Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
The Future of Archaeology in a World That's Tidying Up - Ep 99
171 Plays6 years ago
In the wake of Marie Kondo and her tidying-up mentality we started wondering about the archaeology of the future. Guest host Richie Cruz and host Chris Webster talk about the future in a tidied-up world. What will be left? How do we think about and interact with “things” as compared to our ancestors and ancient people around the world?
Recommended
Transcript
00:00:01
Speaker
You're listening to the Archaeology Podcast Network.
The Future of Archaeology: Organization and Minimalism
00:00:08
Speaker
Hello and welcome to the Archaeotech Podcast, Episode 99. I'm your host, Chris Webster, with my guest co-host today, Richie Cruz. Today we talk about the future of archaeology in a world that's tidying up. Let's get to it. All right, welcome to the show, everybody, and welcome, Richie.
00:00:25
Speaker
Yeah. Hello there. I feel like it's been a while. I hasn't. Well, yeah, it's been a while since you were on the architect podcast. That's right. Yeah.
Richie Cruz and the Happy Archaeology Fun Time Channel
00:00:33
Speaker
Yeah. So Richie and I do a show called You Call This Archaeology that plays on his YouTube channel, which is.
00:00:40
Speaker
Your YouTube channel is Happy Archaeology Fun Time. We'll put that in the show notes. And we do that actually on Facebook Live, and there's a good chance, as you're listening to this, it will have been last week. So I won't mention it, but we're going to record this week. But, kid, just follow ArcPodNet on Facebook. It's Facebook.com forward slash ArcPodNet, and you'll be notified when we go live. It's very haphazard, based on really Richie's work schedule.
00:01:07
Speaker
And he has to be in this week because where he's working has got, you know, 80 feet of snow under it. Yeah. So so he's here this week and then we're probably going to get a recording in. But check that out. All the videos over there as well. It's just us chatting about archaeology and other things. Oh, and look out for merch soon. Yeah. Look out for new merch. Yeah. Check out ArkPodNet.com forward slash shop and you'll be linked to our T public store where he's got some new designs and we're going to get those up there and you can check those out. So.
00:01:34
Speaker
All right, well, Richie is here because we got off our recording schedule a little bit, Paul and I did. So we recorded last week, which we were not supposed to. We're supposed to record now because we released a show last week. So I like to record about a week and a half ahead of time.
00:01:49
Speaker
And to get back on cycle, we had to record another week in a row. So yeah, out there in New York City where Paul lives, there's ice and sleet and snow and all this stuff. And he's going to have a hard time getting home. And he's three hours beyond me. So he's skipping out on the recording this time so he can do that. And so I literally texted Richie like an hour and a half ago and said, hey, can you record today?
00:02:09
Speaker
And he did, which luckily he lives like a block or two away. So so do you now. And so do I. So it was easy to it was easy to come in and and record. So we're going to get right to it. We're going to do our two segments and then we'll do the app of the day segment. So stand by for that. And I've got I've got a pretty fun app. A lot of times they've been kind of fluff apps, but I got a cool app that I think is really going to help a lot of people and some productivity and stuff like that. So I've been playing with the last couple of days. I'll be too for my app.
00:02:36
Speaker
Yeah. So let's get into the topic, though. So I mentioned
Marie Kondo's Tidying Philosophy and Its Impact
00:02:40
Speaker
tidying up. As you know, literally everybody on the planet is talking about Marine Condos, the art of tidying up. I mean, the book was one thing, but Netflix just prompted to launch her into stardom. Right. Yeah. Because the book has been around for quite a while. Like, I mean, several years. Yeah. Because at the bookstore, my God, we had like so many of them like like using them as book backers and just hiding them everywhere. Yeah, it's crazy. So
00:03:02
Speaker
So my wife and I, in fact, when we were at the Society for Historical Archaeology Conference in St. Charles, Missouri last month, we were at an Airbnb and they had a smart TV with Netflix on it. And what I like to do when people forget to log out their Netflix account is just watch other stuff on their account.
00:03:18
Speaker
rather than logging in my own and change their whole algorithm. So we watched that. I was kind of avoiding it because it was all over Netflix. I was kind of avoiding it because I was like, ah, do I need this? It's just going to stress me out. Wait, have you ever just watched a bunch of horror movies in a row or not even watched them? Just let it play. No comment. So anyway, so we watched that show. And actually, I did like it.
00:03:46
Speaker
If you haven't watched the show yet, if you haven't binge watched the series yet, go take a look. I will tell you right now that each episode, I appreciate that they focus on one new little thing. Like she has a set aside segment where she's like, hey, this thing. And I also appreciate that she speaks in, she speaks in Japanese. So they, she has a translator. She knows some English, but I like that the whole show, she speaks in Japanese with her translator there.
00:04:10
Speaker
I didn't know that. Yeah, totally. And it allows her to speak naturally and say what she really wants without trying to find the words in English, right? She speaks some English, but not much. So anyway, each episode is basically the same thing. And in some cases, you're really dealing with hoarders, right? Like people who just have too much stuff. And I've often wondered, this isn't a review of the show. This is the ArcheoTech podcast, but I've got to say this.
Interacting with Belongings: Modern vs Historical Significance
00:04:35
Speaker
I've often wondered on shows like that, like I want to see five months later,
00:04:40
Speaker
What's going on there? Because if you just basically clean up for a bunch of people and throw a bunch of their crap away, you're not going to change decades of programmed- No. Like capitalism. No. Yeah. I mean, at the bookstore, I always dealt with hoarders all the time. And they bring in a bunch of books, and then you'd see them in the coming weeks bringing back more books, like bringing books back home. Yeah, buying more books. Just different ones. Yeah.
00:05:04
Speaker
Yeah, so on that note, we interviewed somebody and I'll try to link to this in the show notes because I can't remember what her name was, but we interviewed a woman who wrote a book that was kind of around.
00:05:15
Speaker
data and all this other stuff. And her and I had a side conversation off the air because it was two years ago when we were moving into the place we moved into, we just moved out of. Yeah, the montage. The montage, yeah. So we moved into a smaller place and I was struggling. Richie was working at the bookstore at the time and I was struggling with all the books that I had. I mean, I, like everybody else I know, have been collecting books my whole life.
00:05:37
Speaker
And admittedly, a lot of these books were stuff I'd just been hanging on to. I'd already read it. There was no way I was ever going to read these books again. You know, they were either out of date or, you know, they were just no longer relevant or I just simply wasn't going to read them again. And the way that she mentioned it or that she framed it was basically
00:05:55
Speaker
Other people can't enjoy these books if I have them on my shelves. And if I'm not going to read them anymore or use them as a reference, then I should get rid of them. And that's what I did. You know, I brought a bunch of them to the bookstore. I think I brought you guys like hundreds and hundreds of books and I think I got like 70 bucks for it, which isn't too bad.
00:06:11
Speaker
I mean, you should see some of the customers who bring a lot more and then get a little less. Yeah, yeah. So anyway, I brought in a bunch of books, and we'll get into this in a bit here. That's one of the things Marie Kondo talks about. But anyway, the point is, I don't know if tidying up is going to help anybody who doesn't really fundamentally shift the way they think about things in their life and the things around them.
