Gadgetory

hello ok let's keep going we do this with five min I need five minutes we just need it why are you stopping wired your RV uncle lay after the show we're gonna get a bed we need five minutes of continuous clapping just any places that didn't work we're just going to throw that in this thunderous applause hi welcome to on the verge I'm Josh Topolsky editor-in-chief of the verge and very excited to have you guys here you're here for one of our biggest shows ever maybe our biggest show ever you know screw it so big a show ever and you're here for it you guys get to experience that firsthand it's seriously huge we have an exclusive interview tonight with Damon Lindelof who is a guy who co-wrote Prometheus new really Scott movie you may have heard of one of the men behind lost which I'm sure some of you have seen I know you've seen it a lie to me we also have a segment with masi oka from heroes play hero on heroes which is very cool him and Paul took a wild trip together and in studio we have Marco Arment who created instapaper and tumblr you may have heard of you you've looked at pornography on at least one of those new bastards and and we have infinity shred here which is an amazing band they're gonna play for you yes I want to be said to make sure I wanna get into it I want to first thank our sponsor which is clear scalp therapy for men it's uh no seriously it's great i mean my head is tingling right now you laugh but you're all gonna be trying it later because they're giving everybody hear a sample of their thank you okay somebody here is like yes my dad drove ah good luck with that but we're psyched their else they also actually gave us some giveaways beyond the shampoo an xbox 360 a ps3 and an apple TV so somebody here unless you work for us and there's a couple of you out there you're not getting anything we get to work for us that's cool so oh and we also have two tickets to the blip fest to give away which is a big chiptune music festival it's going on next week so two of you in this audience will be going hopefully together ah but baby baby dots fine so anyhow we Big Show I want to get under way I'm gonna get a way to get Paul and Neil I out so let's get started please welcome Paul Miller India ok oh yeah hey Paul Miller I remember you you used to be on the internet remember when you run the inner eye or this guy's remember Paul Miller okay i'm not i'm not dead yeah there's been I know there's some rumor every time I tweet about Paul then I like Paul is here he said this thing of you somebody responds to me with why are you talking about Paul right isn't he supposed to be off the internet yeah you can't exist right yeah it's like yo works next to me i'm a little thinner out I'd like toast I told my I employed by fellow employees at the verge I was like they're like I'll guess I'll see you in a year I was like you know what you I you could call me I can call you so who wants my calls you yet no so so Paul so you aren't you are off the internet yeah how's it been it's great I'm am crying a lot really yeah I just right into my word processor one in a corner yeah and I'd save it while op-ed apartman you don't have to be in a crime mail yeah buddy uh so but you actually have been writing a lot I think you've been writing more since you're off the internet then you were before you were off I have nothing to do I'm very productive yes i'll write a feature today no no even even finally reports from the from the world of not having the internet and and you actually you've been doing videos and you did a video i want to show this you did a video with masi oka who as I mentioned was a hero on hero my fit my absolute family I like the horn rim glasses God oh yeah like is alright but he's yeah he's a hero he's over 850 this is a show on CBS yes it Neil I was like it's still on the air apparently it's super popular well everything everything on CBS is popular it's right yeah old people this thing I change a channel I think this is a smart TV that's right I'm CBS leave it alone leave it there well she also worked at ILM oh yeah he would he did special effects for star yeah like the prequels he was working on so just wrap your head around this if you didn't know this the guy who played here on heroes actually worked on the special effects for the first three the new three a star war he was literally a programmer and then became a star I'm created he did the animated Anakin yeah that was a synthetic character right yeah I think it act like a synthetic air yeah um why am I watching a kid yeah anyhow you went to the museum of what is it museum a moving image yeah and queen in Queens yeah you with masi oka and we have a video record of it take a look at this I think you'll find it very interesting hi I'm Paul at the verge I am here in Queens at the Museum of the moving image I'm gonna meet masi oka from heroes he was hero and heroes which should give you a clue about how awesome he was in that show and he's basically the best human being on the planet earth so just no no big deal so you work the ilm yeah can you bells before heroes right before here how long were you with ila oh well i would say probably good ten years baby okay you were involved with like during the prequels mother whales and other people as well yet what software what you're making for them then well you or me our main platform was Maya so I wrote a la Maya plugin you know specific example might be like we're both at chase's uh in the asteroid sequence uh-huh so we basically the production that said and we need to be able to destroy this asteroid in a million pieces or one give the control which way everything goes you know because an animator need to be able to have all that fine control and with you know went in in ilm within visual effects you want to be able to do it so that it's visually accurate when that's not necessarily physically accurate it has to be physically accurate enough so there's a lot of communication back and forth where they want to make something look you just have been made yeah I remember one shot where we had to do breast enhancements good yeah so say there was a shot of a breast and the director wanted it bigger so we had to like wow digitally enhanced that sounds like really hard work you and thank you right after ILM yeah you got the job was here that's like why you left right well actually what a starter was I went to San Francisco was their headquarters i was there and i finished my first big show there on perfect songs on there like two or three years ok and I said you know I loved working here I could I'm a life like I could stay here so that meant that was a sign for me to leave so I came down to LA and you know I ran on money very quickly right sounds like oh shit yeah I got to do something about my financial situation but their Island said you know what if you're gonna look for jobs elsewhere want you to stay working for us you could tell occasion for us in that way Wow so that was that was very nice to them and then but I had to sign up as contract saying if I didn't get a recurring role on a pilot or a supporting role in a film in my first year in LA I would have to move back up to San Francisco I feel like heroes was this realization that you could do movie level effects now on a TV show I was out pretty big leap forward but I have to think you know before that you know lost did a great job of making come bringing something cinematic okay yeah especially when you tell a seer live show and it goes that but with that always comes budget you know I think right now we did heroes you know we could do it on a cheap I slightly cheaper budget and forget you know it's gonna get better and better do you have any of these growing up I actually didn't have a lot of the figures you know I only wanna how does that dude at the Cape I don't even know that it's great because there's all these fans of that world you know and and to have people who are so passionate about it if it's also you know it's it's upon the filmmakers you know my foreign boss George you know he needs to take care of that band yeah these days is