Dear Hank & John - 101: Knit like a Mofo

Episode Date: July 31, 2017

What would happen if all mosquitoes die? What do I do about my surprise YouTube celebrity boyfriend? What's the truth about John Lennon's "Imagine"? And more! Email us: [e-mail] patreon.com/dearhankandjohn

Hello and welcome to Dear Hank and Jon. Or is our friday-giv-it-Dear Jon and Hank? It's a comedy podcast about death and also other stuff in which two brothers, Hank and Jon Green, will give you dubious advice, bring you all the weeks news for both Mars and A of C Wimbledon, answer your questions and just, I forgot. Give you dubious advice. Just give you dubious advice. How you doing, Jon? and I forgot. Give you dubious advice. Give you dubious advice.

How you doing, John? I'm all right. I'm proofreading right now, or I'm like dealing with the proofreaders queries for turtles all the way down. My new book coming out October 10th, available for pre-order now at probablysignturtles.com. So when people, like when you have it, when there's something spelled wrong in your book,

they're like, hey, did you want to keep this spelled wrong? Or do you want to have it be spelled right now? That is one of the issues, but it's also like, should you capitalize the T in FaceTime issue? Then there's the big, there's the big difficult questions, like, you know, word choice questions between what is technically the correct word and the word that everyone says, like, which is better to pick in that situation. And it really proofreading gets down to like, those parts of grammar where you're forced

to think about why grammar exists, which is sort of interesting, but also I've only had like three hours of sleep, so it's a little exhausting right now. How are you? Good. John, do you know about 80%ing? Oh, no, what is 80%ing? 80%ing is the idea that the first 80% of the work is actually only 20% of the work,

and the last 20% is like 80% of the work. So getting 80% of the way there is 20% and then the last 20% is like 80% of the work. And so what you should do is just forget about that last 20% and say, hey, look, if there's a bunch of words filled wrong in this book, that's because I only wanted to get 80% of the way there. I had other stuff to do.

I had to sleep, I have children. I have a podcast with my brother Hank. I have to be sharp and I have to be good and funny. And I'm not going to worry about whether FaceTime has a capital T. Well, I'll tell you what Hank, I 80% 99% of my professional life. I 80% every vlog but there's video for the last eight years. So just let me have this one thing that I spend a lot of time on. I should just make a video on 80 presenting and it should just end like 80% of the way through.

Just stop. No, I'll see you on Tuesday. Just, yeah. It's conceptually strong. I don't know if I would actually enjoy watching it though. Oh, John, 101 episodes. How are you feeling? Great. Couldn't be happier. Just a little bit tired due to the lack of the sleeping. I think that I'm not going to... I will get some sleep once this book goes into production in mid-August.

But until then, I'm just going to be the little engine that could. Hank, would you like a short poem for today? Hey, yes, I would. Alright, this short poem is from Emily Bronte, but it was published under her Nome de Plume, Ellis Bell, and also I'm not gonna read the whole thing. It was sent to me by a listener named Sylvia, who suggested it because we always talk about that Emily Dickinson poem with Hope is the thing with feathers and she wanted me to read this poem because it's much more negative about Hope, but I'm only going to read the final stanza. Hope whose whisper would have given balm to all my frenzy to pain, stretch to wings, and sword to heaven, went, and Nair returned again. and soared to heaven, went, and never returned again. Hope by Emily Bronte, a story about hope leaving and never returning.

Hope is the thing with feathers. It flies away from you and does not come back. That's right. All right, John, we've got a first question. It's from Ben, who asks, dear Hank and mainly John, where would I preorder a paperback version of your book, Turtles All the Way Down, that's coming out?

