Dear Hank & John - 128: AARTcoin

Episode Date: February 19, 2018

Are hitchhiker ants okay? How do I tell my parents I want to study economics? Who is responsible for calling back after a dropped call? And more! Email us: [e-mail] patreon.com/dearhankandjohn Thanks to RXBAR for sponsoring this episode! For 25% off your first order, visit RXBAR.com/dearjohn or RXBAR.com/dearhank and enter "dearjohn" or "dearhank" at checkout. You Will Be Able to Say a Thousand Words: https://astoundingmagic.com/collections/books/products/you-will-be-able-to-say-a-thousand-words MarbleLympics: https://www.youtube.com/user/jelleknikkers

Hello and welcome to Dear Haken John! Nor is I for thinking of Dear John and Haken. It's a comedy podcast where two brothers answer your question, give you the dubious advice and bring you all the weeks news from both Mars and AFC Wimbledon. How are you John? I'm doing well Haken as you know it's a Limpic season which can only mean one thing in our family. It's the Marvelble Limpix season. That is actually correct.

Right now in our house we spend 12 hours a day watching the proper Olympics and 12 hours a day watching the Marble Limpix. To be clear, I love the Olympics. I think the Olympics is great. And I love these times when this sort of feels a little bit more like we're living in a globally productive society. We're connected by things that we like rather than things that we hate. And, uh, yes, but also the marble Olympics, John. Oh, the marble Olympics. It's just, it's just fantastic. Every year, Henry and I go all in on the savage speeders and every year the arrangers break our hearts.

So for the people who don't know what's happening, there's a YouTube channel called, do you know how to pronounce this, John? Yella? Yella's marble runs. Yeah. And it is a channel of marble races and other marble competitions.

And this happens all year round, but then during Olympic seasons, both Summer and Winter, there is a marble Olympics where marbles compete against each other in various events like high jump and speed, downhill speed runs and other. And it's just, they have a lot.

There's a bunch of teams. Yeah. There's marble curling. There's marble curling, which apparently this year got, they canceled the marble curling because it was too boring. And he's recreating it a second time. Yeah. Well, I for one found every every I find every moment of the marble

Olympics absolutely engrossing and I just it it is outlandishly entertaining. It impossibly entertaining and it just goes to show you that while times are dark on parts of YouTube on other parts of YouTube, the marble Olympics are showing us all how we can come together and hate everyone who roots for the arrangers. I've been rooting for Team Galactic, and that's not going super well so my backup team, which is a new team this year,

the Midnight Wisps, has been my team, and they're actually doing quite well. Yeah, our backup team is the Oceanics, which also. Oh, that's Catherine's team, and they are not doing well. They Yeah, our backup team is the Oceanax, which also... Oh, that's Catherine's team and they are not doing well. They have not had a good Olympic so far, but the arc of history is long and it bends toward the savage speeders. Well, I'm really excited to see how the Marvel Olympics goes this year. It's fun.

It's especially good viewing for commercial times, because when you're watching the Olympics, you can't skip the commercials because it's fun. It's especially good viewing for commercial times. Because when you're watching the Olympics, you can't skip the commercials because it's live. And also, it's the same commercials over and over again. And like, yes, I'm aware that you want me to buy an exercise bike. Yeah. Or whatever. There's a lot of Chevrolet commercials, man.

Yeah. Yeah, they would like me to know that Chevrolet has won a lot of awards. And look, good on you. GM, thanks for making cars that people use. I think I'm not going to say that until and unless GM comes and sponsors this podcast, I do want to say something else, though, of great importance. You may remember the amazing, amazing Tiger poem I read written by a six-year-old last week here on the pod. That poem is published in a book and you can buy the book. The book is

called You Will Be Able to Say A Thousand Words and you can buy it and it will support 826 DC, which is an awesome organization that brings free writing programs for students between the ages of six and eighteen. So we're gonna put a link in the show notes to that book so that you can buy it. I have bought a copy. If that tiger poem is any indication, the book will bring me so much joy and consolation. Cool. All right. Sweet, excellent. And do you have a poem for us today, John?

