We have roasted a couple of controversial things and skated on thin ice in the past, but for the first time we delve into what may be questionably NSFW (not safe for work). Mature audiences only. Discussions on the definition of "child-like appearances" in context of "child porn" take place in the beginning but feel free to skip to 8:30 to continue to more saucy topics like FWP changing to Windows, making websites work without JavaScript, the sex positive French and Japan's obsession with exposed thigh skin.
✍🏻 View the transcript for this episode
We have roasted a couple of controversial things and skated on thin ice in the past, but for the first time we delve into what may be questionably NSFW (not safe for work). Mature audiences only. Discussions on the definitoon of "child-like appearances" in context of "child porn" but feel free to skip to 8:30 for more suacy topics like FWP changing to Windows and making websites work witout JavaScript.
Social media
Toast & Roast:
Georgie:
Geoff:
Geoff 0:00
Hi and welcome back to another episode of Toast & Roast. I am your co host Geoff and as always, I’m here with Georgie.
Georgie 0:19
Hello.
Geoff 0:20
Hello. I have an announcement to make actually.
Georgie 0:25
All right, go go for it. I’m ready. Should I get popcorn?
Geoff 0:27
I have—nah, nah. It’s okay. I have done two things actually. Okay, I’ve deleted Instagram.
Georgie 0:38
Shit.
Geoff 0:41
I have officially deleted Instagram after 43 episodes of complaining about Instagram, which actually I don’t think we have complained about it last week. Oh, last episode. But yeah, I couldn’t take it. They changed it to, if anyone’s used TikTok, if anyone hasn’t used TikTok, basically what they did was they made each post of full height of your phone. And then when you scroll just a little bit, it will it will then move the next post into view and kind of like lock you. So it like anchors you down to the next post. And I’m like, I’m not having this. I can’t stand this, this scrolling experience.
Georgie 1:25
I don’t think I’ve had that update yet. But when I happen to watch someone’s video, or like in the fucking Explore tab or whatever, it does this fucking animation where it moves up and down encouraging me to “swipe up”—
Geoff 1:41
Oh, that’s really annoying, too.
Georgie 1:43
And I just like I just want to look at what’s on the screen. Can you not do this please?
Geoff 1:49
Yeah. Why kind of wait till the end of the video before it starts like bouncing that shit in front of your face.
Georgie 1:56
Exactly. It’s just fucking bouncing.
Geoff 1:58
Yeah, so all the things are really annoying. Like, I kind of get for Reels. Like it’s very TikTok, like, Reels you want to scroll. And you don’t want to see half a video. That’s, that’s crazy. You snap the video to the top of the screen so you can see the whole video. But these are regular photo posts. Right. The usability issue is that if you scroll just a little bit to, God forbid you wanted to read the text that goes with the image, or click on the comments. You can’t do that. Because the moment you scroll just a little bit, it will scroll the image away, scroll the text away and move you to the next one. It’s it’s just atrocious.
Georgie 2:40
I just don’t like this, because, and I looked at it this morning, but I don’t think I’ve gotten the update yet. But this annoys me because I already have this problem where for some reason, the phone you know, ah, you know how you scroll with your thumb. Usually, if if you’re not like mobility impaired you you swipe up to scroll. Sometimes the phone thinks I’m doing a swipe right? And it—
Geoff 3:05
Oh no.
Georgie 3:05
When I’m on the when I’m in a browser, it like thinks I’m doing the shortcut to go back one page. I’m like, fff, no.
Geoff 3:13
Oh, man. Instagram does that all the time.
Georgie 3:15
Yeah. And it’s like this. It’s what I don’t like, like you’re saying it’s like a massive accessibility issue. Because if people have like mobility, like impairments, and like they can’t move their fingers in an expected way, you’re making—you, Instagram—whatever, are making the assumption that people use the app in a certain way and that this is what they want. This is how they want the app to behave. Which is just incorrect.
Geoff 3:40
Yeah, I mean, like, we call this scroll jacking in the, in the biz, as we call it.
Georgie 3:47
Tech industry.
Geoff 3:48
Biz, yeah, the scroll jacking is not good. I think there’s so many articles about scroll, scroll jacking, just ridiculous. This new Instagram features designed to keep you scrolling. Ah, nah, that’s not the that’s not it. Anyways, so that’s that’s announcement number one I deleted Instagram. But—
Georgie 4:12
Congratulations.
Geoff 4:14
Just the app, so I—
Georgie 4:15
Oh, you didn’t delete your account... Wow, I’m very underwhelmed by this news now. Is the second one that you actually deleted your account?