My girlfriend and I both greatly dislike hardcover books. I like Turtles, Ben. All right, unfortunately. You have bad news for Ben. Yeah, I have bad news for Ben, but then I also have more bad news for Ben. The first piece of bad news is that my book Turtles All the Way Down is not very deeply

concerned with turtles. But it's like turtle free. It's like how many turtles are in the book, John. Is it just like a low turtle book? I would say it's not a no turtle book, but it's definitely a low turtle book. So for a high turtle book, I actually have a recommendation. Yeah. Yeah. Which is rare, but I do. I have a good recommendation of a turtle heavy book. It's called The

People in the Trees and it's by Hania Yannagihara and it's very good. So if you're looking for a turtle book, check that one out. However, if you're looking to read my new book in paperback, I would advise patients. So the reason books come out in hardcover before they come out in paperback is there's a bunch of reasons, but the main one is that hardcover books are more expensive, and the royalties are better, much, much, much better for authors. So authors are usually in favor of hardcover's coming up before paperbacks. One thing that you could do though is you could rip off the hard cover and then just kind of blue all the pages together and then put on your own soft cover and that might suit

your interest better. But also I think hard cover books are beautiful and this book will be very beautiful. I have seen some of the like comps for what it's gonna look like. Have you seen a cover? I've seen a cover, but I've also seen all the little detailed stuff that I really love in books, the way they bind the books, the quality of the paper, all that stuff is really good. Like it's finally, in terms of a physical item,

it's finally my, like all of my dreams coming true. So I'm sorry Ben, but I also think that you're gonna like the physical book available for pre-order now at probablysigneturtles.com. I like the idea of just getting your exacto knife out and being like, rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr It's about personal preference. Yeah. Yeah. I won't be mad. I mean, the book belongs to you. So do what you want with it. But the paperback will eventually come out.

And I'm sorry that it's going to take a while. But I have worked very hard and fought to make sure that the hardcover is relatively inexpensive. In fact, cheaper than lots of paperback novels coming out these days. This question comes from Maya, who writes, Dear Green Brothers, what would be the ecological effects if all mosquitoes died?

If there was a virus or something that eradicated all mosquitoes, would ecosystems go to chaos or would we get along fine? I'm asking because mosquitoes are the devil's spawn and also they spread diseases that kill a lot of people. Thanks for asking, Valor Margulis, but mosquitoes first, Maya. Nice mosquitoes, yeah. Oh, men must die.

But mostly, I mean mosquitoes, by men, I mean mosquitoes. I, yeah, you know, first of all, it's not, we don't have to kill all mosquitoes. There are so many species of mosquitoes that aren't the ones that bug us that much. And there are only a few species of mosquitoes that transmit malaria, and which is the biggest mosquito problem, the ones that bug us that much. And there are only a few species of mosquitoes that transmit malaria,

and which is the biggest mosquito problem. And so you really only have to hit a couple of species for it to be a really big difference. But I think for the most part, we'd be okay. Like there's stuff that eats mosquitoes, but those things eat other things too. I like this idea that, like, that all, like, the entire ecosystem is, is in balance and it, like, everything has its place, like, ticks?

No! No! Just, they should all die. They don't do anything useful. They just spread disease and suck blood. Like, they, they work, they function, ecologically. They do a just fine job, but no, yeah, we could probably, we could definitely get rid

of the mosquitoes that are the worst offenders without any problems. In fact, we have tried and we continue to try and we have succeeded in some places. Yeah, I mean, there used to be a lot of malaria in North America and now there's none. So there has been a lot of progress, but we have a long, long way to go.

There is actually an article in Nature about this Hank, and it has a great, I won't read you the whole article, because like most articles in Nature, it's a bit of a difficult read, but it has a great subheadbine. Eradicating any organism would have serious consequences for ecosystems, wouldn't it? Not when it comes to mosquitoes.

That's all you really need. We did a SciShow on it too if you want to watch that. It's probably a little more peniturable than the Nature article. Okay, we have another question and this one is one of those big, difficult questions. It comes from Ashley. Dear brother's green, I was babysitting for a family I don't know very well and the baby took his first step while I was there. That's cute.

Should I tell the parents? Ashley? Man, no definitely don't do that. What? Yeah, no because you because like that everybody's always like I don't know I I want to be there when orin takes us first steps and I might not be in and like I'll be bummed if I'm not So like just like who who gets hurt by that lie of omission? You don't have to be like, well, hey guys, you're maybe definitely the one that didn't take any steps while you were gone.

