Reconcilable Differences

The main topic this week is whether we’re living in a simulation (and how we’d know it).

This week, John and Merlin reminisce about the Flowbee, sea monkeys, and the alternately disappointing and satisfying quality of the action figures in their youth. Merlin briefly impersonates Dan Moren and shares that his iPhone activation problems were not unique. John conclusively demonstrates the mini ways that Merlin can’t hear himself pronouncing everything wrong and bemoans the travails of jumbled Contacts syncing.

Is coffee killing us, saving us, or what exactly is the deal here? Your hosts consider the times when it’s useful to question reality, and John still has concerns about smoking.

They read and discuss Sylvester Stallone’s mail.

(Recorded on Tuesday, October 11, 2016)

An increasing number of iPhone users are experiencing an Activation Lock issue in which the device is linked to an Apple ID email address that does not belong to them, according to crowdsourced information from MacRumors and Twitter.

"There's a billion to one chance we're living in base reality," Elon Musk said tonight on stage at Recode's Code Conference, meaning that one of the most influential and powerful figures in tech thinks that it's overwhelmingly likely we're just characters living inside a simulation.

AKA "Humanity Horse"

In mathematical analysis, the intermediate value theorem states that if a continuous function, f, with an interval, [a, b], as its domain, takes values f(a) and f(b) at each end of the interval, then it also takes any value between f(a) and f(b) at some point within the interval.

The main topic is solo parenting. Facing The Shoe Crisis, thrice ruining the dinosaur eggs, and finding yourself in a Staples line that’s literally not moving. Is fear and anxiety really such a smart and time-tested motivator?

This week’s follow-up covers good news/weird news on Merlin’s wife’s phone, more on “accessibility” settings, and how craftsmanship and quality often war with management.

Also, we learn why neurosis is always built into the price when applying Siracusa’s Incompleteness Theorem.

(Recorded Monday, October 3, 2016)

Parents who are one step more attentive than you: coddling yuppies. Parents who are one step less attentive: neglectful assholes.

Gödel's incompleteness theorems are two theorems of mathematical logic that demonstrate the inherent limitations of every formal axiomatic system containing basic arithmetic.[1] These results, published by Kurt Gödel in 1931, are important both in mathematical logic and in the philosophy of mathematics. The theorems are widely, but not universally, interpreted as showing that Hilbert's program to find a complete and consistent set of axioms for all mathematics is impossible.

Section 1. Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex.

Section 2. The Congress shall have the power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.

Section 3. This amendment shall take effect two years after the date of ratification.

In 1978, a joint resolution of Congress extended the ratification deadline to June 30, 1982, but no further states ratified the amendment and so it did not become part of the Constitution.

The main topic this week is "magic and superstition." What delights (or angers) your hosts in a magic show? Why can't Cardini get rid of those cards?

This week kicks off with a look at the rise of vaping, the decline of public infrastructure, and whether it's okay for authors to sign their own books in the airport store.

Merlin (finally) figures out how to join Slate Plus, John reminisces about Yahoo!, and both hosts advocate strongly for the vanishing genre of slow-paced movies about how things get made.

Merlin admits he's superstitious about his water heater, and John reveals how he learned not to mind when his plane takes off. John cruelly schools Merlin on why he should stop trusting himself.

(Recorded Monday, September 12, 2016)

Merlin's Tip: use a mobile device to sign up and GIVE THEM YOUR MONEY.

"A trick is something a whore does for money…or cocaine."

"Robbins held up a thin, cylindrical object: the cartridge from Jillette’s pen."

Pascal argues that a rational person should live as though God exists and seek to believe in God. If God does actually exist, such a person will have only a finite loss (some pleasures, luxury, etc.), whereas they stand to receive infinite gains (as represented by eternity in Heaven) and avoid infinite losses (eternity in Hell).

The main topic this week is high school reunions. Or, at least it starts out that way.

This week, Merlin figures out what's weird about John, and John declares Merlin to be a clique mixer.

John and Merlin are both pretty good at not going to things, then ruminating about it.

(Recorded Tuesday, August 30, 2016)

From the beginning, Relay FM has been a community for podcasters, listeners and follow-uppers to share their common interests and passions. Now, with a Relay FM membership, you can directly support the hosts of your favorite shows.

This week's main topic focuses on the many aspects of being a "late bloomer." From secondary sex characteristics and serial social prickliness through figuring out how to be in a family and studying the anthropology of the opposite sex.

