A Problem Squared - 113 = Marg Ana Names and Mid Career Change

Episode Date: July 7, 2025

🚂 If you want a career change, how do you decide what to retrain as?👶 What would be a good set of names for twins or triplets?🦷 And there’s some Any Other BusiHere’s some baby naming code from Colin Beveridge: https://github.com/icecolbeveridge/zoe_namesYou can get tickets to An Evening Of Unnecessary Detail on Sun 13th July at The Bell House, Brooklyn, New York here: https://www.ticketmaster.com/an-evening-of-unnecessary-detail-brooklyn-new-york-07-13-2025/event/300062B8E9924115 If you’re heading to the Edinburgh Fringe, you can get tickets to see Bec here: https://tickets.gildedballoon.co.uk/event/14:5884/And you can get tickets see to Matt here: https://www.pleasance.co.uk/event/getting-triggy-it-matt-parker-does-mathsIf you are in Edinburgh and fancy seeing Matt and Bec battle it out in Ikea Wars on Sunday 10th August, tickets are here: https://www.edfringe.com/tickets/whats-on/ikea-warsHere’s how to get involved with Matt’s Moon Pi Kickstarter: https://www.kickstarter.com/profile/standupmaths If you are on Patreon and have a creative Wizard offer to give Bec and Matt, please comment on our pinned post!  If you want to (we’re not forcing anyone) please do leave us a review, share the podcast with a friend, or give us a rating! Please do that. It really helps. Finally, if you want even more from A Problem Squared you can connect with us and other listeners on BlueSky,Twitter,Instagram, and on Discord.

Hey, just before we start, it's me, Matt. If you're anywhere near New York City, I'm going to be at the evening of unnecessary detail at the Bell House in Brooklyn on Sunday, the 13th of July. Come along, see me. I'll be doing a free meet and greet afterwards. I'll sign your calculators, details in the show notes, or go to the Bell House Brooklyn website. Now, on with the episode.

You are listening to a Problem Squared, the problem solving podcast, which if it had no repeat letters in its name would be called a Problem Squid. If it had no repeat letters in its name would be called a problem squid. I'm joined by Beck Hill, comedian, writer, performer, et cetera, who if she had no repeat letters in her name would still be called Beck Hill. It would just be a little faster to write it down. Yeah. Beck Hill. Beck Hill. Yeah.

Beck Hill. Would you pronounce Hill with one L different to Hill with two? Hill. Hill. Okay, you would. Good. I'm Matt Parker. If I had no repeat letters, I'd be Matt Perkay. Do you pronounce Matt differently?

No, I don't actually. Matt. No, it's just Matt. Matt Perkay. P-R-K-E-S. I'm going with Perkay. Yes, I like that. My name I get to choose. On this episode.

I'll play Korea counselor. I've looked into naming, baby. And any other biz. Busy. Busy. B-U-S-I. Any other busy. Any other busy.

I wrote some codes so I could just type in a sentence and it takes out all the repeat letters. Where's the fun in that? I like doing it in my head. The fun in that was producer Laura watching me knock the entire code together in the time it took you to go to the bathroom before the show. I mean, that sounds impressive, except for the fact that I take a lot of time in the bathroom.

But that said, I did write my intro for the next episode while I was in there. See, I know we're all working. Yeah, look, I did write my intro for the next episode while I was in there. So I know we're all working. Yeah, look, I did like a little interface and everything. You type, you type something in and then converts it. That is very impressive. Yeah, thanks. Yeah. So Bec, how have you been?

Good. Really good. I just did a preview of my Edinburgh Friends show. Oh yes. Guess who's back, back again. Bec is back to her friend in Manchester. And it went well. I've still got stuff to memorize and learn and change stuff, but it was a really fun one. The gig is Access Malarkey. It's kind of like known for being a lovely gig.

And after I finished the show, an audience member came up to me. You're pushing your chair back. Oh, you're reaching into your bag. Can you describe what I am pulling out of my bag? A very small black cuboid. One at a glance would probably think it's a ring box. Yes. So you were worried they were proposing. Well, I did mention in the show that my ex-

Yeah. proposed to me during one of my shows in Edinburgh. Yes. And our divorce will come through while I'm in Edinburgh this year. So that's very like, feels good. You should get someone to bring their papers up on stage. That's what I would like. Yeah. And so I did say to him, now you realize the last person who brought me a box like this

during a show, I am now divorcing. And he laughed and said, yes, I realized I probably should have put this in a different receptacle. But- It's a tooth. Several actually. Oh, it's fragments of teeth. No, they're all teeth.

They're all original teeth. Three baby teeth. Three baby teeth. And then extracted wisdom tooth. I think it is. That's had an old school feeling put in it. Wow. You're right.

They should not have put these in the ring box. Although now that I hold it, it is very funny. It looks great, doesn't it? I love it. It looks gross. I have photos. Thank you so much, Gareth. We did a deal.

And then someone else who was standing nearby waiting to chat said, are you buying his teeth? And I said, yeah, I'm the tooth fairy for adults. And he went, oh, no, I know. I listened to a problem squared as well? And I said, yeah, I'm the tooth fairy for adults. And he went, oh, no, I know. I listened to a problem squared as well. And I was like, yes. Great words getting out. And he took a photo of Gareth and I will post it on the socials. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. So yeah, I was well chuffed. I would be uncomfortable sharing that photo until all the associated debts and financial complexities have been ironed out. Well, I did email him yesterday

Oh, okay good to to confirm the best form of payment I actually did say because my rate is to two pounds of baby tooth five pounds for for extracted or wisdom Which would be 11, but I've said I'll up it to 12. Oh because I like an even number I said call it a fairies her decker the Greek for a little so Instead of a baker's Hedeka. Click Greek for 11. Oh. So instead of a Becker's dozen, which is- Got it. 13. You called it Becker's dozen or was that- Oh, I didn't. Oh, I should have just called it that. Becker's dozen. What Becker's dozen is-

Becker's dozen. Is when it is 12. Exactly. What's a Becker's dozen? It's supposed to be 11, but I'm going to give you 12. It's meant to be 11 or 13. Yeah. And then you get 12. You get 12, because I'm going to give you 12. 11 or 13. Yeah. And you get 12. You get 12 because I like the evenness. Yeah. So thank you so much, Gareth. We have heard from some other people as well about teeth.