Not a walker of that one. See, I would argue that if anything, you should lie in the other direction. You should be like, listen, not only did your baby take his first steps, he also said his first word, and it was Ashley, it was my name. He looked me dead in the eyes and he said, hello, Ashley, I love you more than I love my mother.

And that was all he said, it was weird. And then he was like, and then he said, I'm not only paying you $20 an hour and that's crap. Don't accept it. I'm worth so much more than that. That's what he said. That's all, that's all. And then he stopped, and he claimed up,

and he hasn't said anything since. So I don't know. That's just take what you will from that. Walked all the way across the room, told me he did not approve of my compensation package, and then clam for it back up. Ha, ha, ha, ha. Anyway, really a pleasure to babysit

for your astonishingly verbal, extremely mobile child. See you next time. Is it possible that I could get some equity in this baby? Because I put a lot in. Just a low percentage. I don't know. How does it work? Is that how you think babies work, Hank, that you currently own 100% of Orin's future

earnings? I don't know. I think baby's work Hank, that like, you currently own 100% of Orin's future earnings. I don't know, 100% of Orin's future earnings, but I definitely entitled him entitled to a percentage. I look forward to the conversation that you have with Orin when he enters the workforce. No, no, no, it's not initial compensation. It's only after I'm old and in the home when I expect him to have to expect him to contribute to the keep dad in diapers and scientific American subscriptions. Wait, you don't think our parents are expecting that, do you? You know, I think it's going to depend.

I nominate you as I do so often. All right. Just to be clear though, actually, no, no, no, no, no, you should not tell the parents that you saw the baby take his first steps. Okay, John's come around and he's decided to, unless you are directly asked, and then I guess maybe you have to say yes, but even then probably not.

Yeah, John is abandoned a bit and he wants to make sure that you don't actually tell them. This question comes from Bri, who asks, dear Hank and John, I recently started dating someone, and everything's great, he's super sweet, he makes me laugh, and have a great time when I'm with him. But I recently found out that he has a not-so-tiny

following online. He's somewhat of a popular YouTube person, and he has a decent amount of Twitter followers, enough to wear people notice and stop him when we're out and they want pictures. I never wanted a life in the public eye and with the growing maliciousness of the YouTube community, I'm not sure that I could handle it. How do I handle this budding relationship while also handling keeping myself out of the public eye if that is even possible, completely lacking a sign-off Bree. Oh my. Surprise. Surprise YouTube celebrity boyfriend. Yeah, I mean, I feel like

that's a great question for our spouses because they both unexpectedly developed surprise YouTube husbands well into the relationship. Yeah, but at least with that, there was a measure of, I don't know, there was a little bit of buy-in. Like Sarah was in favor of Brotherhood 2.0 as a concept. Sure, yeah, it was like, and it happened somewhat gradually. It wasn't like, and surprise, there were lots of decisions along the way. Right. That, yeah, that were, that they were involved in.

That said, it's hard. Right. Yeah, that they were involved in. That said, it's hard. Yeah. I think that's hard. Yeah, I mean, it's also weird because I don't think that traditional celebrity is the same necessarily. And so, you're kind of an un-mapped territory here. So I don't know that anyone has particularly good advice for you, except for people who have been

in this exact position before. But I will say that when you talk about the maliciousness of the YouTube community, it isn't necessarily in that person's part of the community. There are lots of areas of YouTube that are just kind and supportive and maybe are smaller, but are big enough that people will still get recognized at the grocery store or whatever. And that is the way that that fame has changed where you know 99% of people have

no idea who your boyfriend is probably, but 1% is a lot. Like you see more than 100 people if you go to the grocery store, maybe not, but at some grocery stores, I feel like I do. That place just is full of people. Yeah, so I think that it has to come down to the individual situation. But also, is that a cool thing? Is that also kind of dope? Is there also opportunities that neat things will happen that you wouldn't otherwise have happened where you get to have experiences and do things?