Also, you can find the marble Olympics by just Googling marble Olympics or marble Olympics. It's not difficult to discover. If you would like to enjoy this piece of pure joy in which you can see, marbles competing against each other, completely free of any of the human story that goes into the Olympics. Right, both the great thing and the problem with the Olympics

is that it's full of human stories. The great thing about the marble Olympics is that you get to impose human stories upon marbles. And that in general for whatever reason, it just works much better. I don't have a poem for today, Hank. We're going to skip right into the questions. This first question comes from Ellen who writes, Dear John and Hank, I have two dogs and two cats.

If my dog, Winston, brings me a ball to throw, I throw it. And both Winston and one of the cats chase it, and the cat gets there first. But Winston is ultimately the one who returns the ball to me. In this situation, whose ball is it? I purchased the ball. Winston is keeping the activity going, but the cat is the one on the other end of my throw. So who is actually in possession of the ball?

If a fight should break out between the three of us, which one of us has the right to keep the ball? Oh. Not jealous like a felon. Ellen. Well Ellen, I have heard it said, and I don't know what this means, that possession is 9-10ths of the law. So I guess there's a 90% chance that whoever is holding the ball owns the ball? Uh, well whoever is holding the ball in a moment probably owns the ball in that moment.

The question is legally who, like, who has the right to sell the ball? Ah, well, I see. So the situation, Ellen, is that you own both your dog and your cat. That would be my argument. My argument would be that even when the dog owns the ball, you own the ball because you decide, like, when you say Winston, drop it, and he's like, no, and then you say Winston, drop it again,

and he gets that sad-eyed look on his face. Uh-huh. That's because he knows he's gonna drop it. Right, or else you're gonna sell Winston. Oh, he knows he's going to drop it. Right. Or else you're going to sell Winston. Oh God, Hank. Don't take it. Oh God. Don't sell Winston. Just because he won't give you a ball. John, the thing that interests me most about this question is the idea that can a ball be owned by no one? I mean, I almost think that it has to be owned by no one in this case.

It's a bit of a Schrodinger's ball situation, really. Okay, I don't, I think the ball is definitely not alive, but also kind of not data, I suppose. No, it's just that the ball is in more than one state at the same time. Like the ball is both Winston's and the cats. PS, did the cat not get a name? I don't think the cat was named.

I think it seemed to be that it was one of the cats and there's multiple cats and we're not like, maybe it's a different cat each time, it's unclear. That's pretty brutal, Ellen. You know, to have one named pet in your home and just refer to your other pet as the cat, that's brutal. Yeah, can we name the cat? Can we name it like Sharpie?

Is the first thing that I saw on my desk? That's great, I love it. Yeah, so I think the cat belongs to all of you together and you have to make votes about its future and it's a majority rule situation. The ball are the cat. Is it the cat that everybody owns or is it the cat? No, Winston owns the cat, the ball owns the cat, and Ellen owns the cat, and all three of them have to vote about the cat's future. That's how I'm sticking with it. It's a democracy now. It's a co-ownership situation and everybody has to have an exactly exactly one third so that nobody has a voting

Majority there. That's right. So I guess if you get two out of three then then you decide what to do with the the ball I recently wanted to John do a project for awesome perk where I get a gather river rocks and I paint them and put Henklerfish on them and then and then I realized that That I didn't own those rocks and that actually someone did that being the United States government. Oh boy. Because they own everything. They own the land. You can't just take stuff. It's very strange that everything, it's kind of like everything is owned by someone. And there are these times when suddenly objects transfer ownership from you and implicitly but also maybe legally.

When you put an item in a trash can, that item becomes owned by the garbage company. It's not yours anymore. And if a stranger takes something out of that trash can, they're actually, are they stealing from the garbage company? Or is that owned by no, I think that they're technically stealing from the garbage company?

Can I ask you a follow-up question, Hank? Yes, please. If, for instance, there are two to 300,000 aluminum cans, full back doors, rubber tires that appear to have once belonged to four wheelers, etc. In the white river at any given moment. Does all of that belong to the government? I think so.