Geoff 4:23
(laughs) Second one! No, I mean, like every now and then I guess I can Yeah, login to the web one and have a different experience but...
Georgie 4:34
Yeah.
Geoff 4:35
I mean, I haven’t post, I mean, I post to Instagram... Yeah, I don’t post very frequently and nor do I find anything interesting on my on my feed anymore, so I’ll probably go without it. Pending whenever I’m bothered to build something. Yeah so, the thing the thing I have problems with when thinking about building a, an image based social media—and I’m sure no one really thinks about this... But back when Tumblr had its porn ban, I had thought about building my own Tumblr. But the thing is, it’s legally atrocious. I like the word now: atrocious. Because you have to define what is legal and illegal to be on your application. Like, how many countries you have to take, you have to take into account when writing your terms and conditions on what images you can post. And I think the one policy that is the most ambiguous is kind of like child porn content. This is something that Tumblr had a real big problem with, people were just, there were full rings, by the way, there was full child porn rings that were happening on Tumblr. And even though you deleted one, obviously, there’s few more, you just keep cropping up. So the tricky part is when you have artists that draw something and put it on the internet, and they depict a childlike figure, kind of like anime, childlike figure, but they call it 18. Is, is that like, if you sexualise a childlike figure, and you just say it’s 18? Is that legal? Is that okay? Are you if you crack down on it is it like, like hampering, creative freedom or whatever on your platform? So it becomes really ambiguous, you could say. And then I thought about, you know, one sentence, you should just say, anything that is depicting a childlike figure in any kind of sexual way, no matter what the artist says is the age is no go. Just axe it, don’t put it on my platform,
Georgie 6:59
This, yeah, you’re right, this is, this opens up a lot of issues, but also opens up other issues of people who might actually, like real people who might have conditions that make them appear really young. And if they have photos of them, and they are actually like 20, 30. But they look childlike, because they have a condition, or if someone draws that person.
Geoff 7:23
Or just normal bodies.
Georgie 7:25
Yeah.
Geoff 7:25
Like, not every like, if you you want to define a child like appearance is I don’t know, an underdeveloped breasts or something like that, like—
Georgie 7:35
It’s fucking biased.
Geoff 7:36
...people have. Yeah, it’s fucking biased as to what the conditions are to be, like a developed body. Right?
Georgie 7:44
Yeah. Also, I think, because you mentioned artists, I think it’s really important for like, people behind these companies, or who create these kinds of networks, where artists can share their work, they should interview and talk to some artists, because sometimes I think they get ignored. And so they’re using platforms like Instagram to be like, look, this is not violent. This is like, actually my actual experience, and I’m depicting an art. And—
Geoff 8:10
Oh, yeah, I haerd about that, too.
Georgie 8:11
Yeah, a lot of artists are very actually open and honest about this. Like, I’ve just seen quite a few artists on Instagram, I can’t really think of any off the top of my head. But who’ve gone through, like some kind of trauma, or they’ve gone through, like, operations, or even like people who are like transitioning genders, you know, being open or doing artwork about like, their transitioning, and Instagrams, like, nah, this is violent. This is whatever. And it’s like, are you listening to these people? Are you actually reading what they’re writing? Because they’re actually being open about the experience. They’re not just like, posting some needle, and it’s like, you’re left left to the imagination. They’re actually saying things or you know what I mean?
Geoff 8:55
Yeah, it’s, it’s like, they, they, they need to somehow keep a like, somewhat of a child friendly platform, because of like, their appearance. But yeah, it just turns like, it just turns into Graham into that thing. Everyone, I guess, says it is. It’s like a highlight reel of people’s lives. It’s just, you know, there’s more real things going on. So, so yeah, it’s hard. It’s hard to have that policy. It’s hard to write the policy clear enough so that it doesn’t get abused, and it’s hard to moderate. So those are the types of things that really bog down the creation of of another, in my opinion, other like image social media, unless you of course, take the Instagram route and you just cancel everything, that’s, or the or the tel—not Telegram—the Tumblr route, where you just cancel everything, so you’re just not liable for allowing anything potentially illegal. But yeah, anyways, so those are thoughts. Anyways the second announcement is that I’ve built a PC so I’ve started using Windows again.
Georgie 10:15
How’s that?
