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Speaker 1: Text with Technology with tex Stuff from stuff works dot Com.

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Speaker 1: Hey there, and welcome to text Stuff. I am your host,

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Speaker 1: Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer here at How Stuff Works,

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Speaker 1: and we made it, guys all the way to episode

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Speaker 1: nine hundred, and they said it couldn't be done or

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Speaker 1: shouldn't be done one of the two. Who's to say,

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Speaker 1: but happy nine episode of text Stuff at least according

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Speaker 1: to my notes, which could clearly be totally wrong. Uh,

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Speaker 1: this may or may not be the nine episode. I

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Speaker 1: use a spreadsheet and I do a little plus one,

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Speaker 1: and according to that, it's nine. So we're gonna treat

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Speaker 1: it like it's the nine, because if it's not, you

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Speaker 1: can just be comforted in knowing that there's no real

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Speaker 1: significance to any particular number anyway. In other words, listen

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Speaker 1: to every tech Stuff episode like it's or something. For

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Speaker 1: today's episode, we're going to do something I should have

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Speaker 1: covered hundreds of episodes ago. We're going to look at

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Speaker 1: the how Stuff Works story. It's a little different from

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Speaker 1: how How Stuff Works works. I think I have done

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Speaker 1: that episode in the past, but this is more about

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Speaker 1: the story of the company, and it's a complicated one.

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Speaker 1: For multiple reasons. Now, one of those is that we

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Speaker 1: have two very different branches of the company these days.

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Speaker 1: We have the website how stuff works dot Com. That's

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Speaker 1: the that's the business that hired me oh so many

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Speaker 1: years ago. It's the home to thousands of articles about

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Speaker 1: all sorts of topics. And then we have the podcast network,

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Speaker 1: of which tech stuff is a part, along with other

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Speaker 1: great shows like stuff you should Know, Stuff you missed

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Speaker 1: in history class, and shows that aren't so great, like

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Speaker 1: stuff they don't want you to know That's for you,

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Speaker 1: Ben Bolan Uh and more. Uh. We have those two

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Speaker 1: different branches. And now, even though I got hired for

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Speaker 1: how stuff Works dot Com, I work for the podcast side.

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Speaker 1: In this episode, I'm going to focus mainly on that

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Speaker 1: website side of the business. We will later on chat

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Speaker 1: with our us in louder Milk. She is the head

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Speaker 1: of the editorial department here at how stuff works dot com,

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Speaker 1: and we'll learn all about the process of pitching and

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Speaker 1: selecting and editing articles for the site, as well as

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Speaker 1: how things have changed since she came on board, and

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Speaker 1: we'll look at the company in general and how that's

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Speaker 1: changed over the years. So actually we'll start with that.

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Speaker 1: The history of how Stuff Works dates back to nineteen

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Speaker 1: and that's when Marshall Brain and yes that is his

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Speaker 1: real name, decided to launch a website that would host

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Speaker 1: articles about how stuff works. Marshall Brain was born in

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Speaker 1: nineteen sixty one and Santa Monica, California, and he attended

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Speaker 1: a polytechnic institute over in New York, earned a bachelor's

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Speaker 1: degree in electrical engineering, and then went on to earn

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Speaker 1: his master's degree in computer science at North Carolina State

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Speaker 1: University in Raleigh, North Carolina, and he became a computer

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Speaker 1: science professor there. Between nineteen six and nine. Two and

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Speaker 1: ninety two, he founded a software training and consulting company,

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Speaker 1: and in he began publishing articles online on his new

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Speaker 1: web page, which he dubbed how stuff Works. Early articles

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Speaker 1: mostly focused on technology. How a car engine works is

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Speaker 1: typically cited as the first article on the site. The

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Speaker 1: truth is lost to antiquity or we just haven't been

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Speaker 1: able to get a straight story to find out, but

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Speaker 1: how a car engine works is typically the one we say, yeah,

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Speaker 1: that that's kind of the first real how stuff works article,

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Speaker 1: But others that came out that same year would include

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Speaker 1: how television works. How the radio spectrum works, how a

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Speaker 1: thermis works, and Marshall Brain's site became popular and attracted

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Speaker 1: lots of visitors, and in two thousand he decided he

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Speaker 1: would hold around a venture capital funding in order to

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Speaker 1: ramp up this website, because up to that point it

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Speaker 1: had really been a hobby. He wasn't looking at it

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Speaker 1: as a full business, but he saw the site grow

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Speaker 1: and he formed a an entire business out of it.

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Speaker 1: He hired on a staff, he set up a headquarters

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Speaker 1: in Carry, North Carolina, but he did find it challenging

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Speaker 1: to create a business that had an ongoing source of revenue.

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Speaker 1: He wasn't able to really figure out that part out,

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Speaker 1: or or at least get the backing of advertisers to

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Speaker 1: really make a go of it, and by the end

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Speaker 1: of two thousand one he had to cut back on

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Speaker 1: about half of his company's staff. So while he had

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Speaker 1: hired on a bunch of people after that first round

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Speaker 1: of venture capital funding, that money didn't last forever and

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Speaker 1: the revenue just hadn't come around yet, so he laid

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Speaker 1: off about half the people he had had to hire.

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Speaker 1: He couldn't get the advertising support he needed to keep

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Speaker 1: the site going. He sought another round of venture funding,

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Speaker 1: and in two thousand two, there's a private company that

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Speaker 1: was called Convex that made an offer to buy How

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Speaker 1: Stuff Works, and Brain accepted. The price was the princely

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Speaker 1: sum of one million dollars. The Convex Group was an

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Speaker 1: entertainment and investment company. It was founded by a guy

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Speaker 1: named Jeff Arnold. Jeff Arnold started his career doing starting

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Speaker 1: several other businesses, but really was known for beating the

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Speaker 1: founder of a website called web Md. Just been terrifying

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Speaker 1: people ever since. Whenever you have an ache, pain, or

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Speaker 1: strange rash, you go to web Md and then you

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Speaker 1: realize that you've got some sort of Venusian death cold

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Speaker 1: or something. But he founded this company. It was wildly successful. However,

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Speaker 1: it wasn't a runaway hit right out of the gate.

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Speaker 1: Arnold actually left web md after the dot com crash

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Speaker 1: that happened around two thousand, two thousand one, and he

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Speaker 1: said that he just didn't feel like he could lead

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Speaker 1: web m D through that that turmoil. He didn't have

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Speaker 1: the experience to do it. So insteady win and created

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Speaker 1: the Convex Group. Now, the Convex Group was a company,

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Speaker 1: like I said, that invested in largely entertainment ventures, and

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Speaker 1: they acquired several other entities, so they purchased other companies.

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Speaker 1: One of those was a company called lid Rock. Do

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Speaker 1: you remember lid Rock. If not, here's a quick refresher.

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Speaker 1: Once upon a time, my dear listeners, there were movie

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Speaker 1: theater chains in the United States in particular, but in

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Speaker 1: other countries as well, that would include a c D

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Speaker 1: that is, a compact disc. With certain drink purchases. The

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Speaker 1: compact disc would fit into the lid of a gargantuan

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Speaker 1: sized soft drink cup, which I'm sure was marketed as

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Speaker 1: a small and the idea was that you would pop

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Speaker 1: off the lid, take out the c D, and then

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Speaker 1: you could discover new music, presumably by playing the CD.

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Speaker 1: If you can just discover it by looking at one.

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Speaker 1: Your eyes are lasers in your robot. We had some

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Speaker 1: of these lid Rock lids around the office. When I

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Speaker 1: first started at How Stuff Works, it wasn't subject of

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Speaker 1: some jovial conversation at points in the editorial department. Now

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Speaker 1: I joined How Stuff Works Come in two thousand seven,

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Speaker 1: and that was when it was still owned by the

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Speaker 1: Convex Group. So I have some interesting memories are of

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Speaker 1: this time. I was actually part of the staff anyway,

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Speaker 1: the Convex Group, but How Stuff Works with the goal

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Speaker 1: of selling it for a profit further down the road.

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Speaker 1: This was not a secret. It was not like it

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Speaker 1: was coming as a shock to anyone. It was pretty

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Speaker 1: much part of the deal when the Convex Group made

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Speaker 1: the acquisition in two thousand two. It's just it took

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Speaker 1: a few years to get to the point where they

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Speaker 1: could sell it for a really good profit. In the meantime,

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Speaker 1: the website grew. Now there wasn't time before I was

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Speaker 1: hired where things seemed really interesting to me. Now I

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Speaker 1: never got to experience this firsthand. I just got to

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Speaker 1: hear about this time, this wondrous, magical, mythical time. Before

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Speaker 1: I got hired on there used to be a branch

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Speaker 1: of the How Stuff Works site called stuff Oh, And

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Speaker 1: this was meant to cover more whimsical and lighthearted topics,

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Speaker 1: largely entertainment related topics. How Stuff Works was thought to

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Speaker 1: be more serious. It was going to explain stuff like

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Speaker 1: refrigerators and computers and world finance, and STUFFO would answer

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Speaker 1: really weird questions such as who would win in a fight?

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Speaker 1: Superman or a Jedi. STUFFO existed from two thousand four

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Speaker 1: to about two thousand six, and from what I heard,

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Speaker 1: it was a lot of fun to work on, but

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Speaker 1: it wasn't to last. By the time I was brought on,

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Speaker 1: STUFFO was gone, and the the editorial staff of How

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Speaker 1: Stuff Works itself had been through a really rough patch.

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Speaker 1: All of the full time writers, except for one, we're gone.

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Speaker 1: There's one remaining full time writer when I was brought on.

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Speaker 1: That one full time staff writer was Tracy V. Wilson.

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Speaker 1: Now she's a host of stuff you missed in history class.

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Speaker 1: That might be where you're familiar with Tracy, But I

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Speaker 1: had known Tracy from before I started How Stuff Works.

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Speaker 1: I actually was a writer on a series of things

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Speaker 1: that Tracy would also occasionally write for, and that's how

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Speaker 1: we knew each other. So I applied to work for

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Speaker 1: How Stuff Works in late two thousand six, got an

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Speaker 1: interview in early two thousand seven, and was hired on

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Speaker 1: February fifteen, two thousand seven. At that time, Tracy and

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Speaker 1: I were the only two full time staff writers, with

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Speaker 1: Julia Layton writing Questions of the Day, and we'll talk

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Speaker 1: more about that in our interview. With Alison lower Milk,

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Speaker 1: the managing editor of How Stuff Works in just a

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Speaker 1: few moments. Now, a few months after I joined, the

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Speaker 1: company began to reinvest in the editorial department. So it

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Speaker 1: had gone through a dip where a lot of the

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Speaker 1: people were either laid off or people left the job

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Speaker 1: to go and do something else, and Tracy and I

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Speaker 1: were the only two there. But they then switched where

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Speaker 1: there was this reinvestment and the department began to grow

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Speaker 1: and we started to hire new writers and editors. And

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Speaker 1: some of those people are folks that you might be

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Speaker 1: familiar with, such as Josh Clark and Chuck Bryant. They

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Speaker 1: came in on that first wave. So I was here first.

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Speaker 1: I want that noted these days, they do host stuff

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Speaker 1: you should know, a podcast of some renown. I do

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Speaker 1: not begrudge them their success. They're actually amazing. They are talented,

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Speaker 1: they are funny, they're wicked smart, and so they are

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Speaker 1: fantastic coworkers and great podcasters. Now, in October two thousand seven,

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Speaker 1: this was less than a year after I had started

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Speaker 1: at the company, we got the announcement that Discovery Communications,

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Speaker 1: that is the company behind the Discovery Channel, the Science

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Speaker 1: Channel TLC and More was going to buy How Stuff

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Speaker 1: Works and then generally agreed upon estimate for the sales price,

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Speaker 1: because these things are not always public, was two hundred

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Speaker 1: fifty million dollars. That's a pretty nice profit for that

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Speaker 1: million dollar investment that was made back in two thousand two.

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Speaker 1: I mean, also explain what life was like back then

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Speaker 1: for the writers of How Stuff Works. Not in general,

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Speaker 1: I mean, two thousand seven wasn't that long ago. You

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Speaker 1: could probably remember it yourself, But if you were a

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Speaker 1: writer in two thousand seven, particularly when Tracy and I

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Speaker 1: were writing, we would write one article every two weeks

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Speaker 1: and we would just alternate. By the time Discovery was

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Speaker 1: purchasing us, we had switched to writing an article every week,

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Speaker 1: and we then had more writers and more editors, so

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Speaker 1: we could actually publish more than one article every week.

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Speaker 1: Because back in the day, if you went to House

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Speaker 1: Stuff Works dot com and you looked at that front page,

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Speaker 1: there would only be one new article every single week.

