I'd like my dick out.
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I want my dick out.
What's the problem?
What's your problem?
Why don't you lighten up and fucking enjoy life?
Why don't you enjoy life?
How does me having my dick out while I shit on my dog do anything to hurt you in bare feet?
Yeah, exactly.
What's your problem?
You're in your seat.
I'm in mine.
I just want to barbecue some pork.
Just because I like to sing with my headphones on and pet my shitty dog.
That doesn't hurt you.
You're right.
Stop at the end of my dog.
I want to jack off while I'm on FaceTime with my wife.
Oh, you told me I can't come on my dog.
I paid for this seat.
Yeah, I paid for this seat just like you did.
Her name is Josie and she's precious.
Why don't you lighten up?
Why don't you just become a nice person?
Why don't you learn to come on dogs and be a happy person in your bare feet?
You sound like a really uptight person.
So uptight.
So Todd's not helping very much.
And then John gave you a suggestion.
So you're on the horns of a dilemma, as they say.
Do I do?
Do I do?
Do I do?
Do I do?
Do not do brown shoe.
Do you buy the custom boy that takes three, quote unquote, three weeks?
Custom boy.
Ask yourself if that's going to be exactly 21 days.
I think not.
No.
Do you get custom boy or do you just go in and get what Todd has on a shelf?
Well, then Todd throws this wrinkle in because, you know, of course, he's like management.
Yeah.
Right.
So he's thinking big picture.
He's thinking about performance reviews.
He says, well, if you're going down to Portland at any point, you can go down there and get it without tax and save three hundred fifty dollars.
Oh.
And so then I'm now I have a now you're traveling.
You're traveling to get a computer.
Well, yeah.
But also I have a quadruple conundrum because I'm a liberal.
Yes.
And I believe in paying tax on.
All right.
But on the other hand, it's $350.
That's a chunk of change.
And I am in Portland a lot.
Yeah.
I could go down to Portland and get the Beeble for the door from Ben King.
Yes.
And the computer.
Huh?
But wait.
Cost-benefit analysis.
How much is gas?
How much is gas?
Wear and tear on the vehicle.
Pain in the ass.
If you're going to tow that trailer that John Van Der Slice wants to sell.
That's right.
You've got to cross your palm.
Yes, sir-y Bob.
You can tell that's a real old reference.
This is probably the first season of Roderick on the Line.
Remember how nervous Sean and I were?
Remember that?
Where's my two days in the studio?
Remember Sean and me, like, picking at our fingers and staring at the ground?
I know.
You guys were, like, pacing back and forth.
Michael Schilling was crouching like a slob, going like, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.
Look, fighting.
People are fighting.
Finish him.
Finish him.
Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.
um all right well don't don't leave me on your dilemma horns what are you thinking at this point understanding now you got to fix the door you got to do the house you got to get ready to travel or not and you got to get your kid to school on time you're thinking about all these things what are you where are you right now we talked last week and you were thinking about maybe getting one the next few days and now here you are
Well, last week being 2011 or something.
Whatever, right.
So if you tell your daughter to go pick out some clothes for you to get five more minutes of sleep, and she comes in with striped pants and a paisley shirt, your first question is, why do I even own striped pants?
Yeah, what are you, Jason Faulkner?
What are you doing?
But then you have to say, look, I tried to get five more minutes out of her, and this is what she comes back with.
I have to do it.
By the same logic, if you bother John Siracusa and he has to come down out of his attic perch where he's up there, I don't know what.
He plays that video game where you wear a dress.
I don't know what that is.
I always imagine that he's sitting and killing flies with chopsticks.
But if he comes down and he says, here's the custom computer that I designed for you, you don't then say, well, thanks, but I'm just going to get the one.
Yeah, you don't go to the Oracle at Syracuse and then say, well, thanks, I'll think about it.
Thanks, I'll just get the one off the shelf.
You say, well, now I'm committed to buying a custom computer that takes 21 to 7,000 days.
Yeah, yeah.
