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in all states and situations. Lauren.

0:39

Mike. I'm

0:41

trying to remember if we've ever done this

0:43

before. We

0:46

record a podcast every week, brah. No,

0:48

I mean, do a show

0:50

where the entire episode is just recommendations.

0:53

I don't know. I don't think so. But

0:56

the people have been clamoring for

0:58

this. Friends of the pod,

1:00

fans of the pod, tell me that they love

1:02

our recommendation segment. Okay. Well, that's good

1:04

because it's probably better for us to wrap up the

1:06

year by doing that than trying to predict whatever the

1:09

hell is going to happen to technology in 2024. Yes.

1:13

Very hard to predict these days. Elon

1:15

Musk sells Twitter. Apple

1:17

brings iMessage to Android. Nope. The

1:21

US Alexa robot president. Who knows? The

1:23

world is wide and anything can happen. Exactly.

1:25

So we might as well end the year by

1:27

just going over our favorite life hacks and items

1:30

that we love to help ease people into next

1:32

year. If such a

1:34

thing is possible, I'm all here for it. All

1:37

right. Let's do

1:39

it. Hi,

1:44

everyone. Welcome to Gadget Lab. I am Michael Kalori.

1:47

I'm a senior editor at Wired. And

1:49

I'm Lauren Goode. I'm a senior writer at Wired. We

1:51

are also joined in the studio by

1:53

our producer, Boone Ashworth, in front of

1:56

the mic. Hey, I'm

1:58

on mic now. What's going on again? Hello.

2:01

She's Charlie Black. Yay. Yeah.

2:05

Show, a show about a show. And

2:08

Boone is our own beloved Charlie Chipp

2:10

Black. I know. I've finally watched

2:12

that show now and I finally get the reference.

2:14

You get it. And I think I

2:16

feel complimented. I'm not sure. Hey.

2:19

Mark Duplass is great. You should

2:21

feel disturbed, I think. Deeply

2:24

unnerved. All right. Well,

2:26

as we mentioned, for today's show, we want to

2:28

celebrate the end of the year with an episode

2:30

that is all recommendations. Usually, we end every episode

2:33

of The Gadget Lab by asking all of us

2:35

in the studio to go around the room and

2:37

tell us about a thing that they recommend. It's

2:39

usually a book, an app, a movie, a news

2:41

article, a podcast, a food item. It's

2:44

sort of like the dessert at the

2:46

end of the healthy meal, which is our

2:48

regular show. Well, today, to suit the holidays,

2:50

this entire show is going to be just

2:52

the dessert. Mike, I have a

2:54

question for you. Okay. Before we

2:56

get started. I mean, the

2:59

podcast recommendation segment, that's

3:01

not a new thing, right? You're someone who's been

3:04

podcasting for a while and there was an era

3:06

where a lot of shows had a recommendation segment,

3:09

but we do it better, right? Why is

3:11

that? Is she calling you a hack? I

3:14

think she is. She may be. No,

3:17

no, no. I'm just saying you're seasoned.

3:19

You're good at this. Tell

3:22

the people why we do recommendations and why they're

3:24

so fun. Well, thank you. We

3:27

started doing them just as a way to introduce

3:29

a little bit of personality into the show. I

3:32

think when you have a news show and

3:34

you're talking about serious topics all the time,

3:36

you do get to know a little bit

3:38

about the people who are telling you about

3:40

their reporting and maybe their opinions on

3:42

the news, the analysis that they

3:44

provide. The recommendations just gives

3:46

you a little bit more insight into their

3:48

brain. Also, it's

3:51

a reason to stick around until the end. That's

3:54

right. Yeah, it's the ultimate tease.

3:58

We're always so grateful to people who listen. to

4:00

get to our recommendations. Like I personally feel touched when I

4:02

get a note from a fan and

4:04

they're like, oh, love the Gilad life

4:06

hack of slicing lemons. And like that

4:08

person is committed to the gadget lab

4:11

podcast. Yeah. Yeah. I think we're gonna, we're

4:13

gonna never live that one down. Okay.

4:16

Well, let's start with you, Lauren. Okay.

4:18

You get to go first. What is

4:20

your recommendation? It's so hard to

4:22

distill an entire year's worth of recommendation

4:25

down to three, but one

4:27

of my biggest life hacks this year,

4:29

if you want to call it that

4:31

is weightlifting. I got back into a

4:33

weightlifting program. It's not anything super aggressive.

4:36

I found it manageable enough to get a

4:38

couple of weightlifting sessions done most weeks of

4:40

the year, except for when I was traveling

4:42

or maybe taking some other kind of break.

4:46

Fortunately, I didn't suffer any injuries, so I was

4:48

able to keep doing it, but I found it

4:50

to be great. I feel myself getting stronger. Like,

4:52

you know that feeling when you have a really

4:55

heavy delivery box land on your front stoop and

4:57

you can barely lift it and you've got to

4:59

like do some geometric sort of

5:01

turnover of the thing just to get it

5:03

across your front step. Like I

5:05

can lift those boxes now and

5:08

it feels, it feels actually amazing.