I feel like it might belong, I feel like it might be my problem. I was kayaking. It got briefly warm enough for me to kayak here. And when I say briefly, I mean for like 12 minutes. I was kayaking upriver and I literally passed a door going downriver. It was like, it had a door knob in it. Wait, but John, did you try to open the door

because maybe if you'd gotten the right angle and you could just like open it up, there'd be a learning a situation. Yeah, that is exactly why I didn't open the door. I like my life. I'm not trying to fall into some other dimension. I saw Outlander. I don't wanna be removed from my family.

No, no, I did not open the door. I did immediately think if I open this door, I'm gonna lead a completely different life and go to a different dimension and live in a world probably where like, I don't know, snicker bars are sentient or something, but I didn't open the door. Let's move on to questions from another question from our listeners. We've gone too far down the rabbit hole.

Okay, I've also just Googled who owns trash. So I definitely feel like we need to take a turn, turn, turn into what we call last week, hard normal or something? Hard normal. This next question. Oh, it's you ask it, you ask it. It's my turn. This next question comes from Des.

Who asks, hey, Hank and John. That's not the name of the podcast, Des. That was a little aggressive, Des. Hey, when you go somewhere and you accidentally take some ants with you at home, when you go somewhere and you accidentally take some ants with you at home. When you go somewhere and you accidentally take some ants with you, do they just fit right into the ant colony wherever you end up or are they put in a constant state of anxiety

because their loved ones are nowhere to be found? Worried about ants, deaths, okay, first of all, do you accidentally, Hank, what? This note has a PS and you chose not to read the PS, and I cannot believe that you chose not to read the PS. Holy snooze. I'm just bad at this, John. God, the PS is can't wait to read an absolutely remarkable thing,

which is Hank's book. It comes out in September, and it's available for pre-order now. And Hank just blatantly refused to read the PS about his own book and how somebody is excited to read it. OK, now go on. Do ants experience ant anxiety when put into a colony that is not their home colony? Well, I also, it seems that death frequently accidentally takes ants somewhere. Well, that's true for any of us.

Do I? Oh yeah, sure. Picnic baskets. Oh, it seems like the major way. Okay, is this like hitchhikers on the cuffs of your pants? Yeah. Just answer the question, you're the science person. So, usually these ants die.

Oh, that's nice. Well, to be clear, every ant dies, and that's just how it works. Ants have, there are no immortal ants. We've determined this. Ants have a, basically, I don't know, I think they could call it like a passport pheromone, maybe, is what they call it. And for some ant species, the passport pheromone is species-specific. So any ant can go to another ant colony and they'll just like, hey, what's up?

Steve, how's it going? You're an ant with us now, but many, and in fact, I think most ant species have colony-specific passport pheromones, and if they show up at a new colony, they will be killed as an invader. I think, but sometimes ants with, this actually happens, sometimes ants with passport-specific, colony-specific pheromones get incorporated into a colony,

even though they probably shouldn't. The answer just sort of like, oh, I get it, I see what this is. It's not an attack. It's just Steve, who got here on the picnic basket from the lake. But this all does depend on the finding a colony of the same species to integrate

into. They don't find a colony, they will die because they need the support of the colony to survive. And if they find a colony of a different species of ants, they will definitely get killed. Okay. All right. So you're saying there's a chance. I'm saying there's a chance sometimes even two colonies will come together and form a single colony Which is pretty unusual because usually when usually colonies Consider each other antagonistic Wow, that's interesting. It's I mean I don't want to get too deep into comparing ants to humans. Dot, dot, dot.

Let's move on to the next question. But before we do that, let's plug the YouTube channel Ants Canada. Because if you're looking for weird YouTube channels that are about very specific but amazing things, Ants Canada is a really great one as well. And there are different clans of ants that are taken care of by this ant guy and he's really excited and Just it's one of my favorite ways to spend 15 minutes. You plugged ants Canada last week Yeah, well You know what I'm talking about John you've now officially plugged ants Canada more than you've plugged your own book

This next question comes from Beth and writes dear John and, my name is Beth and I'm an optical dispenser. My job is to help people choose new glasses and many people are... Wait, wait, wait, optical dispenser definitely sounds like a machine. No, it doesn't. It sounds like a person. She dispenses the opticals. Like, like a disp... Like, is that a phrase from another country? To me, you dispense like there's two situations in which you dispense something. Like, is that a phrase from another country?