Geoff 10:17
It’s been strange like it’s always that that like CTRL ALT and Windows key problem like cos Macs, like use the Command key for everything. And then now I gotta learn all the shortcuts to copy paste and crap. One, so, I, so, I’ve been doing them mistakenly on an apple on a MacBook, but I like stop and I like Command keys for everything—
Georgie 10:47
Can’t you map them to the different—
Geoff 10:50
Yeah, I thought about, I thought I thought I could but it seems like it’s not a it’s not a native thing in Windows to be able to remap the keys I think you can in Mac, but for some reason I can’t in Windows probably could. But anyways, I haven’t been bothered too much about it. Just remember which operating system I’m on. But we were just talking about like after finishing like the last episode. I was we heavily rely on recording and then having the recordings upload to like iCloud. And I was like, oh shit, like, I don’t have I got on my Windows machine. Turns out you can download iCloud for your Windows machine. And that is very rare for Apple. Well, not so much these days, I guess. Apple the old. Even iTunes was a bit like, tentative.
Georgie 11:54
And you can’t do any more. But you used to be able to download Safari on Windows.
Geoff 11:59
Oh, yeah. Yeah. See? And I think for a while we had support that right. We had to support Safari for Windows.
Georgie 12:07
And then that didn’t get updated? Like, just the Windows version?
Geoff 12:11
Yeah, yeah. I, I always, I always remember, you know, some of the, like, the testers of our applications, they would they would open up, they would open up mobile win—mobile, Internet Explorer.
Georgie 12:31
What?
Geoff 12:32
And, and yeah, exactly. They would take Internet Explorer and either like, make it small, like the window size or, or something like that. And we’d get bugs. We get bugs for IE mobile.
Georgie 12:47
What!
Geoff 12:49
I had to explain to them in a very nice way that IE doesn’t exist on mobile, or at least no one has a Windows Mobile for the last like eight years prior to that. Yeah.
Georgie 13:02
That’s quite funny.
Geoff 13:03
Does Windows Mobile even use Internet Explorer itself? Anyways.
Georgie 13:07
I’m sure it uses Edge these days? Right? Which is like what?
Geoff 13:10
I don’t think Windows has a mobile phone anymore. I mean, Windows doesn’t have mobile phones anymore. Or no more mobile phones on Windows.
Georgie 13:18
I can’t keep up to date with half this shit anyways, this is why this is why we don’t like our jobs sometimes, it’s because you have to test on every fuckin...
Geoff 13:26
Yeah.
Georgie 13:27
But there is a lot of variance.
Geoff 13:29
It’s like, I think we’ve moved past it now. Maybe not so much in the like older big machines. But yeah, generally, it’s accepted or should be accepted that not every browser is going to look exactly the same. Like.
Georgie 13:47
Yeah, that was the problem.
Geoff 13:48
You have to give some.
Georgie 13:49
Yeah, that was the problem. Back in the day. I think people just like when we talked about doing responsive design, which is, by the way, like making your website respond to different environments and screen sizes and whatnot, people would literally try to make them look exactly the same. But the reality is that different browsers and different devices will render stuff differently. And I think it took a couple of years. Like you were saying, before, people were like, well, it doesn’t have to look exactly the same. The most important thing is that the experience is, is you know, good for the user.
Geoff 14:23
Yeah.
Georgie 14:23
It works.
Geoff 14:25
Yeah, otherwise, we’re stuck building our websites for IE 10 or nine, which have zero features that we use on any of the other platforms. It was just a, it’s just a such a slog. I don’t I don’t really understand? Or maybe I did, I do. But like the amount of time we spend trying to convince people that it’s just not worth the effort. Like, do you want me to literally spend the next three days moving the icon, five pixels to the left, just for IE.
Georgie 15:06
Yeah.
Geoff 15:06
And we have 2% of our users on IE, like, is that, is that realistic? And it’s like, we had to really, you know, collect all this data, just to say we—
Georgie 15:19
Just to argue, yeah. Because yeah, some people will just, I mean, I’m not blaming them. But yeah, we had the same issue where they just didn’t realise that the amount of time it would take to do something, that when you think about it, in the grand scheme of things, it’s not a big deal. It’s not a drama, it doesn’t make the business lose money, or whatever. They just couldn’t see that.
Geoff 15:42
Yeah, yeah, you really had to put everything into perspective, the amount of pieces is a lot. And you always get that one stakeholder who uses that particular browser, at that particular version, and they look at that, and they’re just like, fix this for me.
Georgie 16:02
At some point, you really wonder if they’re like trolling, by like, clinging on to this really old browser. And like waiting until—and sometimes this has happened before with us. Sometimes that person will continue to use that browser, even when the company has decided that they will no longer support that browser, because the data shows us the customers don’t use it. And then sometimes even the company who created that browser will say that not gonna support that browser anymore. And this person is still using that browser. I’m like, What are you doing? This is a joke at this point.