5:11

And it's something that I've just

5:13

been conscious of like as I get a little bit older,

5:15

right? Thinking about things like the loss of

5:17

muscle mass or my bone density and

5:19

things like that. So I've gotten more

5:21

into weightlifting. It wouldn't be the gadget lab

5:23

unless I gave a shameless plug for one of our

5:26

earlier episodes where we had Casey Johnston

5:28

on the show. She's

5:30

the author of a blog called She's a Beast,

5:32

which is all about supporting women and their weightlifting

5:34

journeys. You don't have to be like super

5:37

into weightlifting. It's meant to be accessible.

5:40

And I found it to be really inspiring conversation.

5:43

And I was already weightlifting

5:45

at that point, but it kind of fueled my

5:47

belief, I guess no pun intended, that

5:50

that weightlifting was a good thing to

5:52

do. So if

5:54

you are able bodied and you have

5:56

access to weights, I recommend

5:59

giving it a try. maybe 20-24 goals. So

6:02

what is the one thing that somebody should do if they want

6:04

to get into weightlifting? Hmm. Well,

6:08

I would say don't just go to the gym and

6:10

start picking up barbells. That's

6:12

a fast way to probably injuring yourself because

6:14

your form is very

6:16

important and it's important for like

6:19

your back strength. And I mean, you just really don't

6:21

want to hurt yourself, which is quite

6:23

possible. So start off slow,

6:27

watch some tutorials, read Casey's blog, maybe get

6:29

a book. I used a book that I

6:31

had picked up like 20 years

6:33

ago and just sort of resurfaced. And

6:36

start off light. Don't go

6:38

at it super hard to start. It's okay, you have

6:40

time, you can build it up. That

6:43

would be my number one piece of advice. Nice, good

6:45

recommendation. Are you guys into weights? Nope,

6:48

love them. Heavier

6:50

the better. Heavier the better. No,

6:52

Lauren, I feel like probably your

6:54

journey that you've been on has inspired

6:56

something similar to me because we had this

6:58

conversation in the Gadget Lab Studio months

7:01

ago where I just kind of made jokes about, wouldn't

7:03

it be fun if I was just like super ripped?

7:05

Like how weird would that be? Yeah.

7:08

I'd never been into fitness or anything at any point

7:10

in my life. I'm

7:14

really good at sitting in a chair in front of a computer. And

7:17

I think it was right around the same time that we

7:19

had Casey Johnston on the podcast. And

7:22

we kind of just all had this conversation about like, oh,

7:24

well, no, that's possible. That's a thing that you can just

7:26

do. And there's resources out there for you

7:28

to do it. Jay Dayrit

7:30

recommended the Nike training app that

7:33

I've been using for a while.

7:35

I've recently found this other YouTube

7:37

series of a woman named Carolyn

7:39

Gervan who has called

7:42

the Iron series. And it's like a

7:44

six week video series and

7:46

they're half hour long. And each one of

7:48

them kicks my ass. And for some reason I've

7:50

been like weirdly addicted to them. My sister-in-law was

7:52

just talking about this. Oh, amazing. It's supposedly amazing.

7:55

Yeah, no, fantastic. At first I started watching them

7:57

and I was like, oh, this isn't really my

7:59

thing. I don't know that I'm going to be good at this." And then you do

8:02

one or two of them and are just completely exhausted by the end

8:04

of it, but you feel the

8:06

results. But Boone, one of

8:08

your actual recommendations is related but not

8:10

the same to this. Yes,

8:13

yeah, I was going to jump off of yours if it is in

8:15

fact my turn. It is your

8:17

turn, Boone. Oh, good. My recommendation is

8:19

half marathons. Not

8:22

full marathons. Full marathons

8:24

are scary. That's a lot. I

8:28

ran two half marathons this year, and

8:30

I have signed up for three more

8:32

next year because apparently I'm addicted to

8:34

it now. Nice. It's

8:36

just really nice to have that

8:38

goal. And it's a goal that feels

8:40

somewhat, I mean, I want to say achievable, 13 miles is

8:42

a lot. That's

8:45

a lot to run. That's a crazy amount. People

8:48

who do ultra marathons, like our former editor in

8:50

chief, Nick Thompson, will run 100 miles or whatever.

8:53

And I can't wrap my head

8:55

around that because you have to be like a

8:58

different kind of human to be able

9:00

to do it. To be clear, Nick recently ran 50.

9:03

I just took it for 100 as well. And

9:05

he said, no, no, no, it was 50. And I said, and

9:08

when you finished that one, did you think, oh, I could

9:10

do that again? And he said, oh, yeah, absolutely. Oh,

9:12

no. So he is that kind of person. OK,

9:14

I did a half marathon one

9:17

time, or I did the first one, and I felt

9:19

like I could not walk. Like I had to sit

9:21

down, and I just couldn't think. My brain didn't work

9:23

because 13 miles. Really selling it here. It's a lot.