Yeah, I don't know. I think it depends on the person, but I do think you have to be realistic that you are at least until the moment when the person your dating starts talking about you online, I think you're relatively anonymous. After that, there is an element of not being fully anonymous. To be honest, this is something in a way Hank and I have never been through the worst parts of because we've never had a public break up, which is where I think it's really hard, and where you do see some viciousness at times even in very supportive communities. So I totally get the concern,

but I also think until and unless you're explicitly mentioned, I think you can kind of fly under the radar. Yeah, there are certain kinds of YouTube content that ask for all that person's life to be laid out in front of everyone. And if you were in a relationship with one of those people, you would know it. You would know from the beginning

because the camera would be out all the time. But a lot of people just make videos that are about a certain thing, and they aren't about their life. And so you don't have to be a part of their public narrative. Right, right. Speaking of public narratives, Hank, I want to answer this question. It comes from Rebecca who writes,

Dear John and Hank, I love your podcast and it enriches my life. Rebecca, that is far too kind. Literally, it is too kind about, yeah, our completely suboptimal podcast. I'm quite the Beatles fan in the other day when I was listening to John let in's imagine my brother joined me and said that it was a wonderful song, but he didn't like the political message it was sending and something about communism. My question is, what political message does Imagine send out? And also, can I continue enjoying it once I know the truth behind it? Thankful for any advice. Rebecca. Well, so there's key questions here. Yeah, I also, yeah, I want everybody to keep on the lookout for my new YouTube video, the truth about John Lenin's Imagine. Oh, God, oh, God. That is such a genre of YouTube videos. There's two questions here. One

is, can you enjoy art that you find politically reprehensible? And the other question is, is John Lenin's Imagine a Communist song? And if so, is that so bad? a communist song and if so is that so bad. Um, yeah, I mean, first of all, even like I don't know that you can find the, well, I feel like that, yeah, I can definitely not enjoy content because of the message it sends. Yeah. Yes, but you also, I also think that like sometimes you can enjoy content despite the message it sends. Like I can, I can like a song even if there are things in it that I find objectionable. Sure. The answer to is imagine a communist song is yeah. Yeah. Imagine no positions.

is yeah. Yeah, imagine no possessions. I wonder if you can. No greed, no need for greed or hunger, a brotherhood of man. That's pretty, that's pretty Leniny. That's got a Leniny vibe. Nothing to kill or die for. That's less Leniny.

There's lots of things to kill or die for if you're coming in this Russia. But they do say no religion too. Yeah. Which is pretty, that was like, that feels, whenever I hear that song, I'll like, think about in the 60s saying, like, imagine no religion, like, whoa, hold on there,

bucko, that's a danger time that you've entered. But yeah, people, you know, people heard, and I think part of the message of Imagine, and what's nice about this song is that it isn't saying like, hey, there shouldn't be religion, there shouldn't be possessions, it's just saying, let's question this, let's look at it for a second and see what, like, where the thing is valuable and where it isn't. And without saying, like, you know, without, without questioning it, then you don't ever

get a chance to really even appreciate the good things that might come from things. So, but in the end, he does say, you may say that I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one. I hope someday you'll join us. And kind of saying, all of these things I have asked you to imagine are things that I want to happen.

But, yeah, I mean, it's pretty calm, he's song, but that doesn't mean it's not beautiful. Well also, it also doesn't mean that it's wrong. Right. Yeah. You know, I don't know. I'm not gonna get into ideology here. I do want to point out though that Hank is completely correct about the difference about saying, imagine no religion in 19, I'm gonna guess like 72 or 73

when I'm gonna guess that song came out versus today, which is that then the vast majority of people in the United States at least did go to church every week. And now it is fewer than 40% and well under 40%. So yeah. So the 19th change. 1971, John. Good job.

Thank you. Well, I know when the Beatles broke up, and unfortunately I know when John London was assassinated. So I knew it was somewhere in there. Let's move on to another question, Hank. This is another one I really wanted to answer today. All right, it comes from Peter who writes, dear John and Hank, I'm a teen aged boy

who is a long time fan of the pod, and I have a conundrum. I'm very interested in knitting. However, I am scared that if I try to learn how to knit, I will be judged as a whoos or a sissy. How do I solve this problem? The jaws of death will engulf you, Peter. Well, Peter, you've already got the sign off thing

figured out, and that's great. Yeah. I don't think that there's nothing you could do here. If you're interested in a thing and you're worried about what people are gonna think about you, you either don't do the thing because the fear is too great or you do it and you deal with it. And you look at those people and you think, why are you so silly? This is like, what about

