Discussed: Dan's gummi vitamins, vitamins in general, the childhood shame of those weird plaque pills, exotic sickness images, Fifth Disease comes to Austin, Dan's car troubles, Faraday Cages and how to build them, a potential t-shirt for you.

Dan was cleaning out his garage, and Merlin has a lot to say about the philosophy and practical components of getting rid of junk at scale. Also, Dan really kills it on eBay.

Merlin is very excited about Fantastic Four coming back and has some potential warnings about the new Wes Anderson film. Spoilers: there's nothing weak about knowing what freaks you out.

Also, the boys discuss why Merlin changed his mic setup. Which is fascinating.

Links for this episode:

• A little-known California law is Silicon Valley's secret weapon - Vox
  
• Apple, Google give high tech workers an extra $90 million in “no-poach” suit | Ars Technica
  
• Ungainly X-Mann Meetup #22 — Merlin Mann
  MERLIN MANN (Back to Work, Roderick on the Line, Reconcilable Differences, Do By Friday, You Look Nice Today, et al.) invites you to drop by Two Cats Comics on the evening of Thursday, May 17th to hang out, talk about comics, and just say, “Hi.” It's free and it's fun.
  

This week, the boys discuss Drafts, The Archive, Merlin's love of Spotify, some great playlists, and weird rules for cheerleaders.

In extensive follow-up, your hosts talk about the listener who was having trouble with addressing employees and social media use. This goes lots of interesting places.

Next up, even more input from listeners on social media policies and living life in a fishbowl.

Links for this episode:

• Drafts | Agile Tortoise
  
• Drafts (@draftsapp) | Twitter
  
• Vector with Rene Ritchie: 033: Drafts, with Greg Pierce and Merlin Mann
  Drafts is developed by Greg Pierce and used the hell out of by Merlin Mann. They sit down together to talk direction, workflows, and what's coming next.
  

Bula vinaka, bee tee dubs nation! This is an epic odds and sods episode, replete with TV follow-up, font follow-up, and Wild, Wild Country follow-up, along with book recommendations, happy Splatoon 2 talk, and a pretty terrible 70s board game. Also, ubi sunt retail amirite?

Also, your hosts finally (finally!) address a listener's excellent and very difficult question about her millennial employee's use of social media. Lot of levels!

Links for this episode:

• Rules of Thumb: A Life Manual: Tom Parker: 9780761150732: Amazon.com: Books
  
• The Order of Things: Hierarchies, Structures, and Pecking Orders: Barbara Ann Kipfer: 9780761150442: Amazon.com: Books
  
• Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain: The Definitive, 4th Edition: Betty Edwards: 9781585429202: Amazon.com: Books
  
• Toys R Us blames Amazon, Target, Walmart for dealing death blow over holidays
  
• Kid80s.com: M&M's "Thanks, Easter Bunny" Commercial from the 80s - YouTube
  
• Splatoon 2 for Nintendo Switch - Nintendo Game Details
  
• Splatoon 2 - Turf War Gameplay - YouTube
  
• Splatoon 2 Review - YouTube
  
• Splatoon 2 for Nintendo Switch – Official Site
  
• tonsky/FiraCode: Monospaced font with programming ligatures
  
• The Times Issues Social Media Guidelines for the Newsroom - The New York Times
  The new guidelines underscore our newsroom’s appreciation for the important role social media now plays in our journalism, but also call for our journalists to take extra care to avoid expressing partisan opinions or editorializing on issues that The Times is covering.
  

This week, Dan and Merlin discuss Jessica Jones and the problem of super power constitution, plus some more Netflix recommendations ("Look away! Looooook awaaaaay!"). They also do a dive into updates on the monospace fonts they like and use. Next, up they talk about the new app, The Archive, contrasting with nvALT.

Finally, your hosts answer an excellent listener question about struggling to manage more experienced developers.

Links for this episode:

• The Archive (macOS) • Zettelkasten Method
  
• Jessica Jones (TV series) - Wikipedia
  
• Alias (comics) - Wikipedia
  
• Max (comics) - Wikipedia
  
• Krysten Ritter - Wikipedia
  
• Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. - Wikipedia
  
• Top 10 Programming Fonts
  
• Introduction | IBM Plex
  
• Getting Apple’s SF Mono Font in macOS – Shashikant Jagtap – Medium
  
• source-foundry/Hack: A typeface designed for source code
  
• Roboto Mono - Google Fonts
  
• mozilla/Fira: Mozilla's new typeface, used in Firefox OS
  
• DIN Schriften™ - Desktop font « MyFonts
  
• Factor Rainbows | Worksheet | Education.com
  
• Rainbow method to find all factors of a number - MAT0018 Additional resources - Oliver - LibGuides at Polk State College
  
• Amazon.com: ART Pro Audio HeadAmp 4 Four Channel Headphone Amplifier: Musical Instruments
  
• Netflix - A Series of Unfortunate Events
  

This week, your hosts say "Bula Vinaka!" They also discuss phone cards, some Netflix recommendations, Merlin's phone usage, and "accidentally" getting punched in the face by your kid. Of course, they also talk about the TV and voice control ecosystems.