To me, you dispense, like, there's two situations in which you dispense something. One, you are a vending machine. Two, it's marijuana. Oh, no, I think three, it's glasses. My job is to help choose new glasses and many people I help get a huge amount of anxiety when selecting new glasses. Yeah, no joke, Beth. Me too.

Oh yeah. Many people want to change their look, but don't know what to look for. Whereas other people very much don't want to change their look and get upset when we don't have the exact same glasses. So I come to you, brother's green. As Hank really hasn't changed the look of his glasses much, and John has changed multiple times. I'm a big fan of your current pair, John.

They do good things for your jawline. Thank you, Beth. I feel like you may have some excellent dubious advice. How do I get people to feel more at ease when choosing their glasses? Oh, it's not easy. I mean, it's funny you should mention that, Beth, because I'm reading your question through lenses that I can just barely see out of, because I like these glasses, but I am nervous to even try to get new lenses into them because what if they break and then I have to get new glasses and it would be such a nightmare.

Yeah, I'm looking at your glasses right now, John, because I could not call them to bind. And they do look nice. I think that they do look nice and they do do nice things for your jawline. And I don't think that your neck is disappearing at all the way that some people involved with those comments for some reason are saying. Well, it's fine. It's good because the nice thing about people criticizing my appearance is that I don't actually worry

much about my appearance, but I do worry about what horrible diseases I might have that are resulting in these changes to my appearance. So spend a lot of time googling what might be wrong with my neck. Anyway. Oh, no. I've been moving on. I have, I worry that my teeth have changed shape over the years and that they're moving around.

Oh, yeah. It's really actually pretty amazing to have like at least one video of me talking every week for the last 11 years. So I can go and be like, was my tooth like that before or is that new? It has been that way for at least 11 years. So I think that's okay. Yeah, no, it is a very weird thing to look at your face for several hours a week

while editing one's videos. And I don't think that it is particularly good hours a week while editing one's videos. And I don't think that it is particularly good for one's overall quality of health. But I like making vlog by those videos and I'm grateful for the opportunity. But to get to Beth's question, Hank. OK, let's do it.

What in your experience, what have been things that people have said that have helped you pick out glasses? Well, I think it helps to have somebody who you trust a lot. So, in general, like establishing yourself as an authority is actually something that can go a long way, and ways to do that are to say, like,, I'm Beth. I, I, this is, this is what I do. And my clients include Nicholas Cage. No, no, that's terrible advice. That's terrible advice.

Yeah, whatever. What a, what a, what a, what a, what a, what a, a lot of the last time I've been in the little hand. It's the last time I've been meaningfully engaged with popular culture, it was apparently 2007. Anyway, that is terrible advice.

It is good advice to establish your authority, but the way you do that, I think, is saying, hi, I'm Beth, and I am an optical dispenser. And for the last X number of years, I've worked with people to get them glasses that fit well and that they like the look of. And that's what I want to do with you and it may take a while but we'll be patient and we'll get something that you're really happy with.

And I think encouraging people in that way. And then I really like the specificity you use, even when talking about my glasses, where you think, you know, what the glasses bring out, what they help with, what the downsides might be. You know, if the lenses are really small, it might affect your field of vision, et cetera. Just showing your expertise through calm, generous, kind readings of the situation. I don't think that's gonna make it an un-anxious experience for a lot of people, because it's a big choice.

It's, you know, the one thing that I wear every single day, I don't think that's gonna make it an unanxious experience for a lot of people because it's a big choice. It's, you know, the one thing that I wear every single day for years at a time. So it is a big, important choice in some of life. Yeah, and it's on your face, man. It makes your face look different. And when I take my glasses off, people are like, oh, okay. Yeah, I always think. Who is that, man? Yeah, I don't look like myself without my glasses.

So, I mean, I think't look like myself without my glasses. So, I mean, I think one thing I like about your question Beth is that you obviously understand why your job's important and why it helps people. And I think if you just bring that attitude to it that you're there to try to help people and try to be a calm presence in a difficult situation, I think that's the right track to me.

Absolutely. And then, you know, what helps me, honestly, is having Katherine there, because Katherine, I feel like, is the one who has to look at me all the time. And so, ultimately, it's more her decision than mine. Sure. This next question comes from Niv who asks, dear Hank and John, I'm a 17 year old girl, and my parents, at least my mom, is hell bent on making me study math for my undergrad. Well, my dad is a bit more cool, not only a bit, with me doing economics, the love of my life.

