Speaker 1: Alzo Media. The world's got plenty of cowboys, but it's
Speaker 1: short on dancers. This is the award winning Better Offline
Speaker 1: and I'm your host ed Zetron. That's right. You're listening
Speaker 1: to this week's monologue. And you may wonder why I'm
Speaker 1: saying award winning, but that's because we won the goddamn
Speaker 1: Webby for best Episode in the Business category. We're winners,
Speaker 1: all of us, you, me, every listener. You all did this.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much. And before I get started any further,
Speaker 1: as lots of you have been asking about it, we're
Speaker 1: finally selling Better Offline merchandise. We've got shirts, hoodies, onesies, glasses,
Speaker 1: tumblers and mugs, and until May twenty second, we're selling
Speaker 1: a limited edition ham. It's all really good stuff. The
Speaker 1: links are in the episode notes by them. Now anyway,
Speaker 1: the monologue. I've realized that over time I've skewed pretty
Speaker 1: negatively about tech, and as I've said before, it's because
Speaker 1: I'm a broken hearted romantic. Tech has made me who
Speaker 1: I am, enabling me a man with a coordinational disability
Speaker 1: SPRAXA RO if you're curious, severe ADHD and a good
Speaker 1: amount of social anxiety in the past well, it allowed
Speaker 1: me to thrive. Without the Internet and the associated platforms
Speaker 1: I've used, I would have never had a good life.
Speaker 1: And if that sounds dramatic, you should see my handwranging,
Speaker 1: or hear how awkward I was as a child, or
Speaker 1: see how I tie my shoelaces. Anyway, so today I
Speaker 1: want to talk about some of the things I love,
Speaker 1: why I love them, and why you might love them too,
Speaker 1: because it's important for you to see that I'm pissed
Speaker 1: off because I know that tech can be cool. It
Speaker 1: can be so much better now. While some of you
Speaker 1: might see this as shilling or fanboying, I think it's
Speaker 1: important that anyone covering tech actually likes him, find something
Speaker 1: exciting about it, and wants it to be better beyond
Speaker 1: the bullshit horse trading or sports fandom style stuff. And
Speaker 1: this episode will also run down my general daily carries.
Speaker 1: I optimize for convenience and as little thought as possible
Speaker 1: because I'm a huge baby and I need everything to
Speaker 1: be easy. I do not have any financial relationships with
Speaker 1: any of these companies that have, in some cases given
Speaker 1: them a great deal of my own money, unless I
Speaker 1: specify otherwise. Everything I've mentioned or linked is something I've
Speaker 1: bought with my own money. Far enough answer of recording this.
Speaker 1: So at my desk, I use this insufferable keyboard, a
Speaker 1: split keyboard called the Moonlander as ZSA, and it lets
Speaker 1: me type and feel like I'm plugged into the mainframe.
Speaker 1: You've got your two hands separa. It's good for the
Speaker 1: risk because you're not moving them around. And I've got
Speaker 1: an Apple Magic track pad along with a giant forty
Speaker 1: nine inch Samsung o lad. It's a G nine connected
Speaker 1: to this thing called the scron No doc where I
Speaker 1: just slide by MacBook Pro sixteen inch in. Your minage
Speaker 1: may vary, but I really like it when I travel
Speaker 1: between New York and Vegas to just be able to
Speaker 1: slot the thing in and have the same setup. It works.
Speaker 1: It works really well, And like I said, I'm a
Speaker 1: huge baby, so if it didn't, I be complaining endlessly
Speaker 1: now when I'm out and about. I really like what
Speaker 1: companies like Anchor have been doing with gallium nitride GAN
Speaker 1: for short, and they're charges in batteries. GAN lets you
Speaker 1: put way more power in the much smaller profile, meaning
Speaker 1: that you can now get charges that are dramatically smaller
Speaker 1: that can first charge your iFund or your iPad or
Speaker 1: even your MacBook Pro. The reason I like Anchor stuff
Speaker 1: is because it works and it can take a beating,
Speaker 1: and the batteries tend to come with a cable built in,
Speaker 1: which I love because I hate having to have cables
Speaker 1: in my pocket. If you were cost me on the street,
Speaker 1: I probably have one of their fast charging USBC batteries
Speaker 1: in my pocket, mostly because it can fast charge either
Speaker 1: my iPhone or right my iPad. They also just released
Speaker 1: this giant one hundred and sixty five what power bank
Speaker 1: with two cables. I'm lusting for it. I wanted so badly,
Speaker 1: but I cannot justify it. I al really have a
Speaker 1: really similar battery pack that I bought years ago. I
Speaker 1: have no justification for it now. What's cool about these
Speaker 1: is that they can also be charged using their built
Speaker 1: in cables. I hate carrying it's to shit around, so
Speaker 1: this works very well for me. I also use an
Speaker 1: Anchor Prime charger when I'm traveling. It's got the ports
Speaker 1: to power on my stuff include my MacBook, along with
Speaker 1: the Maggo wireless charging station, which is kind of a
Speaker 1: little fold up thing, charge your AirPods Pro, your Apple Watch,
Speaker 1: and your phone via mag Safe. It all just kind
Speaker 1: of works, which is kind of the theme of everything,
Speaker 1: and for those curious. I also really like the Airpod's Max.