Archaeologists and Minimalism: A Unique Perspective
00:06:34
Speaker
I think archaeologists are ideally suited to think that way because we do live
00:06:40
Speaker
a transient lifestyle a lot of times. And even though, like you, Richie, have a place to come back to and live, a lot of archaeologists don't, like a family or something like that. So they don't really have a solid place to call their own. And in the off season, they couch surf, they live with other people. And in the on season, they live out of their vehicle in hotel rooms and camping. So you're fundamentally limited by space in the things that you own. Now, some archaeologists will buy a bigger truck or an RV or a van or something like that. And that's how they compensate.
00:07:08
Speaker
Or like certain archaeologists we know, you know, they'll just have like storage units in multiple states. Exactly, exactly. So what I want to talk about, though, is this article that was written by David Anderson, and he's actually been he's been on the archaeological fantasies podcast, which the back catalog for that is on the archaeology podcast network with Sarah Headis a little less than a little over a year ago now.
00:07:31
Speaker
Moved it off the APN and go check out her Patreon and we'll try to link to that stuff if I can find it. But just Google archaeological fantasies and you'll find her podcast and go donate to her and help her keep that podcast going. I think she recently picked back up her in her web YouTube series. Oh, she did. She started out YouTubing like doing videos and stuff. And I just I haven't seen it, but I saw something come over my feed as she did a new video. So hopefully she's picking that up again. More people need to do that. Oh, like me.
00:07:57
Speaker
That's right. Exactly. Well, you know, like I'm right now setting it up and getting my workflow shaved down. Nice. All this free time you have at your work job. That too. But also, my God, an S server is the handiest thing ever. Nice. I mean, you have to have those, especially if you're going to work remotely like that. Yeah.
00:08:15
Speaker
So, OK, so let's talk about this. He wrote this article. It's actually on Forbes, but it's I found it on Apple News. So I will try to find the Forbes link to that and put it in the show notes. But it's called Ancient Sparks of Joy. Archaeology and Marie Kondo's tidying up. It was written on January 25th or at least published on January 25th, 2019. David Anderson is now a contributor for Forbes here. So that's pretty great. He's been writing some really cool stuff.
00:08:43
Speaker
So anyway, we've talked about Marie Kondo. We've talked about what the art of tidying up is. It's this whole Shinto belief system that all things, including inanimate objects, have a spirit basically. And so she sees and other people of this religion and faith, they see these objects as something that
00:09:02
Speaker
something that means something to them and like a whole bunch of hands and people went into creating this thing even if it's one tiny little thing. Even that just like if I take a 3D printed object that I make is not just me that made that it's all the people that made the 3D printer and the whole technology helped make that thing and in the Shinto religion.
00:09:20
Speaker
that that embodies the thing with a spirit. Right. So and I think a lot of Native American beliefs follow along the same way, you know, because they put a lot of agency, we call it, in different artifacts and not necessarily that the artifact itself really has a spirit of its own, but it carries like the spirit of the ancestors. And forgive me for getting that completely wrong for your particular Native American culture. But I know there's variations of that, obviously. So
00:09:50
Speaker
But anyway, what I want to talk about is how tidying up and this relationship of people to things affects the past and ultimately will affect our
Artifacts and Modern Biases in Archaeological Inference
00:09:59
Speaker
future. You know, so that's what the article about is about, right? Yeah, basically. He talks about, you know, looking into the past and how people interacted with with things. And I mean, the biggest thing I want to talk about, Richie, is, you know, just from a
00:10:14
Speaker
Just from a pure technical standpoint, when we look at artifacts and we record a site, we infer a lot of activity about that site and the people that created it based on the artifacts. I mean, you were just doing some sketches and you've got a historic bottle that if we were to find that on a site, that would tell us a lot about the site, or at least we think it will.
00:10:36
Speaker
But how much do you think people really were tied to the things that they had? Or were we looking at that stuff through a modern lens like we often do? And we say, hey, we have things that we love. We both have coffee mugs here and computers and things like that in front of us. These are our items and we cherish these things in one way or another, or they're just tools. Who knows? But we look at these things
00:11:01
Speaker
But do we look at things in the same way that people did a thousand years ago or a thousand years ago was a tool just a tool? No, like we don't even look at things the same way that people looked at them like 30 years ago. Yeah, that's true. You know, I mean, how many people name their cars anymore? I mean, I remember reading like an article about that in a car magazine years ago about that.
00:11:21
Speaker
You know people used to name their cars and you know, they'd like get like they just keep it until like it fell apart Yeah, preparing it and stuff and now most people just like trade in like every three or four years. Oh, yeah, or you know, they uber around yeah, absolutely so yeah, it's just
00:11:38
Speaker
I don't know. It's always interesting to me when I sit on an archaeological site, especially, honestly, especially in the ancient, like ancient, they will be ancient someday, but the old mining sites, you know, because there's so much left there. I mean, it almost looks like they just picked up and left like yesterday.
00:11:57
Speaker
And you're just trying to think, man, what was this like being here? Now, those sites are really interesting because they were, in some cases, the people did live out there because it was difficult to access. But in most cases, it was just a work site. It was a place to work. So the interaction of people with the things and the artifacts was more from a survival and a work standpoint. Yeah. Well, you know, I mean, the things they would have valued probably would have been the stuff they carried in.
00:12:23
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. And that's when we find stuff when we know a mind's been successful and we start finding like child's toys and Ghirardelli chocolate tins and high dollar liquor. Ooh. Yeah. When it's just sanitary cans and evaporated milk cans, you know they haven't found that vein yet. No.
00:12:43
Speaker
Yeah, so yeah, I mean I think about that a lot when we're looking at when we're looking at archaeology sites You know what what kind of relationship did people have to the things and it is it as? Is it as significant as not only as archaeologists place on that? Because we place a lot of significance on it primarily because it's all we have yeah, you know, it's the only thing we have left so I say they would
00:13:07
Speaker
Yeah. But why though? Why do you think people in the past would have placed so much significant on their, on their things? Because, um, things are so much cheaper now that everything's practically disposable. Whereas back then things would have cost a lot more money. A lot more time investment into making and acquiring a thing. Yeah. So you're going to cherish it a little more. Yeah. It's like, um, it's like, um, like Cowboys and their saddles. Like those things were like handmade and like, you know, they would keep those their entire lives and pass them down to their children.
00:13:34
Speaker
You know, like that's not like, you know, that's not something you're just gonna throw away.
00:13:39
Speaker
Yeah, now, as far as heirlooms go, I've always wondered about that too. Is something, do you think, made an heirloom because of the time investment involved in the craftsmanship and making it, and therefore it's something that should be cherished and passed down? Or at some point, I think if it passes down enough generations, it's less about the craftsmanship and more about the person it's connected to, you know, the people it's connected to.