I feel like I'm letting my parents down by not being enthusiastic about getting a degree in maths. I love the subject, but to syllabi for a good math course is cover all the topics I utterly despise. How do I break the news to my parents that I might not in fact be doing math and that I will be doing economics to go on to become like the president of a country or a successful business person with no regrets? Live long and prosper, Niv. Is an economics and math the same thing? Oh, and what I gotta say to Nive's parents is come on! Yeah, I mean, your child could be studying

12th century French poetics. By the way, I know there are people in our audience who are studying 12th century French poetics and I thank you, that is good and noble work. But I mean, from the perspective of parents who are worried about, you're, you're, you're, you're worried about. Yeah. In business, I think studying economics,

you're gonna be fine. Nive, just study economics. Just this like a, like a long history. Do you have like, like generations of mathematicians? And your family, like, is your great, great, great grandfather, like, Gauss, or like some other famous old mathematician, Blaze Pascal. Mm, yeah.

I mean, even Pascal, though, wasn't just a mathematician. Can't you make the case to your parents that you're gonna learn a lot of math along the way to your economics degree and also it seems to me that economics majors are very employable like Can you just promise your parents you're gonna do a math focused economic? Yeah, it's clearly not the concern if you're trying to get a job economics is definitely better than pure maths not the concern. If you're trying to get a job, economics is definitely better than pure maths. And often, if you have a math degree, you're going to end up working in something related

to economics like finance. But in terms of like, put aside job training, I'm not interested in that argument because it seems like your parents probably just want you to continue the line of the hundreds or possibly thousands of years of mathematicians in your family. And what you say to that is, I wanna do the thing I wanna do. And you didn't have a child because you wanted the child to become

one particular thing. You had the child because you wanted the child to be able to decide and make good things happen that they wanted to do. That level of control either is sort of out-like outsize in your own mind, Niv, and you are sort of perceiving to more pressure than they intend to be putting on you to choose one specific career path,

or it's just too much and they should not be doing that. And you should be choosing to do the thing and feel free to and excited about doing the thing that you love and you want to do. All alternately, I don't know if there's a double major in your country. I know a lot of places there aren't double majors, but it seems like it'd be easy to do a double major in your country. I know a lot of places there aren't double majors, but it seems like it'd be easy to do a double major in math and economics because half the classes are the dang same. Like I took an economics class in college

and it was all flippin' math. I mean, maybe I don't understand what math is, but it felt like math to me. There were a lot of numbers and I had to use those numbers to create a lot of geometrical curve shapes. So I don't know, it felt very mathematical. Anyway, we wish you luck, Niv.

I'm sorry that you're going through this difficult time. I hope that you get to pursue all of your passions in life. I want to get to another question, though, Hank. This one comes from Hella? Yep. All right. She writes, dear John and Hank, my My name is Hella and I grew up on a farm that my family has owned for over 300 years. Wait, is this like the mathematician question except with farms instead?

Yes, I am the second to four children, all of whom are now adults. According to older threat, my older brother has first dibs on the farm, then me, and then our younger sisters. Older threat, by the way, which I'm very sure I'm mispronouncing, is the ancient Scandinavian thing where that decides how land gets passed down through families. It is very old. Oh my goodness. And it has its own Wikipedia page.

According to that, my older brother has first dibs on the farm than me and then our younger sisters. It has always been expected that one of us should take over the farm as it is the norm, but all of us have moved away and I'm pretty sure none of us actually want to be farmers. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with being a farmer. It's just not really for me. Our father brought it up a few years ago that we should decide who gets to take over the farm. And well, is it wrong to want to sell a farm that has been in our family for several hundred years? Do we owe our forefathers to sacrifice enough to keep this farm in our family? There's no guarantee that we would be able to find a buyer that would keep the farm a farm,

but I know that I really do not want to be a farmer ever since I was a little girl. I've been quite squeamish around a lot of the stuff that happens on a farm, and I really have not grown out of it. But have you seen how many movies there are where the people who want to sell the family farmer the villains? No silent ease. Hella. I feel like maybe in Norway there are more of those films,

because I haven't seen that many. I've seen it a few. But it would appear that this is a pretty important and big part of Norwegian culture that I had no idea about just for mooding the Wikipedia page for oldest threat, which I think I just knocked that pronunciation out of the park. And it is a fascinating law

and it is the actual existing law in Norway. And if somebody who isn't in the family buys the farm, the family members have the right to get it back, which is currently about 10 years. So they can just buy it for the additional price plus the cost of any improvements. If you sell, if you like get rid of the farm, you could get it back potentially, though there are also rules about making that not a thing.