9:25

Oh, it's lovely. I love it. But then I did

9:28

it again, and I felt great because

9:30

I had trained and practiced up until

9:32

then. And having that deadline

9:35

on your calendar, having that thing

9:38

six months or whatever in advance, and being

9:40

like, OK, I need to get ready to

9:42

run a pretty ridiculous distance motivates

9:45

me to run more. I'm

9:48

really good at finding excuses to be like, oh, well,

9:50

I don't need to go today. It's kind of wet

9:52

outside. Or I'm tired. It's

9:54

really easy to find an excuse to not do it.

9:56

And having, I need a deadline, I'm saying

9:59

as I'm gazing into the air. eyes of my editor who

10:02

knows how important deadlines are. Who's giving you the eyebrows.

10:07

Yeah, so just having those deadlines makes

10:10

it an easier thing to build towards. I

10:12

completely agree. You know, talking with one of

10:14

my best friends who's a running coach, her

10:16

advice is you put money on the table.

10:18

Like sign up for a race so that

10:20

you have something to work towards. And it

10:22

really does go a long way

10:24

towards actually getting you out. Yeah, absolutely.

10:28

Nice. Mike,

10:30

what is your recommendation? Your first

10:32

recommendation? My first recommendation is ActivityPub.

10:36

You may have heard of it. Is that a gym app? It's

10:39

not a gym app. It has nothing to

10:41

do with physical fitness. It has to

10:43

do with health of

10:45

the internet, I guess. ActivityPub

10:48

was a very big story this year, and

10:50

I think it's going to be an even

10:52

bigger story next year. So when it pops

10:54

up and becomes a thing in the world,

10:57

you should embrace it. You should try to use it. It

11:00

is sort of hearkening back to a time

11:03

when social media first sort of

11:06

emerged as like a new phenomenon

11:08

on the internet, where when

11:11

you published a post to one social

11:13

network, you could read it on

11:15

another social network, or the feeds basically went

11:18

out and they could be

11:20

captured by clients. So you could have a

11:22

client, and you could open up that client,

11:24

and you could see your friends' tweets, and

11:26

your friends' Facebook posts, and your friends' LinkedIn

11:29

posts, and all of the social activity that

11:31

was happening on the social web in one

11:33

place. What were some of these clients? Well,

11:36

the big one was FriendFeed, which

11:38

Facebook purchased, and

11:40

then incorporated some of the flow

11:42

technology in FriendFeed into the newsfeed.

11:44

But that basically signaled to

11:47

everybody that it was going away. So

11:49

that vision of the social web being

11:51

something that is permeable went

11:54

away, and it turned into these silos,

11:56

these walled gardens. So when you tweet,

11:59

you can... You can look at Twitter and

12:01

you can see all the tweets, but there's nothing else in your

12:03

Twitter feed. This

12:06

was a big letdown for everybody

12:08

who had struggled and fought to

12:10

keep the social web open. It

12:14

is possible to have these open systems

12:16

still and to build things against them,

12:18

but the social web really is not

12:20

made that way anymore. Now

12:22

that Twitter is collapsing in

12:25

front of us and we have

12:27

all of these new competitors out

12:29

there, Threads, Mastodon, Blue Sky, etc.

12:32

All of those are struggling to

12:34

find an audience and I think they're all

12:36

realizing that the way that you get an

12:38

audience is you open up. So

12:41

maybe they'll all close down again, but

12:43

for the time being, they're opening up

12:46

and they have all pledged in some

12:48

way to support ActivityPub. ActivityPub

12:50

is a protocol that allows all these social

12:52

networks to talk to each other. When

12:56

you're on Mastodon, you'll be able

12:58

to theoretically see your friends' posts

13:00

on Threads. You'll be able

13:02

to like and reply to those posts.

13:04

You'll be able to see your friends'

13:06

Blue Sky posts. Maybe even

13:08

you'll get to see their ex-tweets, ex-posts,

13:11

whatever we're calling them these days. So

13:14

it's a promise that the

13:16

social web is going to be open again.

13:19

ActivityPub is the mechanism that's going to make it

13:21

possible. In the new

13:23

year, when you see clients coming out

13:26

to support ActivityPub or you see announcements

13:28

that these companies are going to start

13:30

publishing their feeds with ActivityPub, then

13:32

you should get excited and you should figure

13:34

out how to follow your friends on various

13:36

social networks and embrace

13:39

the interoperability, our favorite word,

13:43

on the social web. So that's my recommendation.

13:45

But Mike, how did ActivityPub change your

13:47

life in 2023? I

13:51

didn't. recommendation

14:00

is to dream of this future and make it happen for

14:02

all of us, for yourself and for all of us. Good

14:05

one. I feel like an important part of 2023 is

14:07

setting up 2024. Actually,

14:11

okay, no, I do have an answer to that question.