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Speaker 1: If you went back the next day, there might be

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Speaker 1: different articles listed on the home page, but they were

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Speaker 1: all previously written, they weren't new. So this was a

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Speaker 1: moment where we were transforming that where we were trying

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Speaker 1: to generate an entire web page is worth or a

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Speaker 1: tire landing pages worth of new content every week, which

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Speaker 1: was a big challenge. It was it was ramping up

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Speaker 1: quite a bit, and it put a lot of pressure

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Speaker 1: on us as writers and editors. Now, How Stuff Works

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Speaker 1: was intended to become a digital arm of Discovery Communications,

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Speaker 1: and on the surface, it looked like it was going

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Speaker 1: what How Stuff Works is all about. Two And there

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Speaker 1: It's not unique to How Stuff Works. This was also,

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Speaker 1: Under Discovery. How Stuff Works would also launch a new

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Speaker 1: business podcasts now we're going to talk more about that

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Speaker 1: in episode nine one. But the major podcasts that we

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Speaker 1: you Should Know, Stuff You Missed in History Class, which

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Speaker 1: was originally called Factor Fiction, and of course Tech Stuff

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Speaker 1: brain Stuff. From two thousand eight until two thousand fourteen,

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Speaker 1: how Stuff Works was part of the Discovery Communications family,

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Speaker 1: and we produced podcasts and videos on top of continuing

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Speaker 1: to write articles about all sorts of topics. For a while,

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Speaker 1: writers specialized in specific content categories, and I was asked

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Speaker 1: We're all a bunch of English Lit majors. But I

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Speaker 1: because here's a secret. Technology either works or it doesn't,

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Speaker 1: it and you're done. Whereas if you're covering any of

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Speaker 1: Josh Chuck, Robert Lamb and uh WHRs truly became senior

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Speaker 1: By Discoveries strategy for digital was changing, the company began

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Speaker 1: digital network. It wasn't just how Stuff Works, it also

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Speaker 1: was source Fed and others, and they decided to sell

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Speaker 1: how Stuff Works. The company that bought How Stuff Works

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Speaker 1: in fact from what Discovery had paid back in two

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Speaker 1: thousand eight. So I'm going to be real here. It

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Speaker 1: was not easy to go through this transition. For one thing,

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Speaker 1: most of us had no idea what Blue Cora even did.

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Speaker 1: Some of the still don't. What it did do, mainly

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Speaker 1: is own other companies like Infospace. Infospace is one of

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Speaker 1: those companies that has its own really complicated history, including

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Speaker 1: a fairly shady past at one point, though the company

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Speaker 1: And maybe one day I'll do a full episode on

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Speaker 1: the Infospace story, because it is interesting and it is tumultuous,

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Speaker 1: done incredible work. How stuff Works was meant to complement Infospace,

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Speaker 1: Works would create content, Infospace would at leverage its expertise

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Speaker 1: with search to help how stuff Works take advantage of

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Speaker 1: that search power, and it would become a mutually beneficial relationship.

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Speaker 1: But then Blue Cora began to focus more on financial

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Speaker 1: owners that Infospace and with it, how stuff Works didn't

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Speaker 1: really have a place at the table anymore. Now this

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Speaker 1: as a holding company. So Infospace created Blue Cora. Then

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Speaker 1: eventually Blue Corus says, you know what, we don't need

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Speaker 1: Infospace anymore. This is kind of similar to how Google

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Speaker 1: created Alphabet to be a holding company, a parent company

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Speaker 1: for all of the Google sub companies. And so Blue

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Speaker 1: Cora began to look for a company that might want

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Speaker 1: to purchase Infospace and also take How Stuff Works along

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Speaker 1: for the ride. That company would be one called open Mail.

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Speaker 1: And yeah, this is really is a crazy complicated story.

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Speaker 1: I know because I lived through all of this. Anyway.

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Speaker 1: Open Mail LLC was a data management and marketing technology

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Speaker 1: company which purchased both Infospace and How Stuff Works for

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Speaker 1: forty five million dollars, which also stung because now the

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Speaker 1: company that was purchased two years previously for forty five

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Speaker 1: million dollars was being sold with another much larger company

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Speaker 1: for a combined price of forty five million dollars. Open

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Speaker 1: Mail would later rebrand itself into System one, and in August,

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Speaker 1: System One announced it was going to spin off How

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Speaker 1: Stuff Works as an independent company, and that's where we

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Speaker 1: are now. In that time, Conald Burne has been my

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Speaker 1: boss twice. He joined how stuff Works in two thousand seven,

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Speaker 1: a few months after I started, and he headed up

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Speaker 1: the company for several years until Discovery sold how stuff

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Speaker 1: Works to Blue Cora, and then we parted ways. Then,

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Speaker 1: as how stuff Works became an independent company in sen

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Speaker 1: he returned and now he's the boss again. So that's

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Speaker 1: kind of interesting. Now I've got a whole lot more

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Speaker 1: to say about how stuff Works the company, but first

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Speaker 1: you guessed it. Let's take a quick break to thank

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Speaker 1: our sponsor. All Right, we're back now, I'd like to

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Speaker 1: switch over to an interview I did earlier with Alison Loudermilk,

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Speaker 1: be managing editor of how stuff Works, to talk about

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Speaker 1: the voice of the site and how things have changed

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Speaker 1: over the years. I am joined in the studio by

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Speaker 1: Alison louder Milk, the managing editor over at how stuff

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Speaker 1: works dot com. Allison, I invited you here so that

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Speaker 1: we could talk about the experience of working for how

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Speaker 1: stuff Works, as well as the uh, the sort of

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Speaker 1: stuff you do as managing editor, and kind of how

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Speaker 1: the site itself has changed a little bit over time.

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Speaker 1: We try to keep a consistent voice for the the website,

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Speaker 1: so that we can have that sort of throughput, but

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Speaker 1: it's uh, there are little things around the edges that change.

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Speaker 1: So first off, how would you describe how stuff works

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Speaker 1: as voice to somebody if you were telling them and

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Speaker 1: they had never visited the website, and you said, well,

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Speaker 1: you know, it's it's a reference site. It's got tons

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Speaker 1: of information about all sorts of topics. How would you

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Speaker 1: describe the tone or the voice of the site, Jonathan,

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Speaker 1: That's a great question and it's something we think about

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Speaker 1: a lot on the editorial team. UM. I think the

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Speaker 1: most important thing to recognize about the folks who are

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Speaker 1: here editing and writing for House to Works is that

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Speaker 1: we are a curious bunch, and so we let our

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Speaker 1: innate wonder of the world really drive what we're talking about. UM.

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Speaker 1: We are always curious and we are always trying to

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Speaker 1: get to the bottom of something. UM, and that can

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Speaker 1: drive the conversation. Let's take let's take what's going on

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Speaker 1: in the world today. There's a lot of political things.

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Speaker 1: House to Works is not, always, has not traditionally been

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Speaker 1: a political site, but we will try to find the story,

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Speaker 1: the explainer behind the politics, like how does that process work?

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Speaker 1: Does a president have to live in the White House,

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Speaker 1: things like that. UM, So we're always trying to look

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Speaker 1: for the bigger picture of something that's happening behind the news.

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Speaker 1: We started out very science and technically focused. Our big article,

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Speaker 1: as I'm smiling right here and I'm waiting for you

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Speaker 1: to recognize, it is how car engines work. I mean,

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Speaker 1: that's that's the big one. That's the gendery how stuff works, biggie.

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Speaker 1: And we've gone on to do thousands and thousands of

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Speaker 1: articles since then, and what does remain consistent over all

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Speaker 1: of those articles is the curiosity and it's it's it

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Speaker 1: shouldn't be superficial. We strive to never be superficial, but

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Speaker 1: rather we're trying to get underneath and dig I mean,

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Speaker 1: are there scientific forces at work? What is the theory?

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Speaker 1: What are what is the research out there? Um that

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Speaker 1: has you know, investigated the topic at hand. We try

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Speaker 1: to go for primary sources. We are factual. We try

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Speaker 1: as much as we can to be unbiased, but of

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Speaker 1: course we're coming from a certain point of view. So

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Speaker 1: there is so much you can do on that front. Well,

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Speaker 1: and I like to describe it sort of as you know,

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Speaker 1: you're chatting with a super smart friend of yours at

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Speaker 1: like a restaurant or something, or you know, some casual environment,

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Speaker 1: so it doesn't come across necessarily professorial. Right, It's not

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Speaker 1: like a lecture. It's it's not dry like a typical

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Speaker 1: reference book would be. But it's also not as flippant

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Speaker 1: as some other sites might be. There's a there's a

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Speaker 1: middle ground there. So and I'm not trying to dismiss

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Speaker 1: or or talk trash about sites that are more uh,

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Speaker 1: you know, they add more humor into their their work.

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Speaker 1: I think there is value in that. That's just not

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Speaker 1: the voice of how stuff works. There's a little bit,

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Speaker 1: but it's not like and this is the setup for

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Speaker 1: a jokey joke, and now we'll throw in a factor

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Speaker 1: to uh. There's some delicate line in between. That's the

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Speaker 1: way I always felt that, you know, you wanted to

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Speaker 1: feel like the article is taking you and treating you

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Speaker 1: as an equal as the reader. Right, Like we're not

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Speaker 1: talking down to anybody, We're not trying to uh to

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Speaker 1: come across as we're We are the Great Oracle, and

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Speaker 1: you shall kneel before us, and we will bestow our

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Speaker 1: wisdom and knowledge upon you, and you will be better

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Speaker 1: for it, but still less than us and go away.

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Speaker 1: Now that's not the way we wanted to have how

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Speaker 1: stuff works come across. And uh So it was always

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Speaker 1: a challenge for me as a writer two find the

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Speaker 1: elements in an assignment that got me interested, you know,

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Speaker 1: engage that that sense of curiosity you were talking about,

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Speaker 1: and would therefore energize me to write the whole piece.

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Speaker 1: And sometimes, actually more frequently than not, the ones that

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Speaker 1: I found more inspiring were topics that I initially thought

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Speaker 1: were going to be terrible, like what can you give

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Speaker 1: us an example? I mean, let's see, let I'll think

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Speaker 1: about that. Gosh, I wrote so many and it's been

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Speaker 1: so long since I've written any but like I wrote

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Speaker 1: some about cloud computing when cloud computing was still a

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Speaker 1: buzz term that not very many people understood, and I

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Speaker 1: was worried that it was just going to be super

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Speaker 1: dry and really technical and that there wouldn't be anything

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Speaker 1: interesting about it. And the more I learned about the

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Speaker 1: more I thought, this is actually pretty fascinating. The a

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Speaker 1: this architecture works, the whole concept of it, the fact

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Speaker 1: that we call it a cloud, but really you're information

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Speaker 1: is still living on a computer in fact it's living

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Speaker 1: on several computers. Typically if you have redundancy built in.

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Speaker 1: I'm not going to go into that. I've done full

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Speaker 1: episodes about it, but I found it very interesting, whereas

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Speaker 1: there would be other ones that maybe I thought going

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Speaker 1: into it, oh, I can't wait to write about this,

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Speaker 1: and then maybe two pages into the article, I thought, oh,

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Speaker 1: this is gonna be harder than I imagine, because even

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Speaker 1: though I was excited at the beginning, when I start

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Speaker 1: looking into it, either there is a lack of compelling

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Speaker 1: information out there for you to write a sizeable article,

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Speaker 1: or you just haven't found the right the right entry point.

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Speaker 1: And one of the ways we try to prepare ourselves

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Speaker 1: when we're getting ready to start an article, as we

431
00:24:48,240 --> 00:24:53,199
Speaker 1: send out an initial approach, which is, yeah, it's a

432
00:24:53,200 --> 00:24:57,040
Speaker 1: fun process that Jonathan Strickland is infamous for ignoring of

433
00:24:57,240 --> 00:25:00,520
Speaker 1: the initial approach, though, that's typically where we create a

434
00:25:00,560 --> 00:25:04,400
Speaker 1: list of questions we feel the article should answer. Most

435
00:25:04,400 --> 00:25:06,760
Speaker 1: of the time, sometimes it's something else like it maybe

436
00:25:06,840 --> 00:25:10,240
Speaker 1: like we've got this idea for a list of really

437
00:25:10,280 --> 00:25:14,520
Speaker 1: important examples of a particular category. There's one that went

438
00:25:14,560 --> 00:25:18,600
Speaker 1: around just recently. They got a lot of feedback and uh,

439
00:25:18,720 --> 00:25:21,960
Speaker 1: and in that case, it just ends up being people listing.