But I bet we have different opinions about this. Well, I mean, ever since I came to Montana, I have had a different sort of feeling about farms and families and and like the the seriousness of this Not that like I think that this should be like this is how you know should it impact you It's just like my understanding of this has changed a lot having known farmers Ben friends with generational farmers and also new farmers, and seeing the kind of like the difficulty of that job. It is a very difficult and not particularly thankful job in which you have to live far away from population centers and that is pretty isolating and it is a difficult difficult thing to do for a living. And also the strife and difficulty that it creates within families when you have this

extraordinarily valuable thing, but you don't like the way of turning that huge amount of land compared to what most people own in terms of land into money is a really stressful difficult thing because you're always taking out loans to buy the seed and to work the land. And then at the end of the season, hopefully you can pay those loans off and that happens every year and it's just really intense. But also like that responsibility that people feel to their ancestors

to and to the institution that they have been raised in and part of for their whole lives, but also for their entire imagined cultural history, which is a very real thing. The intensity of that is, I wouldn't have understood it if I hadn't seen it. I certainly haven't experienced it firsthand, but I've seen it secondhand. Yeah, I mean, my feeling is that you should wait, you shouldn't make the decision now if you don't have to. Maybe your father's saying, I want to know what the future holds, but I think you can say, well, right now you have the farm and we're so grateful that you do and we love

we love it and we want to support you in any way that we can and when it comes time to make a decision we will make a decision because I also don't think that you can really know how you'll have not only how you'll feel but how you're at least three siblings will feel when the time comes to really make the decision about, you know, if there comes a time when your father feels like he can't do the work or can't oversee the work, then you have to have that hard conversation. But I think you have to have it with all of your siblings because it is so complicated, Hank, as you say.

I mean, there is something very powerful about knowing that this is the place where your ancestors' bones are, in many cases, literally, and certainly that you're doing the same work in the same place that they were. There's something powerful about that and something comforting about that, but at the same time, it's very easy to romanticize that. And hella, having grown up on a farm farm knows that, in fact, the actual work is utterly unromantic. Yes, can confirm having hard farmer friends. Yeah, I mean, yeah. Yeah, you have to slaughter exactly one animal before you completely lose the sense of romance.

Yeah, I agree with you. And it doesn't sound to me like you've had a ton of conversations with your siblings I agree with you. And it doesn't sound to me like you've had a ton of conversations with your siblings about this especially. And I would suggest definitely having those conversations sooner rather than later. Which reminds me that today's podcast is brought to you by Conversations With Your Siblings.

Conversations with Your Siblings. It's the whole podcast. It's podcast is also brought to you by generations of mathematicians. Stretch is back deep, deep into your family history and you can't go into economics because of it, I guess, maybe. And today's podcast is also brought to you by Anz Canada. Anz Canada, Hank won't stop promoing it. And of course this podcast is brought to you by the Marble Olympics. Marble Olympics available at Yellas Marble Runs on YouTube where you can spend your commercial time while watching the Olympics watching non-human competitors made of glass. This next question comes from Crystal who asks, dear Hank and John, why should I preorder

hanks upcoming book an absolutely remarkable thing comes out September 25th available for preorder now? Seven months in advance. I could preorder the book in early September the meantime use that $20 to like, I don't know, invest in the stock market. Put it in the bank for small interest

or dig a hole to bury it in the ground. PS, it comes out September 25th and it's available for preorder now. Best regards, Crystal. PS, it comes out September 25th and it's available for pre-order now. Best regards, Crystal. Oh, Crystal, thanks. Thanks for doing the hard work for me. All right, Crystal, I wanna offer you a couple of futures in which you're gonna be very grateful