14:13

The way that ActivityPub did something for

14:15

me in 2023 was it made me feel smart

14:17

because when people started talking about it, I knew

14:19

what they were talking about. It was a deeply

14:22

technical thing that I was like, Oh, I understand

14:24

how that works. And

14:26

you had enough context to say, and this is

14:29

why it's good for the social web. Yeah.

14:31

I love the idea of being able to

14:33

just log into one spot like 14 times

14:36

and then not have to worry about it.

14:38

Yeah, that's the problem. That's wonderful. And

14:41

then if social networks come and go, then you

14:43

can maintain your presence in some way. It's

14:46

not all for naught. Not all for naught.

14:50

Okay, let's take a quick break and we're going

14:52

to come back with more recommendations. Hi,

14:57

I'm Roman Mars, host of 99% Invisible.

15:00

It's a podcast about all the thought

15:02

that goes into things most people don't

15:04

even think about. You're going to see

15:07

stories everywhere. Follow and listen to 99%

15:09

Invisible wherever you get your podcasts. All

15:17

right. Round two, Boone,

15:20

you get to go first. Okay,

15:22

I have an actual gadget for the

15:24

gadget lab hit recommendation. I

15:26

like the steam deck. I

15:29

like the steam deck quite a bit. Why did

15:31

you sigh? Because it's just a big switch. Do

15:37

you need it? Not

15:39

really. Yes. But it's fantastic. I

15:41

really like it. Are there games that you

15:43

can play on steam deck that you cannot

15:45

play on switch? Yeah, back up a little

15:48

bit. Tell the people what the steam deck

15:50

is. Okay, so the steam deck is a

15:52

handheld gaming device that lets you play PC

15:54

games. It looks like a giant souped up

15:56

Nintendo switch that plays everything that you have

15:58

in your steam line. library. You

16:00

can also, it runs Linux, you can actually

16:02

use it in desktop mode

16:05

and run different programs on it so

16:07

it's not all gaming stuff. I

16:09

have used that to just put other

16:12

gaming services on it other than

16:14

Steam, so I'm just getting

16:16

all that I can out of it, I

16:18

guess. And it's great because I had

16:22

a lot of PC games when I was a kid.

16:24

They all just languished in my

16:26

Steam library and I

16:28

just had never played them. And then so I got a Steam

16:30

deck and I'm able to play now just whatever

16:33

random stuff while I'm sitting on my couch. And

16:35

it's great. There's

16:37

all this sort of new

16:39

amazing technology coming out. Everybody has VR

16:42

goggles and they're trying to make everything so

16:44

immersive. And I

16:47

just really like gaming technology that lets

16:49

you just curl up in some blankets

16:51

on your couch and just play

16:53

there and be very cozy. So it's

16:56

fantastic. I like it a lot. I

16:59

will say if you're going to get one, get the

17:01

new one, get the OLED one because I

17:04

did the really cool thing of buying a

17:06

Steam deck like two months before the new

17:08

OLED one was announced, which I

17:10

should not have because I mean had I known a

17:12

new one was coming out, I would have waited for

17:14

that one, but that's definitely the one to get. Right.

17:16

And it came out about a month ago. So yeah,

17:18

yeah, yeah. And it's available now. Sarah

17:20

Mueller, one of our gaming contributors, admonished

17:23

me about that in the office the other day

17:26

because she brought the OLED and let us all try

17:28

it out. And I was like, Oh

17:30

my God, this is so much better. I shouldn't have

17:32

got mine. She was like, I wrote a review about

17:35

this and I said wait for the next one. I

17:37

was like, you're right. You're right. I screwed up. I

17:39

should have listened. So now listen, the OLED one is

17:41

the one to get. It's great if you

17:43

want to just sit there and have all your

17:45

games on the couch or on the airplane or

17:47

I don't know, running down the trail. I

17:49

mean, you wouldn't be able to do that very long. The battery

17:51

life is not very good, but it's a fun device. I enjoy

17:54

it. How much? Okay, so I'm looking

17:56

here on the website and it says that the OLED one is

17:58

$549. Which

18:01

I may walk this back a bit because that's a little

18:03

much wait for a sale wait for a sale and get

18:05

it So it's

18:07

it's a bit steep, but it

18:10

it has been worth it right if you love games Mm-hmm,

18:13

then what does it matter? I mean if you love

18:15

games you're probably spending that much money games already anyway,

18:17

so True dad good

18:20

rack. Okay Lauren. What is your recommendation? All

18:23

right. My recommendation is Also

18:26

kind of a gadget although I don't think

18:28

it has a Bluetooth or wireless chip in

18:30

it It's the oxo brew adjustable pour over

18:32

tea kettle This is an electric tea kettle

18:34

and this is a late stage 2023

18:37

recommendation because someone just sent this to me as a gift

18:39

and already it is life-changing Because

18:41

it's pour over style. It has a goose neck,

18:43

which I really like it's electric.