They also respond to listener questions about better active listening, and how they each take notes for podcasts.

Links for this episode:

• AT&T Fiji Commercial - YouTube
  
• Netflix
  
• Wild Wild Country | Official Trailer [HD] | Netflix - YouTube
  
• Netflix
  
• Netflix
  
• Flint water crisis - Wikipedia
  
• List of Movies and TV Shows on Netflix | Flixable
  
• Customer relationship management - Wikipedia
  
• nvALT - BrettTerpstra.com
  
• Would ‘Black Panther’ Work As TV? Plus Guilty Pleasures and New Music In the Mailbag | The Watch (Ep. 236 ) — The Watch — Overcast
  
• Michael Wolfe's answer to Why is Dropbox more popular than other programs with similar functionality? - Quora
  

This week, your hosts discuss Steely Dan, digital mastering, The Police, Dune, high-quality VCRs, and Dan's brother-in-law's close call.

Next, they dive into a fascinating article on why projects fail.

Finally, the boys respond to a listener's question about cautious workplace enthusiasm.

Links for this episode:

• The meaning of snafu, clusterfuck, and shitshow: There's a difference — Quartz at Work
  
• SPARS code - Wikipedia
  

This week, your hosts talk about some stuff they're doing, loving Spotify, some Echo podcast-listening tips, the attraction of Google Drive, some thoughts on backup strategies, getting swole, the joys of rock tumbler ownership, scary times in Austin, weird iMac problems, some more thoughts on backup strategies, Merlin's obsession with drumming videos, and yet more Apple TV foibles.

Links for this episode:

• Ungainly X-Mann Meetup #21 — Merlin Mann
  
• Amazon adds follow-up mode for Alexa to let you make back-to-back requests | The Verge
  
• Mindfulness in Plain English - Audiobook | Audible.com
  
• Beatles '66 - Audiobook | Audible.com
  
• All the Pieces Matter - Audiobook | Audible.com
  
• The Dragonet Prophecy - Audiobook | Audible.com
  
• Spotify
  
• Spotify Integration - Fireside
  
• Amazon.com: My Pod: Alexa Skills
  
• Home - My Pod
  
• Using Google Drive - New Features, Benefits & Advantages of Google Cloud Storage
  
• Microsoft OneDrive
  
• Google Photos - Wikipedia
  
• How to use Time Machine to back up or restore your Mac - Apple Support
  
• Shirt Pocket
  
• SuperDuper!
  
• Etcher
  
• How to create a bootable installer for macOS - Apple Support
  
• How to download macOS Sierra - Apple Support
  
• Cory Doctorow's craphound.com | Cory Doctorow's Literary Works
  
• Audiobooks matching keywords percy jackson | Audible.com
  
• School for Good and Evil
  
• Bernard "Pretty" Purdie: The Legendary Purdie Shuffle - YouTube
  
• No Retreat, No Surrender - Wikipedia
  
• Jean-Claude Van Damme - Wikipedia
  
• The Doctor's Promise - YouTube
  
• Netflix
  

This week, your hosts talk about using Windows, technology modalities, making sane decisions as a developer, reality TV, 20th anniversary of The Dude, Merlin's new fondness for Spotify, analyzing takes on the HomePod, options for high-quality in smart speakers, dealing with recurring financial (and psychological) eels, competitive heat in the smart home ecosystem, Canadians, and the name of Scotland Yard. They also answer a listener question about feeling overwhelmed by content options.

Links for this episode:

• Amazon Alexa
  (Choose default music services)
  

This week, Dan and Merlin talk about weather as a thing and giving up on Cash's dumb iPad problem. This leads to discussion about the risks, opportunities, and frustrations of having lots of data in different places (probably).

The main topic this week is an exploration of TickTick. Neat app.

They also almost talk about Black Panther.

Links for this episode:

• TickTick
  
• Overview · TickTick User Guide
  
• Dew point - Wikipedia
  
• Jaz drive - Wikipedia
  
• MusicBrainz Picard
  
• Queen - Somebody To Love (Official Video) - YouTube
  
• TickTick - Todo & Task List - Chrome Web Store
  
• STAMP - Move to Apple Music, Spotify or Google Music
  
• Netflix
  

This week, Dan and Merlin talk a little too much about Harry Potter, but also manage to cover some other media properties as well as the shockingly limited options for British casting. Dan has a new task management app, and Merlin decides to give it a spin too. The need for help from the jackals who make Cash's iPad app is escalated.

In a somewhat classic style, the conversation moves to considering Big Issues around work, friction, modality, usability, and apps for pound-sign productivity.

Twitter, its apps, and its perplexing (lack of?) company direction are discussed. Merlin has something like a razor for this.

Dan is told that he is upset.

Links for this episode:

• Thought-terminating cliché - RationalWiki
  A thought-terminating cliché is a saying, often a tautology, that is repeated in order to relieve the stress of cognitive dissonance by avoiding all further consideration of a matter. Everyday examples include "it is what it is," "it's just common sense," and "you gotta do what you gotta do."