Why this is hell, nor am I out of it.

On this special episode recorded while Dan was still on paternity leave, John is joined by guest host Merlin Mann. Merlin and John discuss Vegas, Disney, Pixar and more!

The main topic this week is ratings and reviews. John talks about how he drinks eagerly from the fire hose of product recommendations as well as sharing his perspective on how he thinks about his epic OS X reviews in retrospect.

This week opens with some follow-up on John’s recent sauce talk, including suggestions on selecting tomatoes and sweating the iffy authenticity of olive oil. John helps Merlin understand modern peaches.

Listeners are encouraged to support Relay FM and are tantalized with details of a very special episode that will soon be available for members only.

(Episode recorded Tuesday, August 23, 2016)

My friend said that lighting a match consumes the bad smell after going to the shitter. I tried and it does. How does it happen? Does the combustion consume the bad gases?

San Marzano tomato, is a variety of plum tomato, considered by many chefs to be the best of its kind in the world

Special guest Merlin Mann joins Jason to talk about reviews, ratings, Rotten Tomatoes, mice, thumbs up and thumbs down, using numbers to quantify the unquantifiable, when it's appropriate to show grown-up media to kids, and a whole lot more.

The big topic this week? Sauce. More specifically, John walks us through how he cooks, stirs, and deploys delicious spaghetti sauce at scale. A general discussion of cooking practices reveals that Merlin is probably America's greatest microwave wizard.

This week kicks off with some follow-up on John's receipt of the coveted Blue Check on Twitter alongside some speculation on the lack of motivation that seems to smother even Twitter's most half-hearted approaches to managing abuse.

Further follow-up concerns pronunciation of "Marina" (say məˈrēnə), thoughts on being "The Other Guy" on a podcast, and more discussion of thought technology. Also, we all get dumb PR email, and, sorry, it looks like Millennium Actress got pulled from the YouTube.

Also, John and Merlin hold a spirited Science Debate on whether and how lighting a match may or may not tackle flatulent effluvia. With Science.

(Episode recorded Wednesday, August 3, 2016)

(This is a great place to contact the hosts and provide feedback. They do read it and often respond!)

"@hotdogsladies @siracusa @RecDiffs For the record, my name does NOT rhyme with a part of the female anatomy"

I think Reconcilable Differences is my favorite podcast. It's like listening to @siracusa try to fly a kite in a hurricane.

Success is a great deodorant.

A thought experiment considers some hypothesis, theory, or principle for the purpose of thinking through its consequences. Given the structure of the experiment, it may or may not be possible to actually perform it, and if it can be performed, there need be no intention of any kind to actually perform the experiment in question.

I like pasta. I’d like to help people make better pasta. It pains me to think about all the poorly prepared pasta being served and eaten in America. My advice will focus on plain old store-bought dried pasta. Nothing fancy. You’ve probably made some yourself.

Dan Benjamin and John Siracusa discuss Goodfellas.

Some family traditions are inexplicable . . . as one bride found out when she finally thought to question why cutting off the ends of the roast before cooking the meat made for a better result.

"Whoof! You're pal closes, and all that comes out of your mouth is bile."

John is verified.

Merlin's favorite "Internet Ramen"

Then on to the scintillating topic of the week: food and cooking. In which we learn that your hosts and their families are both/all screwed up and hopeless in different ways. All involved are, as they say, chopped.

The main topic this time is 'Evolutionary Biology'. John runs through some common misconceptions, and widespread errors of analogies. Merlin candidly admits that he still doesn't really understand what he doesn't understand.

This week we open on John struggling to jump through the hoops to get verified on Twitter. This leads to a discussion of the myriad ways in which abuse thrives unchecked in the absence of decisive action by Twitter-the-company. John excruciates over his now-required bio blurb.

In follow-up, several listeners are thanked and acknowledged, and Good Cop John just can't believe Merlin isn't a more strident and principled critic of "The Popcorn Trick."

Note: Since this episode was recorded, Paramount Vault appears to have pulled the Millennium Actress video from YouTube. Team RecDiffs will update if it reappears.

(Episode recorded Tuesday, July 19, 2016)

This is that excellent list of suggestions for dealing with abuse on Twitter that Merlin couldn't remember.

Totally 👋 implausible! 👋

This week's main topic can be roughly called, "my part of the couch." More specifically, why are your hosts so piqued about how hard it is to have nice things—let alone their own things—in their respective households?