And so I wanted to talk about this now while I'm on. We heard back from Paul, who had first asked if I was after teeth. I've now emailed Paul. I will keep you updated with that. We also heard from Thecla or Tecla. T-H-E-K-L-A. Oh, that's all different letters. Yep. Well done.

Good work. I'm glad you wrote that code. I wanted to ask what the going tooth fairy rate, and this is why I'm bringing this up, cause this is now my, I'm opening this question up to you, Matt, to you, Laura, potentially to the listeners I wanted to ask what the going tooth fairy rate would be for a Messier duns that is an extra tooth that normally develops between the front two incisors Oh Minds are fully formed canine that used to live in the roof of my mouth

I had it surgically removed 15 years ago and have kept it ever since in the roof of my mouth. I had it surgically removed 15 years ago and have kept it ever since. Recently I got a representation of it tattooed on me, so I think I'm ready to say farewell to the wee fella and send him to greener, beckier pastures." Wow. Yeah. Now I looked it up and the instances of that occurring estimated that between 0.15 and 1.9% of people have some form of this.

Oh, okay. That's, that's more prevalent than I would have guessed. So I do feel like that needs to be taken into account. Yes. I can't just say like, Oh, okay. I'll, you know, offer just a bit more than a wisdom tooth. Yeah. Well, how many teeth does a regular human have?

32 or 28 if you've had your wisdom teeth removed. Right, okay. So 32. Very unlikely we've had this extra one. I mean, we're assuming that the current going rates of five pound and two pound are like based on market forces and... Well I made up the one for extracted and wisdom teeth because that generally isn't something that the child tooth fairy has to worry about. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But on the upper end of the scale, I think some kids still get one pound for baby teeth, but on the upper end of the scale, it can be two. And then you put five for wisdom teeth, which is two and a half times bigger. Yeah. You could just go two and a half times bigger again, make it 12 pounds 50. Or 12 if it's a Becker's dozen. Which does round to a Becker's dozen. I still feel like 12 is not enough. I feel like this is such a special tooth.

I agree. I agree. Because originally I was working out how many people have, one of those ratio. Then I was thinking like the prevalence, like it's up to one in, one in 50 was the max of the range you gave. So you could conservatively put it at 50 times, but that's now putting the price. Quite high. Quite high. Not a price that I don't think is fair, but a price that I have trouble to justify. Well, here's the thing. You're pricing it according to supply.

Yes. You're saying, this is very rare, there's not many out there, the supply is very limited. But you've not factored in that the demand is even more limited. That's true, yeah. It's very much a buyer's market. A biter's market. A biter's market. A biter's market. So I think you shouldn't be thinking, what would I price an equivalent rare collectible?

Sure. You should be thinking, people want to get rid of a tooth. Yeah, that's it. So I think a Becker's dozen is not an unreasonable offer. I can guarantee you it's more than they'll get from anyone else offering on that tooth. Oh, don't say that. Then we'll get other listeners going, do you know what? Then we'll find out the market rate.

That's true. Okay. Maybe a dentist would like it as an, like a teaching model. Right. I'm going to say Becker's doesn't, but I am open to negotiations, Eklah. Yeah. I don't think we have enough information just between the two of us to get the, the market value, but I think a Beckler's dozens about right. Yeah. I want you to know, as is the case with all of my buying of teeth, that first of all, if I, I haven't done anything with them yet, they're all, I just have them

all safe. I keep them in whatever receptacle they've been given to me, although I should look up the best way. That's part of the history of the tooth. Right. Yeah. It also helps me understand who's is who's. But if I do anything with it, if I decide to create a piece of art or something, do something out of them, I will let you know. Yes. Nothing will happen to it without permission, planning permission.

You know how there are some artworks where if they get resolved, there's a royalty that goes back to the original artist. Yes. Yeah. It's a similar situation. That's right. Yeah. And I also do say that the offer is you can purchase it back at the equivalent.

Oh, so you change your mind down the line. You're basically free tooth storage. Yeah, because I don't want people to then go, oh, actually, I sort of regret doing that. Yeah, exactly. That joke's got legs. It's great. It's got roots. So yeah, I want people to know that I'm not, if you later go, oh, no, I've made a huge mistake. Yeah, it's fine. We can sort it.

So, yeah, that's my that's my offer for now. Right. Let's talk. How about you, Matt? How are you? Good. Yeah. Likewise, did a preview three nights ago. So how was that? Yeah, fine. Where? That was in London. That was the final evening of unnecessary detail for the run. So we had a bunch of guests in the first half and then I did the second half was all Matt.

100% Matt. Nothing but Matt. 50% of the show. Yep. And my peak preview was probably the Reading gig. That was my favorite. Because that's when I felt like I'd hit the rhythm of kind of what I was trying to do. Not finished, but that was the closest it had been London because I've done three previous Testing out bits and it's a semi regular audience. They were kind of Ruined as they've already heard a lot of the head a lot of it. Yeah

So I ended up using it to try out stuff that I hadn't done in London before so as a show it was less satisfying, but I hadn't done in London before. So as a show it was less satisfying, but it was very pleasing in terms of finding out, like I had some bits in the show where it's like a nice joke and then, you know, your brain's like, what if there's another, a topper just over the horizon? So I explored the regions just outside some of my favorite jokes and found they were barren, empty wastelands. Sorry. With no further punchlines.