Speaker 1: They sound great. They're way too expensive, They're like five
Speaker 1: hundred bucks, but they sound lovely and they fit these
Speaker 1: giant goddamn ears. I've got. Some of you have said
Speaker 1: I'm an Apple fanboy. I'm an Apple fan boy in
Speaker 1: the past, and I'm really What I really am is
Speaker 1: a suck of for stuff that all works together, and
Speaker 1: I realize I am being monopolized. You do not need
Speaker 1: to tell me. I know, and I've also really I
Speaker 1: will say it again like Apple's app store is horrifying.
Speaker 1: I believe that they are responsible for fueling truly evil industries. Anyway,
Speaker 1: though it's not tech per se. I really need to
Speaker 1: tell you about the Pac twenty five l travel Duffel.
Speaker 1: I think it might me later. I don't know. It's
Speaker 1: where I put on my crap when I'm traveling. If
Speaker 1: it's under the sea in front of you on Southwest,
Speaker 1: It's able to fit a lot of crap, has lots
Speaker 1: of slots for your laptop, and generally feels comfortable over
Speaker 1: your shoulder. I know It's weird to bring up a
Speaker 1: bag and a tech thing, but this bag is amazing.
Speaker 1: I've gone through like five different other bags to find
Speaker 1: this one. And I can throw my Prime charger in it,
Speaker 1: my MacBook, my iPad, maclothes, medicines, all sorts of crap
Speaker 1: and it all fits in and it opens that the
Speaker 1: top so you can look inside of it without having
Speaker 1: to pull it fully out. I love it. I love it.
Speaker 1: I've got Instagram targeted with it, which annoys me. I
Speaker 1: don't like that the Internet manipulated me. But thanks to
Speaker 1: all this gear, I can basically walk around all day
Speaker 1: without worrying about anything dying probably two days, honestly. And
Speaker 1: I've got this little bag of cables and extra bags
Speaker 1: that I can hand out to friends who haven't been
Speaker 1: planning ahead like I have. Skill issue moving on, though,
Speaker 1: those of you who follow me on Blue Sky will
Speaker 1: know that I've been on a big fitness push, and
Speaker 1: a big part of that has been Tonal. Tonal is
Speaker 1: this giant wall mounted exercise machine with a big screen
Speaker 1: in the middle, along with big adjustable arms that could
Speaker 1: be moved around to fit different exercises. It's hard to explain,
Speaker 1: but advice you'd go to the website. So if you
Speaker 1: want to do bench press, you put the arms down,
Speaker 1: you go on the bench, and you push up with
Speaker 1: the cables. It works really well, and it uses magnetic
Speaker 1: resistance to create up to one hundred and twenty five
Speaker 1: pounds away either side, and uses on screen prompts either
Speaker 1: through classes or your own custom workouts, which is what
Speaker 1: I use to tell you both what to do, critique
Speaker 1: your form using the built in camera, give your feedback,
Speaker 1: and actually count your reps, which I love because again
Speaker 1: huge baby, don't like ranking stuff down, don't really like
Speaker 1: having to do anything. If they could do the workout
Speaker 1: for me, i'd let them. But nevertheless, it works really
Speaker 1: well and like I must say, though, it is egregiously expensive.