Geoff 16:43
I’ve heard I’ve heard that, like, they’ll keep these browsers around, because they know that it has had problems in the past. So they always want to go back and test it so that there’s no problems in in those browsers. And then yeah, you’re just like, but no, literally none of our customer base and a very, very small set is using it and then, they go, what about that small set, and you go, well, then it’s usable. We haven’t like deleted any of the features for them. Like we can still transact with us. But you know, put up a big black screen and say, upgrade your browser, one of the big buttons, I remember when that was the thing, when you can you could actually load a “download a different browser” bar or something for IE.
Georgie 17:31
Yeah. Actually, this reminds me, so you know, a lot of websites use JavaScript these days.
Geoff 17:39
Yeah.
Georgie 17:40
Yeah. Okay. By the way, sorry everybody, we’re starting to talk about our jobs now. So JavaScript is like, it’s a programming language that usually adds a lot of like interactions and stuff to a page. So like, I don’t know, what’s an example.
Geoff 17:52
So I think how I describe it is, like, if H, if HTML is the structure of the page, then think of it as like a structure of a house. You got CSS, which is the look and feel your house. And your lights won’t turn on until you put JavaScript on it.
Georgie 18:10
All right, that’s a good one. Yeah. So.
Geoff 18:13
So yeah, think about it. And if you’re scrolling through Facebook, imagine you’ve reached the bottom of the timeline, and it didn’t load any more things. That’s what JavaScript does. It loads more things whilst you’re doing, interactivity, yeah.
Georgie 18:25
So sometimes, alright, so why exactly I moved off Google Analytics, because Nick found this alternative called plausible, which doesn’t use cookies. And it uses instead a piece of JavaScript. And so if you don’t want to log in and log a hit to your website, like, you can just turn the JavaScript off, or you can like, add in like a, in the local storage, you can add a thing then to set the flag to false or whatever. Now, I don’t know how to set this flag to false in on a phone. Right?
Geoff 18:56
Ohh.
Georgie 18:57
So when I, so when I want to look at my blog—okay, so, full context, if I when I’m, you know, blogging and doing shit on my website, like on my computer, I just have this local storage thing set because I can go to the Developer Tools, and I can set the flag to false on my phone, you don’t really have access to these developer tools, right? You just fucking have the browser. So I turned the JavaScript off while I’m like scrolling through and having a look at my blog and whatever. Because for the most part, it works. It just like connects to a database and gives you the shit. And I think the only JavaScript uses for the dark mode toggle to turn on or off. And so looking at my blog is totally fine. But sometimes, I forget to turn the JavaScript back on in the Safari browser on my iPhone. And I go and do my usual thing. Go check my emails, open a link. Go I want to read a article or something. And I’m like, frustrated with my phone going, “Why isn’t this website working? This website was fine. Like yesterday I visited it yesterday!” And sometimes I’ll be in the car trying to like, I don’t know, like the other day I was trying to load up like Ticketmaster or something. And was like, I’m trying to log in, why isn’t it letting me log in? And then it dawned on me like a minute later, because I was getting dizzy while looking at my phone in the car. It dawned on me that I had turned the JavaScript off. And I didn’t turn it back on. And I go, oh my god, I’m a fucking idiot. And I have done this so many times, because I often take screenshots on my blog, to promote my—going back full circle—to promote my blog post on Instagram, which Geoff doesn’t use anymore. So now I’ll just have to email Geoff every time I post a new blog post.
Geoff 20:43
Carrier pigeons.
Georgie 20:44
So yeah, it’s, a lot of websites rely on it. Now. It’s, I find that somewhat ridiculous, but it’s also very stupid and funny that I did this.
Geoff 20:53
Yeah. The Yeah. To be honest, like, technically, everything should work without JavaScript. But I think it’s very rare that we find that people have their JavaScript off, or even know how to turn it off. I think this is like a set of people, like—set of people. (laughs) There’s some people out there who who like find, you know, some websites are unusable with JavaScript on so you just kind of turn it off. So that’s, that’s fine. By the way, you can change your local storage on your phone Safari.
Georgie 21:32
Yeah, do I have to plug it in and shit though?
Geoff 21:34
You do have to plug it in.
Georgie 21:35
Yeah, fuck this.
Geoff 21:36
But I’m sure it remembers. Yeah.
Georgie 21:41
Oh my god, how to tech, right, like, fucken...
Geoff 21:45
Yeah. So, so yeah, I I know a couple of friends who switched to Windows and, um, actually, my coworker uses Windows. And they could they could perfectly fine on Windows. So maybe I’ll give, maybe I’ll give developing on on Windows a try. I know that just something things are just a little bit more difficult. I think it doesn’t come with the screen reader. That’s that’s one thing. I know.
Georgie 22:14
Oh.