So I've gone back inside the original. But at least you had a look. Now I know. You opened the window, looked around. Yeah, exactly looked around and went, nope, nothing out here. But you and I, we did a gig together. Yes, you did my pick-a-mix. It was fun.

It was, it was really fun. I'm feeling it. Yeah. But I was doing that, that was a refreshing break from previews for my actual show. This was me just practicing doing normal comedy. I should have very little love these days. When you do a festival, you are invited to do guest spots on like real comedy shows. So I was trying some bits out.

I'm hoping that we get booked for the put together in Ikea. We got an email from them while we've been recording. Oh, did we? I refused to look at it. Should I look at it? Yes. Okay. Do you want to explain what it is while I look up the email?

There's a show in Edinburgh where comedians compete to put together a piece of Ikea furniture and you can request to be on the same bill as someone else. And I said, I would like to be on the same bill as you. They've got back to me. Because I also put down, put me on the same night as Beck, and they were oversubscribed. Like they had like way more performers want to do this. Oh, I see. Yeah.

They sent me a real managing expectations email. They have penciled me in for Sunday, August 10th. Oh. When are you, have in for Sunday, August 10th. Oh, when are you? Have they got back to you? No. Live. Oh, maybe they're working through in reverse alphabetical order. Oh no, they have got back to me. August 10th. I can't. Yes. They have offered me August 10th. Well, then it's locked in.

10th of August. Like at midnight or something. It's I think 11pm show at Pachahouse. Are we a team putting together the same Ikea furniture? Are we competing? I don't know. I kind of hope competing, but a team would also be very effective.

I'd like to bring my own hex keys. Oh gosh. This is the thing. I think you'd be really good, but I'm highly competitive. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I think you'll win. We'll see.

Okay. We'll run a betting market on the side. Yeah, yeah. Come watch us put together some IKEA furniture. Our first problem is from James who went to the problemposingpage at aproblemsquared.com and, I mean, they're being honest, they're open with, I don't want to say this one's for Beck, but this one's probably for Beck James here is approaching 40. I assume James means the age and

It not the height. That's a very different problem Units I guess yeah point Pigs and I don't want to scare them They look twitchy. So he's approaching 40, I assume, miles per hour, and he wants mechanical advice, which means a midlife crisis. He's not sure if that's going to happen, but he does want a career change. They're currently a professional in the health sector. But the question really comes down to how do I decide what to retrain as?

But the question really comes down to, how do I decide what to retrain as? They don't want to spend the time and money to go and retrain into a career they end up disliking as much as their current job. Okay, so James is not happy in the health sector, but they want to know how do they decide what's worth retraining as if they don't know if they'll enjoy it back? Yes. This one's probably for you. Apparently so. Which I think is interesting as someone who- Famously career motivated. Really went out through-

If you want advice on climbing the corporate ladder. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And like, I feel like if anyone has any understanding of what it's like to have a stable job and then change into something else, that would be you. Now Beck, I say this with all the love and respect imaginable, because I think you're a highly skilled, highly capable person, but to retrain as a concept, you'd have to first have been trained. Yeah, exactly.

Right. to retrain as a concept, you'd have to first have been trained. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I did not go to uni. And I'm assuming working as a professional in the health sector involves a bit of study training. Yeah, right. Your extensive experience of being trained and indeed retrained. Yes. But I did recently host a webinar for the Children's Media Conference. There you go. And that was for people who were wanting to get into the children's media industry, whether it's producers, writers, animators, et cetera. And one of the questions was people asking for advice on how to change into a job that is, you know, later in life, what opportunities are there. And quite a few of the speakers that we had, had done that, had come across from completely

different industries, different sectors, but wanted to work in this role. So their advice was they thought it was something that interested them, but they found the, they looked at the ways in which their skills in their job up until that point would help in a different way. So one of them had worked in like finance and advertising or something. And now works as a producer at an animation company. Not scared of a spreadsheet. Exactly.

Yeah. And so I guess the, the advice to take away from that is what parts of your current job do you not hate, which you think would be very useful in a different area. I'm very tempted to say, you know, do what you enjoy, but I'm also aware that if you do what you enjoy, as soon as it becomes your job, it becomes something that is a little less enjoyable. Because there is an element of needing it to go well, as opposed to being able to focus on-

There's obligations and deadlines and bills to pay. Yeah. I feel like I'm in a constant struggle between doing things because it feels artistically like something that I want to do credit for me and doing something because it would benefit me by helping me pay my rent. Yes, yes indeed. Yeah. I mean, you, I made fun of training earlier, but you have got extensive on the job training experience. Yes.

Yeah. And you've had many different aspects to your career, all of which you had to pick up as you were going. And so I guess that's not a bad way to go about it because then you're both finding out if you would enjoy doing it while you're learning it. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. I guess one question would be, has there been anything in your life where you've gone? I think I could see myself doing that. It feels like an obvious question, but like, Matt, is there anything if you like, if all of your,

yep, at the moment, current sources of income, if that all came to a halt, for whatever reasons, I'm just enjoying you trying to list how on earth I make money. If, um, the stuff you do. Yeah, all those things. I mean, the same applies to me. Yeah. The things I make money on and the things I lose money on are indistinguishable to the human eye.

If, if you had to retrain, yeah, agree. Yeah. Take a different job. What would you do? Well, I did. So I originally trained as a maths teacher, but I knew once you, because it was a one year, like, graduate diploma and your first placement in a school is quite early in that for this specific reason.