00:14:05
Speaker
Yeah, or could be both. Yeah, could be both. I mean, was George Washington's hatchet like, you know, that expensive when he bought it? Probably not. See? He probably had a friend make it in town. Yeah. Like a blacksmith. So. All right. Well, let's we're going to have somewhat shorter show today because we got started a little late and we had somebody's got the studio after us, which is odd here, but it's going to happen. So that means we just spent too much time chatting before we started recording. It happens. It happens.
00:14:33
Speaker
So we're going to take our first break and then we will come back and talk about the future of archaeology in a world that's tidying up. Back in a second.
00:14:42
Speaker
Alright, so this is Chris and Richie jumping in to talk about the archaeology podcast networks membership program
Archaeology Podcast Network Membership Program Details
00:14:47
Speaker
We want this network to be member supported, but I'm warning you I am looking for advertising and sponsorship But if you don't want to hear ads and you don't want to hear sponsors, then join us as a member We actually had as I'm recording this Supporting member and a standard member joined just in the last four days. So yeah and
00:15:07
Speaker
We've got a bunch of different benefits at the different levels. At the lower level, we'll send you a sticker and you get access to early downloads and high-quality downloads. At the high end, we'll send you all the stickers, a shirt and a coffee mug if I have any left. If not, I'll send you something else. And you'll be part of our Slack team and you get to interact with us and all those sorts of things. So Richie, tell us about the different membership levels.
00:15:27
Speaker
Oh, well, there's a supporting membership at $5 a month or $42 a year, which is still less than Hulu or Netflix. I might be wrong. Yes, that is. All right. And then there's the standard membership, $10 a month or $84 a year, which is probably cheaper than Prime. It's cheaper than Netflix, too, if you got streaming. Oh. Yeah. Cool. Yeah.
00:15:46
Speaker
although do you get the grand tour? And then if you're a professional membership, you get, that's 20 bucks a month or $168 a year. I mean, we could start a show that's the archeology of cars. Oh, that's true. That'd be pretty cool. Oh, well, you know, the popular one I think is like the archeology of like, um, malls and stuff. Oh yeah. Yeah. Like modern commercial archeology would be really fun. Yeah. Anyway, I know there's a Facebook group called commercial archeology. Yeah. Go check it out.
00:16:12
Speaker
All right, so go check this out, arcpodnet.com forward slash members. Of course, all of our podcasts are always free. And if you're listening to this, you probably already know that. But a lot of people come to our website, a shockingly high number come to our website. They click on the log in sign up button in the lower right hand corner that's always there now. Yeah.
00:16:29
Speaker
And then they get irritated at me that they have to pay to listen to our podcast, which isn't true. Our podcasts are always free. This is for extra stuff. And quite frankly, this is for supporting public education and outreach in archeology and history. So again, arcpodnet.com forward slash members. And we would appreciate anything that you can give us on that level and you can always upgrade or downgrade your membership. All right. Back to the show. Yay.
00:16:57
Speaker
All right, welcome back to the archaeology podcast network and the archaeo tech podcast episode number 99. Next episode is lucky 100. That's crazy. Really? Yeah. This show has gone through quite a few different hosts from Doug and Russell in the beginning to then me and Russell for a little while to me and Chris Sims to me and you for a little while on a couple of episodes and then now Paul and myself.
00:17:22
Speaker
I'm sure it'll swap out again. I'm actually, I would love for some people to take over hosting duties on a few of the shows I do. I love doing the shows, but organizing them and being that primary person on like four different shows is taxing. So anyway, we're talking about tidying up and honestly, I want to talk about, well, actually we're not talking about tidying up, we're talking about
00:17:46
Speaker
Artifacts and things and how they relate to people right and that's what we kind of talked about in the first segment What I want to talk about now is what the heck does the future of archaeology look like if everybody's tidying up I mean look at look at all the Space shows and sci-fi shows you see out there one of the common features of all these shows with the exception of Firefly Which is probably the most realistic
00:18:06
Speaker
is people have fewer things. It's like one of the common tenants. It's obviously huge in the Star Trek universe. Like we have no acquisition of things and wealth anymore and blah, blah, blah. I think that's a little bit utopian. Like it's not actual reality, but
00:18:22
Speaker
But first off,
The Future of Archaeology in a Minimalist World
00:18:23
Speaker
why is that? Because people like their things. People put a lot of value on stuff. I've I've been actively like when we moved. I mentioned before, when we moved a couple of years ago, we got rid of a lot of stuff and it wasn't that hard for me to get rid of a lot of stuff because a lot of stuff I've been hanging on to for a long time and it was just burdensome to carry around anymore.
00:18:40
Speaker
But this time, we still got rid of a lot of stuff. Even though we moved into a house that was 300 square feet larger and had an extra bedroom, I still forced myself to get rid of things. And I forced myself to get rid of things that I've been hanging on to purely for sentimental value. Oh, they didn't spark joy in you? They really didn't. Oh, they did. They sparked irritation. Oh. Because I was moving them. And it made me think, like, let me tell you one thing I got rid of that I know my grandma's not listening to this, but she'd be super pissed if she was. Oh, is it that chair?
00:19:06
Speaker
No i wasn't the chair we got rid of that a long time ago i know i can't please remember the chair anyway so. One thing that i got rid of and again this is stupid i haven't fit into this thing in probably twenty years.
00:19:23
Speaker
But my grandma is a city clerk in our hometown. Yeah. And when I was I mean, I grew up in the 80s. Yeah, I was born in 1975. And in the I want to say mid to late 80s, the DARE program came out. It was Nancy Reagan, you know, promoting it. So it must have been prior to because what was Reagan president from 80 to 88, I think. Yeah. So sometime before 88, the DARE program came out and it was drug abuse resistance education. I had the red logo, you know. Yeah. Well, I had a DARE jacket.
00:19:51
Speaker
And with my name on it, because my grandma got these things. She worked for the city and she got my brother and I each one. Wow. And with our names on it, I still have it. Wow. Yeah. So, but I don't, I got rid of it. And I've been hanging onto that thing. I literally haven't worn it since probably right when I got into high school, like early nineties. Wow. And I haven't worn it since. And I've just been hanging onto this thing and I had to sit and think.
00:20:15
Speaker
Why am I hanging onto this? It doesn't even give me any solid memories. Like I have zero memories tied to wearing this jacket. Sometimes with an article of clothing or a thing or something you have. Like I have a coffee mug collection and I have a wine glass collection and every one of those mugs and every one of those glasses reminds me of a trip I went on. Reminds me of the place where I bought it. Reminds me of the thing we were on because I traveled with a one woman
00:20:38
Speaker
after I got off this project in Miami and we went across the country stopping at different wineries. I've done a lot with my current, with my wife, Rachel. We've stopped at lots of different wineries and every time I drink out one of those glasses and I see the winery on the glass, I remember that trip to the winery. And you can still use them as opposed to that jacket. I can still use them. Yeah. And I just, uh, the jacket meant nothing to me except for the fact that my grandma gave it to me in the eighties. That was it. Pure and simple. That was it. Wow.