Speaker 1: It's over four thousand dollars before tax and requires a
Speaker 1: great dealers space around it. But it's possibly my favorite
Speaker 1: piece of tech ever made. It just works. I dropped
Speaker 1: from two hundred and forty pounds to one hundred and
Speaker 1: sixty five pounds since the show began, gaining real muscle
Speaker 1: definition and physical strength. Since getting Tonal in twenty twenty one,
Speaker 1: I realize that's much longer. I've done hundreds of workouts. Look,
Speaker 1: I'm a simpleton, and thus having something count my reps
Speaker 1: and tom Mey exactly what to do is extremely effective.
Speaker 1: And Tunnel also has cool shit like eccentric mode, where
Speaker 1: they add more weight on the eccentric movement of the exercise.
Speaker 1: So if you're thinking of the bench prest, it starts
Speaker 1: by your chest and you push up and then went
Speaker 1: and you've done the push up that's in the pushy part.
Speaker 1: As the weight is coming down, it adds weight to
Speaker 1: that eccentric weight. There are studies that suggest it it
Speaker 1: works more it feels good, though I also say the
Speaker 1: form correction works and the workouts have varied in equivalent
Speaker 1: to working out with reallyian. It's got bar bells, it's
Speaker 1: got dumb bell exercises, and I've got real muscle as
Speaker 1: a result, which is the best endorsement I could actually give.
Speaker 1: I love it, I've happily paid for it, and Tunnel
Speaker 1: is worth it if you're going to use it like
Speaker 1: any gym membership, except done, like any gym membership, you
Speaker 1: have a bloody thing nail to your wall if you
Speaker 1: don't use them. Don't get this. If you're not going
Speaker 1: to use it, seriously, it's so expensive, but if you are,
Speaker 1: if you are truly going to it is the best
Speaker 1: money I've ever spent. Really, I'm sure that there are
Speaker 1: more important things, but nevertheless it's I cannot. I just
Speaker 1: upgraded to Tonal two, which has like smoother action and stuff,
Speaker 1: but I beat the ever living shit out of my
Speaker 1: old one. I used the crap out of it. It's
Speaker 1: something I kind of dreamed of as a kid, Like
Speaker 1: I really wanted something like this, something that direct me
Speaker 1: and allow me to do these exercides and tell me
Speaker 1: what to do without having to go to the gym,
Speaker 1: because the gym feels like a very judgmental place. And
Speaker 1: on a higher level, I have up until recently, really
Speaker 1: not liked my body or how I look, and connected
Speaker 1: fitness stuff has really helped me fix that. For those
Speaker 1: curious or those who aren't want to get pissed off
Speaker 1: at me. I woke out about three to five times
Speaker 1: a week, either lifting on Tonal or doing my cardio days,
Speaker 1: which include Peloton's yoga classes and another one of my
Speaker 1: favorite tech products, fight Camp, which puts you got putas
Speaker 1: trackers in the wraps and yeah, they've got great classes.
Speaker 1: Shout out to coach PJ. I love fight camp, I
Speaker 1: really do. And I love boxing as well. If you've
Speaker 1: ever wanted a cardio exercise that just feels perfect, really
Speaker 1: boxing is there. You're probably throwing a puntrong. I certainly
Speaker 1: was like smiling as I read this, Ben, But this
Speaker 1: was this was a large part of how I changed
Speaker 1: my view of fitness from this kind of punishment, kind
Speaker 1: of a penance for the sin of sloth, for feeling
Speaker 1: bad about how I looked in the mirror, for feeling lethargic,
Speaker 1: but just feeling fat. And I'm sure there are listeners
Speaker 1: who totally get this as well. And I use this
Speaker 1: kind of stuff to find it as a joyous alternative
Speaker 1: to typing all day, something that makes me feel happy
Speaker 1: and strong, like I'm building something that's just for me.
Speaker 1: I'm building an image. And I know that sends for
Speaker 1: a dramatic who gives a shit, it's a monologue. Come on,
Speaker 1: we can have some fun. But having data the work
Speaker 1: I've done, my heart rate, the volume of what I've
Speaker 1: I've been lifting, my output on the heavy bag, it
Speaker 1: all lets me see gris sure, but it gives me
Speaker 1: a body of work and the connected fitness aspect let
Speaker 1: me do it alone, which helped my social anxiety and
Speaker 1: going to the gym. Now I'm extremely socire and I'm
Speaker 1: very confident in who I am, and I think a
Speaker 1: lot of that came from this came from the fitness side.