440
00:25:23,600 --> 00:25:26,000
Speaker 1: I mean, I guess I could, right, I mean, that's

441
00:25:25,800 --> 00:25:28,480
Speaker 1: the one I'm talking about right now. Where it was

442
00:25:29,680 --> 00:25:33,840
Speaker 1: it was it was musicals that are that we're particularly

443
00:25:33,920 --> 00:25:39,000
Speaker 1: important for the art form of musical theater, right, and

444
00:25:39,040 --> 00:25:42,480
Speaker 1: so people started. It's more activity than I've seen in

445
00:25:42,560 --> 00:25:45,600
Speaker 1: quite a while. And honestly, and I actually engaged in

446
00:25:45,600 --> 00:25:48,560
Speaker 1: this one. I argue that The Fantastics should be on

447
00:25:48,600 --> 00:25:51,040
Speaker 1: that list because it was the longest running off Broadway

448
00:25:51,119 --> 00:25:55,600
Speaker 1: musical of all time, and therefore it deserves a place

449
00:25:55,640 --> 00:25:57,840
Speaker 1: on that list. Also, Jerry Orbach was in that and

450
00:25:57,880 --> 00:26:01,960
Speaker 1: he's amazing. So that sort of thing. You get those

451
00:26:02,000 --> 00:26:04,160
Speaker 1: initial approaches. But most of the time, our initial approaches

452
00:26:04,200 --> 00:26:07,159
Speaker 1: are questions that we think the article should answer. And

453
00:26:07,520 --> 00:26:12,840
Speaker 1: I love that process because it shows it shows kind

454
00:26:12,880 --> 00:26:16,840
Speaker 1: of how everyone thinks based upon the questions they tend

455
00:26:16,880 --> 00:26:20,920
Speaker 1: to submit. So let me give you a classic Tracy

456
00:26:21,119 --> 00:26:25,800
Speaker 1: submission C V. Wilson, where the co hosts of Stuffy

457
00:26:25,800 --> 00:26:30,320
Speaker 1: miss in history class. She I believe now is the

458
00:26:30,359 --> 00:26:34,000
Speaker 1: most senior of all How Stuff Works employees. I think

459
00:26:34,000 --> 00:26:37,080
Speaker 1: that she's got She's been here the longest of everybody. Um,

460
00:26:37,320 --> 00:26:40,520
Speaker 1: and she was when I joined, one of the the

461
00:26:40,560 --> 00:26:44,440
Speaker 1: only other staff writer on staff, the only two. Yeah,

462
00:26:44,480 --> 00:26:46,119
Speaker 1: you can find a ton of our articles still on

463
00:26:46,160 --> 00:26:49,080
Speaker 1: the site, anything from how dinosaurs work to all sorts

464
00:26:49,080 --> 00:26:52,879
Speaker 1: of staff I remember she was working on silly string

465
00:26:53,080 --> 00:26:56,720
Speaker 1: when I first started, and I remember magnets almost broke

466
00:26:56,720 --> 00:27:00,680
Speaker 1: her brain how magnets work almost broke I'm let's be fair.

467
00:27:00,720 --> 00:27:03,600
Speaker 1: The insane clown posse. He couldn't figure it out. But Tracy,

468
00:27:03,720 --> 00:27:05,840
Speaker 1: she sat down, she finally, you know, she was able

469
00:27:05,840 --> 00:27:07,280
Speaker 1: to suss it out at the end, and so that

470
00:27:07,400 --> 00:27:11,280
Speaker 1: article does exist. But something that Tracy is is very

471
00:27:11,760 --> 00:27:14,639
Speaker 1: much known for is if you have any sort of

472
00:27:14,840 --> 00:27:19,679
Speaker 1: article that has any sort of remotely scientific aspect to it,

473
00:27:20,040 --> 00:27:23,040
Speaker 1: she will submit the question of what are the physics

474
00:27:23,720 --> 00:27:27,240
Speaker 1: that guide this or what is the science behind this?

475
00:27:27,440 --> 00:27:29,760
Speaker 1: Like if the questions if none of the questions that

476
00:27:29,800 --> 00:27:32,600
Speaker 1: are on the list already, because usually, as a writer

477
00:27:32,760 --> 00:27:34,520
Speaker 1: or editor, come up with a list of them and

478
00:27:34,560 --> 00:27:36,640
Speaker 1: you submit it to everybody else and then you say,

479
00:27:36,680 --> 00:27:39,439
Speaker 1: what else am I not thinking of? If you have

480
00:27:39,520 --> 00:27:43,680
Speaker 1: not included that science based aspect, don't worry, She'll she'll

481
00:27:43,720 --> 00:27:47,840
Speaker 1: definitely submit that that's kind of her go to I

482
00:27:47,840 --> 00:27:49,560
Speaker 1: have one that's stuck in my head um And I

483
00:27:49,560 --> 00:27:51,919
Speaker 1: think maybe even Chuck Chuck Bryant made the joke when

484
00:27:51,960 --> 00:27:53,560
Speaker 1: it went out and it was about kayaking and we

485
00:27:53,560 --> 00:27:56,000
Speaker 1: were going to write how kayaking works, and I think

486
00:27:56,000 --> 00:27:59,639
Speaker 1: he chokingly submitted to the initial approach email threat what

487
00:27:59,760 --> 00:28:02,720
Speaker 1: you'll forget about the science of kayaking? Like ha ha,

488
00:28:02,960 --> 00:28:06,160
Speaker 1: And sure enough there's Tracy chumming in on that. Yeah,

489
00:28:06,200 --> 00:28:08,400
Speaker 1: I mean fluid dynamics, right, I mean, come on, that's

490
00:28:08,440 --> 00:28:12,320
Speaker 1: an important part of physics. So yeah, it's it's we

491
00:28:12,440 --> 00:28:14,399
Speaker 1: joke about it a little bit because there is this

492
00:28:14,480 --> 00:28:16,600
Speaker 1: sort of culture here at how stuff works that you

493
00:28:16,600 --> 00:28:19,920
Speaker 1: know you you when you're immersed in it, you begin

494
00:28:20,000 --> 00:28:24,960
Speaker 1: to really get a sense of of what is important

495
00:28:25,000 --> 00:28:28,080
Speaker 1: to each person based upon the kind of questions that

496
00:28:28,119 --> 00:28:31,600
Speaker 1: they typically will submit. Not all of them are falling

497
00:28:31,640 --> 00:28:34,680
Speaker 1: into exactly the same category. It's not like, oh, well,

498
00:28:34,720 --> 00:28:37,720
Speaker 1: here comes the pop culture question from so and so

499
00:28:37,760 --> 00:28:41,760
Speaker 1: because they're the pop culture person. It's not quite that specific,

500
00:28:41,880 --> 00:28:45,160
Speaker 1: but it is kind of funny to see those sort

501
00:28:45,160 --> 00:28:47,560
Speaker 1: of submissions. I think the big thing about how staff

502
00:28:47,600 --> 00:28:52,840
Speaker 1: works is that we trust the readers to understand any subject.

503
00:28:53,040 --> 00:28:55,520
Speaker 1: We think that we are able to explain it, and

504
00:28:55,560 --> 00:28:58,560
Speaker 1: we think readers should be able. Um. We think about

505
00:28:58,560 --> 00:29:01,560
Speaker 1: our readers are smart enough, um to understand it too,

506
00:29:01,560 --> 00:29:04,080
Speaker 1: And I mean that can be everything from particle accelerators

507
00:29:04,440 --> 00:29:08,120
Speaker 1: to kayaking, like we're just talking about. We put the

508
00:29:08,160 --> 00:29:11,520
Speaker 1: onus on the writers and the editors to explain the

509
00:29:11,560 --> 00:29:14,680
Speaker 1: subject in a way that people can appreciate. And I

510
00:29:14,720 --> 00:29:17,760
Speaker 1: think that I think that everybody should be able to

511
00:29:17,800 --> 00:29:20,000
Speaker 1: ask questions about the world and have him answered. And

512
00:29:20,040 --> 00:29:23,880
Speaker 1: that's really what we're about, right right, And we we

513
00:29:23,960 --> 00:29:27,479
Speaker 1: don't want as writers or editors to walk away from

514
00:29:27,520 --> 00:29:30,920
Speaker 1: an article with a question unanswered if in fact, there

515
00:29:31,040 --> 00:29:34,240
Speaker 1: is an answer for that question, because that means someone

516
00:29:34,280 --> 00:29:36,840
Speaker 1: out there is going to ask it and the article

517
00:29:36,840 --> 00:29:38,959
Speaker 1: didn't answer it, and that means that we failed on

518
00:29:39,000 --> 00:29:41,520
Speaker 1: our part in this In this process, this is a

519
00:29:41,560 --> 00:29:44,920
Speaker 1: relationship that we've built with our audience, and uh, you know,

520
00:29:45,000 --> 00:29:47,480
Speaker 1: we try our best to make sure that we are

521
00:29:47,960 --> 00:29:50,960
Speaker 1: we have a representative list of questions that we think

522
00:29:51,240 --> 00:29:55,280
Speaker 1: this article needs to answer. Sometimes that does fall through,

523
00:29:55,520 --> 00:29:58,720
Speaker 1: but we also will go back and will edit articles

524
00:29:58,720 --> 00:30:02,360
Speaker 1: and include more information, uh, in order to address that

525
00:30:02,440 --> 00:30:05,360
Speaker 1: when it's when it's appropriate. So it's you know, it's

526
00:30:05,400 --> 00:30:08,960
Speaker 1: it's an interesting relationship. And speaking of those, I want

527
00:30:08,960 --> 00:30:11,840
Speaker 1: to talk a little bit about your relationship with the company.

528
00:30:11,840 --> 00:30:15,040
Speaker 1: When did you start at How Stuff Works? I started

529
00:30:15,080 --> 00:30:17,800
Speaker 1: in January two eight, and I started with a whole

530
00:30:17,840 --> 00:30:22,600
Speaker 1: group of people. Um, Kristin Conner, she was formerly the

531
00:30:22,600 --> 00:30:25,360
Speaker 1: host of stuff Mom never told you, Molly Edmonds, they

532
00:30:25,360 --> 00:30:28,560
Speaker 1: were the original too on that. Amanda Arnold, she was

533
00:30:28,600 --> 00:30:31,400
Speaker 1: an editor a long time for The Adventure, A really

534
00:30:31,600 --> 00:30:35,600
Speaker 1: great soul. Um. Also Jennifer Horton, she was for a

535
00:30:35,640 --> 00:30:37,960
Speaker 1: little bit. She had a shorter stay with How Staff Works.

536
00:30:38,440 --> 00:30:40,640
Speaker 1: And I'm trying to remember who else there was somebody

537
00:30:40,680 --> 00:30:44,640
Speaker 1: else there's six of us, was there? It would have

538
00:30:44,680 --> 00:30:47,920
Speaker 1: been Toothman? She was later right, Jessica to Ja Toothman,

539
00:30:48,000 --> 00:30:50,880
Speaker 1: one of our in house writers. Yeah. So to give

540
00:30:50,920 --> 00:30:53,000
Speaker 1: you an idea of how long I've been with the company,

541
00:30:53,080 --> 00:30:56,200
Speaker 1: I started when my daughter was seven months old and

542
00:30:56,320 --> 00:30:59,240
Speaker 1: I am now still with the company and she is ten. Yeah.

543
00:30:59,760 --> 00:31:02,719
Speaker 1: So I had been with How Stuff Works for a

544
00:31:02,760 --> 00:31:05,719
Speaker 1: little less than a year when you came on, and uh,

545
00:31:05,800 --> 00:31:08,160
Speaker 1: I was just thinking, who are these up starts coming?

546
00:31:08,200 --> 00:31:11,480
Speaker 1: In on coming in on my playground. Gosh darn it. No,

547
00:31:11,600 --> 00:31:15,320
Speaker 1: I was excited because again, like when I started, it

548
00:31:15,440 --> 00:31:17,680
Speaker 1: was just two staff writers, Tracy and myself, and that

549
00:31:17,760 --> 00:31:20,720
Speaker 1: was it in fact when I started. So when I

550
00:31:20,720 --> 00:31:24,320
Speaker 1: started How Stuff Works, we had one article, one full

551
00:31:24,400 --> 00:31:28,760
Speaker 1: length article go up every week, which meant that we

552
00:31:28,880 --> 00:31:34,720
Speaker 1: each Tracy and I had two weeks to research right, submit,

553
00:31:35,280 --> 00:31:39,239
Speaker 1: rewrite and any article and then it would go up,

554
00:31:39,720 --> 00:31:44,320
Speaker 1: you know that following like the Friday, and then two

555
00:31:44,360 --> 00:31:46,280
Speaker 1: weeks later the next one that we would write would

556
00:31:46,280 --> 00:31:50,280
Speaker 1: go up on that Friday and two weeks. So we alternated.

557
00:31:50,320 --> 00:31:52,160
Speaker 1: Tracy would have one week, I would have another week.

558
00:31:52,560 --> 00:31:55,600
Speaker 1: But having two weeks to research, right and refine an

559
00:31:55,680 --> 00:31:58,440
Speaker 1: article was amazing. It was a huge amount of time.

560
00:31:58,960 --> 00:32:03,520
Speaker 1: And there's uh, there's a joking law. It's kind of like, um,

561
00:32:03,560 --> 00:32:07,240
Speaker 1: you know how you you have all these different supposed

562
00:32:07,440 --> 00:32:10,400
Speaker 1: rules that kind of guide the universe, but really it's

563
00:32:10,440 --> 00:32:13,760
Speaker 1: just us kind of making stuff up. One of those

564
00:32:13,800 --> 00:32:16,840
Speaker 1: says that the amount of work you have will fill

565
00:32:16,920 --> 00:32:19,400
Speaker 1: up whatever time it is that you have available to it.

566
00:32:19,400 --> 00:32:21,440
Speaker 1: It doesn't matter how short or long the time is.