this particular activity, which by the way involves giant, like, basically weapons that sometimes TSA won't even let you bring on plane. How is this a particular, how is this in particular? What happened in society that this is a thing that is supposed to be feminine when clearly it has no gender? Right, yeah. I mean, but it is also hard when you are a teenager. Sure, yeah. To stand up to gender constructions

and to stand up to those messages that tell you that you're going to be less of a person worth valuing. If you do this or do that, that said, it is awesome. It is courageous and it makes the world better and it makes your life better in the long run. So I encourage you to knit, knit like a mofo. Just, charzard that mofo to go all the way back to the beginning of this podcast.

I hope you find it, man. I hope you find the will to knit. I think that would be awesome. And I think you also got to recognize that what's gonna happen to you is what happens to 95% of knitters is like you figure it out and you start doing it and then it's like, oh yeah, okay, get it. I don't really need to make sweaters for the rest of my life. I don't know, actually. You might not find that.

But- You might find that it's super fun and challenging and interesting- Yeah, I'm just saying that's what happens to most people. Just having watched my friends go through their knitting craze. But also, that doesn't necessarily mean that it's not gonna come back later. You have a skill that's always there ready for you to apply it, especially post-apocalypse.

Like making useful things out of strings is definitely a good thing to be able to do. Great point, Hank. Great point. It reminds me in fact that today's podcast is brought to you by knitting, knitting, an amazing post-apocalyptic talent. No, so good. This podcast is also brought to you by Turtle Books. Books about turtles. They're books with high quantities of turtles. They recommend a daily value,

completely satisfied 150% of turtles, but which is not John's book, Turtles All the Way Down. Today's podcast is also brought to you by nothing to kill or die for. Wouldn't that be nice? Are you listening to anything on Audible right now, John? I'm listening to Jane Austen's Persuasion. Oh, look at that.

Yeah. That's available. I'm listening right now to the second book in the Expant series, A Calibans War by James S.A. Cory, which is so good. I'm listening right now to the second book in the Expand series, A Calibans War by James S.A. Corrie, which is so good. The book, the first one is also very good. And I love, I love, when I'm listening to a series of books, I love that it sticks with the same narrator

and I get this feeling that the Harry Bosch series by Michael Connelly is like that, where he is. So I get so connected with the narrator and his voice for telling the story. I also love that. And yeah, the Expand series is fantastic. The show is great and the books are great. And there's way more of the books than there is of the show so you can be in the world

longer, which is exciting for me. And I just finished the immortal life of Henrietta Lacks, which also was fantastically read and very superfrick and interesting. Everybody, I've been told over and over and over again that I need to read this book. And I kind of sometimes have a hard time reading nonfiction on paper, but this was like such a good cohesive story

that kept driving through it and like kept me wanting to listen to the next chapter that I was really glad I listened to it as an audiobook. Yeah, I love that book. I read it with words, but I'm sure the audiobook was good. Okay, let's go back to answering questions. This question comes from Allison who writes, dear John and Hank, I'm moving out of my parents house, bachelor degree in hand to a new state,

Birmingham, Alabama actually. You may know a thing or two about that place. Hank was born there, I lived there for a long time. In the process of coming into my own and venturing out into this grown up world, I've discovered that furniture is heckin' expensive. Hundreds of dollars for a chair? Question mark, question mark.

I've also realized that I'm vastly unprepared for this. I don't know how taxes work. I don't know how to set up Wi-Fi at my house. I'm curious, what were some of the things that you were blindsided by slash not expecting when you became real adults? Also, if you have advice about moving to a new state, I'm all ears, later Vader, Allison.

I gotta say, the cost of furniture continues to shock me. Oh man, I remember when I bought my first couch with Sarah because before that, I'd only ever purchase couches at garage sales and stuff. Yeah, yeah. And when we moved to New York, we bought a couch. And I was in Jennifer convertibles to buy this couch. And first off, I was like, Sarah,

why are we at this fancy furniture store? And she was like, this is literally the cheapest furniture store that I would ever enter. And I was like, okay. And then secondly, I was like, can someone explain to me why this couch is $900? Like I still think like $900. Like what, what does it do? Does it turn into a bed? Yes, as it happens it did. But still? Does it turn into a bed? Yes, as it happens it did, but still.

