Hemispheric views gives me joy.

It makes me happy every fortnight or bi-weekly to you.

It doesn't matter whether you're in the north, in the south, or somewhere in the middle.

We've got something for you. It's Hemispheric Views.

Hemispheric Views is something for you with Jason, Martin, and Andrew.

It's me.

Count us down.

I don't think I'm physically capable.

[theme music]

All right, now Martin's crashed.

And we do a redo.

Did you crash?

Did it crash?

No, I'm just using QuickTime this time.

What?

I have enough time to muck around with...

What?

I was hoping for the crash and then the redo and the...

No, no, no, no.

QuickTime?

This can be all different, Martin.

Is it in high quality?

It's happened the last two times and it hasn't sounded any different.

Yep, no one's been able to tell.

Okay.

You'd sound quicker, I would say.

Really? Is that the case?

Yep.

Okay.

High quality, quick.

Got you.

Time.

Quick time.

I'm a bit of a player, so it's true.

There it is.

Jeez.

2024.

We're back.

Wow, that joke's coming in strong.

We are back into the year 2024.

How are you all doing in this new world that we're in?

Good.

I want to talk about your blog post.

Let's get that out of the way, straight up.

Okay, let's get it out of the way.

Adding to the show notes.

All right, that is not in the notes.

No, of course not.

We never go to the show notes.

We always have a plan and then blow it up in the first 30 seconds.

And then divert in the first...

Okay.

Yeah, what would you...

You're talking about Jason's post about the games that he finished last year.

Yeah, that's what I assume.

That's later in the show.

Oh, that's later.

Okay.

Which...

Oh.

Have I blogged more than once this year?

This is blogging corner.

Wow.

So you need to tell us about...

Yeah, just see a little post.

You don't have to give the run.

Just point people to the link.

They can read it themselves.

But it's because it's self-congratulatory in a sense.

It is, yeah.

So we don't want to overcook it.

I am on track though to do 361 blog posts this year with the cadence that I've done

so far.

So we'll see if I get there.

I don't imagine I'll actually get over 10, but we'll see.

Yeah, it was...

You're talking about the one that's the metrics for this year, little podcast that we like

to call Hemispheric Views.

It was a rundown.

It started as a rundown for 2023.

And then I thought, I mean, there's only so many years back.

You might as well go back and redo the data on those as well so that we have it for the

next...

Realistically, this will probably go for 25, 30 more years.

So it'd be good to not have a gap in the beginning.

You don't want that.

You don't want to be in year 30 and then think, "Oh, if only we had the data from the first

three years, that'd be so important right now for when we're running the PowerPoints

and such for the board."

So I just went back and did a little quick recap of everything.

Some of this stuff is not there from the earlier ones because frankly, it's not possible to

get because the way that the analytics in our system work, kind of use them or lose

them is the, I think, the methodology that we're using there with data.

So you figured that out after three years, we've all already gone, "Huh, okay.

We know now."

Yeah.

We do know now.

So yeah, go look at the posts.

I'll link it for sure.

I just think it's neat to see what has happened throughout the last 1,200 and whatever days

it's been.

Was there a particular stat or something that you thought was most interesting, Jason?

Or you were like, "Oh, that didn't occur to me."

Let's see.

Wow.

Good question.

Yeah, I think the number of guest appearances actually was way higher than I would have

expected.

It was 17 people with 22 appearances, which just seemed like a lot considering we've only

done a hundred and, what is this, 102?

So pretty high considering this is not NPR or something.

We're not like an interview show.

But I thought that was pretty interesting.

Also the fact that we have joked for years about this being 45 minutes.

And we're not going to be the three-hour show.

It's going to be -- and then type 45 happened at some point.

I don't remember when that was, but it's been a joke for a while.

But to actually look back at 80-plus hours of stuff and it actually is 46 minutes is

pretty incredible.

So that was --

Great average.

That was really good.

I was happy about that.

Because we want it to be 45, but it's not like we're militant about it.

It's some are longer, some are shorter.

But yeah, it made it so damn close to 45.

I love it.

Yeah.

And in case people who are listening are interested, I remember -- this is my memory of it -- I

don't think, like you said, we ever wanted to be militant.

But we kind of had a discussion a couple of years ago where it was there are so many longer

shows and they have their place and they're covering so much news.