567
00:32:21,680 --> 00:32:23,680
Speaker 1: It's it could be the exact same amount of work

568
00:32:23,760 --> 00:32:25,760
Speaker 1: or the same output. But if you have two weeks

569
00:32:25,760 --> 00:32:27,400
Speaker 1: to do it, it'll take two weeks to get it done.

570
00:32:27,560 --> 00:32:29,800
Speaker 1: If you have forty five minutes to do it, it'll

571
00:32:29,800 --> 00:32:32,800
Speaker 1: take forty five minutes to get it done. Ah, we

572
00:32:32,840 --> 00:32:34,880
Speaker 1: had two weeks to write an article, and it was

573
00:32:35,080 --> 00:32:38,240
Speaker 1: a single article per person. We also had another person

574
00:32:38,280 --> 00:32:40,720
Speaker 1: who is writing questions of the day, which were super short,

575
00:32:41,160 --> 00:32:45,600
Speaker 1: as we're one page, typically Julia Layton, who would write

576
00:32:45,880 --> 00:32:49,200
Speaker 1: one page articles that would try and answer a basic

577
00:32:49,560 --> 00:32:53,360
Speaker 1: but interesting question, and that actually has been a throughput

578
00:32:53,360 --> 00:32:55,280
Speaker 1: for how stuff works as well. We've had that kind

579
00:32:55,320 --> 00:32:58,280
Speaker 1: of approach of we've got this question that we just

580
00:32:58,400 --> 00:33:01,440
Speaker 1: want to know the answer to. Let's assign that to

581
00:33:01,520 --> 00:33:03,640
Speaker 1: someone and find out what the answer is because that's

582
00:33:03,680 --> 00:33:06,240
Speaker 1: kind of a cool thing. And we've done that in podcasts,

583
00:33:06,320 --> 00:33:09,000
Speaker 1: we've done that in articles, we've done in blog posts.

584
00:33:10,080 --> 00:33:14,720
Speaker 1: But things have changed since then when you joined. By

585
00:33:14,760 --> 00:33:18,080
Speaker 1: then it had already changed a little bit. Sure, people

586
00:33:18,120 --> 00:33:21,600
Speaker 1: were really excited because we have a Discovery acquisition had

587
00:33:21,600 --> 00:33:25,720
Speaker 1: been announced and shortly thereafter I was completed, So there's

588
00:33:25,760 --> 00:33:28,000
Speaker 1: a lot of excitement around that. Yeah, there's a lot

589
00:33:28,040 --> 00:33:31,479
Speaker 1: of trepidation but also excitement because suddenly we were going

590
00:33:31,480 --> 00:33:35,160
Speaker 1: to be part of a much larger media company. We

591
00:33:35,160 --> 00:33:37,400
Speaker 1: weren't entirely certain how that was going to play out,

592
00:33:37,400 --> 00:33:40,800
Speaker 1: but it ended up being really an interesting experience. And

593
00:33:40,840 --> 00:33:42,960
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, everyone says, oh, I used the

594
00:33:43,000 --> 00:33:45,160
Speaker 1: word interesting, and that could be neither good or bad.

595
00:33:45,320 --> 00:33:48,320
Speaker 1: Both happened. I mean, there were good things with the

596
00:33:48,360 --> 00:33:51,520
Speaker 1: Discovery relationship. There were things that were not so good,

597
00:33:51,840 --> 00:33:55,880
Speaker 1: depending upon where in the hierarchy you were right. So

598
00:33:56,520 --> 00:33:58,920
Speaker 1: one of the examples of something that might have been

599
00:33:58,920 --> 00:34:02,480
Speaker 1: a little frustrating was that we would occasionally get requests

600
00:34:02,520 --> 00:34:07,160
Speaker 1: to write or record information about some related Discovery topic,

601
00:34:07,720 --> 00:34:09,920
Speaker 1: and that put the challenge on us to find a

602
00:34:09,920 --> 00:34:11,840
Speaker 1: way to do it where it didn't just come across

603
00:34:11,960 --> 00:34:16,040
Speaker 1: as an advertisement for a Discovery show. And uh, sometimes

604
00:34:16,040 --> 00:34:18,600
Speaker 1: that was not so hard, because Discovery covers a lot

605
00:34:18,600 --> 00:34:22,080
Speaker 1: of stuff that is very much aligned with the sort

606
00:34:22,120 --> 00:34:25,239
Speaker 1: of things that how Stuff works covers. Sometimes it was

607
00:34:25,280 --> 00:34:29,200
Speaker 1: more challenging where you really the request was, well, it's

608
00:34:29,280 --> 00:34:31,160
Speaker 1: essentially gonna be this is gonna be about the show.

609
00:34:31,200 --> 00:34:32,640
Speaker 1: There's not much I can do about it other than

610
00:34:32,680 --> 00:34:34,440
Speaker 1: to make sure I do the best job I possibly

611
00:34:34,480 --> 00:34:39,360
Speaker 1: can creating this piece of content so that it serves

612
00:34:39,440 --> 00:34:43,880
Speaker 1: both the site and Discovery properly. Uh, and that's always delicate.

613
00:34:43,920 --> 00:34:46,600
Speaker 1: I assumed that, Uh, you know, you came in right

614
00:34:46,640 --> 00:34:48,839
Speaker 1: at the beginning of that relationship. I'm sure there were

615
00:34:48,880 --> 00:34:53,319
Speaker 1: times during it that were more challenging than others. Yeah,

616
00:34:53,440 --> 00:34:55,960
Speaker 1: Robert and I are worked on this show, produced pieces

617
00:34:56,320 --> 00:34:58,759
Speaker 1: for the this awesome series called Life and it was

618
00:34:58,840 --> 00:35:04,120
Speaker 1: adaptation of the Attenborough BBC serious that they've done and

619
00:35:04,160 --> 00:35:06,000
Speaker 1: it was a lot of fun and he got to

620
00:35:06,000 --> 00:35:09,520
Speaker 1: interview some of the directors and main characters involved, and

621
00:35:09,520 --> 00:35:11,880
Speaker 1: it was super interesting stuff which is all about it

622
00:35:12,040 --> 00:35:14,719
Speaker 1: very very close to you how stuff works. Core just

623
00:35:15,239 --> 00:35:18,680
Speaker 1: questions about animals and how the world works and the

624
00:35:18,680 --> 00:35:21,200
Speaker 1: ecosystem and the you know, the inner workings. It was.

625
00:35:21,239 --> 00:35:23,480
Speaker 1: It was very fun. We enjoyed it a lot. That

626
00:35:23,560 --> 00:35:25,560
Speaker 1: was great. There were other times where and I mean,

627
00:35:25,560 --> 00:35:28,880
Speaker 1: I'm just going to speak frankly here because it's my show,

628
00:35:29,640 --> 00:35:31,919
Speaker 1: but there were other times that we're probably a little

629
00:35:31,920 --> 00:35:34,120
Speaker 1: more of a head scratcher, at least for me, things

630
00:35:34,160 --> 00:35:39,279
Speaker 1: like walking into a meeting and another conference call is

631
00:35:39,320 --> 00:35:43,239
Speaker 1: still kind of going on. But it wasn't being concluded,

632
00:35:43,480 --> 00:35:46,560
Speaker 1: and so we had this weird kind of mixture of

633
00:35:46,600 --> 00:35:49,560
Speaker 1: people inside the room, and I remember hearing an actual

634
00:35:49,680 --> 00:35:57,800
Speaker 1: conversation about the ramifications of John and Kate divorcing, uh

635
00:35:57,960 --> 00:36:00,319
Speaker 1: for the whole John and Kate plus eight show, and

636
00:36:00,400 --> 00:36:04,799
Speaker 1: hearing executives talking about how that was going to affect

637
00:36:05,640 --> 00:36:08,480
Speaker 1: business deals, and it just that's when it hit me.

638
00:36:08,560 --> 00:36:10,719
Speaker 1: I thought, I don't I don't want to be in

639
00:36:10,719 --> 00:36:12,799
Speaker 1: this room right now. I want to get out of

640
00:36:12,800 --> 00:36:14,359
Speaker 1: this room and now I will come back when this

641
00:36:14,440 --> 00:36:16,880
Speaker 1: conversation is over, because it didn't have anything to do

642
00:36:16,960 --> 00:36:19,040
Speaker 1: with me, that was not part of what I was

643
00:36:19,080 --> 00:36:21,719
Speaker 1: working on at all. But it was one of those

644
00:36:21,760 --> 00:36:27,920
Speaker 1: little reminders that sometimes these relationships have downsides from a

645
00:36:28,120 --> 00:36:30,759
Speaker 1: from a writer's perspective, if you like. Again, we were

646
00:36:30,760 --> 00:36:34,440
Speaker 1: all trying to serve how stuff works first and also

647
00:36:34,719 --> 00:36:37,759
Speaker 1: serve Discovery because Discovery owned how stuff works at the time,

648
00:36:38,560 --> 00:36:42,760
Speaker 1: and it wasn't always an easy thing to do. Uh.

649
00:36:42,800 --> 00:36:45,680
Speaker 1: I remember Julie Douglas of Stuff of Life and just

650
00:36:45,800 --> 00:36:49,120
Speaker 1: a really all around great producer right now. She I

651
00:36:49,160 --> 00:36:52,120
Speaker 1: remember hearing her in the Cube over interviewing Michelle Dugger,

652
00:36:53,000 --> 00:36:56,839
Speaker 1: and that was always interesting. Yeah, yeah, we had some uh,

653
00:36:56,880 --> 00:36:59,479
Speaker 1: you know, we we had some little rough spots there.

654
00:36:59,560 --> 00:37:02,239
Speaker 1: We also, oh uh, I mean, there's no secret that

655
00:37:02,320 --> 00:37:06,640
Speaker 1: the way the web works is through web advertising. And

656
00:37:06,760 --> 00:37:12,600
Speaker 1: we had some really big deals with various manufacturers companies

657
00:37:12,640 --> 00:37:14,680
Speaker 1: that were wanting to advertise on how stuff works, and

658
00:37:14,719 --> 00:37:18,359
Speaker 1: they were very very good, big deals, but early on

659
00:37:18,440 --> 00:37:22,880
Speaker 1: we had not really created the strategy for how to

660
00:37:23,040 --> 00:37:25,239
Speaker 1: do that in a way that was responsible so that

661
00:37:25,280 --> 00:37:30,239
Speaker 1: we wouldn't h end up alienating our own user base,

662
00:37:30,280 --> 00:37:34,280
Speaker 1: our own audience. So there were some some tough learning

663
00:37:34,400 --> 00:37:37,320
Speaker 1: curves there. Yeah, it was the dawna of sponsored content

664
00:37:37,400 --> 00:37:39,640
Speaker 1: for how staff Wricks and a lot of other people

665
00:37:39,640 --> 00:37:41,319
Speaker 1: had started doing it, and how to do it right

666
00:37:41,360 --> 00:37:44,760
Speaker 1: and exactly what you're saying, how to balance editorial calendar

667
00:37:44,880 --> 00:37:49,520
Speaker 1: so that we are serving a lot of different stakeholder needs. Yeah,

668
00:37:49,600 --> 00:37:52,560
Speaker 1: and you didn't want to have a moment where someone

669
00:37:52,640 --> 00:37:56,480
Speaker 1: visits the website and it's just absolutely dominated by a

670
00:37:56,600 --> 00:37:59,560
Speaker 1: single topic, because then you start thinking, we do not

671
00:37:59,640 --> 00:38:02,719
Speaker 1: think my thatch And I was thinking about towing, I

672
00:38:02,800 --> 00:38:05,200
Speaker 1: wasn't I wasn't necessarily going to say it, but as

673
00:38:05,239 --> 00:38:07,960
Speaker 1: how towing works, oh man, I had to write maybe

674
00:38:09,520 --> 00:38:14,480
Speaker 1: eight or nine articles about towing and um. Again, this

675
00:38:14,520 --> 00:38:16,799
Speaker 1: was one of those things where we had made a

676
00:38:16,840 --> 00:38:20,520
Speaker 1: promise to an advertiser. I mean, it was all it

677
00:38:20,600 --> 00:38:23,320
Speaker 1: all made sense on paper. The problem was in actual

678
00:38:23,360 --> 00:38:28,040
Speaker 1: practice it became very challenging to do because you realize, well,

679
00:38:29,200 --> 00:38:33,240
Speaker 1: if we go down this road too far, it starts

680
00:38:33,400 --> 00:38:36,480
Speaker 1: becoming like a content farm where we're just churning out

681
00:38:37,000 --> 00:38:41,400
Speaker 1: like low quality content in order to meet a demand

682
00:38:41,640 --> 00:38:43,879
Speaker 1: from an advertiser, but that in turn is not going

683
00:38:43,920 --> 00:38:47,560
Speaker 1: to necessarily be much value to our readers. We never,

684
00:38:47,719 --> 00:38:50,040
Speaker 1: I never felt like we actually went down that way.

685
00:38:50,200 --> 00:38:52,080
Speaker 1: I never think so either. I think we did some

686
00:38:52,160 --> 00:38:56,600
Speaker 1: high quality to articles. I mean, you know, it's it's

687
00:38:56,640 --> 00:38:59,200
Speaker 1: funny to say, but I mean like we took that seriously.