Does it turn into a car? Yeah, like you can get a car, a car for $900. Cars have like one couch and two chairs inside of them. And you can sometimes find a used one that runs for just over $900. So really, it is insane how expensive furniture is. On the other hand, a lot of work goes into making them, et cetera, et cetera.

And they're hard to move around. But what I will say is like what, sometimes you don't realize is like living in your parent's house, it took them decades to collect all the furniture they have. They didn't start out and and buy it all at once. They probably had not so much furniture at all and probably had a bunch that they got at thrift stores or garage sales

and then slowly got rid of the crappy things and replaced them with good things. And it's important to know that you, not only can't you, but you should not suddenly go into $20,000 of credit card debt furnishing a home. And what else? Well, on that note, Hank, I just want to interrupt you real quickly and say that you implied that the stuff

that you get at garage sales isn't good. And I would like to say for the record that I still have one of my garage sale couches and it remains in some ways. It is certainly not our most physically attractive couch, but I would argue it is our most comfortable couch. Yeah. I rugs are also something that really shocked me and it's like, this is a thing that I step on.

I just walk on this all day long. Why is this so expensive? Why am I gonna- Because they require so much work to create. That's what's expensive. Yeah, it makes sense, but yeah. I'm like, well, no rugs for me for a while. And setting up Wi-Fi, you can do it, paying taxes,

you can do it, but it's harder than setting up Wi-Fi. I don't know, they're both very hard. I mean, I remember, I have a vivid memory of like setting up, we didn't have Wi-Fi. I don't know, they're both very hard. I mean, I remember, I have a vivid memory of setting up, we didn't have Wi-Fi back then. Have I ever told the story about when yes, you have? My roommate came home with Wi-Fi? Yeah.

Are you sure I have? You have on the pie. Are you totally positive? I'm like, I'm like 98% sure. I'm gonna tell it again. So my roommate Shannon came home with a computer with Wi-Fi and she was like look No cords, no cables and anywhere within 50 feet of this machine that I bought that was a wireless router I can get access to the internet and I said jokes on you Shannon because I have a 100 foot ethernet cord

I'm glad that you left it my joke despite having heard it literally 4,000 times. It's probably not the third. It's at least not the third. Anyway, the joke's on Shannon because I figured out that wireless was a complete scam if you just owned a 100-foot ethernet cord. And to this day, I refused to get computers with wireless just kidding. I was clearly wrong about that. So it is a pain to like set up all of that stuff, but you also have to remember Allison that

you're setting stuff up and then once it's set up it works. Well until it stops working. I what I want Allison to know is that like you got to fake your stuff out. That's that's that's what adult that's what adulthood is. It's like, I don't know what to do this. And it's like, oh, okay, well, I'll just do it. I will say do not put washing machine, like clothes washing stuff into the dishwasher. That's a bad idea.

What? Yeah, or the other way around. Don't do it either way. The dishwasher has the it stuff and the clothes washer has it stuff and they are not the same. They are not the same. And do not put hot oil into a milk jug is another thing to not do. That's a good one. I'll give you one that I learned the hard way when I was 23.

Sometimes you want to eat a frozen pizza and you put it in the microwave, you put it in the oven at 450 degrees for 18 minutes. And then about like four minutes after you start cooking the pizza, you want to go bowling. And so you go bowling. And you're a bit of an obsessive bowler. So you bow by yourself for three and a half hours.

When you come home first off, you're gonna be so happy that the whole house didn't burn down, but secondly, you're gonna have some really annoyed roommates. Oh my goodness. Oh my god, it's burning! It actually was burning, John. It was burning, it was.

That thing. Not a great decision by me. Which shout out to all the people who are cooking while they listen to Dear Hank and John, It was burning. It was burning. It was still. That thing. Not a great decision by me. Shout out to all the people who are cooking while they listen to Dear Hank and John, make sure that you set your timer and that it's loud enough to get through your earbuds. All right. I got one last question for you. John says, Dear Brothers, from RJ, do power plants produce their own electricity?