18:45

So Don't have to

18:47

fire up the gas on the stove in order

18:49

to just you know, heat up a tea kettle

18:51

and it's the

18:54

adjustable part means that you can just dial

18:56

it to the temperature of the water and

18:59

Then you just watch it's very satisfying. You

19:01

just kind of watch the temperature rise on

19:03

a little digital display It

19:05

happens really fast too. So if you're doing

19:07

like a light tea, for example You

19:13

might want to set it to around 6170

19:16

and it just I mean happens in

19:18

minutes. So it's great I love this the

19:20

carafe for the one I have is not

19:22

super big like probably make two or three

19:24

cups of tea But not more than that

19:28

You can get a larger one. I'm pretty happy with

19:30

the one I have now I also sometimes use it

19:32

to fill up hot water bottles at night, which I've

19:34

recommended on the show before this like pretty cheap Hot

19:38

water bottle that you like can Basically cuddle

19:40

with it night to keep yourself warm or like throw

19:42

it in your bed to warm up the sheets before

19:44

you get in So yeah, big

19:46

fan. We've talked about oxo on the podcast

19:49

before we like oxo products I decided this

19:51

is this is something that I wanted as

19:53

a gift and so far it's been great

19:55

So I recommend the oxo brew adjustable pour

19:57

over tea kettle How about that?

20:00

much as this gadget? Right now it's about $104

20:02

on the interwebs. There was a sale recently

20:06

on Amazon Wayfair where you could get it for about 25% off,

20:08

so keep an eye out for sales. But

20:11

yeah, you can expect to spend around $100. Which, you know,

20:15

for context is around

20:18

the high end of the normal

20:20

cost of something like this, right?

20:23

A good powerful electric kettle is gonna cost you

20:25

at least 60 bucks and

20:28

as much as like $100, $110. Correct. Yeah, the last one I had was at Cuisinart

20:34

and I had it for many years.

20:36

It rested eventually. That one was,

20:38

I think, around the same price. Maybe a little bit less

20:41

at the time. But yeah, and

20:43

that one had, this is, that was

20:45

a wire cutter recommendation on another website.

20:47

But that

20:49

one had buttons that you could use just at

20:51

the temperature, but it wasn't fully adjustable. Like if

20:53

you want to get wild and just set your

20:56

water temperature to 163 because why not? You

20:58

can do that with the oxygen. It might be

21:00

the ideal temperature for your favorite tea. Might be. You'll

21:03

never know until you try. Mike, what's

21:08

your next recommendation? I'm

21:10

gonna recommend a television show. It is

21:12

an animated science

21:15

fiction show on

21:17

the Macs Network and it is

21:19

called Scavenger's Rain. That's

21:21

Scavenger's Rain, R-E-I-G-N, like the

21:24

rain of a royal person.

21:27

It is a fantastic show and it's

21:29

weird for me to be recommending, first

21:31

of all, something that's animated and

21:34

second of all, something that is science

21:36

fiction because most of the

21:38

stuff out there does not hit the

21:40

very high bar that I set for

21:42

like my standards as to whether or

21:44

not I can dedicate my precious television

21:46

watching time to something. So

21:49

this show far exceeded

21:51

my expectations about what an animated sci-fi

21:53

show is. It is not for kids.

21:57

It's not particularly violent, but it is

21:59

kind of scary and

22:01

it has sort of a pace that

22:03

I think would appeal to kids who

22:05

are very interested in bizarre

22:07

science fiction but probably would

22:09

not keep kids interested

22:11

who are, you know, not

22:14

into like the weirder stuff. You

22:17

should watch it and then decide whether or not it would be right for

22:19

your children. But it's a fantastic

22:21

show. The animation style is

22:24

sort of a mashup of

22:26

like Hayao Miyazaki style

22:29

animation and Mobius animation,

22:32

like the illustrator and animator from the

22:34

70s and 80s who was

22:36

in, there's a segment of the Heavy Metal

22:39

movie that was designed by Mobius. Boone

22:41

is not, he is Mobius. So that's

22:44

the style, right? It's kind of

22:46

retro, kind of futuristic, really detailed,

22:48

really beautiful. The story is sort

22:52

of pieced, you piece it together as you watch it.

22:54

It doesn't tell you everything right away. You kind of

22:56

have to sort of drop into this

22:58

world and figure out what's going on. But

23:01

yeah, it's a really fantastic show. I

23:03

can't recommend it highly enough. I've been telling everybody about

23:05

it and everybody who I have

23:08

been telling about it also

23:10

really likes it. So I've been getting good

23:12

feedback on this recommendation in my friend circle.

23:14

So now it's time to expand the recommendation

23:17

to the wider world. That

23:19

sounds awesome. Excellent. That is

23:21

very uncharacteristic of you, Mike, but now that

23:24

just widens the curiosity gap for me. Oh

23:26

my God. All right. Well, you

23:28

got to check it out. I think you'll like it. Sweet.