Geoff 22:15
Windows doesn’t come. Wait, does it come with a screen reader now? Windows 11 screen... I thought I thought Jaws was paid, like pay, pay to install but no, it’s free. It does, Windows does have one but I’m pretty sure my coworker said it was trash.
Georgie 22:36
Narrator.
Geoff 22:38
Yeah.
Georgie 22:38
That’s the one that just, that’s yeah, I wouldn’t even call that a proper screen reader. It’s just the one that they’ve had since 1990, or something, I swear.
Geoff 22:46
Oh, wait, is it, yeah. It’s that one where you type and it’s just reads the things you’re typing that thing?
Georgie 22:53
Did you ever play with it when you were a kid?
Geoff 22:54
It was so funny back in the day.
Georgie 22:56
Yeah. Now it’s not.
Geoff 22:57
Got it to say some weird stuff.
Georgie 22:59
(laughs) F, U, C, K.
Geoff 23:02
Yeah. Actually, what was funny was, there was, Windows has a translator, I think in Word,
Georgie 23:11
OK.
Geoff 23:12
So yeah, my friend and I were goofing about in high school, high school IT class. And we found the translator, I’m like, we should translate something to French, he—I think my friend spoke French? Anyways, so I was like, I wonder if you can translate something really random. And I, I just wrote “lick me” in it.
Georgie 23:34
(laughs)
Geoff 23:34
And it translated it to “le chez moi”. Holy shit, we were just cacking it in the class. We were like, oh my god, you can say it so eloquently, “le chez moi”. And they’re like, oh my god, that’s so beautiful. Are you really asking them to lick yo?
Georgie 23:52
Actually speaking of like French and like dirty things. Like, nobody judge me for doing this, but it’s art. I follow—
Geoff 24:00
Yeah?
Georgie 24:00
I follow this artist on on Instagram. Who does like kind of silhouette line drawings of, that are kind of like sexual, but they always caption it with something like a French saying...
Geoff 24:15
Oh nice.
Georgie 24:15
But that sounds like a pun, and you kind of learn from what they write, they’ll write the French saying and then what it actually means and how they made it into a pun, I, let me find it...
Geoff 24:31
That’s pretty interesting. But I think like—
Georgie 24:34
It’s called petites luxures, I think is the name of the account, and—
Geoff 24:38
Petites luxures.
Georgie 24:39
But yeah, petites luxures. I’m saying that as a fucking English person, but like...
Geoff 24:44
Petite, petite, lux, lux, lux...
Georgie 24:49
L, U, X, ures. Probably find the Instagram, don’t look at the other weird shit.
Geoff 24:58
Instagram...
Georgie 24:59
We’re getting N S F dub, here, everybody.
Geoff 25:01
Yeah, don’t look at this at the, not safe for—
Georgie 25:07
Not safe for work...
Geoff 25:08
Wobbles.
Georgie 25:13
(laughs)
Geoff 25:13
For Wiggles, don’t look at this during a Wiggles concert, everybody. Actually, it’s probably safe for Wiggles because Wiggles are doing like, adult concerts, right?
Georgie 25:22
Yeah, like over 18. You actually have to be over 18. I don’t think that’s the right.... is that the right? No? Yeah, not the backup but actual—
Geoff 25:31
It’s the backup in case they get taken down...
Georgie 25:37
Yeah, so it’s kind of like these line drawings of like, you know, bodies and stuff. Like it’s nice art, you know, like it’s, it’s not vulgar, but it’s it’s sexual, but there’s some if you open one of the captions they...
Geoff 25:49
What do they call it? The, it’s like, not, the, what’s it called? It’s you know, that that that cabaret? What’s it called?
Georgie 26:02
Like Moulin Rouge? Like, is that what you mean, or?
Geoff 26:08
I don’t know. It’s...
Georgie 26:11
Oh like burlesque?
Geoff 26:13
Burlesque, that’s the one. Yeah, see, I know the, I know the... so it’s kind of like burlesque where it’s slightly sexual, but it’s all like implied. Well, this is not very implied. It’s very literally.
Georgie 26:26
It’s like, there’s a hand in someone’s pants, like.
Geoff 26:30
Anyways.
Georgie 26:31
Let’s find one, like, it’s just funny. Like, because French is, everyone thinks French is like some romantic language like it sounds romantic, but it’s it’s like actually not, it’s just it sounds that way to people who don’t speak French.
Geoff 26:49
The... yeah and the French are way more open about this whole like all the sexual stuff like, they’re very sex positive, generally.
Georgie 26:57
Yeah, they’re also really direct in the way they speak. Like they don’t beat around the bush when they, you know have feedback and things like that.