And then if you're like, well, now I have to drive to Portland, but what if I wanted to pay the tax just to make... You've got to consider all the different things.
These are all different things.
Yeah.
So now, instead of going down on January 2nd of 2011 and buying a new computer, I now am in a posture of not knowing what to do.
And I don't have a new computer and I haven't decided what I'm going to do.
You're no better off than you were before.
You're maybe worse off.
I'm worse off.
I'm worse off because now I have a computer.
I know how much it costs.
I know what it is, but I can't get it because of all these other factors.
Oh, my God.
Yeah.
This screws up everything else.
Now your calendar is getting all jammed up with possibilities and not possibilities.
I think.
That's true.
I mean, you know, that indecision or that deferred action on something can make a person crazy.
Like, you've got logs to take care of.
You've got stuff to do.
This is deferred action at a distance.
Yes.
God doesn't play a dice.
No.
Right?
No.
Not that we know of.
We don't know.
We can't prove it.
I have started to subject.
So we've got this cost-benefit analysis.
We've got your project management.
You're putting everything through the function machine.
Beep boop.
I have started to put all ideas through the function machine.
Oh, I want to hear more about this.
Well, so anytime I have a political idea or a philosophical idea that pops into my head, I say, all right, there's an obstacle course.
There's the Socratic obstacle course, and I'm going to run this idea all the way through it.
I'm going to sit here because I was staring at the wall anyway.
Mm-hmm.
I'm going to sit here and I'm going to run this idea through every obstacle I can think of.
I'm going to ask every single rhetorical question.
I'm going to sit there like Socrates and I'm going to say –
well it's interesting but what if this well what if that well what if this well what if that i'm gonna do the whole i'm gonna say we need a bottle that that we can fit the test tube and the test tube has to fit the magnet yep yep yep and every time i'm like well let's just go to the store and buy 15 bottles of pop i'm like i think and then eventually you know like don't
Get up the ladder.
Go back.
You're killing flies with chopsticks.
OK, you're thinking it through.
So I run them through.
I run them through all the obstacles.
And in general, every political or philosophical idea I come up with ends up somewhere out on the obstacle course, basically with a like like impaled on a punji stick.
Right.
They always end up.
You always end up somewhere where you're like, oh, wait a minute.
Huh.
Okay.
All the idea is just dying out there.
It's a bug hunt, man.
Well, some of them make it through.
Some of them make it through.
And generally, they are not very, they're not the ideas that you're like, yeah, I've got it all figured out.
But they're survivors.
They're the survivors.
You get out there and you're like, oh, I see.
Well, okay.
So that explains why there are banks or whatever.
You get out there and you're like, oh.
That's how it is in their thought process.
That's right.
Exactly.
You're like, Sloan, dear.
Sloan, dear.
We're in a hurry.
Hmm.
Hmm.
Yeah.
So I've got these obstacle courses.
They keep getting more and more elaborate.
It's like you get through Marine Corps boot camp, and then you decide you're going to be a Navy SEAL.
And then you have to go through that.
And then after Navy SEALs, then you go into special ops or something or whatever.
This is very philosophical, John.
It's tough.
It is.
Because it's so much more staring at the wall than just like, I read an interview, I read a thing on Twitter, and now it's my new idea.
So no progress on the computer.
Me?
Well, could you go back to the Oracle at Syracuse and say, would it be appropriate or okay with the Oracle if I got one of these two or three options that's available?
No, really?
You think I'd be disloyal?
I feel like he would throw a grenade.
I feel like he would say, well, yeah, sure, if you want to get the thing that...
If you want to get the unsatisfactory thing.
You don't want that.
Me?
No.
I want the best for the cheapest.
You want the satisfactory solution and you want Syracuse to not be mad at you.
Well, because Syracuse understands that I'm not going to do any video editing.
I do not play first-person shooter games.
No.
So I don't need...
I don't need the general, I don't need the thing that's like, oh, do you want to spend this amount of money?