But we have to try to fit into people's commuting habits or this whole landscape of other competing

bits of audio.

So really, I think the rule was that we didn't want to ever really exceed an hour.

Is that right?

That's my memory.

You want to keep it short-ish.

I think less than an hour was ideal.

I think we talked about 30 minutes at one point and that just was impossible.

That's hard.

Three people.

Yeah, three people, 30.

It's just not enough time.

And if we did do it in 30 minutes, I think it would be --

It would be a timer.

It would be a timer and it wouldn't be as fun, first of all.

And I think it just wouldn't be the same show.

And there is a podcast that does that already.

So yeah, don't want to tread on others' toes.

That is a good point.

So yeah, check that out.

It's interesting.

I think it's kind of fun to look at the -- look at what's happened over the last however many

days I said, 1,261.

And Jason, I just have to bring up one issue with the statistics and the analysis.

Now, it's not your fault.

I'm not surprised.

Not your fault at all.

It's not your fault, Jason.

You're just learning.

Yeah.

Okay?

You're just learning.

That's what Andrew's saying.

Episode 42 was noted as the one with the largest number of downloads in one of the previous

years.

Yeah.

Important for you to know that that was at a time when a hosting provider, Fireside,

had a statistical anomaly occur in their own server logs.

And that, for some reason -- that episode was blown out for some weird reason.

I don't believe --

That was Amazon's fault.

Yeah, I don't believe -- yeah, it was.

I think you're right.

Yeah.

I don't believe it.

I think the one thing is, if people look at it and go, "Wow, episode 42.

I've got to jump on that.

That must be amazing."

Eh, I'm not sure it is that amazing.

But...

Yeah, I prefer the narrative that we were seriously famous for five minutes.

There you go.

Everyone at Amazon listened to it in the warehouses, accidentally, is what happened.

During their on-the-spot toilet break?

Is that what you mean?

Correct.

Yeah.

It was playing in all of the bathrooms across the world.

Bathrooms?

Oh.

Yeah.

Bathrooms.

Yeah.

Well, some of them.

That's an ideal.

Some of them.

No, that was good.

Well done.

Well, if that's as bad of a, you know, talking to I'm going to get about the data and statistics,

I'll take it.

On the recording, anyway.

Yeah, yeah.

It's a solid B.

A solid B. I'll take it.

I'll take a B in stats class.

Thank you.

Hey, should we follow the agenda?

Yeah.

Of this show, the run sheet?

I mean, we haven't yet.

We could try.

Okay.

Let's give it a go.

What do we got first?

Desk review?

We do have a desk review.

It's been sitting here for a while.

It has been.

Yeah.

I think we need to address this one.

I mean, it's what they want.

So, let's see here.

Let me go.

Whose is it?

I've got to open it up too.

Do you know which one it is?

Yeah.

Click.

I like the cross-linking in our Apple Notes.

That's very nice.

Isn't it?

Clever.

That's very default.

Look at that.

Clever.

I love it.

So, we've got a desk review that's been sitting here for a little bit, and it's for devoted

and long-time listener, Firsty or Firstenberg.

How are you going, Firsty?

Thanks for submitting this.

There is no way he likes that.

I think we're going to have either a lot or almost nothing to say about this, actually.

Anyone listening, if you haven't heard our desk reviews before, if you check out the

show notes, you should see a link to this, or even look at the album artwork in your

podcast play, and you'll see the desk that we're going to be reviewing.

Having some critique about some of us are more positive than others.

Someone with the initials AC tends to completely destroy people.

Somehow we still have listeners.

I encourage improvement, Martin.

That's all I do.

Yeah.

Is this a solid B?

We'll find out.

That's one way to say it.

It might be a solid WC.

Oh.

A water closet.

Yeah.

All right.

Here we go.

So, you'll see.

I'll just leave.

I can't leave that hanging there.

No.

He's got a flusher.

A flusher cord hanging from the ceiling.

For a cistern.

I was wondering if you were going to say that.

I was like, "What are you talking about?

There's nothing to do with toilets."

See?

You pull that cord, instant flush.

It's like the emergency cord at the hospital.

But no, that's all right.

That was just while we were talking about it.

I didn't mean to preempt the order of proceedings.

No.

I mean, if you'd like to go first, please, by all means, dive in.

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