And so I knew by the end of my first placement, I would know if I was going to enjoy teaching or not and whether or not to persist with that. But I really enjoyed my first placement. I enjoyed the second placement and I enjoyed teaching. So I went into that thinking, same as what James is thinking, I've got a whole year of cost and time and everything. But I knew there would be a point early on where I would, that would be my do I want to stick with this or have I made a terrible mistake? moment. And I love teaching. But then when I decided to leave teaching and do other things,

it was a combination of just not having a Brownian motion path being bounced around into other things I needed to make money, because it was still soon enough after university that I was still living a student-esque life. Yeah. And so the prospect of finishing my current teaching position with nothing lined up was fine, because I had no- Debts. Dependents, no debts.

Yeah. I just had me- I still am living that. In a share house in London. That is why my divorce has been so smooth. Let's just divide our assets up. There we go. Yeah.

Oh, that was easy. So I was able to like quit, not quit, but like one job was naturally ending and I didn't book anything else. But then I started to fit in little bits to make enough money to survive. And the little bits grew into what I do now. Yeah. So that's, you know, I didn't have a real, real strategy as such. Yeah.

Yeah. Same actually. I like, I did, I say this, I did have a series of day jobs though, for quite some time. When I moved to the UK, I worked in day jobs for at least eight years, I think. Lots of customer service based things and stuff like that. And even after that, even when I sort of technically, and I use quotation marks, went full time comedy, that still meant taking casual jobs, retail stuff,

or running workshops, that kind of thing, just to make ends meet. So in conclusion, we're terrible examples. We are terrible examples. I, but what job would you take? Oh yeah. I'd be an actuary. Oh, now an actuary is someone who works out how much something is worth.

Is that right? Pretty much. Does it have to do with the will? It's the insurance industry. It's more working out probabilities. That's right. Of things going wrong. Oh, yes.

And what the cost would be. But then there's also a decent element of partly how would you plan. So when that happens at the frequency we expect, the investments or whatever we've done on the side is enough to cover it. At the same time, you're hedging multiple risks across a insurance company and so on. So the calculations are interesting. I did actually look into the exams back when I was leaving teaching and I kind of realized I'd be good at it. I'd enjoy learning it. I'd find the

doing a bit boring, which is true of, I think, almost any job. In fact, I'd be lucky the fact that I had enjoyed the learning and then find the doing a bit tedious. Because you don't have to derive your own meaning from your job. The job can be money and then you have your fun and excitement elsewhere. But I then thought, you know what, I'll try some other stuff before I go actuarial work. But I really did like that. And it's very well paid. It's difficult to hire for cause you need people who are very math see and attention to detail, but also it's really handy if you've got some communication skills as

well to be able to communicate these things. And so that would be a good fit for me. So I think I suspect that's what I would do. Um, if I had to go and get a quote unquote regular job, what would you be doing? Something real boring. You've got actuary to compete with here. Yeah, yeah, that's true. There's two things that I would do.

One thing is I've got a certificate in massage because I'm a fidgety person. Like I'm always, I'm always like moving my hands. And so I actually, the word massage could then make the word certificate look better than I initially thought. I'm good at giving shoulder rubs. I'm good at like head massages and things like that. And then for a while I was like, Oh, this could be a nice way to make some like extra money.

If things get tough, I could do those like, you know, this walk in massage places where you just sit in the chair and yeah. And so I think I'd be quite good at that. Except famously, there's people very quiet. I think I've mentioned this before. I'm very tempted to become an ASMRtist because I like ASMR and I have, I have created the channel on YouTube. I haven't put anything on the Be Chill ASMR.

Yep. So I still want to do that at some point. I feel like you're straight away from the what would be the normal boring job you would do. I didn't say normal boring job. I said what different job would you do? Yeah, different job. And I don't do the ASMR stuff because I don't have time around all my comedy. Right, right. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. I feel like that still sits a lot closer to the current menagerie of Beck jobs.

Yeah. So you might like the other one, which is train driver. There you go. That's what we're here for. I think I'd really like to drive a train. And I say this is someone who does not have a driver's license, but I figure like they're on tracks. Yeah. Like I just I, I, I love trains. I love like, but the thing is, is I don't love them as much as most of the people who are

listening to this one. Yeah, that, yeah, yeah. Like I couldn't- We got some train people in there. I couldn't tell you all the stuff to do with the, the, the train- The trains. Network or the way they work or anything. Yeah.

But I like moving and pressing buttons. Do you know what they call the assemblies of axles and wheels and kind of the thing that holds them together that goes into the carriages. Is it a butt? It's a bogey. A bogey, great. I knew it was going to be a great word. Yeah, I would.

I was on the DLR recently and the Cutty Sark station is closed for the next year. And as it was going through Cutty Sark, just beforehand, a conductor came on and. Are they conducted when they drive them or are they just a driver? Anyway, the person who came on, I should know this if I want to do it, but I always sit at the front of the DLR, it's the best thing about going on the DLR. That's the district light rail for outside of Londoners. Uh, you sit in the front cause it's driverless most of the time. So you can sit in the front, but every now and then someone will come on and they

put a key in the thing, in the panel and they open it up and they'll, they'll physically drive it, but because I was already sitting in the front, the lady didn't move me, she just stood to the side, opened up the panel and I was like, I could just press it. Like there's a big red button that said stop. And I was like, I won just press it. Like there's a big red button that said stop. And I was like, I won't, but I want to. And then she pressed another button as we went through Cutty Sark.

Cause obviously she had to override it to make sure it didn't stop. And then she pressed a button and it sounded a horn, I guess to make sure no one's on the tracks or whatever. And I was like, I wish she'd said that I could do that. I wish she'd said, do you want to press the horn? I love the best about your story about wanting to press the horn on the DLR. Yeah.

That James specifically requested you answer his problem. And this is why I made it a main problem, because I knew I was going to go off track. Which is why I should not be a train driver. Yeah, what I'm saying is become a train driver or do ASMR. How do you decide what to retrain as? I don't know, James. How do you find out about jobs? I mean, you get one window, which is work experience.