Well, here, we're going to give you something that does everything.
Uh-huh.
That allows you to sit and make home movies or something.
It's like, no, I do a few things.
Yes.
I do podcasting.
I record music.
And I don't really answer email.
You think about answering.
If emails come through, I'd like to be able to read them.
Sure.
Sure.
And he's like, right, okay, so you need this, you need this, you need this.
And I'm like, yeah.
And he's like, well, what about, are you ever going, and I'm like, no, I'm never going to do that.
But still, we're dealing with the XY problem, and it's probably useful.
I mean, just in the sense that it's good that he's provoking you to think about something that you don't actually need, but it's nice to have considered it.
You could sleep better eventually.
Yes.
Knowing this is a thing I'll never need.
There were many years where I thought, you know what?
Maybe I will use one of these native Apple things that lets me make a website for my plant store.
Yes.
My new floral design center.
Right.
And then I'm like, I'm never, ever, ever going to do it.
I don't even know the login for my Squarespace.
That's self-awareness, John.
That's what that is.
Knowing what you know and what you don't know.
I do want to put 1,000...
one and a half minute long guitar tracks on the computer and to be able to shift them around and put different color codes on them and make them harder to... That's fun, yeah.
Yeah, that's nice.
Yeah, like, so, for instance...
Here.
Wait.
Wait for it.
Don't crash the computer, John.
Wait for it.
Wait for it.
Here it comes.
Oh, wait.
No, it's not.
Oh, because I had the volume down.
See?
Wow.
I have a million of those.
A million, billion, trillion of them.
Hang on one minute.
Let me get something.
Talk to yourself for a minute.
All right.
So anyway, running it through the conservative super dupes.
I got the verber derbs on the... Oh, wait, I was recording that whole thing.
All right.
Oh, I like that bass sound.
Yeah.
See, that's... And a lot of that's just like...
Just like straight in, man.
Just plug it straight in.
I had occasion to do a little project.
Oh, you did, did you?
Yes.
Oh, you did.
I'll be so sad if this doesn't sound like a song you've heard.
Hang on, let me turn it up a little bit.
I can go back.
No, no, I don't want to use Apple Pay.
Stop.
Stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop.
Turn it up, up, up, up, up.
All right, here we go.
Does that sound like anything?
It sounds like Departure.
It's so good.
You've got a great bass sound there, too.
Oh, it's GarageBand.
But do you like the arrangement?
Oh, very cool.
I think the arrangement approximates the shape of the song without being strictly the song.
But the figures and the arrangements and the organs, there's two organs.
Two... Two organs, no waiting.
Two organs that are synthesized instruments?
Yeah, so, I mean, this is GarageBand.
This is the beauty of GarageBand.
You could be a complete idiot.
Yeah.
I do some drums.
I do some simple drums.
And this is all played by the machine.
Did you play an extra... Well, I tell it what to play mostly, but so, like, you get...
Familiar, but not too familiar.
And it's not familiar.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's a new craze.
So we're making music.
I like your bass.
Where'd you get that bass sound?
What is that?
Is that a bass?
It's an actual bass.
You know, Aaron Huffman.
You know, your track kind of sounds like a Tony Basil track.
Oh, Roderick, you're so fun.
Hey, Mickey.
So Aaron Huffman, a long time ago when I was in Harvey Danger, he gave me a bass.
He was a very generous guy.
And he was like, you don't have a bass.
You need a bass.
It sounds like a big bass.
So it's the bass.
It's a normal bass.
Normal bass.
And I plug it straight in.
And then I just, like, round it off.
And I go... Oh, no.
That's nothing.
But then, you know, I got... It just...
I'm trying to learn how to be in the pocket.
I think you are.
I would listen to music like this.
I think it's the first 10 seconds.
Oh, Alexa.
Stop.
Alexa, go home.
Alexa.
Alexa.
Who is John Syracusa?
Who is John Syracusa?
Oh, Alexa.
Who is John Syracusa?