getting to a point that feel like she's milking every cent possible which is uh yeah I get it's a business you know you know he's he was a great creator when he created the first Star Wars you know he create something revolutionary if you see the original original Star Wars yeah there's a lot of interesting mistakes he saw all these mistakes when he when he first created right so he had Island do an entire pass at the movie right and makes little changes so were you there at the time yeah was there like those projects like it just like simple things like putting their badges here here you know there's actually a fan project to restore the original cut cuz you can't buy in high definition at original cuts of the movie so they're like they're tried to undo you there reverse engineering your work well i think is you know is there's a reason why i was a classic at that ham yeah i think you need to embracing mistakes as well yeah there's always gonna be mistakes even this shoot right now like i was wearing a watch now where you are that everyone's gonna freak out do you have action pictures of yourself well no one made my action figure was like really you know loosely made so the head would always come on oh there's like oh that's kind of a like a disc yeah I have a confession i bought the first 2 c'n the first two seasons and i saw the first episode of the third i just i walked away i totally understand okay with that i think so i think the first season of that show was absolute brilliance even you know as a fan myself i was a fan of the show yeah we were so proud and everybody around the world you know there was a phenomenal without doubt i'm very proud of the work we get for a seat do you do you think there's something to that where you get a backlash like with star wars because the first season or the first movie was so good and fans just expect that greatness throughout and they get mad when that's not met yes I mean it's a little bit difficult at the same time that's our job you know I think unique you take a bold no choice make a bold choice in a c50 and sometimes it works and sometimes it did it did you play emulate a game I play melee games yeah I spent so much porters on like gauntlet so I kind of like go back oh I played some gauntlet that thing is designed it makes so much money I realized that wow I'm on each other mmm cute i love that other players yet where do you see yourself going you are direct uh yeah i think ultimately i loved the wreck I love the collaborative nature of behind the scenes i also like being in front of the camera so i think the rush directing seems to be a natural kind of with culminating all the experiences I've had you've got sort of all angles of the craft I try it you have a you think you have a blind spot you got you all I have so many blind spots I you know this life this is a continuing education you can always be learned I could be like nine years old and I could still be learning stuff you know that's what's kind of fun I enjoy knowledge I i create a new stuff i love exploration in is you know it's constant learning something new every game right that's cool thank you so much no thank you adorable first off I am I need I need to go to this museum it looks incredible on a fucker has an arcade in it it has a whole arcade I am so ignorant I don't and they also you know that installation you probably saw at the start of the video it's like a whole wall of gifts actually didn't interview with oh yeah yeah I get curator is that why you went there so you could see gifts may be very bossy is that a separate trip you were there twice no I did two shoots one day oh that's how in the zone that's to call TV magic uh web checking my phone video magic right as they say not sure they always say ya know the one thing cool about it ma see you know he's so he cares so much about like the whole process of film now he's like pitching anime to Hollywood hey anime shows he wants to see adapted because he's just so concerned that they're adapted right and I just in Hollywood I have all I was the place where you want to take when you want something to be you know remain true to its source material right Hollywood yeah alright so in other news moving along in other news i don't know if you guys heard yahoo is in the news first off yahoo is in the news yahoo doctor i just got caught that's the whole business let's just take that in just you know so let that soak in for a second I'm excited uh so they hired the CEOs then with scott thompson scott thompson so right that has made that up Eddie how he's there for five buns and then he got fired because he lied on his resume about having a computer science degree he's actually as an account he has an accounting degree but he does not have a computer science degree there's a big kerfuffle that's a word and you think you would check that they fired him so so we were talking about it and we and I said look everybody lies on their resume right you've all lied on your resume yeah he said this to an audience of his employees yeah you have you I mean I've law I lied there's no way I should be running the verge I lied about my I mean no eyes not I'm not qualified I tell people I'm a doctor there you go there's good I'm super lady hey I'm dr. Patel I thought you were gone you're not a doctor they say all those don't take those that's ecstasy he's like this will make you feel a lot better okay that's the thing there's definitely nice to see joke on every Oliver all right anyhow but we were like let's find people and ask them if they've lied let's see if people will tell us if they've if they've lied on their resume and Frank and specifically what they've lied about Paul thought that people would not go for it Paul was dead wrong very wrong Neal I took to the streets of New York the hot sweaty gross sexy streets of New York we might have different ways and any talked to people and ever asked me everyone is like like you know I don't usually lie but i'll lie on my resume here's exactly what i did take a look at this it's a fascinating look into the minds and hearts of average New Yorkers you ever lied in your resume to get a job mmhmm yeah absolutely right absolutely yeah I wouldn't say I have lied maybe like exaggerated responsibilities so on your résumé right now it says you're fluent portuguese in my day proficient do you know one word in Portuguese seem is that zamane yes yeah do you know how does he know now okay do you notice him baby it's almost just like if you don't do it you're an idiot because you won't get the job I lied about I'm having two creeks oh my god what you know I think the weirdest resume we ever received at the verge is literally just the word please I know that means parents sleep at night so you're on your resume it said you were manager yes yeah what were you actually a chance no it was an exile I'm a banker change but I'm actually who's the man I got a checking account we need some like suits we need to see what the one percent thinks of lies problem is none of them will talk to us excuse me sir we're doing some interviews now none of that fishery we're doing an interview about lying in resume his campaign yeah just wanting to be involved with your thing alright thanks no thanks no I appreciate it excuse me sir for your boyfriend yeah hi we'll talk to you next oh my god your guy in a suit I've been waiting for a guy this dude oh my god it's finally a guy to shoot yeah it's a match if you were hiring people and you came across the resume with a yahoo email address on it you feel it would you I've got a job ended i'll be a little offended cuz everyone uses gmail who who has yahoo or like hotmail I had a hotmail account before my gmail and everyone was like that's only for like child predators what's your main personally know I have a hotmail account when they don't have a gmail email address actually I judge them so fresh people they don't have gmail yeah I never use yahoo I told somebody my email justice at a wall and and the person at my job just kind of look at me like do you still have a wall like come on you got to get up on the