Yes. And maybe internships, if you can afford to do that. James, you're talking to people who worked out how to create a job from the things from, like, we went from our skills and worked out how to create work out of those skills rather than going to a thing and then learning the skills to do the thing. Yeah, but we're the exception. That's uh- Pfft.

I don't know, but I'm curious now. I want to know what James does. I don't know what level of professional and what type of health sector and therefore what kind of savings James is sitting on. I'd say just take six months if you've got the money and you're prepared to live like a student for a while. Yeah. And you'll get bored and then see what you do.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. I know you might have bills to pay and that's not possible, but it sounds like that's an option for James. I will say, and this won't appeal to everyone that's not possible, but it sounds like that's an option for James. I will say, and this won't appeal to everyone, so I'm not saying it's like a hard and fast answer, but I may have brought it up before. Artists Way, which is quite a dated book now. It's one of those 12 week, like self-improvement type books. It gets you back to being creative and it gives you a lot of prompts for creativity, but it actively says it's better for people who aren't in creative jobs because a lot of people who do, who don't do creative jobs, they're lacking that outlet. When you're a kid, you have an outlet for your creativity.

You're encouraged to use your creativity and quite often that thing gets dampened as you get older and in your jobs. And so even if you don't do the artist way, the thing that really helped me was morning pages. It's the stream of consciousness writing. First thing when you wake up, before you look at your phone, write three pages of whatever. It could be a diary, it could be a to-do list, it could be just, I'm tired repeatedly for three pages. But what it does is it sort of, you get bored about a page and a half in, if you're like writing the same thing, and then you start to talk about the things that are bothering

you or the things that are in the back of your mind that you've been trying to ignore. And that's when you'll realize what you're interested in. And the reason that I am here today is because many years ago, I had a bit of a, what am I doing moment, started doing morning pages, sort of daydreamed about, oh, if I, oh, one day I'd love to be on a panel talking about my own sitcom at Comic-Con. And I was like, and it would be a sci-fi sitcom. What would that be about? So I started to daydream about what my sci-fi sitcom would be. And then got into a ton of research, ended up going to a bunch of lectures at the Science Museum.

Then chance encounter, Helen Arnie put me on an evening of unnecessary detail. I talked to you about Lucy, then you and I started hanging out, and now we do a podcast. And I didn't realize I had an interest in science until I was doing that thing, because I didn't do science in high school. I didn't do it my final year of high school. I didn't enjoy it. I didn't do maths in my school. I didn't do it my final year of high school. I didn't enjoy it. I didn't do maths in my final, or I did, but it was a very basic version. All of this interest came out daydreaming in my, in my notes, in my pages. So that would be my advice, James is to maybe give morning pages a try.

First thing in the morning, when you wake up before you check your phone. And I stress before you check your phone, get an A4 workbook, write three pages, you'll hate it, your hand will hurt, but stuff will come out that you weren't expecting. Good advice. And my advice, James, is when you do quit, don't do it mid surgery. You don't want to do a scalpel drop. No, you don't do it. Like a mic drop.

No, yeah. I'm out of here. I'm out of here. This next problem comes from Elizabeth Martin, who say, loving the pod and listening since the first episode. Blah, blah, blah. Great work. Blah, blah blah keep it up. How dare you skip over their heartfelt.

This is what they wrote. I know, it's so good. People were saying it in person, like after we did that joint gig in London they're like, I love the podcast blah blah blah. And I'm like, good good good, carry on. I love that this is becoming a catchphrase. Yeah. But for our audience. Our audience that this is becoming a catchphrase. Yeah. But for our audience, our audience have more catchphrases than we do.

Yeah, good, good. They should, there's more of them. They said we are brainstorming children names and there's a chance we need names for twins or even triplets. What would be good names for twins or triplets? Are there two or three names that are anagrams of each other or the other two? Good question. Now, Bec, neither you nor I have kids.

No, we have talked about what we would call our kids. Oh, we have kids separate just for the record. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Years ago, I did a show called Ellipsis. I called the show Ellipsis because I'm not having kids but I think ellipsis would be a good name for a girl because then you could give her the nickname dot which is short for dot dot dot. It's great. I mean it doesn't have to be a girl I'm just going traditionally by dots. And I always said it was a running joke with me and a mate of mine that one of us would name one of our kids Amphizand because then they're Andy for short.

Yeah. So with Dot and Andy. Oh, yeah. And we realized this like years later when we were chatting, we were like, oh my gosh. And then I've since then told that to another friend who said that they would call their kid Tilda. Tilda. T I L D E I think is how you spell it.

It's the little wibbly wobbly. Half and approximately equals. Yes. spell it. It's the little wibbly wobbly. Half and approximately equals. Yes. So putting it right out there, Ambersand, ellipsis and tilde. They're free for the taking.

Yeah. But not if you're writing. I always wanted to write ellipsis as a character in something. Yeah. However, if you call your kid ellipsis because you listen to this podcast, whether this is you Elizabeth and Martin or anyone else listening. I mean, I want full credit. What? Fair enough. Yeah.

Anytime someone says, Oh, that's really cool. How it's Dutch. You say Beckhill. Cause you're going to get a lot of compliments. Ellipsis has to have the middle name Beckhill. That's fair enough. Andy has to have the middle name. Matt and Si thought they were hilarious when they were at school.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Perfect. Yeah, whole thing. So that's one option. You pick a theme and all the names are subtly in that theme. Yeah. Such that if you met any one child on their own, you wouldn't think, ah, your parents got a little too excited when they got to name their kids.

But you meet two or more and you're like, ah, well done. Yeah, yeah. I'd be very clever. to name their kids, but you meet two or more and you're like, ah, well done. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'd be very clever. I saw the rest of what they said. They were thinking anagrams and this is a bit convenient because I mentioned, I did my preview at evening of a necessary detail.