Geoff 27:07
“Monter” means going up climbing up and “bas” can have different meanings. It can translate by wearing stockings, “bas” means stockings, but also at the bottom or downstairs. “Bas” also means down or bottom. So “monter” and “bas” means can either mean “climbing up in stockings” are “climbing up downstairs”.
Georgie 27:28
Yeah, so it’s like the image is like a woman’s legs. And you can see like she’s wearing stockings with like, suspend... is that what they’re called? Suspend...
Geoff 27:38
Ah, I guess so?
Georgie 27:39
What’s that style of stocking? It’s like the one that’s like, right above your thigh. And like, there’s clips that I guess clipped to your underpants or something
Geoff 27:48
I guess they’re called suspenders because they’re suspending stockings?
Georgie 27:52
Yeah. Dude, how else would those stockings stay up? Like they would just fall down if you don’t have suspenders.
Geoff 27:59
It’s like a not a garter belt. Right?
Georgie 28:04
That’s just like the round, the, it just goes around your leg? Yeah.
Geoff 28:10
The Japanese have a little bit more of a crude way of talking about this stuff. Actually, no, not crude. I’d say probably more subtle. They like they have a word for you know the space between the skirt and the stocking.
Georgie 28:22
Yeah?
Geoff 28:23
So um, so if you have your hemline, and then there’s a there’s your you show your thigh and then like you have a thigh high stockings so that space between the hemline and the stocking, they call it—I’m gonna butcher this zettai ryouiki. They call it the zone like the, the,
Georgie 28:41
Thigh zone?
Geoff 28:43
No, it’s called like, ryouiki, there we go. Ryouiki. Bare thigh skin between skirt, it’s absolute territory. They call it the absolute territory. And it’s, the, ah man, the Japanese sometimes just a little bit perverted.
Georgie 29:01
It’s perfect but slightly creative at the same time. And I’m like, mmm.
Geoff 29:07
Describes the amount of bare thigh skin between skirt and stockings or socks for female characters. And yeah.
Georgie 29:13
Is there ever is there an amount that it should be or shouldn’t be or too little too much?
Geoff 29:19
It’s just graded apparently from A, B, C, D, E, F, F ankle, A thigh high.
Georgie 29:25
Okay, so, but then what if you have like, what if it’s what if there is no gap? Or it’s like one millimetre? You can’t see it unless you’re walking?
Geoff 29:33
Still still got, I think it’s a plus.
Georgie 29:37
Is it though? Because you can’t see any thigh? Unless...
Geoff 29:40
Yeah, true. You don’t see thigh then I guess there is no absolute territory.
Georgie 29:47
But then is it like, but then who’s deciding this right? Because like if it’s A, and you’ve got a small gap between the hem of your skirt and the top of your stocking, is that actually—like this is, I think this is a personal preference thing, like, is that sexier than if you had more, like, like more space?
Geoff 30:03
You’re, you’re trying to make sense of an inherently perverted term that is used to grade people’s thigh exposure. But yeah.
Georgie 30:20
I’m asking questions I need to know you know?
Geoff 30:22
Well then hopefully a listener, a very particular listener, who is from Japan, will tell us?
Georgie 30:28
(laughs) I know who you’re talking about.
Geoff 30:35
So, so yeah. Did, how did we get to this topic?
Georgie 30:41
French, sounding.
Geoff 30:42
Like French. French. Do you watch French movies?
Georgie 30:47
No, I’ve only seen Amelie, but Nick has actually studied French and he can speak it really well.
Geoff 30:53
Oh, really? Why is he studying French?
Georgie 30:55
He was in uni, but he’s quite passionate about it. So he learned, his, he continued to like, learn it after uni.
Geoff 31:04
Why? Why is French better than Japanese though?
Georgie 31:06
No one said it was better than Japanese? I studied both in school. But I—so funny story. I got like first place in French, in like, I think years seven and eight or something. But then I studied Japanese for four years after that, because I was just more interested in the culture. And I don’t know, French seemed a bit too easy. It’s not—not saying it is.
Geoff 31:31
Woah, woah, French is easy. This is the ultimate take.
Georgie 31:35
How else did I get 100% in year seven French? Like, duh?
Geoff 31:38
I think they tested incorrectly? I think the teachers didn’t know French.
Georgie 31:44
I thought, wait, how can? I’m pretty sure my teacher was French.
Geoff 31:51
Maybe you were good for a year seven?
Georgie 31:54
Yeah, like, I have no doubt that if I tried to, like, you know, learn it now. Or like, you know, I wouldn’t be very good. It was just for that—
Geoff 32:00
You should do Duolingo.
Georgie 32:02
Haven’t we talked about this?