23:31

All right. Let's take another break and then we'll come

23:33

back with our third and final recommendation segment for this

23:35

week. Hackers

23:40

and cyber criminals have always held this

23:43

kind of special fascination. Obviously,

23:45

I can't tell you too much about what

23:47

I do. It's a game. Who's

23:49

the best hacker? And I was like, well,

23:51

this is child's play. I'm

23:54

Dina Temple-Rest and on the Click Here

23:56

podcast, you'll meet them and the people

23:58

trying to stop them. We're not afraid. of

24:00

the attack. We're afraid of the creativity and

24:02

the intelligence of the human being behind it.

24:05

Click here. Stories about the people making

24:07

and breaking our digital world. AI

24:10

machines, satellites, engine ignition.

24:13

Click here and lift us. Every

24:16

Tuesday, wherever you get your podcasts.

24:23

Okay, here we are. We're at the end. This

24:25

is the third and final segment of the show,

24:28

and we have one round of recommendations left. Lauren, why

24:30

don't you kick it off this time? Well,

24:32

Mike, my third and final recommendation for this

24:35

year is one that you recommended a while

24:37

back. I was trying to think

24:39

of a piece of art that really just stuck with

24:41

me, just like stuck to my bones this year and

24:44

wasn't some Apple

24:47

TV or Netflix TV show that I just singed

24:49

in the background while doing something else or

24:53

something I was reading in that

24:55

filter like I was

24:57

like, what's a thing that just like rattled

25:00

me? And it was a 2021 film that you

25:03

recommended. I watch called the worst person in

25:05

the world. Yeah, I

25:08

know that I'm a little bit behind here because

25:10

it did come out in 2021 to critical acclaim.

25:14

It won all kinds

25:16

of awards at the Cannes Film Festival. Did I say

25:18

that correctly? I've

25:22

never been invited or my invite keeps getting lost in

25:24

the mail, but it's a Norwegian

25:26

film. It's the third film in a

25:28

trilogy. It's directed by Yoakim.

25:31

Is that correct? I'm sorry. I

25:33

don't speak Norwegian. Yeah,

25:35

it's directed by, I believe

25:38

it's Yoakim, Yoakim Trier. And

25:42

it's, you know,

25:44

I don't even want to like describe it too

25:46

much because I just want people to go and

25:48

watch it if they haven't seen it already. But

25:50

it's the story of a 30 something young woman

25:53

who is having a

25:55

hard time finding the right path

25:57

for her. broken

26:00

down into 12 chapters kind of like a book

26:03

and you're taking through all these different scenes

26:05

in her life, various jobs that she has,

26:08

but it's really focused on her love

26:10

life and her relationships and in two

26:12

in particular. And it was

26:14

just completely captivated by this movie

26:17

and by the characters and

26:21

there's one scene in particular that I think

26:23

is really relevant to what we do

26:26

and how we think about technology and

26:28

how we think about stuff and the

26:30

pieces of the cultural artifacts that we

26:32

accumulate throughout our lives and what they

26:34

mean to us ultimately. And

26:37

I found that there was this

26:39

kind of relief in watching the

26:42

film around letting go, letting go of

26:44

other people's expectations of you, letting go

26:46

of ideas or dreams that you thought

26:48

you had, letting go, like just

26:52

following your own path that

26:55

I just, I loved it. I absolutely loved

26:57

it so much. Very sad. It is, I

26:59

guess it's romantic comedy if

27:01

you had to categorize it, but it's sad. I'm going

27:03

to warn you. However, it

27:05

also, you should also warn everybody that

27:08

the song that plays over the end

27:10

credits is the terrible art Garfunkel version

27:12

of Waters of March. I

27:15

wasn't going to get that granular, but I'm like, this is

27:17

why I really appreciate you. When

27:21

the credits start rolling, you hit the

27:23

mute button. Yeah. There were also some

27:25

critiques of the film and most

27:27

of the critiques centered on the woman

27:30

protagonist. I mean, the main character, Julie,

27:32

and some people arguing that she was

27:34

a caricature of a flighty woman or

27:36

that the movie didn't dive deeply enough

27:39

into her interior life. And I suppose

27:41

in some way those are all valid,

27:43

but like as a woman watching it

27:45

who is sensitive to those kinds of

27:47

depictions of women in film, I didn't

27:49

feel that way personally. I thought it

27:51

was just messages. Yeah.

27:54

I just thought it was great. So I recommend

27:56

that film. I recommend 2021 film as Tap

28:00

off my 2023 recommendations. That's

28:03

great. I'm so happy that it resonated with

28:05

you because it resonated with me. I think

28:07

I've watched it five or six

28:09

times now since it came out. Yeah, and

28:11

I think one thing that you recommended to me

28:14

that I ignored was just buy it, which I

28:16

should have and I rented it. So

28:18

I should have bought it because it already would have paid

28:20

for itself. So yeah. I

28:23

think it's on Hulu now. I don't

28:25

subscribe to Hulu, but one of

28:27

the few that I don't subscribe to, but yeah.

28:29

Okay, well, anyone who does can watch it there.