This week kicks off with Merlin ranting about his mixed feelings about spoiler warnings, and, as usual, John assumes the role of Good Cop on the audience's behalf.

Then, there's some discussion of how John has been gently introducing Merlin to his favorite anime films. Note: audience homework to watch the film Millennium Actress for future discussion is assigned.

Is this a simple tragedy of the commons? Are they just unintentionally acting like 50s TV Dads? Will their daughters eventually steal literally everything? And, honestly, how hard is it to put your phone just anyplace besides John's exactly-iPhone-6-sized spot on the mantle?

It seems so simple.

Professor Siracusa’s Anime class is back in session, as we watch two short films with similar themes, both by director Makoto Shinkai. First there’s “The Voices of a Distant Star,” which features a boy and a girl separated by light-years as she fights an alien scourge. Then there’s “5 Centimeters Per Second,” in which a boy and a girl are separated by… a long train journey. Both are beautiful explorations of teenage romantic angst and isolation, with images that will stick with our panelists for a long time.

The tragedy of the commons is an economic theory of a situation within a shared-resource system where individual users acting independently according to their own self-interest behave contrary to the common good of all users by depleting that resource through their collective action.

Marina (properly) reads the opening of Anna Karenina in the native tongue.

The main topic this week is The Future. Merlin can't contain his fascination and admiration with how John's rationality and long view of history has colored and redirected his own conceptions about what the future holds.

[N.B. This episode contains a very brief discussion of plot points in the movie, Finding Dory. Skip from 0:15:41 to 0:19:33 to avoid minor spoilers.]

This week kicks off with a discussion on the nature of inflammable jammies and general rehearsals for panic. There's some quick FU on Ted Leo, followed by some lessons of Finding Dory.

This leads to yet 👏 another 👏 dive into Pixar films and what your hosts compulsively crave from them. Like: what would happen if Pixar went Full-Metal-Kubrick on creating a seriously committed sci-fi movie for grownups?

In passing, your hosts agree that Game of Thrones is really good, and that Sansa Stark is most definitely a serious badass.

The main topic this week is…💫 The Fuuuuuuture! 💫

How does John evaluate and interpolate new technology? How should inchoate cultural vectors inform our thinking? Why do some kinds of change take such improbably more time than others? And how much do we really want to learn about cannibalism?

(Episode recorded 2016-06-21)

"#19: Coincidences to get characters into trouble are great; coincidences to get them out of it are cheating."

Ride like the wind, Bullseye! Our survey of Pixar films continues with “Toy Story 2,” the movie that introduced us to that Pixar Moment. You know the one. (Bring tissues.) We also discuss the philosophy of the Toy Story movies, a bunch of amazing gags, the state of the art of computer animation in 1999, and a whole lot more.

es

19: Coincidences to get characters into trouble are great; coincidences to get them out of it are cheating.

Merlin Mann returns to the show to talk about artificial intelligence and Eddy Cue’s flip-flops.

aka the wacky piano music accompanying Marv Albert's sports bloopers.

The main topic is repping, a pickup of the frequent theme of a program Merlin does with Another John.

This week starts with a vigorous dive into the X-Men movie franchise and what exactly your hosts love and don't about modern superhero movies.

Then, Merlin briefly lapses into some serious Glenning by torturing John with anecdotes about hanging out with Aimee Mann (plus some assorted randos John’s mostly never heard of).

How do we choose the ways we represent ourselves to the world? Whether it's clothes, cars, haircuts, bumper stickers, music or what-have-you: what are we repping, and how often are we even remotely pulling it off?

This time out, John and Merlin start with a consideration of parenting advice and (surprise) the Star Wars prequels.Then, the wardrobe is opened for a discussion of clothing. What your hosts choose to wear and why, and how best to telegraph the desire to be a non-combatant in the fashion race.Merlin encourages listeners to give John a virtual makeover.

We celebrate all of mutantkind with a broad discussion of Marvel’s Uncanny X-Men, especially the versions we grew up reading in comics. What makes their outsider status resonate? Where should new readers start? And we choose some of our favorite X-Men characters in a sequence of choices that is definitely not a draft.

Merlin Mann returns to the show to talk about artificial intelligence and Eddy Cue’s flip-flops.

"They fooled ME, Jerry."

"He's not even a real hamster."