00:21:05
Speaker
although i guess it's different for you and me because i'm like i'm still more or less the same size i was in high school so i can so i can still wear all those clothes that's true that's true well see here's the thing i was outgrowing it in high school just from a peer height standpoint because she gave it to me when i was i would have been in like middle school oh so i mean i was still really i wasn't done growing yet you know so
00:21:26
Speaker
It's even worse, you know, and then I've got I had shirts that I got rid of like we were the Monroe Bearcats and I had a shirt from the Bearcat strut that we did some walk run fundraiser thing. It's like, why am I hanging on to this? This is stupid. But let's talk about the future of archaeology. OK, so yeah.
00:21:45
Speaker
What are we going to be able to do? Do we need to develop new methods of detection, like things we can read from the ground and stuff like that? Because without artifacts, without things that are really personal to people, that help them through their lives or something like that,
00:22:03
Speaker
without that kind of stuff to analyze on a site. And even if we weren't tidying up, we're still throwing a bunch of stuff away, right? That's what I was going to point out. Yeah. So all the trash is going into landfills, which doesn't tell us anything about individual people or families, you know, tells us something about the culture of the local society. That's true. You know, as a whole, but it doesn't tell somebody about individual families. So, you know, I mean, I mean, Richie, you live in a
00:22:27
Speaker
You live in a... I mean, it's a relatively small place. Yeah. So you've got to pick and choose kind of what you keep over there. Yeah. Do you think if...
00:22:36
Speaker
the world were to collapse into rubble right now and we were all to die. And then in 300 years, somebody dug out your apartment. Do you think it would be representative of how you're defined in this world right now? Pretty much. I think you're exactly right. I mean, you know, there's like, there'd be like two types. There'd be like two computers and a typewriter all next to each other. And then a record player in the other side of the room. You're like, who is this guy? And then all my art gear is there. They think you were a time traveler, I think. Oh, maybe.
00:23:06
Speaker
Because you like new stuff that works and techy things that work and operate and well, like with your camera equipment and stuff like that. But then at the same time, you're totally retro with some stuff. Yeah, I just dropped off one of my typewriters, the one I typed all my college essays on to be tuned up.
00:23:22
Speaker
And I feel like the guy you dropped it off with was like 115 years old, and he was like, you woke him up, and it was like the first typewriter repair he's done in 20 years. No, it's actually, Tom Hanks did a documentary about this particular typewriter shop. In Reno? No, it's in Berkeley. Oh, in Berkeley. Oh, he dropped it off over there. Yeah, because that's where I normally get it repaired. Nice, nice. And since then, they've been really busy. Yeah, yeah. And they're also next to UC Berkeley, and there's a bunch of hipsters. That's very true, very true. They're always buying typewriters.
00:23:51
Speaker
And thankfully, the price hasn't gone up that much. Nice. Nice. Yeah. Well, I feel like the danger of the whole tidying up movement is psychologically for people.
Psychological Effects of Tidying: Finding Balance
00:24:01
Speaker
And when I say people, I mean myself. Yeah. I go one way or the other with things. I either want all of them or none of them. Like, I don't have a middle ground anymore. You know, I used to collect different things. Yeah. And even the coffee mugs, there was a they're all in boxes right now because I really don't have a place to display them. You don't?
00:24:19
Speaker
And I don't really want to, and I had to remember the reason I was collecting these to begin with, and I'll get to that in a second, but... Did you just have a cabinet for them?
00:24:27
Speaker
I did. I did. But we took them out and replaced them with wine glasses and some other things. Oh. So and I also still had too many in that case. Like I had both of these cabinets full of them. And then we put wine glasses in them because we had this wine glass display cabinet. And then we got rid of that. So I had to have someplace to put those in the new house. Yeah. In the condo. And then we so then we put the most of the coffee mugs in in cupboards. And I don't even use the coffee mugs anymore. I use these Ember mugs now. And but the coffee mug still
00:24:56
Speaker
spark joy in Marie Kondo's vernacular. Let's see, the point is, I was so close because we're unpacking this new house and I'm like, oh my God, I'm just moving this from one storage unit to another. I'm putting it in storage in our house. I was like, why am I doing this? I get into that mode where I don't want anything and I actually got into an argument with my wife and I was like,
00:25:17
Speaker
I was like, listen, I'm to a point where I just wanna throw all my personal items away. I don't want any of it. I'll just have my memories and my podcasts because they'll be on the internet forever. And I said, but what that does is it depersonalizes the house for me. Like I don't even care about anything here. Like I don't care. It's all just things. It's all stuff. Like a TV, speakers, appliances, whatever. We spent money on them, but the minute I spent money on it, it's done. It's out of my mind. It's over. Sparks zero joy. Wait, even that new Samsung refrigerator?
00:25:45
Speaker
I mean, the refrigerator's pretty sweet. Don't get me wrong. But if we had to move tomorrow, I wouldn't miss it one bit. Really? Yeah, because I just don't care. You know, I don't care. And with the coffee mugs, I had to remember one of the reasons, and now it's become the primary reason, but one of the reasons I would collect mugs. First off, I love the different mugs and different things from different places. Again, it reminds me of where we went, but I've stopped collecting mugs when we go places because I literally had nowhere to put them.
00:26:11
Speaker
Now I have about 200 of them. Wait, really? Yeah, I've been collecting them for decades. Wow. I mean, I first started when I was in the Navy and I brought one coffee mug with me, which I still have, the first one I was ever given, and I collected them across the Mediterranean in places we went. And then I just kept doing it as a traveling archeologist. I mean, you're always different places and everybody has coffee mugs.
00:26:31
Speaker
That's crazy. I know. Well, it's just like, I don't have nearly that many things of anything. Well, I know. These are all just in boxes, too, like I said. But then I remembered, do I really even want to display them in my house? Like, not really. I don't like a cluttered house, you know? If I had shelves and all that stuff to put these on, they'd probably just stress me out. Like, I don't even want them out. So then I remembered, here's the reason why I want to keep them all. And it's because my retirement plan is not a retirement plan at all. It's what I want to do for work when I retire. Oh. Which is own a coffee shop.
00:27:00
Speaker
always wanted to just own a coffee shop someplace I could go that brings in enough money to pay the bill somebody else is running it and managing it I don't need I don't want to be behind the counter I don't even care I want to have my corner by the fireplace where I go and I just work on my other projects that I'm working on
00:27:16
Speaker
and I'm managing the coffee shop. I decide what it looks like on design, what's being sold there. I don't want a coffee shop that has all this other crazy stuff that's being sold, but I also don't want an Uber hipster coffee shop where they have like one French press kind of coffee and a pour over and then no extras. I mean, I want milk options. I want the other stuff, some pastries that make sense from a local place, things like that. In other words, you don't want to sit up in California.
00:27:41
Speaker
Well, we'll see. But either way, the other detail I want is all these coffee mugs. I want people to come in and be able to choose the mug that they want to drink coffee out of for the day. Interesting. And then if I'm sitting there, there's a story attached to that mug.
00:27:58
Speaker
You know and that goes back to archaeology and and what we can tell about these things Those would be artifacts of my past but they're really just artifacts that are in my brain and unless I wrote all that stuff down I'm just having this idea right now It'd be really cool to write a really quick like one paragraph story about that mug and tape it on the bottom
00:28:28
Speaker
you know?