How is a power plant turned on if it produces its own power? Do other power plants pay to use electricity? Do power plants have to pay to use electricity? These are the questions I need answer to. I have no use for these answers, RJ. I need answers to these questions. By which I mean, I don't need answers to these questions. Well, Hank, I think a power don't need answers to these questions. Well, Hank.

I think a power plant's just like any other building. Like the power goes out of the power plant, it goes to the place where all the power goes and gets shifted around and joins up on the grid, and then it comes back. So yeah, like if you turn off the, like you gotta make it so that if you turn off the power plant, it still has power somehow.

You don't like all the computers and TVs, because they're watching sports, I guess, and lights to turn off. Just because the power plant needs maintenance. So you're, you're on the grid like, no, like anybody else. And yeah, you got to pay for power even if you're a power plant, even if you're throwing it off like more than you could ever possibly use. You just tap into the grid like anybody else. Well, that's, that's interesting.

I'm glad I learned that. Hank, before we get to the news from Mars and ANC Wimbledon, I want to read one quick correction that came in from Elliott, who had a bunch of issues with the way we talked about how we know climate change is real. In that discussion, Hank, we both said that you have to rely on experts and the only way to know as much as a climate scientist does about climate

is to be a climate scientist. Elliot broadly agreed with this, but he also pointed out that the nature of science is for it to be open and available for people to explore and to question and to use the scientific method to come to better understandings, which I think is an important point. And also, he said that it is actually not that complicated to prove to people that we know that humans are causing the earth to get hotter. So I'm just gonna read his explanation

because I thought it was good. People have put tons of effort into measuring humanity's greenhouse emissions and it lines up reasonably well with similarly large efforts to measure atmospheric carbon worldwide. Here's a NASA visualization, which we will put on the Patreon. It's a pretty straightforward,

pretty straightforward physical model, say that this will cause climate change, so it's hard to see how it wouldn't affect global temperatures. And importantly, those human emissions are literally the only known factor that remotely explains the rising temperatures that we see. So there you go.

Hank, yes, John. Did anything happen on a cold dead rock millions of miles from Earth yesterday? No, but yes, many things happened on Mars yesterday and other cold dead rocks as well had had things happen to them. But the thing the thing that I'm going to talk about is not did not actually happen on Mars. It happened here on Earth. So, John, you know that they're working on a they're working on a new launch system to get heavier, bigger stuff farther and faster than ever before. And so we've got this engine that's going to take us hopefully if all works out as planned and you know we don't need to start knitting our own shirts to Mars. There's, and this engine, you may have heard of it John, it's called the RS25 and when

I say you've heard of it you probably haven't heard it called that but it's just the same engine that they used on the space shuttle. They had three of them on the main engine of the space shuttle, and it burns liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen to create water, and it throws off a tremendous amount of hot gas, and that exits very quickly from the nozzle 13 times the speed of sound. So if it kept going that fast, it would go from Los Angeles to New York in about 15 minutes. Luckily, it doesn't or it would be a problem. But it basically, it's a huge engine. It's about the size of like a Honda Fit.

And it has these four extremely fast turbo pumps and it's a reliable thing. We've never had significant problems with them. And we know how they work really well because we use them for a long time in the space shuttle. And instead of having three of them, the space launch system will have four of them. And they've actually changed the controller a little bit, the kind of brain that operates how the engine works,

how much gas is going through it and how the valves and pumps and things are going, change that a little bit so that it actually produces about 10% more thrust than they did when they were used in the space shuttle. And we were doing our first tests of that new control system for the SLS or maybe not our first, but they're doing,

they're testing it right now, actively testing the RS25 engine. And if you want to watch a video of that, I'll throw that one up on the Patreon as well, because man, is it impressive. They put it in this building, I just love it. They like, put it in this building. And then the building has to be anchored into the ground super hard. It's usually the problem you have is that it like, you don't want a building to, like, you're fighting against gravity, but this building has to fight against this engine that's trying

to lift it into space. So there's this giant engine that has to channel the gases as it's exiting the engine out, but it's just very impressive, and it runs for a very long time, like about eight minutes, which does not seem like a long time, until it is a giant engine that produces just massive, massive amounts of thrust. So working on that, and doing testing of it right now. Wow, that sounds pretty exciting actually.