that you ordered Hank's book seven months in advance. Future number one, the entire world economy has collapsed. Okay. Everything, the stock market, the, has collapsed, but not only that, all of the savings accounts, people, there was a bank run, and people tried to get their cash out, and it turned out the FDIC couldn't ensure

all of the deposits. Sure, sure. And suddenly, the money that you had in the bank is worth pennies on the dollar. But you know what you have, Crystal? You have a physical, a really beautiful, physical object, a hardcover book that you can use not only for reading and consolation, but also when it becomes necessary to beat off the invaders that are attacking you because the social fabric has completely disintegrated.

Or if it's an absolute emergency to start a fire. Or, or, or, barter, because everyone knows that this book is worth the amount that it was when you purchased it. So it was when you bought it, it was worth, you know, $20 or whatever. Sure. And then now it's still worth $20. Actual money, even though $20 bill might be only able to buy you like a stick of gum.

So this thing is the new currency of the future. That's right, and the future people are just going to be handing around hardcover books in exchange for eggs and tomatoes. Not not hardcover books, John. Just the one book. It's basically Bitcoin. It's my book is it's a cryptocurrency.

That's right. It's a great deal. It's a book. Crystal, get in on the ground floor of this exciting new cryptocurrency that comes with a physical book. It is in no way. It is in no way a pyramid scheme, Crystal. But if you don't get in at the very beginning, you will lose all of your money.

So the real reason to... So the real reason to... Crystal, the real reason to order Hank's book now is so that you don't forget to do it later. And also because it helps the publisher measure enthusiasm and excitement about the book. And it is very helpful to both the future of the book and the book's author when the publisher believes that there are lots of people who are excited about it. So really, if you have been considering pre-ordering Hank's book, please do. Please do it now, really. It's it is, and I'm not just saying this, I wouldn't just say this. I would find ways to talk about it, that weren't dishonest,

but I wouldn't be as effusive as I'm about to be. It is a really, really wonderful book and it explores what now feels like so fascinatingly and it explores what fame feels like and the way that it distorts your world view and the way that our general worship of fame has distorted the wider culture in really fascinating moving brilliant ways. It is a special, special novel. So you will also be grateful to have been in on the ground floor of the story of an absolutely remarkable thing, but the biggest thing that you can do is help the book and it's author by communicating to the publisher that people are excited about it. the book and it's author by communicating to the publisher that people are excited about it. Yeah, and that has happened. And so, the people I'm working with are at Penguin and have been so supportive and excited

and so I really appreciate everybody who has pre-ordered, it really does help. And whether you do that online or whether you go to your bookstore, and if you're wondering how you pre-order something at a bookstore, you go in and you say, I would like to pre-order this book, and they will say, okay, I'll call you when it's in, and that's that. And it works. Alright, Hank, we've got a question from MP who writes, Dear John and Hank, when you're on the phone with someone in the call drops, who's in charge of calling back the originator of the first call since they started it?

Or should you think of it as taking turns? I often panic and quickly try to decide if I'm the more adult person in the conversation. And so I should take the reins and call back. But even I know that's not a great method. Please help me to adult better, bad at avoiding social awkwardness, MP. What happens when we drop a call?

It's usually like we both do it, right? We both call it back at the same time. And then sometimes we both get busy signals. And then a lot of times I'll be on your voice mail and I'll be like, why don't you pick up your phone? We were talking 30 seconds and I'll see you and I'll be like, oh, right, he's trying to get to me too. Okay.

Yeah, we need a system for this, Hank. But what is an inefficient system? Is it like the younger person? Because you have to have some like objective thing. Because the call drops for both of you at the same time. So it's not something to do with the context of the phone call. That's something beyond that. So like whose name comes first in the alphabet, kind of thing.