688
00:38:59,280 --> 00:39:03,000
Speaker 1: We did. We did not want to have an article

689
00:39:03,120 --> 00:39:06,000
Speaker 1: go out that we did not feel proud of, even

690
00:39:06,040 --> 00:39:09,240
Speaker 1: in challenging circumstances where you're thinking, like, I don't I

691
00:39:09,280 --> 00:39:12,120
Speaker 1: don't want to write the same article five times. But this,

692
00:39:12,120 --> 00:39:15,000
Speaker 1: this topic is very similar to the one I just finished.

693
00:39:15,600 --> 00:39:17,920
Speaker 1: It was it made a challenge as a writer to

694
00:39:18,160 --> 00:39:21,920
Speaker 1: create an article that would be just as compelling, or

695
00:39:22,120 --> 00:39:24,879
Speaker 1: just as interesting, or just as informative certainly just as

696
00:39:24,880 --> 00:39:28,080
Speaker 1: accurate as all the others it was. You know, we

697
00:39:28,320 --> 00:39:31,399
Speaker 1: after that, we got a lot better at figuring out

698
00:39:31,440 --> 00:39:35,520
Speaker 1: how to present these packages so that we could serve

699
00:39:35,800 --> 00:39:40,160
Speaker 1: all of the customers, if you will, uh, the way

700
00:39:40,200 --> 00:39:42,080
Speaker 1: they needed to be, so that we can make sure

701
00:39:42,120 --> 00:39:45,080
Speaker 1: that we were delivering information that our readers were going

702
00:39:45,120 --> 00:39:49,000
Speaker 1: to find interesting, that they would find helpful, that we

703
00:39:49,000 --> 00:39:52,360
Speaker 1: were going to create opportunities for the advertisers to be

704
00:39:52,400 --> 00:39:54,480
Speaker 1: able to show their ads against something that they were

705
00:39:54,840 --> 00:39:58,440
Speaker 1: comfortable with, that they were you know, proud of, and

706
00:39:58,440 --> 00:40:02,800
Speaker 1: and something that we felt again didn't betray the spirit

707
00:40:02,880 --> 00:40:05,960
Speaker 1: and voice of how stuff works. And so it took

708
00:40:06,000 --> 00:40:08,040
Speaker 1: a little while, like I said, was a rocky start.

709
00:40:08,120 --> 00:40:12,560
Speaker 1: But shortly after that there were certain certain big topics

710
00:40:12,560 --> 00:40:14,799
Speaker 1: that for a while you didn't want to say out

711
00:40:14,800 --> 00:40:17,480
Speaker 1: loud in the house Stuff Works office. Towing would be

712
00:40:17,520 --> 00:40:23,400
Speaker 1: one of them. Skin clean cleansers was another. Right, Yeah, no,

713
00:40:23,520 --> 00:40:26,759
Speaker 1: I I wrote one. I'll tell let me tell an

714
00:40:26,760 --> 00:40:32,600
Speaker 1: embarrassing story about myself with writing. So Jonathan sometimes has

715
00:40:32,640 --> 00:40:35,960
Speaker 1: reading comprehension pension issues. It turns out, especially an email

716
00:40:36,560 --> 00:40:41,840
Speaker 1: because there was a list of assignments that went out. Actually,

717
00:40:41,880 --> 00:40:43,759
Speaker 1: I think this was in a spreadsheet. There's a list

718
00:40:43,760 --> 00:40:47,719
Speaker 1: of assignments that went out about skin cleansers, and there

719
00:40:47,719 --> 00:40:52,000
Speaker 1: were two very very very similar article titles. One was

720
00:40:52,040 --> 00:40:56,279
Speaker 1: about skin cleansers and one was about a very much

721
00:40:56,320 --> 00:40:58,960
Speaker 1: related topic, but it wasn't skin cleansers. It was some

722
00:40:59,040 --> 00:41:03,600
Speaker 1: other skincare type of product. But both of them were

723
00:41:03,600 --> 00:41:10,920
Speaker 1: supposed to be five top five gluten freeing about free

724
00:41:10,960 --> 00:41:15,200
Speaker 1: back then. Oh yeah, So I got first of all,

725
00:41:16,760 --> 00:41:19,719
Speaker 1: multiple multiple issues I had with the article. But but one,

726
00:41:20,280 --> 00:41:23,040
Speaker 1: the one that I made the mistake on I'll get

727
00:41:23,040 --> 00:41:25,040
Speaker 1: that all the way is I wrote the wrong article.

728
00:41:25,960 --> 00:41:30,359
Speaker 1: I wrote one that Josh Clark had been assigned he

729
00:41:30,600 --> 00:41:33,120
Speaker 1: got because we there were two articles, like I said,

730
00:41:33,120 --> 00:41:36,520
Speaker 1: that had very similar titles. I grabbed Josh's and Josh

731
00:41:36,600 --> 00:41:40,759
Speaker 1: also wrote Josh is as Josh should have done. Uh.

732
00:41:40,800 --> 00:41:43,959
Speaker 1: And so we actually had two top five gluten free

733
00:41:43,960 --> 00:41:46,920
Speaker 1: skin cleanser articles come out, and the one I was

734
00:41:46,960 --> 00:41:49,680
Speaker 1: supposed to write, which was also a gluten free skincare thing,

735
00:41:49,800 --> 00:41:52,200
Speaker 1: but it wasn't cleansers. I can't remember what it was.

736
00:41:52,680 --> 00:41:55,120
Speaker 1: I never wrote. They just decided not to have me

737
00:41:55,160 --> 00:41:58,239
Speaker 1: write that one, probably because my page zero, which is

738
00:41:58,239 --> 00:42:00,799
Speaker 1: our our landing page, our first page, as people would

739
00:42:00,800 --> 00:42:03,160
Speaker 1: see if they went to The article explained why a

740
00:42:03,200 --> 00:42:06,440
Speaker 1: gluten free skin cleanser was totally not necessary in the

741
00:42:06,480 --> 00:42:09,600
Speaker 1: first place, because you don't absorb gluten through the skin.

742
00:42:09,760 --> 00:42:12,080
Speaker 1: You can, it's the molecules are too big. You have

743
00:42:12,160 --> 00:42:14,880
Speaker 1: to ingest it. So unless you're eating your skin cleanser,

744
00:42:16,000 --> 00:42:18,960
Speaker 1: the issues you have with gluten would not be a

745
00:42:19,000 --> 00:42:23,279
Speaker 1: problem with these products. Therefore, the list is superfluous, and

746
00:42:23,320 --> 00:42:26,319
Speaker 1: I have a feeling that that attitude probably meant that

747
00:42:26,360 --> 00:42:28,560
Speaker 1: they didn't want me to write the real article later.

748
00:42:30,239 --> 00:42:33,040
Speaker 1: And is that batch of articles the ones that gave

749
00:42:33,040 --> 00:42:36,640
Speaker 1: your skin it's current rosy glow? Oh yeah. That that

750
00:42:36,840 --> 00:42:40,280
Speaker 1: and just the fact that I'm I'm practicing My plan

751
00:42:40,440 --> 00:42:43,120
Speaker 1: is that when I'm I'm ready to retire, I'm gonna

752
00:42:43,160 --> 00:42:47,080
Speaker 1: segue into being Santa Claus. So I want to make

753
00:42:47,080 --> 00:42:50,200
Speaker 1: sure I have those rosy cheeks going when I get there.

754
00:42:50,280 --> 00:42:52,680
Speaker 1: So it's just it's it's a gradual I don't want

755
00:42:52,719 --> 00:42:55,920
Speaker 1: it to be a shocking transformation. So I'm planning ahead

756
00:42:55,960 --> 00:42:58,960
Speaker 1: now and we're just gonna very gradually get there. But

757
00:42:58,960 --> 00:43:01,239
Speaker 1: I'm gonna be a really off Santa Claus because I'm

758
00:43:01,239 --> 00:43:06,440
Speaker 1: also you know, working hard. Um, So tell me a

759
00:43:06,440 --> 00:43:09,160
Speaker 1: little bit about like how you've seen the site kind

760
00:43:09,160 --> 00:43:13,800
Speaker 1: of change since you started. Obviously we've gone through different

761
00:43:13,840 --> 00:43:16,799
Speaker 1: corporate owners and that has been a big part of it.

762
00:43:17,280 --> 00:43:21,080
Speaker 1: But just your your experience as being an editor, how

763
00:43:21,160 --> 00:43:24,040
Speaker 1: is that evolved over the years. Well, the mode of

764
00:43:24,080 --> 00:43:26,879
Speaker 1: storytelling has changed. I think that's a really important thing

765
00:43:26,960 --> 00:43:31,280
Speaker 1: to note. Just as other publishers have embraced different forms

766
00:43:31,360 --> 00:43:35,160
Speaker 1: of telling the story, we have as well. I think

767
00:43:35,160 --> 00:43:40,239
Speaker 1: we're truly multimedia now. And most importantly is podcasts. Back

768
00:43:40,280 --> 00:43:43,840
Speaker 1: in the day we had we started podcasts. Jerry was

769
00:43:43,880 --> 00:43:47,880
Speaker 1: here and the original stuff you history class with Candice

770
00:43:48,640 --> 00:43:51,720
Speaker 1: and before and stuff you should know, and that all started.

771
00:43:51,760 --> 00:43:54,120
Speaker 1: I mean that was a long time ago. And the

772
00:43:54,239 --> 00:43:57,719
Speaker 1: video guys were always here I should say video team. Um,

773
00:43:57,760 --> 00:44:00,440
Speaker 1: they were always here doing wacky stuff. I remember Tyler,

774
00:44:00,560 --> 00:44:03,160
Speaker 1: one of our producers now and now an audio engineer. Correct,

775
00:44:04,080 --> 00:44:07,000
Speaker 1: he remember him walking around in that green suit in

776
00:44:07,040 --> 00:44:09,279
Speaker 1: the office. Oh yeah, we had him in the green

777
00:44:09,320 --> 00:44:11,440
Speaker 1: man suit. Yeah. We did this thing where it was

778
00:44:11,760 --> 00:44:16,760
Speaker 1: the invisible man does something and so we would shoot

779
00:44:16,840 --> 00:44:20,480
Speaker 1: Tyler against a green screen key him out entirely, and

780
00:44:20,520 --> 00:44:22,960
Speaker 1: then you have an invisible man thing. But once in

781
00:44:23,000 --> 00:44:24,880
Speaker 1: a while you just walk around the office. There's Tyler

782
00:44:24,920 --> 00:44:28,439
Speaker 1: in the green man suit going around. Yeah. So we've

783
00:44:28,480 --> 00:44:30,840
Speaker 1: had a couple more avenues of storytelling open up, and

784
00:44:30,840 --> 00:44:33,360
Speaker 1: my job as an editor is to figure out what

785
00:44:33,560 --> 00:44:37,400
Speaker 1: the best experience is, what should draw what what is

786
00:44:37,440 --> 00:44:39,200
Speaker 1: the story, and what's the best way to tell it,

787
00:44:39,280 --> 00:44:41,520
Speaker 1: Who is the best person to tell it, who's the

788
00:44:41,520 --> 00:44:43,560
Speaker 1: best editor? When? When should I go out? How much

789
00:44:43,600 --> 00:44:46,480
Speaker 1: space do we need to give this topic to breathe?