Speaker 1: If you ever want to talk about this, my email
Speaker 1: is easy at Better offline dot com. It's Echo Zeta
Speaker 1: at better Offline dot com. Always happy to talk fitness,
Speaker 1: always happy to give advice. I'm not a personal trainer,
Speaker 1: but I've found so much joy through this, and it
Speaker 1: is through the tech side. Yet beyond the connective fitness
Speaker 1: aspect was this thing that I truly love the most
Speaker 1: about technology is the connections I've made with real human
Speaker 1: beings that have made my physical life so much better.
Speaker 1: A few years ago, I started chatting to a guy
Speaker 1: called Ben Rudolph on Twitter and we, along with a
Speaker 1: few friends Tatiana Kleb, ended up starting a group DM
Speaker 1: for Fitness, which truly changed my life, in part because Ben,
Speaker 1: out of the kindness of his heart, patiently explained everything
Speaker 1: from how to build a sustainable lifting routine to showing
Speaker 1: me a video of how to throw a punch and
Speaker 1: a kick. I'm proud to called Ben my friend, and
Speaker 1: had the Internet and not existed, I'd never have got
Speaker 1: to share my fitness journey with him, and probably never
Speaker 1: got out of the hole I was in. I was
Speaker 1: injured after really overtraining because I got very depressed, and
Speaker 1: Ben helped me out. Ben is not in fitness himself.
Speaker 1: He is a mountain of a man, a formidable muscled fella,
Speaker 1: but he works in tech. It just so happened that
Speaker 1: we had a mutual interest. This is the reason I
Speaker 1: log onto the Internet and like, this is really what
Speaker 1: I love the most about technology. As dark and ominous
Speaker 1: and brutal as the world feels right now, as noxious
Speaker 1: and poisonous as social media can feel and seem, there's
Speaker 1: such joy to be had connecting with others about just
Speaker 1: about anything. I love using Reddit, and if you're on
Speaker 1: the Better Offline Reddit, I truly love you for posting there.
Speaker 1: And the way all of you responded to the webby
Speaker 1: thing actually made me cry in the best way. Thank you.
Speaker 1: And I love Blue Skuy too, because for every sickly
Speaker 1: little pedant correcting me, there are hundreds of wonderful souls,
Speaker 1: many of whom choose to email me when I make
Speaker 1: this show. At the core of my critiques and complain
Speaker 1: points is the sense that I know what technology has
Speaker 1: done and will do for me, in a frustration that
Speaker 1: there are those who would interfere with that process as
Speaker 1: much as possible for profit or growth. I guess, and
Speaker 1: I realize it's bland and obvious to say the Internet
Speaker 1: is good for connecting people, but it really is, and
Speaker 1: had it not done so for me, I don't know
Speaker 1: if I'd have made it out of my teens. And
Speaker 1: you can choose what you want to make that meme.
Speaker 1: I find such joy and love in my friends. I'm
Speaker 1: so incredibly grateful for them. At times I well up
Speaker 1: with the love in my heart for their kindness and
Speaker 1: their generosity that they continually show me. And almost every
Speaker 1: single friendship I've made has started online. I can connect
Speaker 1: with them wherever they are in the world. I can
Speaker 1: send them what I'm doing, or hear what they're doing
Speaker 1: and what I'm feeling, and vice versa, and for that
Speaker 1: I'm eternally grateful. Nothing about this gratitude stops me from
Speaker 1: critiquing these companies, and indeed, the love that I've fostered
Speaker 1: through digital connections drives my fury at those who would
Speaker 1: interfere with or exploit it. True cynicism doesn't come from
Speaker 1: a place of emptiness. It comes from a determin to
Speaker 1: defend that which makes us feel whole. Thank you for listening,
Speaker 1: and again, by the way, thank you for voting for
Speaker 1: me in the webbys. It fucking rocks me one. Actually,
Speaker 1: you know what, before I go, I was gonna log
Speaker 1: off there. I just want to thank everyone who works
Speaker 1: on Better Offline. I forget whether we put the thing
Speaker 1: at the bank that says all of these things again,
Speaker 1: but thank you to Mattasowski, Robert Evans, Sophie Lichtman, Ava Warrender,
Speaker 1: Daniel Goodman, Ian Johnson and everyone who works on this show.
Speaker 1: You've been extra normally supportive. It's a pleasure to do this.
Speaker 1: And yeah, thank you to the listeners as well. It's
Speaker 1: my cheesy way of thanking you all for the Webby anyway,
Speaker 1: the episode's really done now. Cheers,