00:28:32
Speaker
that do like to get stuff like this, but they don't want to get stuff just because they're spending money. They like to know the history of an item. And again, that goes back to our entire discussion today, which is what is archaeology going to look like for this time period in several hundred years? What is it going to look like when we look back on this time period? What are we going to find?
00:28:54
Speaker
And I think with all the, even before Marie Kondo, even with just trash that we take out and moving all the time, I mean the average, I heard a statistic and I don't know how accurate this is, but I heard a statistic not too long ago that the average time that somebody owns a home these days owns a home, not just live somewhere, but owns a home is less than five years. And it's because people are moving because of jobs or they get bored or they're moving up or something like that and they want a bigger house.
00:29:24
Speaker
Ooh, or archeology can move beyond physical things. And you could have the archeology of electronic signatures, like, you know, like moving around and like signing on the websites and stuff.
00:29:33
Speaker
Hey, way to bring it back to the archaeotech podcast. I know. Because that's where I'm going, too. We've talked about the archaeology of video games, but we've also got the archaeology of Facebook. Yeah. You know, Facebook does itself, does it for you. I mean, every day, if you've been on long enough, every day I get a notification. I got one today from a post like eight years ago. Yeah. You know, it's like, here's what you posted eight years ago. That's archaeology. Yeah. Like, is your electronic signature a more accurate portrayal of you than any of your stuff? Yeah.
00:30:01
Speaker
Wow. It would be a really cool service to, um, to basically mind somebody's Facebook account and layer pictures for the day or items or things you posted for the day, like an archeological dig, you know, and say, I'm going to look at February 21st. Um, and just look at February 21st and have these things layer. And then you could click on them and dig into the layers and say, Oh, this is what I was posting on those days. This is what my friends were posting. These are the news articles.
00:30:29
Speaker
So you're saying archeologists in the future will be like, you know, Google engineers or Google techs. I think, I think archeologists the future, if this is what they're digging up, so to speak, yeah, would just be AI. Yeah. It would just be a program. All our jobs would be gone. That's true too. Well, sort of, you know, but then you have to add the philosophical and like, um, you know, somebody has to analyze it. Yeah. Yeah, totally. So anyway, uh, yeah, I don't know how much more I have to say on this topic, but it's, um,
00:30:58
Speaker
It is interesting. It is interesting though because you know I was thinking like you know I don't like I have like stuff that's very associated with me you know but I mean it's not like I have like a ton of it and people always make fun of the fact I spent a lot of money on certain things like like boots or hats and stuff but it's like I keep them for a long time and use them. Yeah well in some stuff that you have like your record collection of course and and other things
00:31:23
Speaker
I mean, you are really thoughtful in buying used items.
Challenges in Interpreting Second-Hand Items in Archaeology
00:31:26
Speaker
And when you buy used items, well, now if somebody were to try to look up, if they had some sort of tool that said who was the first person that used this, it would bypass you entirely. So it would go back to the original owner. So when you have a bunch of stuff that wasn't originally purchased by you, then how is that interpreted later on? When we look back in the archaeological record, most things, because of the non-disposable nature of stuff prior to the 50s,
00:31:50
Speaker
was one and done. It was a one-time use, and it was that family that used it. Unless it was an heirloom, something like a saddle, like you said, or jewelry or something like that, that had a higher cost, but your everyday disposable items, they would use a jar or a can, and they might repurpose that jar or can for something else, but still it really...
00:32:11
Speaker
It's difficult to go back and say, how did that affect their lives when I see an evaporated milk can or a or a ball jar? You know, I have no idea what that was used for. All I know is they owned it, which doesn't tell me anything. That's true. Unless, you know, why me? It's also the site in the context.
00:32:27
Speaker
Yeah. You got to look at all the other stuff. Yeah. Which is why, you know, like, you know, it's why it always pisses me off when people are like, what's the harm in taking like, you know, one thing from a site or two things from a site? And then suddenly it's not a site anymore. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. Which goes to the future. Yeah. We're taking all the stuff off now. Yeah. We're pre-removing the things from the sites by tidying up our lives and tidying up our living spaces, not buying as much or keeping as much.
00:32:53
Speaker
Or we're keeping stuff that's really personal to us and therefore it makes it easier to try to figure out who owned it. That is a great way to look at it. Yeah, totally. So so maybe in the future, if we get through the tidying up era, people will look back on this era and say, well, they kept that. That must mean something. Yeah. Makes me wonder if over in Japan, you've got some heavily, you know, Shinto areas where they've been practicing this kind of thing forever. It's just the one that brought it to the United States. They have.
00:33:18
Speaker
It makes me wonder, what do their archaeological sites look like? You know, when you go back a long time, is it stuff that really meant a lot to them, you know, had a significant high value to them? Sort of. You know, it's like, you know, I mean, when I was there, there wasn't like a lot of archaeology to look at. Yeah, because it's like so densely built up. That's true. But it was also interesting to look at the culture when I was there, like,
00:33:40
Speaker
It's very difficult to explain to a Western audience, but my God, you'd go to a flea market and there'd be five dollar Rolexes and they weren't fake Rolexes, they were just like the Japanese just valued new very much. So you'd see five dollar Rolexes at these flea markets and then you'd see a two or three year old Ferrari out in the street gathering dust because it was old. I'm not even joking. So obviously they had a lot of stuff laying around.
00:34:09
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. Well, to bring this back to archaeotech, it's also possible that we just come up with newer futuristic methods of detecting and analyzing the past. Yeah. You know, we do more with less. I don't even know what that means.
00:34:26
Speaker
Well, you know, I don't know if you ever saw that movie Prometheus. Oh, and they have the alien spinoff. Yeah. Where you like, throw up those little those little floaty balls and they were like floating around and like making like a little map and stuff. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like, you know, we might have that in the future. We might. We might. It's really just a way to.
00:34:46
Speaker
And that's so futuristic. I can't even imagine how you would do that. But the ability to essentially, I think the way something like that worked would have taken like serious quantum computing. And because the fact is, if you take all the states of, and this is getting way into physics, but if you take all the states of all the molecules and quarks and subatomic molecules in the universe right now, and you know their current position, you can predict the future and you can predict the past.
00:35:14
Speaker
Because they all interact with each other. Yeah, so there is there is free agency of course and I can decide to move my hand this way versus this way and if I move it this way right now to the left well that caused a little air current right here which caused a thing which caused a thing which maybe causes a hurricane in 20 years over in Florida right I mean who knows yeah, so
00:35:33
Speaker
But it takes such computing power to be able to figure that out. So if we were able to do that and we can walk into an area that's localized and say, analyze where everything's at right now and backtrack this back X number of years, we might be able to say what it looked like or where things were or what placement they were in. I don't know. Maybe that's just science fiction. Or even today we can even start integrating behavioral economics into stuff.
00:35:57
Speaker
Yeah, maybe. Yeah, because, you know, I mean, years ago, people are like, you know, people are very rational and they do it like this. But, you know, when you bring in behavioral economists, it shows that people do things like this for no particular reason. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So. All right. Well, let's take our final break and when we come back, we'll have our app of the day segment. But before I do that, we'll just have one little thing I just send me.