790
00:44:46,719 --> 00:44:48,319
Speaker 1: Should it be short? Do we need to get this

791
00:44:48,360 --> 00:44:50,440
Speaker 1: out today because we really needed to be part of

792
00:44:50,440 --> 00:44:52,759
Speaker 1: the conversation or do we need to give it a

793
00:44:52,800 --> 00:44:56,920
Speaker 1: little bit more time and space and and thought, Um,

794
00:44:57,000 --> 00:44:59,319
Speaker 1: when you were talking before, Jonathan about how you had

795
00:44:59,320 --> 00:45:02,080
Speaker 1: about two to write that article. There is very much

796
00:45:02,080 --> 00:45:05,239
Speaker 1: a conversation going on right now about a return to

797
00:45:05,520 --> 00:45:08,760
Speaker 1: slow journalism, if you will, that the pace of articles

798
00:45:08,840 --> 00:45:11,000
Speaker 1: is too fast, and that we should be more careful

799
00:45:11,520 --> 00:45:16,799
Speaker 1: and just pay articles they're proper do in terms of

800
00:45:16,880 --> 00:45:20,160
Speaker 1: time and space and word count and sources and all

801
00:45:20,160 --> 00:45:22,440
Speaker 1: of that stuff. So, in a weird way, a lot

802
00:45:22,480 --> 00:45:24,920
Speaker 1: of these things have come full circle. It's still about

803
00:45:24,960 --> 00:45:27,319
Speaker 1: the story and it's just about the best way to

804
00:45:27,400 --> 00:45:32,120
Speaker 1: tell it um and staying true to the how Stuff

805
00:45:32,120 --> 00:45:34,960
Speaker 1: works for us, those are really the important things. So

806
00:45:35,040 --> 00:45:37,560
Speaker 1: I mean, right now, you know we can embed a podcast. Hey,

807
00:45:37,600 --> 00:45:40,719
Speaker 1: we're doing something about artificial intelligence. Great. I know a

808
00:45:40,800 --> 00:45:44,560
Speaker 1: guy who has covered article sal intelligence a lot. I'm

809
00:45:44,560 --> 00:45:46,759
Speaker 1: going to grab a podcast here, and I think if

810
00:45:46,800 --> 00:45:49,920
Speaker 1: somebody is interested in listening to a little bit about it,

811
00:45:50,000 --> 00:45:51,800
Speaker 1: like great, they'll be able to read it, They'll be

812
00:45:51,840 --> 00:45:54,040
Speaker 1: able to hear it whatever way they learn best. They

813
00:45:54,040 --> 00:45:56,120
Speaker 1: will be able to get information about this topic that

814
00:45:56,239 --> 00:45:59,359
Speaker 1: is relevant to their lives. One, And to your point

815
00:45:59,400 --> 00:46:02,680
Speaker 1: about the slow journalism thing, like when we when I started,

816
00:46:03,239 --> 00:46:05,080
Speaker 1: the goal for How Stuff Works was that we were

817
00:46:05,200 --> 00:46:07,600
Speaker 1: every piece of content we were creating apart from the

818
00:46:07,719 --> 00:46:09,560
Speaker 1: well even questions of the day. Really, they were all

819
00:46:09,600 --> 00:46:12,879
Speaker 1: supposed to be evergreen, right. These were all topics that

820
00:46:13,280 --> 00:46:16,879
Speaker 1: would be something that someone three or four years from

821
00:46:16,920 --> 00:46:18,960
Speaker 1: now would go back and be able to read and

822
00:46:18,960 --> 00:46:22,080
Speaker 1: it would be just as relevant to them. Obviously, once

823
00:46:22,120 --> 00:46:26,840
Speaker 1: they made me the the head writer for the Technology Channels,

824
00:46:26,840 --> 00:46:30,160
Speaker 1: I realized how impossible a task that is for technology

825
00:46:30,160 --> 00:46:33,320
Speaker 1: because things just changed so quickly. If you want any proof,

826
00:46:33,600 --> 00:46:36,239
Speaker 1: go back and read any of the computer articles on

827
00:46:36,280 --> 00:46:38,120
Speaker 1: how stuff Works dot com and just look at the

828
00:46:38,160 --> 00:46:40,680
Speaker 1: little technical specs that I get that get thrown out

829
00:46:40,719 --> 00:46:44,040
Speaker 1: as examples because you'll sit there and if you start

830
00:46:44,080 --> 00:46:46,799
Speaker 1: seeing processor speeds listed in the mega hurts instead of

831
00:46:46,800 --> 00:46:49,759
Speaker 1: the giga hurts, you're like, wow, when was this article written? Like, well,

832
00:46:49,920 --> 00:46:53,439
Speaker 1: probably more than a decade ago. Um, But I mean

833
00:46:53,560 --> 00:46:57,600
Speaker 1: the foundation of the article is still absolutely accurate. It's

834
00:46:57,640 --> 00:47:02,200
Speaker 1: just that the details have changed because the the scale

835
00:47:02,200 --> 00:47:06,040
Speaker 1: of technology has changed so much. But uh, that was

836
00:47:06,080 --> 00:47:08,120
Speaker 1: sort of the goal, right. We wanted to make sure

837
00:47:08,160 --> 00:47:11,280
Speaker 1: that the articles we were writing were things that weren't

838
00:47:11,880 --> 00:47:16,040
Speaker 1: so mercurial that by the time we are ready to

839
00:47:16,080 --> 00:47:19,840
Speaker 1: submit an article, the facts of the matter had already changed,

840
00:47:20,120 --> 00:47:24,320
Speaker 1: therefore necessitating a revisit to what we had just written. Uh.

841
00:47:24,400 --> 00:47:27,880
Speaker 1: Then we've gone through phases like we did House Stuff

842
00:47:27,880 --> 00:47:30,239
Speaker 1: Works Now. For a while, where we were it was

843
00:47:30,360 --> 00:47:33,960
Speaker 1: much more rapid turnaround. It wasn't quite breaking news. We

844
00:47:33,960 --> 00:47:37,759
Speaker 1: weren't We weren't investigative journalists or anything like that. We're

845
00:47:37,760 --> 00:47:41,400
Speaker 1: giving more context two things that we're in you know,

846
00:47:41,480 --> 00:47:44,359
Speaker 1: kind of in the conversation in the news very much

847
00:47:44,440 --> 00:47:46,600
Speaker 1: the way tech Stuff Daily is. If if any of

848
00:47:46,640 --> 00:47:48,680
Speaker 1: my listeners have listened to Text Stuff Daily, that's kind

849
00:47:48,719 --> 00:47:51,520
Speaker 1: of a tech Stuff version of that same idea, where

850
00:47:51,520 --> 00:47:54,200
Speaker 1: we take things that are kind of being talked about

851
00:47:54,440 --> 00:47:57,279
Speaker 1: and give more context around it, but it's not in

852
00:47:57,400 --> 00:48:00,960
Speaker 1: itself a breaking news show. That was that we're just

853
00:48:01,000 --> 00:48:03,040
Speaker 1: not set up for that. That's not the way we work.

854
00:48:03,120 --> 00:48:07,840
Speaker 1: We don't are no, our publishing tools wouldn't support it.

855
00:48:08,280 --> 00:48:11,640
Speaker 1: You are. Publishing tools aren't meant to support that. Our

856
00:48:11,760 --> 00:48:16,280
Speaker 1: editorial process is not meant to do that. So seeing

857
00:48:16,320 --> 00:48:18,560
Speaker 1: this return kind of to the slow journalism, I think

858
00:48:18,600 --> 00:48:22,160
Speaker 1: that that whether that happens or not, I think that

859
00:48:22,160 --> 00:48:26,440
Speaker 1: that certainly plays more to the strengths of what we

860
00:48:26,560 --> 00:48:29,880
Speaker 1: built this company around. Um. Not that I think that

861
00:48:29,920 --> 00:48:32,640
Speaker 1: there's no value in giving context to breaking stories. I

862
00:48:32,640 --> 00:48:35,799
Speaker 1: think there is, but it just it's just, uh, it's

863
00:48:35,840 --> 00:48:38,440
Speaker 1: more challenging based on the tools that we have at

864
00:48:38,440 --> 00:48:43,480
Speaker 1: our disposal than the kind of traditional I'm going to

865
00:48:43,600 --> 00:48:48,760
Speaker 1: really break down how X works and and really understand

866
00:48:48,800 --> 00:48:53,040
Speaker 1: it at a fundamental level and then explain it. Um,

867
00:48:53,160 --> 00:48:55,600
Speaker 1: do you remember what it was like interviewing for House

868
00:48:55,600 --> 00:49:00,200
Speaker 1: Stuff Works. When you first came in, I very much do. Uh,

869
00:49:00,560 --> 00:49:03,239
Speaker 1: this is funny. It was right around so I came

870
00:49:03,280 --> 00:49:05,600
Speaker 1: on in January two thous eight. As I said before,

871
00:49:05,800 --> 00:49:08,799
Speaker 1: so my interviews, I kind of just sent in my

872
00:49:08,920 --> 00:49:11,280
Speaker 1: resume on a whim. I applied for the writer position,

873
00:49:11,840 --> 00:49:15,080
Speaker 1: and I had just finished my master's at U g

874
00:49:15,239 --> 00:49:19,080
Speaker 1: A and communicating mass Communications, and I was like, yeah,

875
00:49:19,160 --> 00:49:21,000
Speaker 1: maybe I'll try to try my hand at this writer thing.

876
00:49:21,480 --> 00:49:24,520
Speaker 1: And Tracy saw my resume and she gave me a

877
00:49:24,560 --> 00:49:27,040
Speaker 1: shout and she said, hey, why don't you why don't

878
00:49:27,080 --> 00:49:30,840
Speaker 1: you try out for the editor position, which, thank you, Tracy,

879
00:49:31,000 --> 00:49:33,400
Speaker 1: that proved to be a really good move, Thank you,

880
00:49:33,440 --> 00:49:36,120
Speaker 1: Tracy V. Wilson Um. And so I came in and

881
00:49:36,160 --> 00:49:39,000
Speaker 1: I was right before the holidays, and I interviewed. I

882
00:49:39,040 --> 00:49:44,239
Speaker 1: interviewed with Katie, who used to be our old health editor. Yes, yes,

883
00:49:44,280 --> 00:49:46,440
Speaker 1: and she was the one who originally coined me a

884
00:49:46,520 --> 00:49:51,640
Speaker 1: loud she. I interviewed with Connell. I interviewed with Tracy.

885
00:49:51,680 --> 00:49:54,399
Speaker 1: I remember sitting in Connell's office and this is sort

886
00:49:54,400 --> 00:49:58,160
Speaker 1: of embarrassing and also not and and like talking to

887
00:49:58,239 --> 00:50:00,000
Speaker 1: him across this big desk and he was the class

888
00:50:00,000 --> 00:50:02,319
Speaker 1: at Corner office, and I was like, you know what,

889
00:50:02,400 --> 00:50:07,440
Speaker 1: I'm gonna get your job someday. And I kind of did, Yeah,

890
00:50:07,520 --> 00:50:10,160
Speaker 1: you kind of did. It's funny because Connal was part

891
00:50:10,200 --> 00:50:12,920
Speaker 1: of the company for a long time, then he was not,

892
00:50:13,280 --> 00:50:15,520
Speaker 1: and now he is again. Sure is he's sending up

893
00:50:15,560 --> 00:50:18,839
Speaker 1: that fantastic podcast we've got going on. Yep, yep. So

894
00:50:19,960 --> 00:50:22,600
Speaker 1: it's great hearing that story. I remember when I came

895
00:50:22,640 --> 00:50:27,560
Speaker 1: on it was very similar, although different people. Connell had

896
00:50:27,600 --> 00:50:31,359
Speaker 1: not yet joined the company when I when I was hired. Um,

897
00:50:31,400 --> 00:50:33,840
Speaker 1: but you know, thinking back on that now, I remember

898
00:50:34,440 --> 00:50:37,640
Speaker 1: sitting down and having this discussion and then I think

899
00:50:37,680 --> 00:50:42,560
Speaker 1: the thing that maybe sealed the deal for me. It's

900
00:50:42,560 --> 00:50:44,960
Speaker 1: hard to say because obviously I wasn't in on those conversations,

901
00:50:45,000 --> 00:50:47,960
Speaker 1: was that I said, listen, if you guys don't hire me,

902
00:50:48,600 --> 00:50:52,600
Speaker 1: and this is kind of what I do anyway, Like

903
00:50:52,719 --> 00:50:54,759
Speaker 1: I like to learn things and then I like to

904
00:50:54,800 --> 00:50:56,879
Speaker 1: talk about the stuff I learned with people, and then

905
00:50:57,120 --> 00:50:59,799
Speaker 1: you like to talk. Yeah. I know it really comes

906
00:50:59,800 --> 00:51:02,879
Speaker 1: through as a shock, uh, the guy who has all

907
00:51:02,920 --> 00:51:08,600
Speaker 1: the solo podcast stuff shows, But yeah, I I said, like,

908
00:51:08,680 --> 00:51:12,920
Speaker 1: this is what I love to do. And if I

909
00:51:13,000 --> 00:51:14,879
Speaker 1: were hired here, I get to do it for a living.

910
00:51:14,920 --> 00:51:17,879
Speaker 1: And that's fortunately how it worked out. It's the job

911
00:51:17,960 --> 00:51:21,320
Speaker 1: for me changed dramatically over the years. There was originally,

912
00:51:21,360 --> 00:51:23,040
Speaker 1: like I said, I had two weeks to research and

913
00:51:23,080 --> 00:51:25,440
Speaker 1: write an article. Eventually that got knocked down to one

914
00:51:25,480 --> 00:51:28,160
Speaker 1: week to research and write an article. Then it became

915
00:51:28,560 --> 00:51:31,840
Speaker 1: one week to research, write an article and a companion article.

916
00:51:32,920 --> 00:51:34,560
Speaker 1: You never had to find the pictures. You never had

917
00:51:34,560 --> 00:51:40,439
Speaker 1: to upload it editor ever. No, once Chris became my editor, Yes,

918
00:51:40,960 --> 00:51:43,440
Speaker 1: but I had other editors before Chris, because I had

919
00:51:43,520 --> 00:51:47,319
Speaker 1: Candice and I had Shannah, and uh yeah, I had

920
00:51:47,440 --> 00:51:50,000
Speaker 1: I had editors where I had to find all that stuff.

921
00:51:50,280 --> 00:51:53,480
Speaker 1: Once I got Chris, Yes, I was on Easy Street.

922
00:51:53,600 --> 00:51:56,360
Speaker 1: Ye were he were hooked up by Chris. Chris Chris Palette.

