111: Brackets Around the Brackets

John wants to take another shot at promoting Relay dot fm, and Merlin admits a shame. In follow-up, John has an update on _Millennium Actress_. As you know, Satoshi Kon is not the bitcoin guy. Listener response about cast iron skillets was huge. Merlin has updates on his Apple TV, and John has trouble understanding Merlin's beta obsession. Unsurprisingly, this leads to yet another discussion of the Apple TV's ample room for improvement. Children are not qualified to know which things are good or bad. In what amounts to a main topic, John interrogates Merlin about his weekly reminder errand. John assures Merlin that he does not ever need this reminder, and Merlin assures John he has his reasons why he does things. Merlin does not like creating unnecessary work for himself, and John has thoughts about the implicit encouragement to overextend oneself. How are you training your audience? John knows how this book turns out. (_Recorded on Tuesday, August 13, 2019._)