00:36:19
Speaker
send me the thing chris at archaeology podcast network.com or at archaeo webby uh send me the thing that you couldn't live without oh what is the thing that you couldn't live without or if you don't want to do that what do you think archaeology of the future looks like interesting yeah what do you think it looks like
00:36:37
Speaker
Because I think for me, it'd probably be my vest, my survey vest. Nice. You are quite defined by that. Yeah. Yeah. Because I've obviously had different hats and different boots, but only one survey vest. That's right. That's right. I think your cigars in the field kind of helped define you, too. Oh, that, too. And a Pringles jar sticking out of the survey. So many things, Richie. Make me think, Richie Cruz. That's right.
00:37:01
Speaker
All right, so send me one of those two things just for fun. Yeah, what sparks joy in you? What sparks joy in you? What future archaeological way of analyzing our past would spark joy in you as well? So all right, I think now that we've covered Marie Kondo, we've now fit into the rest of the framework of society by covering Marie Kondo in every possible context. My God, she's just everywhere. All right, we're going to take that break I mentioned and we'll be back in a second with our app of the day segment.
00:37:29
Speaker
All right, this is Chris and Richie back again for our final ad segment. We're going to talk about Wild Note. I've been promoting Wild Note for quite some time now and full disclosure, I now work for Wild Note as of November 1st, 2018. That being said, if you're interested in Wild Note at all from an archeological or environmental standpoint, I'm the person that you would talk to if it's archeologically related. So contact me through Wild Note, chrisatwildnotep.com. We've got a brand new homepage. If you go check that out, we've got a lot of neat things on there.
00:37:57
Speaker
Yeah, brand new homepage. The girl that nobody knows holding a tablet is no longer on the whole homepage. And what's really great, we used to have this as really console only, but we spent a long time coming up with our new features and pricing page. So if you click on features and pricing at the top of the homepage, it will take you to our new features and pricing page. And it's sorted automatically by the middle range, which is what I think most people are going to need. Oh, you mean the median.
00:38:22
Speaker
Yeah, ProPlus. And all ProPlus means, well, it means a lot of things, but the biggest thing that it means is you get our specific agency exports. So if you need wetlands determination forms from the US Army Corps of Engineers, California DPR forms for archaeologists, Nevada IMAX forms, Utah IMAX forms coming soon, and all these other things that are specific agency exports, then you're in the ProPlus plan. If you need more than 100 licenses per year,
00:38:47
Speaker
then you're in the enterprise plan. If you just want to make your own stuff and not use our Wodno survey form library, which really suit smaller companies working outside of these areas where they have agency side forms. So if you work in where you're doing shovel testing and excavation a lot, then you can use our pro plan and just design your own forms and really go to town from there. And then with each of those, we have a usage plan, which is basically per survey form, which includes a maintenance fee of either 30 or $50 a month.
00:39:12
Speaker
plus 10 free survey uploads and then additional fees depending on which plan you're on. And that's really for super small companies doing very little work, very little things. They really just need it occasionally. And then the monthly plan, which is charged per person, and then the annual plan, which is by blocks of licenses, which is pretty great. So Richie, tell us real quick your impression of digital recording versus paper recording in the field. What are some of the big takeaways for you?
00:39:37
Speaker
Well, I would definitely like an app that works offline. Like as someone who is using a company created web portal that is like completely pointless when there's no internet and you have to use it on your phone, that is the worst ever. Yeah, because web portals simply don't work offline. You can save it, but it won't load. Yeah. And more importantly, if you've ever tried uploading anything or typing anything into a web portal that's on your phone, it is a miserable experience.
00:40:05
Speaker
Yeah, it's terrible. WildNote does work offline, of course, as we've mentioned before.
Wild Note App: Offline Capabilities and Agency Exports
00:40:10
Speaker
We have the web portal for setting up projects and things like that, but you do all that before you go out in the field. Then on the mobile, you have access to your documents, photographs, everything that you need offline, everywhere. Then when you get back into service, you invoke the sync and it doesn't do it for you, so it doesn't ruin your data plan.
00:40:28
Speaker
Oh, and more importantly, there's like a team of people working behind the scenes to keep things up to date that will, you know, so when someone leaves your company who's been maintaining or creating your web portal, suddenly you don't have to like figure out what's going on.
00:40:40
Speaker
Yeah, and there's advantages to that too. So we have a massive team of developers working on this in the background, working on the, we have iOS developers, Android developers, and web developers. Everybody who's ever done any software development would know that, sure, you can do all of those things if you really want to, but really you need to focus on wanting to do it well. And that's the kind of people that we've hired to do that. I've seen ads for other companies that say, buy archaeologists for archaeologists. And I'll tell you what, I do not want an archaeologist designing my software.
00:41:09
Speaker
the same way I would want when a software engineer digging my units. No. So check out WildNote, wildnoteapp.com. That's wildnoteapp.com and check out our free 30 day trial today. And once you start your 30 day trial, you can invite as many people from your company in as you want and try it out for that full 30 days. And then we will do a full demo for you at any point in time. You can find that out under the features and pricing page as well. There's links for that. That means Chris can like visit you in your your office.
00:41:38
Speaker
I can come to your office or we can do it virtually. I did one virtually this morning for a company in Missouri. Really? Yep. So check it out wildnoteapp.com. Now back to the show.
00:41:48
Speaker
All right, welcome back to the Archaeotech podcast, episode 99, and this is our App of the Day segment. So Richie, as the guest host today, do you wanna go first? Yeah. All right, hit us with your app. Actually, I have been using, I literally just became familiar with Affinity Designer. If you are used, if you own an iOS device, you probably know it, because that's how it started out as an iPad app. So it's Affinity? Yeah, Affinity Designer.
00:42:15
Speaker
It's like graphic or any other things, but they have a desktop app, which is why I like it. Because, you know, I had been using graphic, but it was impossible for me. It took a lot of steps to get off my iPad and onto like a computer and stuff. Whereas now I just do it on my computer, my computer slash tablet thing.
00:42:32
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. And it's not as it's like the reason why I wanted an iPad app is because I got really got used to the the UI, the UI, you know, like the UI is like much more useful on iPad than it is on desktop. And this kind of like combines the two. So like, you know, it's on your desktop, but it's got the kind of like touch controls. OK, nice. The only bad part is that is not it's not as fully featured as like Illustrator or Photoshop.
00:43:00
Speaker
So it's a, is it a vector drawing program and it's layered? It's actually, it combines a vector drawing app and a pixels type of base drawing app in one. Nice. Yeah. It's like 50 bucks. Okay. You know, it's like a one-time use. So that's $50 for the desktop application. Would you remember what the iOS app costs? Oh no. Well, I mean, I don't have like a monitor iPad, so. Okay. Gotcha. Gotcha.
00:43:24
Speaker
Well, we'll put links to that in the show notes for sure. I'm always looking for new drawing applications like that. I am pretty deeply involved in graphic at this point because it does work well between iOS devices and the Mac because it links everything via iCloud. Oh, wait. So they have a desktop app too? They have a desktop app too. Yeah, I use it on my iMac desktop and then on my MacBook Pro as well. Oh, I do. Do they have a Windows app?