923
00:51:56,440 --> 00:51:57,880
Speaker 1: Let me tell you all right, you guys who have

924
00:51:57,920 --> 00:51:59,480
Speaker 1: listened to this show for a long time, you know

925
00:51:59,520 --> 00:52:01,960
Speaker 1: who Chris Palette is. He was my original co host.

926
00:52:02,719 --> 00:52:07,120
Speaker 1: Chris Pallette as an editor was a writer's dream come true.

927
00:52:07,160 --> 00:52:11,280
Speaker 1: Because I would submit a draft to Chris. He would

928
00:52:11,280 --> 00:52:13,719
Speaker 1: do all the work to get all the images. He

929
00:52:13,760 --> 00:52:17,719
Speaker 1: would write the captions for the images, he would do

930
00:52:17,800 --> 00:52:21,239
Speaker 1: all the edits himself, like if there were any problems

931
00:52:21,239 --> 00:52:25,200
Speaker 1: with the article, yo, he'd solve it. And I only

932
00:52:25,320 --> 00:52:28,160
Speaker 1: occasionally would get an article back where he would have

933
00:52:28,160 --> 00:52:30,600
Speaker 1: a question like, hey, could you explain this a bit more? Like?

934
00:52:31,040 --> 00:52:33,960
Speaker 1: That was so rare. It was essentially I would hand

935
00:52:34,000 --> 00:52:36,200
Speaker 1: it off to him and I was done. I could

936
00:52:36,200 --> 00:52:39,480
Speaker 1: go on to the next thing. Um, I'm not just

937
00:52:39,520 --> 00:52:42,040
Speaker 1: saying this because I'm on your show. Your copy is

938
00:52:42,040 --> 00:52:44,120
Speaker 1: generally pretty clean. I will say that as an editor.

939
00:52:44,160 --> 00:52:46,920
Speaker 1: That's that's good to know. I still occasionally have trouble

940
00:52:46,920 --> 00:52:49,960
Speaker 1: with passive voice. I got really good at knocking passive

941
00:52:50,040 --> 00:52:52,279
Speaker 1: voice out of my writing for a really long time,

942
00:52:52,320 --> 00:52:54,720
Speaker 1: but then I went for a good stretch without writing,

943
00:52:55,880 --> 00:53:00,160
Speaker 1: and then passive voice crept back in. Uh So, what

944
00:53:00,280 --> 00:53:03,680
Speaker 1: what excites you about working at? How stuff works? Like

945
00:53:03,800 --> 00:53:07,800
Speaker 1: when you think about your job, what is it? What's

946
00:53:07,840 --> 00:53:14,879
Speaker 1: the stuff that brings you great joy? The people here

947
00:53:14,920 --> 00:53:18,919
Speaker 1: really working with the team I do and in the topics. Um,

948
00:53:18,960 --> 00:53:23,000
Speaker 1: When we first moved to the Atlanta area early two thousands,

949
00:53:23,400 --> 00:53:26,279
Speaker 1: I moved with my then fiance and he was taking

950
00:53:26,320 --> 00:53:28,719
Speaker 1: a job at CDC, and I had a lot of

951
00:53:28,719 --> 00:53:31,080
Speaker 1: respect for CDC and really thought I would go into

952
00:53:31,120 --> 00:53:34,000
Speaker 1: health communications, and sort of my dream job was to

953
00:53:34,040 --> 00:53:37,439
Speaker 1: work at the Centers for Disease Control in some sort

954
00:53:37,440 --> 00:53:42,440
Speaker 1: of communication role. And I have since come to realize

955
00:53:42,440 --> 00:53:45,760
Speaker 1: that how stuff works is a very unique place to work,

956
00:53:45,840 --> 00:53:48,120
Speaker 1: and that you never know what we're going to be

957
00:53:48,200 --> 00:53:51,840
Speaker 1: talking about. It has made my life and my world

958
00:53:51,960 --> 00:53:55,400
Speaker 1: perspective so much bigger than it was. I think honestly,

959
00:53:55,400 --> 00:53:57,960
Speaker 1: it's helped me be a better parent. It makes me

960
00:53:58,040 --> 00:54:01,239
Speaker 1: ask questions about things, and my kids, like I will

961
00:54:01,280 --> 00:54:05,200
Speaker 1: constantly ask them things about, well, how does that work?

962
00:54:05,239 --> 00:54:07,920
Speaker 1: I mean, all of my friends tease me if they're like,

963
00:54:08,239 --> 00:54:10,320
Speaker 1: how does that work? Alis, And I mean we all

964
00:54:10,320 --> 00:54:14,000
Speaker 1: get that question for all of our peeps. Oh yeah, No,

965
00:54:14,080 --> 00:54:16,640
Speaker 1: whenever we have any kind of technical glitch here at

966
00:54:16,719 --> 00:54:19,640
Speaker 1: the office, like let's say the the internet connection goes down,

967
00:54:20,200 --> 00:54:22,600
Speaker 1: then immediately you know you're going to get lots of

968
00:54:22,640 --> 00:54:25,279
Speaker 1: people making jokes about how we should be able to

969
00:54:25,280 --> 00:54:28,760
Speaker 1: fix everything. Uh, sometimes things are outside of our control.

970
00:54:29,280 --> 00:54:32,759
Speaker 1: Sometimes you have to really chase down where a problem is.

971
00:54:33,239 --> 00:54:37,000
Speaker 1: But ultimately you also have to remember we spend intense

972
00:54:37,120 --> 00:54:40,760
Speaker 1: amount of time researching and writing and editing these things,

973
00:54:40,800 --> 00:54:42,480
Speaker 1: and then we have to turn around and do something

974
00:54:42,520 --> 00:54:47,920
Speaker 1: totally different, another completely different topic, sometimes sometimes radically different topic.

975
00:54:48,640 --> 00:54:51,680
Speaker 1: And you can only hold on to so much information

976
00:54:51,800 --> 00:54:55,360
Speaker 1: for so long before you are starting to overwrite old

977
00:54:55,800 --> 00:54:57,680
Speaker 1: Like people will talk to me about an article I

978
00:54:57,680 --> 00:55:01,120
Speaker 1: wrote back in like two thousand ten, Li said, though

979
00:55:01,480 --> 00:55:05,600
Speaker 1: that data is gone if I held onto any of it.

980
00:55:05,600 --> 00:55:08,319
Speaker 1: It's just through the fact that I never got around

981
00:55:08,360 --> 00:55:11,759
Speaker 1: to overwriting that particular little sector of my brain. Uh.

982
00:55:12,200 --> 00:55:15,040
Speaker 1: But yeah, like you say, the people here are great.

983
00:55:15,080 --> 00:55:18,960
Speaker 1: We've had some amazing folks work here something many of

984
00:55:18,960 --> 00:55:22,600
Speaker 1: them still working here. But like, throughout the years, we've

985
00:55:22,640 --> 00:55:27,000
Speaker 1: had a lot of talented writers and editors and illustrators

986
00:55:27,080 --> 00:55:32,320
Speaker 1: and podcasters and videographers, like, just so many amazing people,

987
00:55:32,600 --> 00:55:34,520
Speaker 1: some of whom still work in this building, just not

988
00:55:34,600 --> 00:55:38,239
Speaker 1: at this company. We run into some of them occasionally

989
00:55:38,239 --> 00:55:40,040
Speaker 1: because they work right down the hall. It's just kind

990
00:55:40,040 --> 00:55:44,880
Speaker 1: of cool and we'll reminisce. So, yeah, it's it's great

991
00:55:44,920 --> 00:55:46,560
Speaker 1: to have you on to kind of have this personal

992
00:55:46,600 --> 00:55:49,920
Speaker 1: touch with how stuff works. You know. The whole episodes

993
00:55:50,000 --> 00:55:53,600
Speaker 1: nine hundred and one, I wanted to make sure kind

994
00:55:53,600 --> 00:55:59,919
Speaker 1: of gave a feel for what this this entire experiences

995
00:56:00,080 --> 00:56:03,080
Speaker 1: like for us on this side, you know, the people

996
00:56:03,120 --> 00:56:07,320
Speaker 1: who are working so hard to try and create really

997
00:56:07,360 --> 00:56:12,120
Speaker 1: interesting content based on things that we personally find fascinating

998
00:56:12,280 --> 00:56:16,600
Speaker 1: and and that covers the entire spectrum of the human experience,

999
00:56:16,680 --> 00:56:20,400
Speaker 1: from the cosmological to the microscopic too, you know, fashion

1000
00:56:20,600 --> 00:56:25,600
Speaker 1: to finance, all of that is fascinating. And for those

1001
00:56:25,640 --> 00:56:28,160
Speaker 1: of you out there who have never gone to How

1002
00:56:28,200 --> 00:56:30,239
Speaker 1: Stuff Works dot com, I'm sure there's some of you

1003
00:56:30,280 --> 00:56:33,359
Speaker 1: who have only experienced this through the podcast, I urge

1004
00:56:33,400 --> 00:56:36,040
Speaker 1: you to go to how Stuff Works dot com and

1005
00:56:36,400 --> 00:56:40,200
Speaker 1: you know, poke around a bit, see some read some articles,

1006
00:56:40,360 --> 00:56:42,160
Speaker 1: check out some stuff that you're interested in. Do you

1007
00:56:42,320 --> 00:56:44,640
Speaker 1: do you, Alison? I hate to spring this on you.

1008
00:56:44,960 --> 00:56:49,960
Speaker 1: Do you have a favorite article? I have a lot

1009
00:56:49,960 --> 00:56:53,840
Speaker 1: of favorites. Yeah. Um, Honestly, I'm going to say that

1010
00:56:53,960 --> 00:56:56,920
Speaker 1: this article that Eve's Jeff Cote and editor and now

1011
00:56:56,960 --> 00:57:00,640
Speaker 1: she's moved to the podcast side wrote she edited and

1012
00:57:01,080 --> 00:57:04,759
Speaker 1: Ed grab who's a long time writer and he he

1013
00:57:04,800 --> 00:57:09,759
Speaker 1: wrote it and it's on how nepotism works and got

1014
00:57:09,760 --> 00:57:15,399
Speaker 1: his nephew to write that nice one. Um. I thought

1015
00:57:15,400 --> 00:57:17,640
Speaker 1: it was just classic how staff works in that I

1016
00:57:17,720 --> 00:57:21,360
Speaker 1: thought the topic would be pretty straightforward nepotism kind of

1017
00:57:21,360 --> 00:57:24,760
Speaker 1: a bad thing. And then ed got into really the

1018
00:57:24,920 --> 00:57:29,080
Speaker 1: history of nepotism and how you know, you have these

1019
00:57:29,080 --> 00:57:33,040
Speaker 1: forces that are opposing you have um, you know, sort

1020
00:57:33,080 --> 00:57:35,480
Speaker 1: of you have non nepotism and you have nepotism. You

1021
00:57:35,520 --> 00:57:38,880
Speaker 1: have a smooth transition to power that's occurring if you're

1022
00:57:39,240 --> 00:57:42,200
Speaker 1: passing power to say, your son, and you sort of

1023
00:57:42,200 --> 00:57:44,560
Speaker 1: have this eroding faith in the public and the public

1024
00:57:44,560 --> 00:57:48,720
Speaker 1: institutions if you get nepotism to heavy. But anyway, the

1025
00:57:48,720 --> 00:57:51,280
Speaker 1: whole point of the story is that this article really

1026
00:57:51,320 --> 00:57:53,840
Speaker 1: did more than just a superficial treatment. He got in

1027
00:57:53,880 --> 00:57:55,760
Speaker 1: there and he talked about it, and he talked about

1028
00:57:55,800 --> 00:57:59,080
Speaker 1: the popes. Actually it sprang from the Latin for nephew

1029
00:57:59,200 --> 00:58:02,560
Speaker 1: because the popes wanted to have some way to recognize

1030
00:58:02,600 --> 00:58:06,040
Speaker 1: their illegitimate sons, and so they used to pass on

1031
00:58:07,800 --> 00:58:11,120
Speaker 1: prime positions within the church to uh to their to

1032
00:58:11,240 --> 00:58:15,440
Speaker 1: the people, right to their to their their their sons

1033
00:58:15,520 --> 00:58:20,400
Speaker 1: that they could not actually publicly acknowledge because one of

1034
00:58:20,400 --> 00:58:23,200
Speaker 1: the things about being pope, you know, I'm not supposed

1035
00:58:23,240 --> 00:58:26,000
Speaker 1: to have a whole parcel of kids, at least not

1036
00:58:26,520 --> 00:58:31,160
Speaker 1: later on in the in in Catholicism. Yeah, that's great.

1037
00:58:31,240 --> 00:58:33,760
Speaker 1: I mean, like I said, there and try and think

1038
00:58:33,760 --> 00:58:36,800
Speaker 1: about my favorites, like I there's there's one that I

1039
00:58:36,840 --> 00:58:40,120
Speaker 1: have a favorite because of how frequently Connal would reference it,

1040
00:58:41,120 --> 00:58:43,000
Speaker 1: because I just think it was funny that that was

1041
00:58:43,040 --> 00:58:45,800
Speaker 1: his go to article to reference whenever he talked about

1042
00:58:45,920 --> 00:58:48,760
Speaker 1: like an article about something cool, which was quantum suicide.