My friend Zoe Griffiths was doing a talk in the first half and her talk was about naming her kids. Oh, okay. And having a mathematical approach to the letters in the names of her kids. Okay. I was like, great. Zoe has already done the work. Yeah.

So Zoe's first child, Douglas. Great name, Douglas. Particularly pleasing in that Douglas, no repeat letters. Yep. So if you've got a set of toy blocks, no repeat letters. Yep. So if you've got a set of toy blocks, the whole alphabet, Nice. you can spell Douglas.

Nice. You don't need another, another set. So they were so pleased when they were expecting their second child, they thought, oh, you know what? What if we can get a name for our second child? That has no letters familiar with with similar with Douglas. Yes. So they can use the same same letters so they can continue to use the same set of blocks. Great.

So Zoe then downloaded all the names. This may sound like a familiar story. Yep. All the names from the office of national statistics and set about finding all the names that don't have repeat letters and don't share any letters in common with Douglas. Mm-hmm. And none of them were names she wanted to name the kid. Okay.

There's some good ones in there. Most of the acceptable ones are male presenting, like Ben is in there, Eric is in there, Rick's in there. Little insultingly, I don't think you should take this personally, Bec, with a K. Oh yes, like the singer. Correspondingly, Bec, without the K, because you're just not using the K, would have worked after Douglas. Yeah.

But they didn't go for that. Rebecca would not have worked, so you know that's maybe more to the point. Lots of doubles. So in the end, they decided not to do that as funny as it would have been. Apparently there are other constraints or considerations when naming your child other than mathematical hilarity. But it did get Zoe thinking, wait a minute, what would be the optimal names? Like if you want to start naming your child to maximize

the potential for naming future children with no overlap. What should you do? This is not a name I can probably pronounce correctly. It's Gurjot. G-U-R-J-O-T. Okay. No repeat letters. And you can cheat because they're like, they're like CJ is a name.

It's two letters. So there's loads of other names that work after that. So Zoe was trying to balance length of name, so as long as possible while still maximizing the other names that can come after it. Gojot gives you the maximum possibilities. And then she hit exactly the same problem I did when I was doing our famous five words, 25 letters problem. Yep. Her code was going to take 18 days to run.

Right. So. So it's a bit faster than yours. A bit faster than the end. Like twice the speed of mine. Let's not get into the details here. And so she got a mutual made of ours column beverage that knocked together some really nice code that did it way quicker.

It's got it all up on GitHub, so I can link to that in the show notes. Really nice. It takes all the names and it spits out. So for the record, the most recognised names that you can have with no overlapping letters is nine. And they're not good. Hey, now there are people out there who have those names. Do you want to have a little scroll through the list that Colin found? Are they all Elon Musk's kids?

No, no, but I've been scrolling for a while now and the first 1000 sets all have one child named just the letter A. And one child named just the letter C and there's an LJ. So to get nine, you got real short names and they're all terrible. It turns out if you want to name three kids. No offense, any CJs. Oh, sorry. Yeah. No, collectively terrible.

Anyone individually. Great. Sorry, Siege. Colin did also find sets of names that use as many letters as possible. Couldn't find a set of names that covers all 26 letters. It's very similar to what I did. Yep. He found a whole bunch of sets that use 25 letters.

And this is a more human readable list. There's only 196 of them. I don't know if you want to eyeball these back. There's still a lot of CJs in there. CJ, Gus, a child just named MD. A child named... Child, MD. Child, MD. They want a career change.

Yeah, yeah. Path, P-A-R-T-H, valid name. Another child just called VY. One called Wilf, and then a Zeb. Z-E-B. I want to say Z-E-B, but Z-E-B was way more fun to say. Yeah. So I don't know if you want to eyeball,

this is the 196 sets. So if Elizabeth and Martin want to pick from one of these, they don't have to use all of them, but they can then gradually work their way through the list from any one set and they know they're not going to have any clashes and they can name the kids in order of how much they like their names. All the kids. Gosh, do you know what? I feel like most of these are Welsh. Welsh names are very highly represented. You want to get a Y in there.

You need a W. Yeah. In terms of, I see what you mean now. They're not, like no name is a bad name, right? Whatever your name is. Great name. Good for you. But these are bad collections. Isn't it bad collections? Thank you.

I think I just, I think I need space when I'm hearing new names. Like, I think if I meet a group of like six people and maybe one or two have names that I've not come across before. I'd be like, fine. Yep. But I'm not going to remember six new names. No. If, if people come up to you and you're like, what are your names?

One of them is like, uh, Wolf. Okay. Yeah. Locked it in. Next one, King. Okay. Brax. Yeah. Then I'm like, OK. Brax. Yeah, then I'm like, I.

Zeph. Yeah. Just the letter C. Yeah, if a group of people introduced themselves to me like this. Our friend MD's back. Uh-huh. SU. Well, Sue, I can take Sue. Sue. Yeah, that's true, Sue.

Yeah. Noe. TJ. Yeah. VY or Vi. Yeah. Noe. TJ. Yeah. Vy. Or Vi. Yeah. That's 25 letters between them. I can see why they hang out together. Yeah.

It's, it's the letter, it's singular letter names when I'm like- You're making decisions for the kid they may not appreciate. Well, what I also wonder is how many of these names were given to them as kids and how many of these are names that people chose. Yeah. Changed and now they're in the, you know, in the census. Not all, but most of the people I know with less common names, sure, cultural ones. Yeah. Sure.

But most of the people I know that have less common names have chosen those names. They've opted in. Yeah. Yeah. Not all, those names. They've opted in. Yeah. Yeah. Not all, but most. One hit Bugsy. Well, I mean, Bugsy Malone was a- Bugsy, that's a real name. Bugsy, Fox, Nick, RJ, TWM.