00:43:48
Speaker
I don't think so. I think they're iOS only. That's what I figured. Yeah. And I know I paid 30 or $40 for the maybe even more for the desktop app. And I want to say the mobile app was like $9 or something like that. Yeah. I think it was five when it first came out. Yeah. I remember that. Yeah. That's when I bought it. That's when I bought it too. Yeah. Yeah. But it's since gone up in price and some crazy reason software, they never charge for the upgrade.
00:44:12
Speaker
I don't really get away with that. Yeah. Oh, I didn't know that. Yeah. I mean, it's like nine dollars now, but I haven't paid for any upgrades. So they just did just upgrades. Wow. Yeah. I at some point along the line along the way, software developers just started doing that. And I don't really know how I mean, even Apple does that like their operating system. You pay for the upgrade windows. You do. You know, you want to upgrade from something to like Windows 10. You're going to pay for Windows 10. Oh, no. But there was a period where you got it for free.
00:44:40
Speaker
Yeah, and I don't know what that period was, but you know, anyway, so if any designer, you've been creating some stuff in there, I saw one thing that you created. What kind of stuff have you made in there? Oh, I have made the merch for you call this archaeology, the t-shirt and stuff. Nice, nice. Yeah, maybe by the time you hear this podcast, it will be up on our T public store, arcpodnet.com forward slash shop. Click on the T public link and you'll find it. There you go.
00:45:05
Speaker
And if I ever remember, T-Public often runs promotions. So we can't run promotions on our T-Public store. Oh, you can't? No, we don't have control over that. But T-Public will often run promotions where everything's like 30% off. And they send me notifications of that. And then when I remember, I'd put it in like our Facebook page. Or sometimes I'll tweet it out, but mostly it's our Facebook page and saying, hey, for the next 24 hours, everything's 30% off.
00:45:27
Speaker
So interesting. Have people been buying a lot of stuff? Uh, occasionally we get a, we get a few sales a month. It's honestly not huge, but I think if we get more designs and stuff in there that, you know, it'll be a, it'll be a bigger deal. So cool. Yeah. Alrighty. I'll keep working on that. I know. And I really just like people promoting the, promoting the APN and wearing cool stuff. Cause we don't make a lot of money. You know, somebody buys a $20 t-shirt, you know, we make a dollar 50 or $2 off of that. You're not a podcast mogul. Not quite. So
00:45:57
Speaker
All right, well, moving on to my app of the day. Again, Affinity Designer will have links for that on the show notes.
00:46:04
Speaker
My app is an app called streaks. And I just heard about this. Um, so here at the Reno collective where I'm a member as a coworking facility, they do this thing once a quarter called codivation, which is co-motivation is a word and they, they limit it to 10 or 12 people. And we meet every Thursday from I think one to two, um, just in this little studio right over there. And, uh, and it's basically a six week program and you meet and, and the first day you pair off with somebody just for that first day.
00:46:34
Speaker
And you basically talk about one goal or thing that you're trying to accomplish by the end of the six weeks. And for some people it's develop an app. There's a lot of software developers here. For some people it's build out a marketing program. Whatever it is, it's some project that you're trying to find a way to finish.
00:46:50
Speaker
the session, the person who runs it is one of the managers here at the Collective, Colin, and he's done this a lot of times, and he's got, I think, a set of materials, and each week it's like you have your homework, do this, watch these videos, do these things, and then we talk about it, and we see what we've moved forward in our progress.
Habit Stacking for Productivity Enhancement
00:47:08
Speaker
So anyway, one of the things that they talked about was habit forming.
00:47:11
Speaker
And habit stacking. Habit stacking is a really cool idea because people don't have a lot of time. Habit stacking is basically like, you've got this one thing that you want to do. Maybe it's post something to your Twitter account. Maybe that's you're helping your social media game. You need to promote yourself. But you always forget to do that. So you stack that with something that you always do do. So most people brush their teeth in the morning. So you brush your teeth in the morning. You're brushing for two minutes. Well, you're brushing with one hand. With the other hand, you're making your social media post.
00:47:39
Speaker
That's habit stacking. So yeah, so while a lot of people do it with TV, so they're like, oh, I can't spend the rest of my life binge watching this TV show. So I'm only going to watch it while I'm on treadmill. Oh, interesting, because I do the same thing except, you know, I just came about naturally. I I can't I don't love myself to eat dinner unless I've worked out.
00:47:59
Speaker
nice yeah nice and that's basically habit stacking you know you're kind of doing that's like a habit chain like you can do this if you do this yeah and habit stacking is more doing this while you're doing this oh yeah doing two things at one time so you're reducing the amount of time that you're spending on these things because for a lot of people
00:48:15
Speaker
from a productivity standpoint, that is the problem is they're doing that. So one of the things that helps you do that is tracking your good
The Streaks App: Tracking and Developing Habits
00:48:22
Speaker
and your bad habits. And this app called Streaks is my app of the day and it's streaksapp.com. We'll have a link to that. Unfortunately, it's iOS only. It did win a 2016 Apple design award, which is pretty cool. And they have, I think all the best apps have multi-platform support. So they have a really solid Apple watch app, which I've put on my home screen now.
00:48:40
Speaker
And they have, because part of the problem for me with productivity apps is not being able to see the app and interact with it on a normal basis. So if it's on my iPad, if it's on my phone and it's on my watch and it's right here front and center, I can bring it up with a simple tap on my watch.
00:48:56
Speaker
then i'm more likely to use it right and a lot of them don't have good functionality between those apps either but this this one really does it's four dollars and ninety nine cents one time purchase so you don't have any ads ever purchased but that's no that's not bad but what you do is and i set up some just a just a
00:49:13
Speaker
just to be fun I haven't even used it yet because I was looking at this the other day and I really just set this up today so I could talk about it on a show so I can't report on how I've used it yet yeah but like I've got one here that says floss your teeth and you're supposed to do that twice a day so when you finish it you hold down on it
00:49:30
Speaker
And then it gives you a check mark and shows you the progress bar on how you finished it. So I've got bike 10 kilometers. Take your item and record weight. My activity rings are on here from my Apple Watch. So it syncs with my Apple Watch and read a book for 30 minutes. And you can just start a timer right on there. And if you read for five minutes now, you can start the timer and then stop it after you're done reading. It shows you how much more you have to go. It's got some it's got some don'ts due to like
00:49:57
Speaker
don't
00:50:15
Speaker
If I'm in the checkout line over at 7-Eleven and I'm grabbing a soda or something like that and I see Snickers there, which are my weakness, and I'm like, yes, I love Snickers bars. So delicious. I prefer Twix. Twix are also delicious. See? But Snickers is slightly higher than Twix to me.