28:32

So thank you, Mike, for that. Thank this

28:34

just, yeah, great recommendation. You're

28:37

welcome. Glad you liked it. I

28:39

did read a lot of books this year too, but I won't get into those.

28:42

Maybe I'll post about it somewhere else at some

28:44

point, but yeah, hit my Goodreads goal, which I

28:46

was happy about, but I don't

28:49

want humble brags. All right,

28:51

Boone. Hey, you get to go next. What

28:54

is your recommendation? I

28:57

am going to recommend Ableton Live. It

29:00

is a digital audio workstation

29:02

for making music. Nice.

29:05

I am not a music producer. I have

29:07

never played an instrument. I am whatever

29:11

the stage before amateur is. And

29:15

I wrote a story for Wired a few

29:17

years ago about trying to teach myself how

29:19

to play an instrument, how to play music

29:21

just by the resources online. And it turns

29:23

out it was way harder than my idiot

29:25

brain thought it was going to be. And

29:27

I've just been kind of like slowly

29:29

tinkering with stuff over the years

29:31

since. And this year I tried

29:33

Ableton Live, which if you're in

29:36

the industry, I mean, you probably

29:38

are like, well, yeah, you're recommending Ableton.

29:40

That's like an industry standard, but

29:43

I've just been using it for the first time and it feels

29:46

very intuitive to me. I'm one of those

29:48

sick little freaks who likes editing. I edit

29:51

this show every week. I

29:53

like making things

29:55

fit together in a way that sounds

29:57

good. And so doing this sort of

29:59

like. spreadsheet but

30:01

make it sound thing kind

30:04

of like hits

30:06

my brain in a certain way that like I don't

30:08

know it gives me dopamine hits or whatever

30:10

I'm not making anything good I'm not making

30:12

anything even remotely listenable but I'm

30:15

like slowly learning how to like

30:17

how people build music and how

30:19

people make stuff whether it's you

30:21

know various EDM beeps and boops

30:23

or just you know chill lo-fi

30:26

whatever you can study to yeah I mean

30:28

maybe you don't want to say these because

30:31

they're borderline and listenable but it's just like

30:34

I've been learning more I've been watching you

30:36

know random YouTube videos Ableton is actually it's

30:38

really complicated but they make it really easy

30:40

to learn because there's a lot of tutorial

30:42

videos on Ableton and on YouTube just in

30:44

general and it's

30:46

just I'm understanding a lot

30:48

more about how music is made something

30:50

that you know again if you've played

30:52

an instrument you know you're in five

30:55

bands like if you played an instrument this is

30:57

probably all like stuff you've already figured

30:59

out before but I've listened to music all my

31:01

life I enjoy listening to it and this is

31:03

a way to kind of understand it in

31:05

a way that I hadn't really wrapped my brain

31:07

around it before no I

31:10

think one of the things

31:12

that I've got wanted to pursue it more

31:14

or just like this understanding more is that

31:17

it feels like AI is taking over

31:20

everything I think we're

31:22

you know at the point now where AI

31:24

can already make better songs than I could

31:26

even do manually and so I

31:28

hope to get to the point where I understand

31:31

enough about music production even if I'm not doing

31:33

it myself that I can tell

31:35

the difference when a song is produced by humans

31:37

and like notice the subtle

31:39

details that make it a human thing

31:41

versus something that's like been spat out

31:43

by an algorithm so very

31:46

nice is this inspiring you to consider

31:49

taking music lessons yes

31:52

but they're pricey my

31:55

my I'm thinking of music

31:57

lessons the same way as I think of going to the

31:59

gym which is something that like I'm

32:01

able to do stuff at

32:03

home and off of YouTube and so I haven't

32:05

gotten into it enough that I am

32:08

actually taking that next step of okay getting

32:10

off my butt paying for something going to

32:12

a place and learning how to do it

32:14

properly. Maybe 2024 is that year for me. Have

32:18

you played around with Ableton Note? No,

32:21

is that the app? Yeah, it's like a

32:23

very sort of lightweight version of

32:26

live. So you can get it on

32:28

your phone or on an iPad or whatever and you

32:30

can start working on a project there like on the

32:32

bus and then when you get home you can you

32:35

know send it to your computer and then

32:37

work on it in a larger more full-featured

32:39

environment. Oh that that sounds great I should

32:41

definitely do that. Yeah, you should get into

32:44

it. Can you play it out loud so

32:46

I can annoy everybody on the bus? Yes,

32:49

everybody will be like, oh what's that jam?

32:52

Uh-huh, I'm sure. That never

32:54

happens. Mike, what

32:56

is your final recommendation of the

32:58

year? Oh, oh boy. Chili Crisp,

33:02

condiment of the year for sure. Chili Crisp,

33:04

are you down? Do you know about Chili

33:06

Crisp? Tell me more. Is that

33:08

one of your bands? No, it's not one of my

33:10

bands. So you could band me. It

33:12

would be. It's a condiment. It

33:15

comes from China. It's been around

33:17

for generations and generations but lately

33:20

it has enjoyed some popularity here

33:23

in our part of the world.