gmail now I'm gmail I'm pretty happy with the head I'm a gmail guy where are three things you would immediately do if you're the CEO yahoo oh god I'm try pray pray cry cry cry pray and then I would call a big meeting to restrict you to get of it my first movie would be the quick second move will be to sell my shares cuz that you wouldn't be obstructed by that throw the we're going to move to get out ultimately we're all liars we all stretch the boundaries of reality to construct a box that makes us feel more comfortable but as I looked inward today a universal truth revealed itself to me no one gives a shit about Yahoo that was that was enlightening I seems like you got it lightened there it was very very strange yeah I uh I liked your last line no one gives a shit about Yahoo uh sure that's really touching well don't the whole problem is that Yahoo doesn't give a shit about yahoo and that's it that's how this happened it does seem like if they were just took a little more care with the brand they might not have hired the guy who likes resume they like Scott what what it's fine just hire does he have a computer science degree so you have a close rate does he have a computer all right I mean absolutely aren't we all computer scientists though uh on our resumes all right uh we have so we won more news item to talk about which is not really a technology news item by the way it's on I feel like I can't top that I almost that's what I can this oh so did you see this the social security office or agency or whatever they call themselves these days they they released administration yeah that's what it is it's the ministry of social status true social security they released the most popular baby names and Joshua's livid in the office yeah I was screaming yeah I mean is the natural like the names would like the hot names are celebrity names people are naming their there's like oh it's a kid I'll name it after Adele or Jaden yeah jayden is a popular name and the rising star this year was a Mason based on the child from the kardashian show what does it called me like i have no idea really you don't DVR the show you're always talking about no I mean I'm came as a goddess and an angel but I've now watch her she had the Kardashian child you were the one who knew that Mason was there yeah I know of course I follow Mason storrow but anyhow so so so you know at the verge we we you'd like to say that the technology culture is becoming pop culture and so we got to think in as we were want to do in the offices and we thought if celebrity names you know our kind of moving into the mainstream then it's surely some stuff from technology would move into definitely leech into the mainstreaming of of baby names inevitable it's inevitable scientific fact basically and so we wanted to gaze into the future and maybe think of some names we might see in the upcoming years that are I think we came up with some very accurate I think these are these are real names that are probably and we're going to see because of the the how technology is just becoming a part of our lives everywhere it's everywhere so let's take a look at a few of these possible these future babies as i like to call them why did I agree to this uh here's our first baby uh yeah I handsome beautiful baby who wouldn't want to have this very uncomfortable childbirth with the glasses on of course but what could this child's name be in the future I'm thinking probably something like I don't know zai bored Topolsky that's good yeah that looks good let's let's God why oh let's take another look and an adorable chocolate yes yes I know what you're thinking what's this baby's name yeah that's right it's Optimus epic Miller 4G LTE touch to cut topics know where G how to get in touch yeah and finally thank thankfully who are these your friends running my family through these adorable adorable a name it's like a little ethnic those doctors who are they gonna lose computer scientist uh these adorable children of course Siri Patel yeah and her twin brother ITV Patel watching launching this fall I can I can guarantee that ITV patel will be released within two years your fiancee I think your fiancé Shay I shaking her head no those are future baby names yeah yes real future baby names okay you can turn the tone off now okay we were we were like straight waiting the research there's like a couple Siri patel's out there uh if you would like to apologize not derailleur jokes Jerry Patel well name real people try anyhow that was horrific on many levels but uh okay so we have an amazing interview that I want to show you guys right now we flew out to Los Angeles to talk to Damon Lindelof as I mentioned he co-wrote prometheus which is an alien prequel maybe you'll find out in a second and he's one of the guys behind loss which I know was a show that everybody had a good feeling about when it ended they liked the ending they felt satisfied it had answered all other questions and they walked away thinking I'm glad I spent years and years of my life I know that's how I thought literally years in years watching and waiting for the show to end anyhow we had this amazing conversation with Damon Lindelof so take a look it's very enlightening hey we're here at the Roosevelt Hotel in Los Angeles I flew out from New York to sit down with Damon Lindelof one of the men behind lost a co screenwriter of Prometheus and basically just an insane genius so let's go have a chat so you're busy man you've got a pretty major project that's about to be revealed to the world uh which one are you or be as I got prometheus oh yeah should I is there a sore something else that I should know about there's a new you're very busy guy there's it more there's this disney movie 1952 that we just announced brad bird is gonna direct but we're not talking about what it is or can you tell me a little about what it is no you just give me an idea of the plot it's a it's a it's about characters who want something and there's other characters trying to stop them you tell me who forget starring in this film no we don't have any I I would tell you but there's no actors stana mated no I'm not commenting Isaac's life check out in uh happily is that true there's a happy ending yes it's a Disney movie oh I mean you know anything's possible in this day and age it's 2012 it's a penis guarantee even to even the movie 2012 has a happy ending I've never seen it sanded I'm sorry to hear that when you think about a movie that's essentially about the end of the world and it's john cusack vs the end of the world like what's the ending of that movie look like like how does how does a had as one character beat the end of the world can i riff on what I think happens yet this is what this is much more interesting probably than the actual movie baby i think that give you a hint John Cusack along with a small band of survivors find some one spot on the planet that's where we're gonna start over yes and rebuild humanity the way it should have been built the first time around right without fossil fuels uh yes more or less I got the idea I would sort of amend like small band of survivors to like four ginormous ark loads of survivors who basically represent the the lottery winners / wealthy Oleg arcs of all societies and the don't you happy ended yeah but that these arcs do get to the the place that you refer to yeah but it's all like rich most of them are rich bastards john cusack one of them he's a stockbroker he's not a rich bastard his what if memory serves his wife has married a rich bat his ex-wife is married a rich bass okay so it's kind of like or he falls in or not he finds it he falls in with like a Russian rich bastard this is I'm sure why he's a giant Dada they've tuned out now so you could say what effort let's just write so so you don't want to talk about you can't how about 1952 which has a happy ending correct and stars no one yes but but that's good but you can't talk about prometheus which is a small film that you've done an independent film you've done yes Ridley Scott sure you are the co screenwriter yeah a gentleman by the name of John Speights