That must be Welsh. Vlad, Zeff. That's a good set. That's, yeah. I've never heard of TWM. Not to say it's not valid. No. Is it?

It's Welsh for Tom, producer Laura. Okay. From the corner. That is the best set then. That's the, I've never heard of TWM not to say it's not valid. No, it's for Tom, producer Laura. Okay. From the corner. That is the best set then. That's the best set. Should I grab that one out and put it in the show notes? Yes. Is that our official recommendation?

Well, no, because- We haven't done anagrams. No, I was going to say you haven't- We do anagrams one thing at a time, but for the- You only want to buy one set of blocks. Yeah, that's what, yeah. Great. Yeah. Okay. I'm making that up. I'm putting it in the notes right blocks. Yeah, that's what yeah, right. Yeah, okay

I mean I'm making out of that. I'm putting it in the notes right now. Can't believe this is your dinglet Such a good ding. Producer Lois just informed us that that word Tom tom means twin TWM. That's a double meaning. That's pretty cool. Very appropriate. I'll also link to Colin's Github so you can check this out. It's in a, it's called Zoe Names, code to support Zoe's evening versus very detailed talk. But then I realized that's not actually what we were asked to do.

Yeah. It is within the remit, but specifically they had one example, which was anagrams. Cause I saw you chucking suggestions into our group WhatsApp. Yeah. I found a few. You found a few. And then I was like, Matt, I'm sure that you could do a scrape all of the names from somewhere, write some code, see what names have the same letters in common. So I was, I stopped after three.

Well, in the spirit of, okay, they're good. I've just seen them. In the spirit of today's theme, I realized Colin had done half the hard work He had the names in a list. Yeah, so I quickly knocked together some code To find all the anagrams. That's not the catchphrase. I wrote some terrible Python code. Yay everybody drink It is and it's found all the sets of anagrams from the set of all the names. Yes. So let's dance. What do you got? OK, so I just came up with three lots.

I know there's more, but these were the three that actually felt like, again, names that I've heard of. Yep. I've got Aiden, Diana and Nadia. That's great. I recognize those names. Aiden, Diana, Nadia. Yep. Real names.

Alice and Celia. Oh. And Arnold and Ronald. Arnold and Ronald? Well, I can give you a little something extra here. Because Arnold and Ronald are indeed anagrams. So is Rowland. Oh yes. So you have a third one.

I used to know a Rowland, yeah. There you go. So that's a really nice, I think we've now got two good sets of threes. I do feel like Ronald and Roland will get confused. Ronald and Roland will get confused, but that's the price you pay. Yeah, that's true. Such wonderful names. I actually think, yeah, you're out in front. I think Aiden, Diana and Nadia. And there's a, there's a mix of the classic gendered names in there.

Yes. So you've got your options covered. My code ran through. The one when I scanned through that had three names I liked the most was Liam, Amiel, and Marley. And you're missing the fourth male. Male, like, the males here. Yeah.

That's what you named the unexpected fourth kid. Oh, the males just been delivered. Yeah, exactly. mail like the mails here yeah that's what you name the unexpected fourth kid oh yeah the mail's arrived yeah yeah exactly that's nice amel and liam marley nice and then mail and then just on the end there or whatever they may be okay are you ready for a set of 12 names hit me they've only got five letters great They've only got five letters. Great. A-rin. Spell that for me. A-a-r-i-n.

A-n-i-r-a. Orion. Arena. Inara. Nay-ra. Nay-ra. Rani. Raina.

Rania. Rian. Riana. 12 different names. All legit names people have used. And any one of those names wouldn't stand out. Yeah, I'll take it. I think that's a good option. And it means that Elizabeth and Martin can go on and have nine more children.

They can have as many kids as they want without having to name any of them male. Is it knock knock? And they can have as many kids as they want without having to name any of them male. Is it knock knock? Males here. So, I will link to Colin's code as advertised. If people- it's already got the names and everything. If you want to have a play, look at his code, adapt it for yourself. If you got a name kids, you can do that. If you got other suggestions- I do. Yep. About Beck, Matt, and if there's a third, Laura. Laura. People would know they'd be like, ah, they're all from that famous podcast.

Yes. People go, I love your kid, blah, blah, blah. This one's called Annie. This one's called Other. This one's called Blarness. You have to meet them in age order or the joke doesn't work. Well, I would name my fourth kid Ding. But I'm going to leave that up to Elizabeth and Martin to find out.

Let us know what names you end up with if any of those were of any use. And if anyone else listening decides to call their kids any of the names we've mentioned, let us know. Yep. I feel like both the problems, like the career and the kid naming problems, are ones that we're going to have to wait a couple years to get the full closure on. Yeah, but- But we're in this for the long haul. Yeah, we like doing this show. Yeah, we'll probably still be here.

this for the long haul. Yeah, we like doing this show. We'll probably still be here. And now it's time for any other busy, if you hear laughter, it's Beck and Laura coming down from me, pronouncing that a different way that we decided would be foolish. So Beck, a couple episodes ago, episode 111, very pleasing number. An angel number. Ryan wrote in and said, hey, I do engineering things. I don't like calling the motors master and slave because a lot of baggage going on there.

Are they better names? Yes. We spent a long time suggesting other names. They've gotten back and first of all,'re giving us a ding which is very nice. Good. A big ding or caps. Oh yeah. I do like they thank me for being interested in their job and taking it seriously and trying to solve a problem

and they thank you for finding their style of writing so robotic that you lost interest before reading the whole problem. Ryan, I wouldn't take that personally. Now Ryan's favorites were Cox and Crew. Very nice. And Boss and Worker. I feel like Ryan gets the final say in it because we had a lot of options. Yeah. I believe the issue was that it couldn't start with the same letter, which is why we discounted Cox and Crew. We discounted Cox and Crew, you're absolutely right.