1043
00:58:48,880 --> 00:58:51,040
Speaker 1: Oh yeah he did. He talked about condum suicide all

1044
00:58:51,080 --> 00:58:53,840
Speaker 1: the time. Quantum suicide was like the phrase from Connal

1045
00:58:53,920 --> 00:58:55,200
Speaker 1: like if you want to something like, yeah, you know,

1046
00:58:55,240 --> 00:58:59,280
Speaker 1: we write cool articles like you know, quantum suicide, Connell.

1047
00:58:59,320 --> 00:59:01,520
Speaker 1: You know, We've got like a thousand other articles on

1048
00:59:01,520 --> 00:59:04,040
Speaker 1: the site. But yes, Josh did a great job with

1049
00:59:04,120 --> 00:59:06,280
Speaker 1: quantum suicide. I don't want to take anything away. It's

1050
00:59:06,320 --> 00:59:10,200
Speaker 1: really great. But from my own personal favorite, I wrote

1051
00:59:10,280 --> 00:59:14,200
Speaker 1: so many that I really loved and yeah I do,

1052
00:59:14,440 --> 00:59:18,000
Speaker 1: I do, but but not as frequently. But I'll go

1053
00:59:18,040 --> 00:59:20,120
Speaker 1: to a classic one, like there were ones about the

1054
00:59:20,160 --> 00:59:22,840
Speaker 1: Necronomicon and Cathulhu that I had a lot of fun writing.

1055
00:59:22,920 --> 00:59:25,640
Speaker 1: But the one that I think is my favorite out

1056
00:59:25,640 --> 00:59:27,120
Speaker 1: of all of them, and it was one I had

1057
00:59:27,160 --> 00:59:31,000
Speaker 1: to fight for, was how Area fifty one works, and uh,

1058
00:59:31,080 --> 00:59:32,400
Speaker 1: the reason I had to fight for it was not

1059
00:59:32,480 --> 00:59:34,760
Speaker 1: because of the topic. That was that was a sign

1060
00:59:34,840 --> 00:59:36,640
Speaker 1: to me we had decided we wanted to do it.

1061
00:59:36,840 --> 00:59:40,560
Speaker 1: I wrote it, but I included so many different sections

1062
00:59:40,600 --> 00:59:43,720
Speaker 1: that were outside of just the base, the Groom Lake

1063
00:59:43,840 --> 00:59:47,920
Speaker 1: base part of that discussion. I included things about the

1064
00:59:47,920 --> 00:59:51,760
Speaker 1: community around it and the various conspiracy theories that popped

1065
00:59:51,840 --> 00:59:55,040
Speaker 1: up around it, and the culture around Area fifty one,

1066
00:59:55,840 --> 00:59:58,560
Speaker 1: And to me that was also just as fascinating as

1067
00:59:58,600 --> 01:00:01,400
Speaker 1: all the top secret stuff. And I got a little

1068
01:00:01,440 --> 01:00:03,600
Speaker 1: bit of a pushback originally because they said, well, this

1069
01:00:03,680 --> 01:00:08,400
Speaker 1: is a much longer article than what we typically will Yeah,

1070
01:00:08,400 --> 01:00:11,120
Speaker 1: And I said, but I really feel like if you

1071
01:00:11,200 --> 01:00:14,480
Speaker 1: don't put that in there, it's not really about how

1072
01:00:14,520 --> 01:00:16,800
Speaker 1: Area fifty one works, because to me, it's a bigger

1073
01:00:16,840 --> 01:00:21,080
Speaker 1: story than just the mechanics of running a top secret

1074
01:00:21,160 --> 01:00:26,080
Speaker 1: research and development airbase. And eventually they I don't know

1075
01:00:26,120 --> 01:00:29,800
Speaker 1: if my arguments convinced them or they just felt that

1076
01:00:29,840 --> 01:00:31,320
Speaker 1: it was going to be too much work to cut

1077
01:00:31,320 --> 01:00:33,680
Speaker 1: it down, so they published it. Pretty much. The whole

1078
01:00:33,800 --> 01:00:36,000
Speaker 1: article the way I wrote it got published and it's

1079
01:00:36,000 --> 01:00:37,960
Speaker 1: still up there at how how stuff works dot Com.

1080
01:00:37,960 --> 01:00:41,200
Speaker 1: So if you want to read a classic Jonathan Strickland article,

1081
01:00:41,320 --> 01:00:44,480
Speaker 1: it's how Area fifty one works, and uh still one

1082
01:00:44,520 --> 01:00:47,400
Speaker 1: of the most. Like. I actually like that kind of

1083
01:00:48,160 --> 01:00:52,680
Speaker 1: relationship to between writers and editors, where you together your

1084
01:00:52,720 --> 01:00:56,080
Speaker 1: goal is to create the best article possible. Sometimes that

1085
01:00:56,160 --> 01:01:00,600
Speaker 1: means pushing back. Sometimes the editors are absolute right, and

1086
01:01:00,680 --> 01:01:02,600
Speaker 1: I mean there were times where they made decisions and

1087
01:01:02,600 --> 01:01:04,800
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, I'm so mad, and then like

1088
01:01:04,840 --> 01:01:07,600
Speaker 1: three weeks later, I know that was the right call. Uh.

1089
01:01:07,640 --> 01:01:10,680
Speaker 1: And then sometimes the writers are able to justify their

1090
01:01:10,760 --> 01:01:16,240
Speaker 1: choices and that's great too. So it's been a fantastic experience.

1091
01:01:16,280 --> 01:01:20,280
Speaker 1: It's also been great having you here than for having me. Yeah. Absolutely,

1092
01:01:20,360 --> 01:01:24,840
Speaker 1: I very much appreciate your time. Alison Lowermolke, the managing

1093
01:01:24,920 --> 01:01:26,960
Speaker 1: editor of how Stuff Works dot com. Every time you

1094
01:01:27,000 --> 01:01:29,680
Speaker 1: go and you read something amazing, just remember that somewhere

1095
01:01:29,720 --> 01:01:39,800
Speaker 1: Alison was yelling at somebody to write it. I want

1096
01:01:39,800 --> 01:01:41,720
Speaker 1: to thank Allison again for her time, and I want

1097
01:01:41,720 --> 01:01:44,680
Speaker 1: to finish up this section of the show with a

1098
01:01:44,720 --> 01:01:48,840
Speaker 1: few more thoughts. How Stuff Works is truly an incredible

1099
01:01:48,920 --> 01:01:53,040
Speaker 1: place to work. I learned something new every week, and

1100
01:01:53,080 --> 01:01:55,920
Speaker 1: then I have the honor of sharing that with a

1101
01:01:55,920 --> 01:01:59,640
Speaker 1: wider audience, and I take that very seriously. It is

1102
01:01:59,760 --> 01:02:02,640
Speaker 1: fun one, but it's also something that I think is

1103
01:02:02,680 --> 01:02:06,560
Speaker 1: really important to keep in mind that this is a responsibility.

1104
01:02:06,640 --> 01:02:09,880
Speaker 1: Anything that lets us engage our curiosity is something I

1105
01:02:09,920 --> 01:02:13,800
Speaker 1: feel should be encouraged. And like Allison said, it really

1106
01:02:14,280 --> 01:02:17,600
Speaker 1: working here trains you to be a critical thinker, which

1107
01:02:17,600 --> 01:02:19,080
Speaker 1: is a skill that I think has a lot of

1108
01:02:19,160 --> 01:02:23,000
Speaker 1: utility outside of just writing articles. I also think it's

1109
01:02:23,040 --> 01:02:26,439
Speaker 1: important to point out that while the site has been

1110
01:02:26,440 --> 01:02:31,280
Speaker 1: through numerous major changes of ownership and with different directives

1111
01:02:31,280 --> 01:02:35,000
Speaker 1: and different goals, we always tried to create the most reliable,

1112
01:02:35,080 --> 01:02:39,520
Speaker 1: informative and entertaining articles, podcasts, and videos that we can manage.

1113
01:02:39,840 --> 01:02:42,000
Speaker 1: I know I speak for everyone when I say we

1114
01:02:42,080 --> 01:02:44,360
Speaker 1: take this very seriously, and it goes well beyond the

1115
01:02:44,440 --> 01:02:48,080
Speaker 1: editorial staff. So that's where I have my experience, obviously

1116
01:02:48,200 --> 01:02:50,520
Speaker 1: in the editorial department, but we also have folks and

1117
01:02:50,640 --> 01:02:54,120
Speaker 1: sales and marketing and web development, and they're constantly working

1118
01:02:54,160 --> 01:02:57,000
Speaker 1: to improve the company in various ways, and I would

1119
01:02:57,040 --> 01:02:59,440
Speaker 1: not be able to do what I do without all

1120
01:02:59,480 --> 01:03:02,760
Speaker 1: of those people. In our next episode, we're gonna revisit

1121
01:03:02,880 --> 01:03:05,160
Speaker 1: How Stuff Works, but we're gonna do it with an

1122
01:03:05,160 --> 01:03:09,000
Speaker 1: eye on the podcast side of the business. I'll be

1123
01:03:09,080 --> 01:03:11,919
Speaker 1: joined by Josh Clark of Stuff you Should Know Fame

1124
01:03:12,080 --> 01:03:14,880
Speaker 1: to talk about his experiences in the podcast world as well,

1125
01:03:15,360 --> 01:03:19,040
Speaker 1: so you do not want to miss that episode. Thanks

1126
01:03:19,160 --> 01:03:21,080
Speaker 1: for listening, and for those of you who have been

1127
01:03:21,280 --> 01:03:24,680
Speaker 1: with me for all nine hundred episodes so far, a

1128
01:03:24,760 --> 01:03:27,240
Speaker 1: huge thanks to you guys. You've had to listen to

1129
01:03:27,280 --> 01:03:30,640
Speaker 1: more Jonathan Strickland than any sane person should ever endure.

1130
01:03:31,080 --> 01:03:33,560
Speaker 1: But seriously, you guys mean the world to me. I'm

1131
01:03:33,640 --> 01:03:36,800
Speaker 1: extremely thankful for your support. I'm looking forward to recording

1132
01:03:36,880 --> 01:03:42,360
Speaker 1: nine hundred more. I'm not going anywhere, so get that

1133
01:03:42,480 --> 01:03:45,120
Speaker 1: thought out of your heads now. If you have any

1134
01:03:45,160 --> 01:03:48,760
Speaker 1: suggestions for future episodes of tech Stuff, maybe there's a

1135
01:03:49,560 --> 01:03:52,840
Speaker 1: technological subject you feel I have overlooked for long enough

1136
01:03:52,880 --> 01:03:55,120
Speaker 1: and gosh darn it, I need to fix that. You

1137
01:03:55,160 --> 01:03:59,080
Speaker 1: should let me know in a nice way, preferably, and

1138
01:03:59,280 --> 01:04:01,720
Speaker 1: you can do that via email. The address for the

1139
01:04:01,720 --> 01:04:04,360
Speaker 1: show is tech Stuff at how stuff Works dot com,

1140
01:04:04,480 --> 01:04:07,080
Speaker 1: or you can drop me a line on Facebook or Twitter.

1141
01:04:07,400 --> 01:04:09,000
Speaker 1: The handle for the show at both of those is

1142
01:04:09,040 --> 01:04:13,040
Speaker 1: tech Stuff hs W. We've got an Instagram account now,

1143
01:04:13,200 --> 01:04:16,680
Speaker 1: and we've got an amazing person named Crystal who is

1144
01:04:17,440 --> 01:04:21,120
Speaker 1: she's the steward of that Instagram and she's she's kicking

1145
01:04:21,200 --> 01:04:24,680
Speaker 1: technological but folks, So if you don't subscribe to the

1146
01:04:24,720 --> 01:04:28,280
Speaker 1: Instagram account for tech stuff, you need to go do that. Also,

1147
01:04:28,320 --> 01:04:34,200
Speaker 1: remember I live stream these typically not today, but usually

1148
01:04:34,480 --> 01:04:37,240
Speaker 1: and you can catch the live stream of tech stuff

1149
01:04:37,280 --> 01:04:40,320
Speaker 1: at twitch dot tv slash tech stuff, and you can

1150
01:04:40,360 --> 01:04:44,080
Speaker 1: be part of the audience and even chatting the chat room,

1151
01:04:44,160 --> 01:04:46,320
Speaker 1: and maybe the person who has been quietly sitting in

1152
01:04:46,320 --> 01:04:50,480
Speaker 1: this room this entire time, the moderator for the Twitch

1153
01:04:50,560 --> 01:04:54,160
Speaker 1: live stream chat will be there to greet you or

1154
01:04:54,280 --> 01:04:57,320
Speaker 1: kick you out if you're a jerk, because Cat's awesome

1155
01:04:58,000 --> 01:05:01,280
Speaker 1: and guys, I will talk to you again. Release soon

1156
01:05:07,520 --> 01:05:09,960
Speaker 1: for more on this and thousands of other topics. Is

1157
01:05:09,960 --> 01:05:21,000
Speaker 1: that how stuff works dot Com