wrote on the mood wrote the first draft of the screenplay for several first drafts he worked in the movie for about a year and then I came in after him so we didn't ever work simultaneously kind of took what he had and that's right exactly another place so the movie a lot of the ideas are actually the seeds are from ridley directly absolutely because a aside from its relationship to the original alien which is a question iterations of that question are the things that i've been asked about the most i'm looking forward to it at the end of the day when you're working with Ridley Scott it's not about me coming in and saying hey Ridley I've got this great idea do you want to direct it it's about him saying I want to direct a movie in this universe here's what I want it to be about here are the ideas that excite me here are the thematics that I'm interested in and here are the character traits that I want to demonstrate and it's it's a not to reduce the process of screenwriting but I feel like in film which is much different than what i did in TV it is a little bit like mad libs where my job is essentially you know really saying adjective now you know euphemism and that's how the movie was made yeah that's a and that exactly I'm sure he'll be excited when to hear that you describe the doing making processes mad libs i but i but i do feel like I i have great pride in my own lack of authorship in the movie and I feel like if the movie is a huge success it's all because of release Scott and if the movie is not a success it's because I wasn't able to execute his vision successfully and that's that's the that's the feeling that I have so let's talk about the connection between aliens or alien or that universe you're saying this is a different movie but it is in I mean it's not a sequel to it's a prequel if anything right you're not even calling it that well I mean I take exception to the fact that it that it's called a prequel because and and I know a lot of this sounds a lot like that you have to get a slightly defensive terrain but for me just as a fanboy when I hear the word prequel that doesn't get me excited like and the reason that it doesn't get me excited isn't because I have a negative association with prequels we have to think like what's contextualized that word the first time that I heard that word in any sort of public or social setting was in reference to the fact that George was going to do the first three Star Wars movies and I was enormously excited about that that aside once you actually see what a prequel is a prequel is by definition a march towards the inevitable so while we know that the guy is going to get the girl or there's going to be a happy ending there's certain story beats that you hit the idea of saying I'm now just going to watch this young boy turn into Darth Vader you're leading me into the story that i already know there's certain things that i know can't happen like nothing's going to happen to obi-wan right because it's a prequel and i felt it was really important that Prometheus was not positioned as a prologue to alien write that in fact if prometheus were successful and there was a sequel to it the sequel to prometheus would not be alien I also felt like alien is as close to a perfect movie as it gets and I was very reluctant to engage in a conversation that would somehow diminish alien right like that if you saw if for some reason Prometheus didn't succeed creatively that when you went and watched alien again you'd be like this movie is now finished it tastes would be soured in some ways why yeah why Bible I bet that so all that by way of saying that if you my hope is that if you see prometheus and you watch alien again there will be certain things that were mysteries before about alien that you have more clarity on but not but but the mysteries that made alien great are still mysteries right and I've had a certain degree of success and failure in mystery resolution I feel some mysteries are just much more engaging than their resolution and I don't want to answer those it's like ooh where is Amelia Earhart she's rotting somewhere and the bottom of like the ocean are you like you're saying that's probably unless she was abducted by aliens or you know or she's living you know somewhere in you know in France like 50 and hot end and has discovered the Fountain of Youth like but the reality is is the answer to these mysteries are usually less compelling than whatever our imagination transposase onto them and so if there I do think that we succeeded in if there's a sequel to prometheus it's not about the things that alien is about which is eggs and facehuggers and chess bursters and Xenomorphs right like that that not only alien but then aliens they need to go and live off on that tangent prometheus is launching its servicing that tangent it's saying here's an explanation you'll understand the context of maybe where some of those things came from but it's much more interested in going off in its own direction and we're there a sequel to prometheus it probably wouldn't need to trade in any of those ideas so let me let's just get nerdy for a second I'm gonna get real specific I and as opposed to what I look like here cuz you've been for the last 20 minutes you're speaking very broadly about the you know you're kind of setting the stage for this but yes but but it does seem to be taking place in or on or around the beginning of alien which is or or alien full stop which is this large there's this large alien craft they stumble upon I mean that is it that seems to be in your in prometheus let me just say like there there was a two minute trailer out there that people were like I can't wait to see this movie and then there was a three minute international child yeah and that one extra minute of material is the line that you cry where people start to say you told me to my right and i agree i think so the trailer was gave away so my desire to not tell you what is the relationship between my hope is and again this is frustrating to some but it's the space in which i live which is the reason to me that i loved inception was after inception was over there was stuff for me to fight about and discuss with my friends as to what it meant what happened what was a dream what was in a dream like all those things that the movie left in some sort of ambiguous space and I no ambiguity is a very scary word especially when you apply it to the context of of the television that I've done however I will continue to embrace ambiguity because I find it really interesting and I have a tremendous amount of faith in the intelligence of the audience most of them are much smarter than I am and I will have an intention but the idea of not spelling it out entirely I will tell you right now that this movie even when you go and see it there is space to debate what the relationship between this movie and alien is we are not connecting the dots for you we are giving you the requisite information to make an impassioned an impassioned discussion about it you will know as a hell of a lot more than you did before but it's not like this movie ends with a derelict spacecraft full of eggs crash landing on lv-426 which is the derelict spacecraft that the Nostromo happens upon at the beginning of alien that's inevitability and it's not interesting right yeah I guess my question was there in the same universe because there's been a debate with people that this is an it's completely separate right universe they are they share the universe absolutely very early on we started saying this is the question that is not going to go away is it a prequel what is it so is there a way that we can start generating content other than just the trailer then that was the birth of what evolved into this Peter Wayland TED talk it's hard to watch that in any context and then make the argument that these don't occupy the same timeline yeah so so getting back to the ambiguity point I think the danger there and for what's frustrating for people and I think that with lost I think a lot of people feel this is that it ambiguities can sometimes come off