That was Ryan's own constraint. I know. So boss and worker is the current winner. Which most boring of all. Sometimes it's going to be boring. But you know, God, by Ryan's writing style, I'm not surprised. Exactly. You didn't even bother reading to the end of it.

You're like, yeah, it's boss and something. We also heard from NMK. Good name. Could be initials, could be a name. Yeah. I've been listening since episode one when I was in high school. Oh, wow. Hi, NMK.

Gosh. And now what are they doing now, Bec? Now I have a degree in aerospace engineering and design avionics systems for satellites. Yeah, yeah. You know how I feel. Old. Now I feel like I need a career change. I've had years of this. I get people now saying, oh, I watched your videos in primary school. I'm like, oh my goodness. Yeah.

Now you're a real adult too. I gigged with a woman semi-recently who said, you came and did a gig at my school. And I was like, you can get lost. Anyway, NMGA, we love you. Thank you for sticking with us for so long. I genuinely think this is so exciting that someone listened in high school to this and then went on to achieve great things. I'm taking credit.

There's a correlation. Yeah, exactly. The problem in episode 111 of Master Save Terminology comes up a lot in my field, since many common electrical communication buses use it. For example, SPI, serial peripheral interface. Many alternative terminologies have been proposed, like controller slash peripheral transmitter, receiver, which actually causes more confusion. Yep.

Primary, secondary, controller node and host client. Host client's not bad. Yeah, that sounds like, and it fits within the parameters. Actually, it doesn't because the first one had to come first in the alphabet. But none have been widely adopted yet. I don't have quite as strict requirements as the original problem. Oh, there you go. But I'll try to put Boss Lackey into my next design anyway. Okay. Yeah.

We did Boss Lackey. A few people weren't super keen on Lackey because it does come from a type of servant. Yes. So I am happy with Boss Worker if that's where the wind's winds taking us now all of that is what I would say If we hadn't also heard from a mat two T's Who? Not you not me different mat Believe me. I'll take credit if this was me

They've come up with the nautical terminology of captain and mate. Oh fun and then it generalizes because you've got captain as the main one, but then you can number them first mate, second mate, third mate. Oh, that's nice. Now, captain, do we have a length constraint on the words? Because that's running us at like seven letters. It was six. So captain, cap, capen, how do you short captain? You can short cap. Yeah, cap. Cap. Cap and mate. Cap and mate. Done.

I like that. I will not enter into any further discussion. I do like cap and mate. I think that's nicer. I think it's more fun than boss and worker. Yep. I did realize now I know that we don't like the word master, however, that's in relation to what the original terms were. But we use master in terms of- Oh, I think master's a valid word on its own. To master a skill.

Yeah, 100% master degree. Yeah. So I did think as well, master and puppet. Master and puppet. Oh, it's just alphabetical. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

Master and Puppet. Okay. I am prepared to enter into more discussion and go to the problem posing page at problemsquared.com. Cap and mate is still my favorite though. Cap and mate is still pretty- Yeah. That's gonna be hard to beat. And we have controversially some real some real-world AOB.

Okay. Someone actually knocked on my door. What? Now, okay, more context here. A neighbor who I know. Oh, okay. So, as a normal mechanism for getting his feedback... Male. This is not to be encouraged, but someone who lives on my street

wanted to feed back that they- because we asked people who listen to the podcast, but don't like consume kind of anything else. We do. And they said they were a listener of No Such Thing As A Fish. And that's how they came across both of us. And then that looking for other podcasts. From your episode or mine. Oh, you know, this is neighbor Steve. Next time, neighbor Steve, next time we're talking over a fence. I'm just addressing Steve direct now. Yeah.

Let me know. I can't remember what he said. You won't go to Steve's door. I'll go back on. Hey Steve. I demand answers. Steve has Steve. Demand answers. Steve has to start his own podcast. Anyway, this is the only ever exception for

delivering any other business by hand to one of our home addresses. But anyway, the point was we asked people if they listen to the podcast but don't follow anything else we do, we can add one more to the list, which is Naver Steve. Yeah. Who just follow me, but just down the road. Literally. Yeah, literally. Well, thank you so much for listening to this episode of A Problem Squid.

We like to call out some of our Patreon supporters, obviously, everyone who listens to this podcast. It doesn't matter what your name is, you're all special to us. However, some of those names enter a giant spreadsheet because they actually are fund this entire enterprise. Which is why it makes up a tiny part of our ridiculous careers. Three of those fine Patreon supporters from Patreon.com slash Problem squared. Get their names mispronounced. And well, this time I've put their names in our internal running order, but I've also done the versions with the repeat letters removed. Yes. I don't know which versions you want to use for this. Well, I mean, the first name has no repeat letters. I would be pronouncing it correctly,

which feels against the rules now. Yeah. So thank you, Mayor Kay. Gavin Scrossby. And Martin Wood. And Martin Wood Thank you so much again to everyone who shares this podcast reviews it gives us five stars Etc and that is it for this episode. I've been Matt per Kay You're also listening to back you and our producer Laura gimshou gim gimshua gimshua law And our producer, Lora Gimshu. Gim. Gimshu.

Gimshu. Law. Yeah, it'd just be law, wouldn't it? Law. Gimshu. I like it. It works. I would order that at a restaurant. So I got a hit last time.

So I'm going to continue in that vein. I'm going to go for F7. You're going to go for F7. You are moving in the correct direction because that's another hit. Another hit. Woo-doo-doo-doo. Now I'm just working out. That could be, I've sunk a three. I've, you've got another three somewhere.

That's a two. Ooh, I got to do two more checks before I know I've cleared your cluster. Can I have an H6? H6? H6. Miss. Oh, that might actually that might have confirmed it for me.