33:25

It is essentially hot chili oil so

33:28

it usually has hot chili pepper, Szechuan

33:30

chili pepper for like a numbing effect.

33:33

There's often garlic and five spice and

33:35

anise and things like that in it

33:37

but you sort of, it's crunchy so if

33:39

you stir it up you get some of the particulate

33:41

matter and some of the oil mixed up and then

33:44

you can like dollop it onto food.

33:46

It's really good on fried rice, it's

33:48

really good on pizza, it's really good

33:50

on your avocado toast, on breakfast foods,

33:52

on tofu. Works with just

33:55

about anything savory. Uh, gives it a

33:57

little bit of like an Asian spicy

33:59

kick. Now,

34:03

Chili Crisp has been around for a very long

34:05

time, but earlier this year,

34:07

there was like a viral sensation with

34:10

the Chili Crisp made by a company

34:12

called Fly by Jing that

34:14

apparently was sold out everywhere and

34:16

people couldn't find it because it was so popular

34:18

overnight. And Fly by Jing,

34:20

their Chili Crisp is very good,

34:23

but there are other ones that you can get that are

34:26

not hard to find, that have also been around for

34:28

a long time. The one that everybody

34:30

knows that is available at just about any Asian

34:33

grocery store is called Lao Gan Ma. It's also

34:35

just known as the Grandma sauce because it has

34:37

a little picture of a grandma on the label.

34:40

You can also, if you have like a Japanese

34:42

store, you can find the ones made by the

34:44

company S&B. That's like

34:47

the letter S and then an ampersand and then the

34:49

letter B, and those just have a little bit sunnier

34:51

flavor and maybe more of

34:53

like a Japanese flair. I'm

34:55

really into the one by

34:57

a company from the East Coast

35:00

called Blank Slate. They make

35:02

a Sichuan Chili Crisp, which is excellent. But the nice

35:04

thing about Chili Crisp is that you can just make

35:06

your own very easily. You

35:08

need two kinds of oil. You need a lot

35:10

of chili flakes. You need some spices, some garlic,

35:13

and a mask because

35:15

when you dump the oil onto all of

35:17

the dry ingredients, it makes this dry plume

35:20

that fills your kitchen with chili pepper gas.

35:26

But it's really excellent when

35:29

you make your own because then you can make it as

35:31

hot as you want or you can make it as numbing

35:33

as you want. You can use whatever

35:35

kind of oil suits you. You can use peanut

35:37

oil or avocado oil or whatever you'd like. So

35:40

yeah, Chili Crisp. That

35:42

sounds amazing. It really does sound great. Keep

35:45

a jar of it, not in the fridge.

35:47

Keep a jar of it on your countertop and put

35:49

it on absolutely everything that you eat. So

35:52

is this the number one condiment

35:55

or spice for you in all of 2023? Yeah,

35:58

for sure. That's

36:00

high praise You

36:02

have discerning palette. I

36:04

do but you know this stuff when you find a

36:07

brand that you really like Yeah, you start thinking of

36:09

things that you can eat Just so you have an

36:11

excuse to put it on top of the thing that

36:13

you're eating very cool Amazing

36:16

I'm a try like bringing it to the lab sometime make

36:18

us some avo toast There's

36:20

I think there's some of the there's some of the

36:23

kitchen here at the wired office. I'm going right now.

36:25

Yeah All

36:27

right, well, thanks to both of you for bringing us

36:29

here your wonderful recommendations out of the show. Thank

36:32

you. Yeah. Thank you Thanks for being

36:34

such a great host and co-host and bone

36:36

for being such an excellent producer for all

36:38

2023 It's been a privilege to

36:40

work with you guys on this. Oh What

36:43

did you say you're one of those weird freaks who likes

36:45

to make us sound good every week? So thank you for

36:48

that I appreciate it No,

36:51

thank you guys this has been great. I love

36:53

being here great Well, we'll have you back in

36:56

a year. Thanks to everybody for

36:58

listening This show is

37:00

produced by Boone Ashworth He is sitting right

37:03

here in front of us if you have

37:05

any feedback you can find all of us

37:07

on the social webs Just check the show

37:09

notes and find us on activity pub We'll

37:14

have offering one-on-one consultations for how

37:16

to set up your mastodon and

37:18

get on activity pub. Yes Yeah,

37:21

yes, I Boone and I will be at

37:23

the gym together but Michael help We

37:27

will be back with one more show this year

37:29

and then we'll see you in 2024 and until

37:32

then On

37:42

the pitch work review podcast We talk about new

37:44

music and dig deeper into our reviews with the

37:46

critics who wrote them And we

37:48

also interview some of our favorite artists It's

37:51

a big emotion that people can take in

37:53

and relate to but it's also powerless.

37:56

So it's palatable Like

37:58

anger would be more powerful powerful, but

38:01

angry girl music kind of gets

38:03

cast as like corny. Make

38:06

sure to follow the Pitchfork review wherever

38:08

you listen.