as not like hey here's something for discussion but you didn't know sure I'm a person who watched lost all the way through again and thought the ending was extremely disappointed okay disappointing because it felt like if I felt like the prot there was a promise of something much more and not profound maybe not more moving certainly not more moving in my opinion but something smarter right and it felt like it ended on this in this way that was like well so what was the point uh-huh do you does that now haunt you like that kind of sense of people being of needing the answer and not getting it and you having to answer for it I think haunt sort of implies like it's it's it's something that creates a tremendous amount of stress and sadness and fear for me as much as it is something that I accept as a part of the legacy of that show is is is obnoxious and entitled as the sounds i also have no regrets about it if there was one regret that i had there there were times over the course of the show where in interviews i said the answers are coming but if you i challenge you to look at any interview that i gave post the middle of season 3 which was the turning point when they said you can we can now give you an end date to the show because up until then there was there was a degree of improvisation that had to occur because we didn't know how many of these things we were going to do or how long we were going to be around to be doing them once we said there's going to be 48 episodes left at that point a firm plan had to come into motion then from that point on I think that I started saying publicly if you are watching the show for the answers to your mysteries you're not going to like the ending many shows have come and gone that are very focused on their mysteries and their mythologies and their ambiguity and there is no were seen in the history of genre than the architect explaining to neo everything that happened matrix and I wasn't going to touch that with a ten-foot pole that is a particularly awful instance of over explanation of like feeling like you owe it to the audience right okay so we have the architect and then we have lost and the lost lost is not enough and the architect is too much and somewhere in between is just right and I'm going to always be closer to loss than I am to the architect because that is just not interesting to me I've just been sitting here listen you talk about it I realized I wasn't disappointed with like with lost not giving me answers at the end what I was actually disappointed with the answer gave which it felt like the answer was all the things that just happened didn't really mean anything they kind of didn't happen that was that might take away from me what do you mean they didn't it was like all the things that happened all these things that were set up as you know you've got to stop the man in black because x y&z sure uh it didn't matter right holy because it wasn't real yes it was well but not really and it was like it was like a shared fantasy him and it didn't seem like there was like I mean what no so so so the things that we're going on the island were happening in the actual world yes so they were happenin like our timeline correct I mean yes I mean there's no oceanic Airlines in our no no I mean but but in the real world not in it's like kind of like moment before death fantasy world where everybody's trying to find each other so they can go to heaven no correct um so at the end of the show the last frame of the show Matthew Fox closes his eyes closes his eye and dies you know that happened like in our context of happening like that happen that's all it's then from the moment that he closed his eye all that other stuff that we did in the in the sixth season of the show the flash sideways where nobody knows each other and the plane never crashed that is whatever your interpretation is I'm not going to talk about what our intention is but that's what you would define is not having happened or happening but everything that we ever showed you anything that takes place on the island and aust happened you know absolutely one hundred percent the plane crash those people survived everything that you saw throughout those six seasons like some the whole struggle between good and bad that's like a really meaningful thing that actually occurred yes that would have threatened the universe had not been the Dharma Initiative Israel the island is real all those Hurley right now right now at this moment in time Hurley and ban and with help some with some help from Walt are actually running things on the island maintaining it I do feel like one of the things that we always wanted to do and we're very passionate about doing was exploring the idea of purgatory both figuratively and literally and this was so obvious to the audience that within three or four episodes of the of the first season of the show they were like it's purgatory right they're all dead and we kept saying we swear to god they are not all dead this is really happening but the audience is telling us that they really want some sort of clinical evaluation of an afterlife right in purgatory is about judgment and this show has never really offered up what i would call christian Judeo judgment in terms of there's a deity it's always about self-judgment so the idea of like and you know does Jack think that he's worthy or Sawyer can Sawyer forgive himself for his sins or did Kate kill her stepfather justifiably so I always felt like if the characters can forgive themselves then they can then then the show's over show is called lost it's not because they're on an island it's because they're lost anytime you say to people what's lost about it starts with like well there's this plane crash and therefore they don't say like well centuries and centuries ago in fact millennia ago if they say that you go like I'm out so I always just felt like the the show that the ending that we were shooting for was going to be one that the dealt with sort of the emotional reality of the characters and gave some fundamental explanation for why what did these people get out of this plane crash right and the and the answer is corny as it sounds was the one that appealed to me the most which is each other that's what they got if they I didn't met each other and spent all that time on the island then they would never have been able to forgive themselves for their past sins and break through to some sort of level of self awakening and forgiveness is it more satisfying to you in some ways to work on something like prometheus where you have your like look I've got two hours to deal with this thing there's not going to be any filler I've got to tell the story succinctly and answer questions in a relatively short amount of time yeah i mean it is very satisfying to to do a movie that has a beginning middle and end and you know exactly what you're getting into when you start the job television you don't know what you're getting into you don't know how many years it's going to be on for you don't it's hubris to say I have a plan for the entire second season of the show because no one's even watching it yet they have to like it for you to get to that point so there you know and I talked about this often so I won't belabor the point but the two things that sort of came up all the time during lost where question number one are you making it up as you go along and the answer to that question is no like that's what people want you to say no we absolutely have a firm plan and there's a binder over there and that's where our plan is and we've got it and you're in good hands mommy and daddy know where we're going don't worry about you a map that's question number one question number two how much input does the audience have and the answer to that question is a lot we listen to you guys all the time we want to know what you like and what you don't like and we will adjust accordingly the true those the real answers they are not the real answers the real answers I've given an as politic as they may sound the real answers are there is a plan and when the plan doesn't work