00:50:31
Speaker
But if you're saying to yourself, I don't want to eat Twix bars anymore, or at least I want to limit my intake of Twix bars, when you're in that checkout line and you don't pick up that Twix bar, that is when you would click on this. So that's when you would click on the habit one where it says, I did a good thing, right? Then it would mark that you avoided that food. But this one, it gives you an allowance. So this one says, don't eat bad food. So if I click on it and hold it,
00:50:58
Speaker
Now that marks it as one and i chose two for this you can choose any number so this allows me to basically eat bad food twice a day. So you want to limit that if you're eating bad food ten times a day and you want to reduce that to five then you have five opportunities here now you're gonna pick and choose and you're gonna say well. Let's see i'm going to the i'm going to coffee bar later with rich and i know that great brownies there and ice cream and gelato yeah.
00:51:21
Speaker
But there's also donuts in the kitchen. Like, but I only have one allowance today where I can choose to eat bad food. Which one is it going to be? Is it going to be coffee with Richie or is it going to be donuts in the kitchen? But what do they both spark joy in you? Oh, my God. Well, they do, but that's a different problem.
00:51:40
Speaker
So the Streaks app, check it out. I think it's really cool. I'm going to break into it. And like I said, they've got a really awesome Apple Watch app where you just tap on it and then you can see the different things that you have. And I can hold it down and just like you do on the web or on the mobile app, and then do that thing. And then it lights up a certain color when you've got it done.
00:52:00
Speaker
Oh, and on the complication of the watch, it shows up as white that I finished one of those little six things. So yeah, it's pretty cool. You can track, I think, up to 12 things at a time, which probably is a lot. I mean, you're probably going to want to stack it up right away. But I think when it comes down to it, if you're going to try to change your behavior on something, which is what this is for, it's for forming habits or breaking bad habits. If you're going to stack things up like this, you're probably not going to want to focus on too many habits at a time. True.
00:52:26
Speaker
If you want to make your feels, if you read every day anyway, like my wife reads every night before bed. Sometimes I do. Sometimes I just go right to sleep, but she like can't sleep unless she reads like two pages. Really? Oh my God. Every time. Like it'd be three o'clock in the morning and she just pulls her book up and I'm like, go to sleep.
00:52:39
Speaker
Yeah, so she gets she gets done with that. And so she wouldn't put the one on here that says read a book 30 minutes a day. It's something she already does. I mean, why why track that? You know what I mean? This is for habits that you actually want to form or habits that you want to break. I put podcast editing editing on here once a day because I run into the problem because I'm so busy. Yeah. That.
00:52:58
Speaker
Like if I set up a time actually on my calendar so from I usually get up about 5 30 in the morning Yeah, and I've got some time to just kind of chill read some news grab a coffee and then from 6 to 6 30 I'm writing from 6 30 to 7 I'm editing a podcast. I don't care what it is. I've got clients. I've got shows There's always a podcast to be edited. Yeah, but in my brain because everybody loves procrastination If I'm given a podcast that's not releasing for a month
00:53:24
Speaker
Well, there's a darn good chance I'm not gonna edit that for another three and a half weeks. Oh, really? Yes, because I've got other stuff that I'm focusing on. I've prioritized by time. But I set aside time in my day to edit a podcast no matter what I'm doing. Interesting. And from 6.30 to 7, I'm just gonna spend a half an hour on it rather than stressing out and spending two hours on it the day before it releases. Interesting. So does that mean you're gonna like set aside time to like, you know, I don't know, get back on the bicycle or something?
00:53:46
Speaker
And I've done that. So now that I've got it set up back up in our house, literally this weekend, I found all the parts and I set up in a place I wasn't able to do that much in the montage because of the size of the place. But I rode my bike yesterday. I just did a 20 minute workout on the Peloton app because you can now get the Peloton app without having a Peloton bike.
00:54:04
Speaker
Oh, really? Yeah. And I use it on my big iPad here. So I set it right in front and I'm actually 3D printing soon. I was going to set it up today, but I didn't amount for my handlebars that holds this big iPad. So then I can have it in front of me with the app on there and I can follow along with the workouts. Oh, so you're doing inside, you're outside.
00:54:21
Speaker
Well, not outside yet. I mean, this is a street bike. It's not so good when it's icy. I know. But when I when the weather gets better, yeah, I'll be I'll be going back outside. But it's so much easier for me to just throw my clothes on if I'm just going to do a 20 minute or 30 minute workout. Yeah. To just do it inside right on the trainer. That's true. You know, I've had this trainer for a long time, but I just do it my bike right up to the trainer.
00:54:41
Speaker
Getting the bike out and pumping up your tires and all that stuff that just takes more time. I know. And when you don't have the time, it makes it a burden. And if it makes it a burden, then it's not a habit you can form. So anyway, I think this is really good for archaeologists and people that travel around because there's a lot of things we forget when we're traveling. We get out of our routines. Yeah.
00:55:00
Speaker
because we're in somebody else's routine, basically. I mean, you're living in an Airbnb half the time now, more than half the time. And it's easy to get out of your normal routine because you're not at home. So having something to track your habits and to make sure to keep you on track is something that's pretty cool. Cool. Yeah. All right. Well, we've got to go check out all the links in the show notes.
00:55:19
Speaker
or everything we've talked about. And we will be back in two weeks, back with Paul and our 100th episode. I actually didn't realize that until we went to record today. And I don't know if it's going to be special or not. It is just an arbitrary number on somebody's numbering system. Just because the Arabs said 100 is a thing doesn't mean we have to.
00:55:39
Speaker
But we'll see I don't know what we're gonna do but come back for the 100th episode anyway and And and send me another email. I already had a call to action the last one But send me another message and tell me what habit you're trying to track even if you're not using the streaks out I think that'll be fun Oh sending out three ever resumes a week. That's right. Now is the time for that. Yeah, so And you could put that in here. You could put the quantity on there make your own. So All right. Well, thanks a lot Richie for joining at the last minute. I really appreciate it and
00:56:08
Speaker
Again, check out Richie's YouTube channel. You call this? No. Happy archaeology fun time. Sorry, I get confused sometimes. That's right. And check out You Call This Archaeology on Facebook at facebook.com forward slash arc pod net. Like the page, follow the page so you get a notification when we go live. All right. Thanks a lot. We'll talk to you next time.
00:56:33
Speaker
Thanks for listening to the Archaeotech Podcast. Links to items mentioned on the show are in the show notes at www.archpodnet.com slash archaeotech. Contact us at chris at archaeologypodcastnetwork.com and paul at lugall.com. Support the show by becoming a member at archpodnet.com slash members. The music is a song called Off Road and is licensed free from Apple. Thanks for listening.
00:56:58
Speaker
This show is produced and recorded by the Archaeology Podcast Network, Chris Webster and Tristan Boyle in Reno, Nevada at the Reno Collective. This has been a presentation of the Archaeology Podcast Network. Visit us on the web for show notes and other podcasts at www.archpodnet.com. Contact us at chrisatarchaeologypodcastnetwork.com.
00:57:20
Speaker
Thanks again for listening to this episode and for supporting the Archaeology Podcast Network. If you want these shows to keep going, consider becoming a member for just $7.99 US dollars a month. That's cheaper than a venti quad eggnog latte. Go to arcpodnet.com slash members for more info.