It's a pretty cool thing. Yeah. Yeah. Rocket science, John. Well, the news from AFC Wimbledon is not rocket science as they say In fact just moments ago aFC Wimbledon wrapped up one of their final friendlies before the soccer season officially starts Against scum Thorpe on August 5th. So it is the end of our long international nightmare Hank Finally at last we are returning to regular soccer. However, just played Aldershot Town in a preseason friendly. Aldershot Town currently playing in the fifth tier of English soccer, so not in the football league, not

a team in the football league. Yep. However, we did not lose to them. We also did not beat them. It was a one one after all. And our new goalkeeper, McDonnell, had a very good game, which on the upside means that he might be very good. On the downside, that means that there were a lot of chances for Alder shut down.

So he made some very good saves and that is the news. We just have to hope that the preseason has been mixed results, I would say. And I think we have to have the ambition and the hope that the betting markets are right. So the betting markets, Hank, have AFC Wimbledon finishing 17th-ish. And that would suit my interest just fine because I love sponsoring a third tier English soccer team. And it is my ambition to continue sponsoring one until one day they have a brand new stadium and maybe with some luck and some investment

can become a second tier English soccer team. I mean that, that, I mean, John, don't you want them to be a first year English soccer team, though? I do. That would be great. And certainly all things are possible. But there would have to be some kind of collapse in the British economy that I don't want to root for. Because right now, the all the Premier League teams can spend like an actual hundred million dollars every summer. So it seems pretty far away for AFC World Inter be spending that kind of money but life is full of surprises and certainly who could have guessed that they would be promoted six times in there since being reborn. So anything is possible. I'm going

to keep my fingers crossed, but in the meantime, we're not losing to Aldershot Town, which is also something. I mean, could you, since they did so well, could you like recruit a couple Aldershot Town players maybe? Certainly, I don't think that's out of the question.

Some players. I was watching Jamaica play the United States of the Gold Cup, and the Jamaican keeper was unfortunately injured, and so they had to bring in their backup keeper who is a 30-year-old playing in the second tier of Sweden and I was watching the second tier Swedish goalkeeper and he was making some really good saves and I did think you know I have Neil Ardley's phone number I could text him.

I got yeah because I'm sure nobody else is watching that game. Yeah, well actually it is possible that I was the only person watching that game. I don't know. I have no idea. Hank, what did we learn today? Oh, John, we learned that cars have like a couch and two chairs in them. So why do I have to pay so much for couches and chairs? We also learned that lying to your babysitting clients is sometimes the right thing to do. Uh, absolutely, 100%.

And we learned that you gotta kill all those mosquitoes. So if you see a mosquito, kill a mosquito, do not worry about the ecological consequences. And maybe if we all just work together, we can get them all. Which we definitely can't. Yeah, I was going to say, I don't. I mean, if we work together, like as a species, increase, you know, dramatically increase

funding for anti-malarial efforts maybe, but I think just by smashing them one at a time, probably not. And lastly, we learned that turtles all the way down does not have that many actual turtles in it. It is a low turtle book, John. Mostly, mostly a metaphor. Hey, thanks, John, for podcasting with me. Thanks, people.

Oh, it's been a big pleasure. Who listened and sent in questions? If you would like to send in questions, you could do that at Hank and John at gmail.com. John, you're on Twitter. I am.mail.com. John, you're on Twitter. Sometimes at twitter.com slash John Green. I'm on Twitter at twitter.com slash hank green. Dear Hankinjon is produced by Rosie on Halsey Road, and Sheridan Gibson, our editor is Nicholas Jenkins,

Victoria von Jorners, our head of community and communications. Our music is by the great Gunnarola hank. We are now going to go record our extra podcast for Patreon this week in Ryan's, which you can find out more about over at patreon.com slash deerhankajon. Thanks again for listening and as we say in our hometown, don't forget to be awesome.