we change the plan and the other answer is yes we really listen to what you have to say but norm like ninety-eight percent of the time we agree with you before you've said it I did learn lessons you know from Los that I feel what rolled into Prometheus and what's interesting about the original alien is you can watch that movie and be like I'm curious as to what what's the story with that space jockey in this derelict ship but that isn't important the movie isn't telling you that that's important the movie is you that the thing that just jumped out of the egg on that ship and is now stuck to John Hurt's face that's important that's what you're supposed to worry about now and then and then the sequel and so on and so forth but the idea that prometheus now enters into a more and maybe this is why Ridley and those guys sought me out in the first place into the movie is asking very specific questions the characters are saying we want answers to these questions some of the answers they get some of the answers they extrapolate and but then something happens that leads the resolution of the questions is secondary to their own survival I think all of this stuff is already endemic people don't want to see Prometheus like a bunch of people sitting around a table pondering the meaning of life they want to see like what happens when you open Pandora's box like that's fundamental sci-fi storytelling right is prometheus an action movie and before you answer I want to set this up a little bit it seems like modern-day science fiction cannot exist without it having an action component and if you look at you know I movie like 2001 I would not classify it's it's not an action movie correct something else yes so did you it is prometheus an action movie or is it something else I couldn't describe it as an action movie anymore than I would describe inception as an action movie that being said once that fuse gets lit it's a there there is a fair amount of sort of scope and sizzle to it there's much more of an action fuse on prometheus than I think then I then I then I think alien but i would say aliens is an action movie yeah and prometheus is much more if it feels a lot more like alien than aliens to me in terms of its storytelling it I think one of the things that I've been hearing both again in the reoccurring theme of this interview you take the good with the bad is the good side it's like this feels a lot like the original alien like because there's motifs in the original alien there's an Android you're not entirely sure you trust there's people in cryosleep there's a there's a female lead there's clearly something happening to these people that is reminiscent of those ideas there's creeping around through dark corridors with flashlights like so people go this feels a lot like alien and then there's other people who are saying like this feels a lot like alien I would rather have people say to me for the rest of my career you screwed up a Ridley Scott movie then not say that to me because I'm like hey like I got to be involved in a Ridley Scott I got a screw over if this goes I fight not only did I screw up a really Scott movie I screwed up the first ridley scott sci fi movie in 30 years like that if that's not going to go on your headstone then what should I think that's a good place to edit demon thanks so much my pleasure really awesome thanks yeah and I know I know what you're thinking right now you're thinking that was good but I'd like to see a version of that interview that's like three times as long well I have some good news for you that interview is like three times as long as what we have here we had to cut it down so now we're going to show you the rest of it no I'm kidding uh but it will be available when that when the new show goes up we're going to do the full length interview you guys can watch it's it's it's pretty fascinating I think it's a really a fascinating do to listen to him to talk to him we're glad that we got a chance to do it speaking of that's a Segway by the way speaking of fascinating interesting dudes I want to bring out our next guest he's a really smart very creative guy and frankly I'm a little bit in love with him please welcome welcome Marco Arment I works right thank you thank you yes nice weird like we're stepping up the nerdiness we're going that we're going yeah we're getting increasingly nerdy at the end of the show we're just going to be sitting you're coding is that cool well as long as we put two big top windows on the screen and one red one green not too inside baseball all right is that a coding thing I'm confused to some people I'm totally confused right now so Marco we're just going to pretend that ever happened I didn't get confused by that joke we're just moving right along here Marco you're an interesting man you are one of the people who created tumblr yep which as I said we've all used many many times multiple times a day your bosses I'm sorry and an insta paper which now everybody it price has Instagram to you every time they talk about it right don't like you created integrand that's awesome how's it feel to have a billion dollars yeah I can you we buy actually I heard a few of those yeah that was an interesting day so I'm sure you did dude congrats yeah uh so tell me i want to put tumblr a little bit i mean tumblr has become a phenomenon I mean everybody uses it like every new site I see is just a Tumblr site and it obviously it's been great for the porn industry no I'm sorry it hasn't been uh but for porn users but but where when did that start how did that start what was your role just can you give me like a little bit of background sure you know spice it up sexy sexy stuff as sexiest two guys writing code in an office for a couple years that's very sad that's very sad vibe so focused on sex right yeah I did she has a little bit in love with you it is late at night you know that's true um so yeah so what where did that start it started as me and David Karp David had a consulting company just making websites for people and one day we were between clients for about two weeks and he said hey I've had this idea I want to work on it let's see what we can get done in the next two weeks before we got into this next project and that was tumblr and that was late two thousand six and we built the prototype and it took off we kept iterating on it as we were doing client work until eventually the client work to be dropped because we had to do this thing full time yet tumblr work yeah so so what was the idea was like I I mean it's like this weird halfway place between wordpress and Twitter you know it's this kind of like was the idea like blogging is just too complicated that was basically it was that a lot of us especially if you were a nerd playing with the internet in 2006 chances are you had started and abandoned a blog I write a lot of people did yeah and the problem is that the at the time what was really the traditional WordPress movable type style format is more like a magazine column where it's a lot of work you're writing these longer pieces lots of paragraphs and throwing and images and stuff every day or once a week or least you got a you got to do as you know it takes a lot of time yes and every time conserve it right and and if you're doing it as was like a little side hobby and you only get like one or two comments in a week and one of them spam and the other ones telling you that you're stupid it's kind of hard to keep the motivation going to keep something like that up so tumblr was created to to lower the the friction to make publishing online easy and to lower the expectation that you had to produce this giant magazine column every day because in reality most people just wouldn't and they would abandon it and with tumblr that wasn't really an issue because what the platform cultivated and expected was much more sustainable because it was so much easier right did you did you think that I might know maybe I don't know the answer to this but did you think it would become this this kind of default almost I mean that's what it's become really well now when people