I'm probably saying it wrong.
John Siracusa is an author of four books.
Oh, she said it right.
What?
What books?
She said he's an author of books?
Four books.
Does he have books?
Book, book, book, book, book, book, book, book, book, book, book, book, book, book, book, book, book, book, book, book, book, book, book, book, book, book, book, book, book, book, book, book.
Hey, Mickey.
All right.
And that's one for the ages.
Now, wait a minute.
Wait a minute.
You there.
Yes.
Yes.
Did you have a second thing, a second card or a second card?
Oh, yeah, I got more.
I got more.
Let's do one.
Let's do a lightning round.
Okay, I got some of your food on the way, so we've got to go fast.
You pick.
I've got John's doors you've covered.
How are things going with the chair that you fortified?
Did you get the files from the Anna Banana computer?
Take any one you want.
Make it short.
So I fortified the chair.
You fortified the chair for a grown man.
Yeah, for a long time, I sat in the chair fairly delicately because I felt like, yes, it's fortified.
But on the other hand, don't press your luck.
Yeah, don't get too excited.
And then at a certain point, I felt like, all right, I've gotten, I still have not gotten the life out of this chair that I should.
Like other people, this is the same chair that they use on America's Got Talent.
And I don't know, maybe they throw them away after every two episodes.
But I feel like people bought this chair and got to sit in it for a long time.
And I did not get my money out of this chair.
But also, I didn't come here.
I came here to kick ass and chew bubble gum.
I did not come here to sit daintily on a chair where I can't lean back and get relaxed.
So I started to lean back again and relax in the chair.
And now the chair feels like it hasn't bent to the degree that I feel like
uh it's about to fall apart okay but it is it's doing that thing where everything is wrong now like it's just it's basically shaking itself apart like so you feel like you did something to the integrity of the chair that made it less integral no no no i made it more integral the integrity of the chair was completely compromised but now basically what i did was i put
So there was stress on a part of the chair and that part of the chair bent.
So I put steel there and reinforced it.
But now it's just distributed the stress to everywhere.
Oh, no.
Right.
So the chair is under tremendous pressure because it cannot bend where it wanted to bend.
It shouldn't want to bend anywhere.
The chair should be... It should have been fine.
It says it right on the tin.
Chair.
Yeah.
But now...
where it falls apart later yeah i i don't know but it's going to be one of those steve austin things where it's like beep beep oh you think you'll just explode and yeah we can we we can rebuild him but it's gonna it's gonna be like um yeah it's gonna be like an x1 that that blows up in re-entry or whatever you know like when uh when chuck yeager loses control of the
of the x15 or something like oh no no you don't want that you don't want that and come on come on you did who wants an experimental chair not me i just wanted a normal chair i wanted a handsome chair also to be a chair test pilot i got the white one instead of the black one and over time because i sit in it quite a bit my denim
has slightly blued.
Oh, you've denimed up the whiteness.
I denimed the whiteness.
And I stopped caring about it because I feel like the chair is going to explode.
So maybe when I move, maybe when I leave the house and I let the real estate agent just sell it on her own,
the chair will maybe go in the pool maybe go in the shredder right maybe i'll send it to john you should shred your chair that would be fun maybe i'll just i'll you know i'll put a cinder block on it roll it down a hill you decorate the chair for christmas let the people the holiday chair the bottom of the hill deal with it no i i did i did get a tree i got uh like a like a two and a half foot tall tree
and i decorate i over decorated it and now you know months later oh you still got it uh in 2011 you still got it uh no uh in 2010 i kept my tree up until march this year because because my daughter has opinions about things i was like you know trees get a tree our relationship is over it's time for you to
It's time for you to be a porch tree now.
The tree may stay on the porch until March.
Oh, see, that's different, though.
I mean, you're already partway there.
You've got to consider all the things.
A lot of ins, a lot of outs, a lot of what have yous.
Yeah, well, it's the what have yous that get you.
Sing it, sister.
All right.
Greetings from the past.