John Siracusa and Merlin Mann try to figure out exactly how they got this way.

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    #113: Ambient Pleasure Generator

    September 19th, 2019 · 96 minutes

    Your hosts return to Secret Weird Things People Do, and this week it's John's turn. Merlin wants to learn about the benefits that John gets from keeping his things nice.

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    Download: MP3 (79.1 MB)

    Links and Show Notes

    Things kick into gear fast as John interrogates Merlin about his weird reaction to the recent Apple event. Why all the Charlie Brown? John has calibrated his expectations for these things, but Merlin still struggles to articulate what felt so off this time. Maybe it's just not understanding the profile for the Apple customer any more, but who knows?

    John's introduces a fascinating new thought technology involving the swirly circles emanating radiation from sources of pleasure and pain. Merlin thinks minimizing entropy can be a great source of pleasure plus a bulwark against madness.

    The benefits of the Tiny Life Improvement Project are extolled, and ways of detecting sources of both radiation and weirdness are examined.

    (Recorded on Tuesday, September 10, 2019.)

    Credits
    Apple Events - Keynote September 2019 - Apple
    Reconcilable Differences #112: Here Comes the But - Relay FM

    This week's main topic is the backdoor pilot for a multi-episode arc: secret weird things people do. Are we even able to even realize when there's something extremely weird that only we do?

    5by5 | Back to Work #442: Dog Eating Chair Digestion

    Dan and Merlin discuss the upcoming big Apple event and why this one's potentially interesting.