Geoff 32:04
I think so.
Georgie 32:06
I did, I learned Italian on Duolingo. But you know, I gotta admit, like Duolingo is not the best way to kind of learn a language if you want to speak it. And I may have mentioned this before, but I’m generally better at reading languages and like listening to peoplem understanding them than actually having a conversation. Because I think people who go to a country or go or speak with somebody, one on one who knows a language better people like how to have a conversation in those languages.
Geoff 32:41
So in in primary school, we were taught Japanese and I completely blew off the class. And now granted—
Georgie 32:53
You what?
Geoff 32:53
It would be nice to have, like, paid attention.
Georgie 32:56
You did what Geoff?
Geoff 33:00
Blew up?
Georgie 33:01
(laughs)
Geoff 33:04
Oh my god, oh, my God. Someone said the someone said the phrase “nutted out” in a meeting the other day...
Georgie 33:11
(laughs) Yeah. Well, I mean, I also have said that, but I know what it, I know it also—
Geoff 33:18
Yeah. It’s like, it’s like most people I think, don’t think about the alternate meaning when they say when they say it, but everybody who hears it will use will think of the alternate meaning.
Georgie 33:31
But it’s also that like, some of us just have a really dirty mind. Like, myself included.
Geoff 33:38
The, but the thing is, yeah, so I would have I would have enjoyed learning Japanese. If I mean, if I knew Japanese was going to be cool. But having said that, I was in primary school and I was only there for like, two and a half years. Yeah, two and a half years. So it’s not like I would have learned enough.
Georgie 34:00
You mean—
Geoff 34:00
Probably would have forgotten about it.
Georgie 34:02
Do you mean this primary school, not like your entire primary school was two and a half years?
Geoff 34:07
Oh, yeah. Yeah. At Perth Primary School. The other primary schools, the other primary schools taught English because well, they’re in other countries. So. But, yeah, well. Alright. Alright, so Duolingo.
Georgie 34:22
Yeah.
Geoff 34:23
I found this guy who wanted to speed run Duolingo in his native language, so he Okay, nice. Yeah, it’s quite amusing. He, he did get through it like the entirety of Japanese like Duolingo in—I think he did it in one sitting, maybe one to two hours.
Georgie 34:43
What? For real? The whole? The entirety?
Geoff 34:50
Was it, Japanese man speed runs Duolingo...
Georgie 34:56
So I think that like these days, they will recognise if you’re really good at some, like a level and they’ll skip you. Whereas I think before you actually had to go through every single—
Geoff 35:07
Oh, he doesn’t he does a fresh account.
Georgie 35:09
But even then, like the the app, I think now picks up on like, “oh, you seem to know these words, do you want to pay money—or whatever your points—to jump”?
Geoff 35:18
Interesting. Anyways, so, um...
Georgie 35:26
What year was this?
Geoff 35:28
2022?
Georgie 35:29
Oh wow.
Geoff 35:31
So I think it’s this guy. Anyway, I’ll find the original video. Anyway. So he goes through it and he like smashes it. But then right at the, at the end of Duolingo, which I’ve never seen before, you have like—
Georgie 35:43
At the end of a course, like?
Geoff 35:45
Oh wait, no, he, he goes right to the end. And he tries, he tries this. He skips all of the skips all the classes. And he goes through the final assessment. And the final assessment, like, assesses you on everything, so you can actually clear the entirety of Duolingo.
Georgie 36:00
Yeah, exactly. Yeah, that’s what I mean.
Geoff 36:02
Yeah, I never heard, I completely forgot. Anyway, so you got three lives. And so they basically give you sentences that you have to complete and, and, and translate and stuff like that. He got down to like, one lige, but based on technicalities, because whilst whilst they want you, they want you to very specifically say it in one way, but the problem is like, the words they use that they ask you to translate can can be put into different kinds of meanings, depending on the context, and what they lack in Duolingo is context when it comes to sentences. Like, she, “she ran away”, it’s like, “which direction”? Was she running away from? Like, we need to know the object she’s running away from there’s an old sees the correct words to say that she’s running, she’s just going for a run, down the street? Or like, what’s happening?
Georgie 37:04
Yeah, so that’s where Duolingo lacks.
Geoff 37:06
Native speakers find it hard.
Georgie 37:08
Yeah, it’s, it’s also like, I think Nick did a bit of Indonesian on that. But like, when I think about Indonesian, and I hear my parents speak it and stuff like, it’s just completely different, because they also have like colloquialisms that you’ve never fucking learn on Duolingo. Kind of like how German has what, schadenfreude, which, that has no like, translation.
Geoff 37:33
Oh, yeah. Germans have like a word for almost every like situation.