start something I mean it feels like they're moved away from like all I'm gonna start a wordpress blog too I'm just gonna start a tumblr and I like I have seven tumblers right and they're all like I one day I was like I'm gonna do a tumbler just of pictures of bags I like why not cool right uh and i just started it i did one i was gonna have film trailer reviews i was just gonna do film trailer reviews that's good i did like six and now it's abandoned but it but tumblr makes it so it's so easy did you expect it would be this default or were you like well just be an easier way to do blog i knew that you know once we had the product at a usable stage pretty early on I knew that people who used it we're going to love it but I think what surprised me is how much it took over outside of people who used to be the ones blogging you know bat in people who were blogging almost mostly nerds you know now it's a lot more people it's like normals it's everybody there's nobody here probably no sorry maybe baby who wandered in by accident maybe yeah they have a tumblr though we can agree or seven of them yes that's right and one is about the one it's about bags so so you you stopped working at tumblr when 2010 and a 2010 so pretty recently yeah and so talk to me about instapaper this is your next big sure project what why did you where did instapaper come from and how was it were you sitting there one day you die mean you were like bookmarking something you're like there's got to be a better way to do this basically yeah I mean what happened was in in late two thousand seven i got an iphone and I was still working a tumblr and I was commuting every day on the train not the subway you know the suburb train like you know nobody here knows about an actual tray an actual current the the LIRR or the metro north metro north which leads up to what most people consider farmland upstate even though it's like 10 miles you live on a farm pretty much no okay but everyone thinks I do we'll keep that up yeah so you know I had this long train commute and I would be browsing the web at work like I wasn't supposed to be doing but when you're making a platform about browsing the web it's really hard not to while you're testing it so i was browsing the web at work and I would find links to read and I wouldn't have time to read him as I was supposed to be working so I I would want to save them and read them sometime and the same time I was on the train and I had this new iphone that had this terrible edge connection and was offline half the time for the ride and I wanted to read things on the train but by the time I got there the connection was too slow to browse much to browse around and I would have already gone through RSS feeds digg which at the time still mattered you know I would have gone through all these things and so it was like I was burning through my cue when I couldn't read it and when I could read it there was nothing there so i made Instapaper to bridge that gap to solve that problem to be a just a temporary place just the one click bookmark just save it I don't want to tag it I don't want to like categorize it and reference this forever and a giant you know library of things i've ever read it was just a temporary like i haven't read this but i want to you know save it until i have read it and then get rid of it do you feel it's the highest form of flattery that that Apple has completely ripped you off oh yeah i mean is that it is that weird for you i'd be really upset if I mean because you're you know you're just a guy yes a guy living on a farm right and here comes big bad apple and they're just like oh hey we're gonna make this other thing that does exactly what Instapaper does that's gonna be default in all of our browsers well it helped a lot that they really did kind of a half-baked job of it really it's interesting do you think I did a half-baked job I mean the first version had pretty much the first version was basically a bookmark folder right so you know now and they're adding offline support and mountain lion although I'm not supposed to know that but I'm not officially a Mac Developer so I'm allowed to tell you that you're not at your not a Mac Developer right right i actually haven't seen mountain lion i'm probably have seen more but i don't know anything about it ah but it's but you're but you're telling me that they're adding offline yeah that's somebody on Twitter told me they were adding offline it assu I assume they're right that's good we on the internet are oh you're sure I'm sure of person like Wikipedia always right uh-huh always right always uh yeah but know it seems crazy to me has it has it hurt as it her business it's hard to tell my business is fine it would that we feature was released a year ago the main reading list feature and then you know we'll see the summer when they release the offline version of it it's hard to tell i mean the reality is that's only useful if you use safari everywhere right and only about a third of my customers do well you're using mobile everybody's mobile safari right but i think that the desktop sinking part is very important I mean there are a lot of people who will get and save the links on their iOS devices right but there's also a lot who were doing what the way I originally made it which was you save it on a computer and then you go read on your device's later so so on the topic of instapaper there's been a lot of controversy about your if I want to call it allegiance to iOS but you you have not you won't make an Android application let me just say I'm going to say it bluntly yeah and you even you even had this like challenge which was somebody makes I want to make sure I get this right it's like it's so misunderstood sag oould Android instapaper client you'll call it Instapaper for Android and you'll split the profits close it was if that what rivela / that I was linking to made it it wasn't it wasn't intended to be an open challenge because i don't like getting of a challenge the other one of the use of paper of course for Andrew in the design world spec work is considered a very bad word which is the idea I'm sorry designed so from getting this wrong the idea is like you kind of put out a call hey everyone do something you know work for free and if we like your thing we'll pick it and we'll pay you yes you have a whole week people working for free and most of them just get nothing out of it I didn't want to do that I thought that's why I didn't intend for it to be like a hey everyone try and whoever gets there first wins it you know because I don't want people to waste all their time so this guy didn't do it I guess yeah it didn't happen what about anybody else have you looked yeah why don't you want to just make why why don't you just make something for android it means it is so I feel it is it is in the market in a big way right that's agreed I totally like literally half of smart so our blackberries yeah so you know I mean don't let's not be don't give me that straw man argument of course I mean it's a real platform it is a real platform and it's big no question but the thing is you know if you are in the business of trying to get as many users as possible something like Instagram that actually makes sense to spread to Android get as many users you can usually it's for free some kind of free service that makes sense tumblr has to have an android app totally makes sense but when you're in the business of selling the app the majority events papers revenue comes from the app sales so I'm selling a five-dollar app on iOS that's pretty expensive on Android that's probably impossible and i I don't I buy android apps all the time and everyone just like you well I mean there there are people buy an android app perfect I'm there more developers make it after a I'm sure somewhere no I mean there are there definitely are I've tell you i see i know people with android phones at buy apps of course okay i do yeah you know April but you think that all the other people who are going one go right for the verge right I'd like no way I don't need it well it's not all of them it's a question of really just economics and how to allocate limited resources which is the most limited resource that I have right now is my time and we every ones most limited resource you know you I only have this one awesome version of the app that I'm really focused on if I were to take time off and either either either do an android app myself or pay someone else a whole bunch of money to do it that would significantly detract from my ability to make the iOS app great and now in the face of ever increasing competition I can't afford to let up I have to keep making the iOS app awesome I mean you're competing with Apple so you can't really screw it I'm computing with everyone who doesn't charge any money right pocket and would readability yeah Evernote clearly thinks pool what do you think graves balloon thing well and which one which one do you like the best out of all of your competition I honestly I've seen very few of them you might want to check them out yeah I tell you something I mean it all seriousness I've talked to people in our industry there are other people that like yeah I really check out the competition jon rubinstein from palm famously was like yeah i haven't really seen an iphone well that went well yeah that ever so my CJ this is my from one man guy friend yeah I've seen the big ones okay there's a whole bunch of little ones I've seen the big ones and are you are you gonna add do you think you're gonna add features or try to compete on any of the stuff like pocket does a bunch of stuff at Instapaper doesn't I mean it does some things on a bun it does more things that it does um no I you know I I highly value originality and we have to distill have to distinguish there was that awesome HP Envy whatever that came out you know we have to distinguish between usually HP Envy whatever the you know the computer they look exactly like a macbook yeah that thing yeah that's the a dhp macbook air yeah you know we we have to distinguish with originality you know the the problem of simultaneous invention versus true originality now it you know I I want to be the original in many ways of what ends paper does it is the original and I I like Apple product as many of them are very original not all of course but many and you know I value at a lot i get a lot of satisfaction out of that and so I don't want to copy other people's products or features if it's not something obvious but I think if it is something obvious like okay I have a read later app and if you tap on a link should it just open or should it offer you an option to read that link later you know like that's it once you're building a read later app that's a pretty obvious feature right and so if someone else did that first and then I copied it later I wouldn't really feel bad about that so when I look at other competitors features and you know if some if a competitor does a feature before me and I'm getting a lot of pressure to add it I try to be original as much as possible in the sense that if I try to not just copy it directly I try to you know only do things that only copy things that I would have come upon anyway right it that were obvious you're walking a fine line there or or if I can't do that if it's something that someone else just made a really good point and did this awesome feature there never would have thought of it I'm like I really have to implement that to stay competitive I'll try to do it differently I'll try to do it like in a substantially different way somebody has a grid you'll make like a wheel I had the grid first okay no you're owning the greatest way yeah I'll flip or beat everybody uh you know I I try to be original so even if I have to copy someone else's feature i'll try to do it my own way and so I respect other people who do that same thing so like I see in like the pc laptops base or the android phones bays vs apple and you know other people i like when android and when crazy ppt manufacturers come up with their own solutions to problems like I respect that even if I don't like their solution as much I have more respect for that oh my god i want to have another separate conversation just a out like what you don't like about Android cuz I mean I'm sure there's some fascination see I haven't used it that much well there's your problem I'm tired android is not in my world it's not in my attention span most days yeah I don't spend that much time think about it because thinking about iOS and the website which even that I barely think about thinking about the iOS app is a full-time job right and staying competitive on the iOS app is a full-time job all right I'm gonna we have to wrap unfortunately cuz i have a bunch more things I want to talk to you about but I quickly want to know just a couple of I mean you're obviously very focused you just talked about being original and you obviously appreciate beautiful design what are some apps what are things that you use every day that you're like I wish I could have made this or I'm in awe of this or this is a beautiful you know really smart design that I love like what's something free i madly just like to know well it is it tough yeah instant i have a long answer but if we don't time for a long answer you know design my opinion of design is very different from what most people my opinion of design is you know quote Steve Jobs how it works most people think design is putting textures and gradients on everything and so for me apps that work really well or solve the probably wealth to me that's great design so I think a good example that is Instagram it instagram took mobile it was basically twitter for photos which ends up being a really big deal what it did facebook should have done that the reason why they bought instagram is because it freaked them out because it attacked that one of the biggest things people use facebook for in an area that facebook was not doing very well in addressing instagram solve that problem so well and by the way the way to use Instagram I'll give my secret to everybody never use filters seriously changes the app makes you a better photographer unless you're terrible at photography in which case you'd blend but you know it but the purpose of the of Instagram photos is not to look old it's not to look like you took them took them isn't it with an SLR and if you did and import it that's kind of dirty don't do that people do that I know it's right they route they take pictures of DSLRs and then import hey check out this awesome picture I took phil schiller did that did he yeah and then he quit no wonder there he was a i'm sure i've been shamed into quit it yeah Marco I I wish I could talk to you longer you got to come back thank you so much thank you Mark arm at everybody and you definitely back you got it um we're gonna take a quick break and then we back with infinity shred so stay tuned hi guys I'm Jen Atkin celebrity hairstylist on the clear men scalp therapy team here are a few of my tips for becoming the perfect man first go to a stylist and not just a barber they'll pay much more attention to your style and give you really good tips second make sure that your clothes fit it's a really good idea to take them to a tailor so that they can specifically fit everything to your body type third make sure to pay attention to your hair and your scalp with clear men's scalp therapy its top standard at the source for a hundred percent under protection share your style at facebook.com slash clear men yeah yeah I I've been following all of those tips and they're great ladies gentlemen please give a big round of applause to infinity shred you yes oh my goodness that was awesome that was very good very nice very nice we get it we did the handshake infinity shred everyone ah that was that was amazing uh well that's pretty much our show I want to thank Damon Lindelof masi oka Marco Arment infinity shred obviously Paul Neil I you guys our sponsor clear who's helped me get rid of my dandruff which is very important for my wife and and we're gonna we're going to hear one more song and then we're gonna do some giveaways thank you guys so much for coming out you