Georgie 37:38
Yeah. And, like, Indonesian doesn’t really have a lot of grammar, either. Or the grammar is like weird. And it’s kind of like what you’re saying, like you would say, a sentence in Indonesian. It’s like, “I’m going” and it’s like, you know, “where are you going”? Like, there’s, it’s just the way that you have a conversation with someone as well. It’s weird.
Geoff 37:59
Yeah. Duolingo is pretty strange. But yeah, I tried. I tried learning Japanese on it. I find that like, if you have the Japanese keyboard, it’s kind of easier if you know, you know, if you have some level of vocabulary, you kind of know some words. If you look at the Japanese keyboard on the on the on the on an Apple phone, iOS phone, why’d I call it an Apple phone, iOS. So Japanese have the A, E, U, E, O, it’s kind of like what hiragana is kind of like the alphabet of—
Georgie 38:36
Native Japanese words?
Geoff 38:37
Native Japanese. So there’s, there’s three other sets, there’s katakana, and Kanji. But focusing on the hiragana. And they all start with the same pattern, they’ll have the same pattern. So A, I, U, E, O, the five standard sounds, and then they add on other sounds like ta, ti, tu, te, to, sa, si, su, se, so, ka, ki, ku, ke, ko. call what’s really great about the co—the phone, keyboard is that it groups all of these exactly the same. So the top left is A, next one’s ta, next one is ka. And if you press and hold, it shows you that all in a circle. So it goes from left to right. And it gives you this, this, this, this cross pattern. So you can actually, like you don’t have to remember what all the characters look like, you just need to know that this pattern exists on all of the buttons, and you should be able to put together like Arigato—thank you—in a fairly reasonable way without remembering what the characters look like. Just that the the order of sounds.
Georgie 39:44
Yeah.
Geoff 39:45
In each of the keys. So I found that really interesting. And really, still pretty difficult but fun.
Georgie 39:52
It’s funny because like I learned Japanese back in school, right? And somehow I have like, retained that knowledge every time I read like Japanese like, I can fucking still remember all the fucking hiragana even though I don’t read it like daily, and then like the katakana I can be like, “Oh yeah, that says hanbaagaa”.
Geoff 40:10
Yeah, it says “aisukurimu”.
Georgie 40:13
Yeah, and so like, but then vocab wise I don’t actually have a lot of Japanese words like, in my head.
Geoff 40:18
Yeah.
Georgie 40:18
I can’t say any sentence. I just can read. So if I’m in Japan, I’ll read a thing and it says something in Japanese. And then I’ll have to take the, you know, the Roman letters that I know and then put it on my phone and go oh, that means like, I don’t know, “cleansing water” or some shit. Sorry, I was just reading something on my desk.
Geoff 40:38
My friend and I have that same that that. Like, my friend has the same problem as you. Like they’ll be able to read, they’ll be able to read all the words. I however, have the exact opposite, which is I have the vocab but I can’t read. Just because I’ve watched enough anime to—and used subs, translating to figure out what the words mean. That’s not like super accurate. Take that with a huge grain of salt. The, but the funny thing was that they’ll go and read a word, on a, on a menu or something. I’m like oh, that’s that, that’s an omelette rice. Even though that’s like “omuraisu” you can kind of guess. Or—
Georgie 41:27
Unagi?
Geoff 41:29
Unagi? It’s still using English, huh. Something like, I don’t know, shogun.
Georgie 41:38
Eel, dude. Unagi.
Geoff 41:40
Yeah. So yeah, they’d read some words, I’m like, oh, yeah, that means that. They’re like, how do you know? It’s like, oh I just, I know what s—words sound like I just can’t read them. Ended up being pretty handy. Having someone who can read the words. But they’ll just like, one character after. A... ri... ga... to, and they’re just like, what does that mean? And I’m like, Thank, thank you. So yeah, it’s pretty good. You know, you know what else we should be thankful of? The end of this podcast. Don’t forget to follow us on @toastroastpod on Instagram and Twitter.
Georgie 41:40
Even though you just deleted Instagram.
Geoff 41:44
Oh yeah, well.
Georgie 41:46
I do the posting here, everybody.
Geoff 41:53
Toast, @toastroastpod is still there, just not me.
Georgie 42:32
You can find us on Apple podcasts, Spotify and the big, what did you say that thing was, the gap between the skirt?
Geoff 42:40
Big absolute territory.
Georgie 42:44
This is probably the most NSFW.
Geoff 42:46
Yeah. Let us let us know if it’s too spicy for you.
Georgie 42:54
See you next week. Bye.
Geoff 42:56
Bye.