I like that. It's who's the name that you usually use to refer to that person. So not necessarily they're given first name. Whatever, you know, if you call them shrimp, then shrimp. If, you know, if you call them apple, then apple, whatever it is, the first letter of that name that you use to talk to the person the person whose name is closest to the beginning of the alphabet is the person who who does the callback Caviaught if more than five seconds pass

Then it's a complete free for all because then you start to worry like well did they hang up on me on purpose or did they get in some kind of horrible accident? Like are they is there an a my that's what my that's where my head goes immediately right is there an emergency so don't like don't say oh well you know apple hasn't called me back I guess that apple just thought the phone call was over do call them back because for all you know know, they might be at the, you know, like at the bottom of a crevass. I once called Sarah after badly injuring my knee while trying to walk up the hill after kayaking. And if Sarah hadn't answered the phone, I probably would have just stayed down

there for 127 hours. John, what if the phone call is between our cousin Mike and our uncle Mike? Oh, that's great. That's something I hadn't thought of and that's a great point, Hank. What if they have the exact same name? Yeah, not only they say they have same last name too.

I think it goes to the middle. Goes to the middle name? I think it goes to the middle name. Now, in the case of our cousin, Mike, and our uncle, Mike, unfortunately, that is not a tiebreaker. So then I think you've got to go to junior or senior and since Juh comes before.

So in the alphabet, I think our cousin, Mike, calls back our uncle, Mike in that situation. I think that also would happen just by virtue of the fact that our uncle, Mike Mike would be like, Mike's gonna call me back. Oh yeah, no, I can't see our Uncle Mike really rushing to do anything. Phone call.

Yeah, just, I love my Uncle Mike so much. He's an amazing, amazing person. I really, I just, I admire so much about him. He is the coolest, he is such a cool guy. However, if there is a disconnected call, the chances that he's gonna call me back are well below zero. Negative. Negative chances that you're gonna get the call back from from Uncle Mike. Speaking of negative chances, Hank, can I share with you the news from AFC Webber? Oh no! Oh no. Oh, I'm sorry. I've been following and I feel like I shouldn't be. Am I in my bad luck?

I don't know. So good in January. So very, very, very bad in February. AFC World Cup then have slipped back into the dreaded relegation zone. No. Currently in 21st place, just ahead of the franchise, currently playing its trade in Milton Keynes. Hank, I am not a professional script writer of third-tier English football. Yeah. But if I were, if I were writing the narrative of the 2017-2018 season, I think we all know

where it goes from here. It comes down to the last game of the season on May 5th and either the franchise is going down or the dons are going down and The pressure is unbelievable and I vomit 35 times that morning having flown From the United States to England the night before, and I'm completely unable to enjoy myself, and really regardless of the outcome, I don't know if I'm gonna be able to be happy. That is where the narrative of this season is headed.

There are still 14 games to try to avoid that narrative. But yeah, I mean, it's been a very, very bad February. That's really the only thing that can be said about it. It might change. Hopefully it will change, but the dawns lost 4-2 to Plymouth R-Gyle, 3-1 to Northampton Town, and that was after a 2-1 loss to Barry. So it's been a difficult week. We've got a game against Bristol Rovers coming up, and then Peterborough. I don't know. It's just been a bad month, man. Yeah, yeah.

I mean, you're scoring goals too. Like, none of these are nil numbers. Yeah. It's like the most recent was like two four and it's like two would have been good enough in the first half of the season to win like every game. Yeah, I know, I know. It's just been, it's just weird.

Are they pushing the defense up to try and increase score? I watched I watched all three of these games that we've lost so maybe I'm bad luck actually although we also lost to Rotherham, Rotherham, Roderham. I know everybody's criticizing my pronunciation of it, but I'm not gonna back down anyway I watched all three of these games and they just like they don't look, they just look like behind the game, like they don't look like they're running at the speed that the opponents are running at. They, they just look kind of confused at the back. I don't know. It's frustrating and pretty scary, but we'll

see where it goes from here. I mean, I just really have to hope that the don's find a way to stay up. Yeah. Well, I don't know. I feel like I feel like you're just having a run of bad luck and then it's going to come back. I hope you're right. I hope you're right. What's the news from Mars? John, so you know the Mars 2020 rover getting ready to go to Mars. You also know that sometimes pieces of Mars actually end up on Earth. And this is one of the ways that we've actually, we've been able to study a little bit more about how Mars,

what Mars is like, because we haven't ever been able to like bring a piece of Mars back for us to hold. But because of, you know, asteroid impacts and, you know, various times in the history of the solar system, pieces of Mars have actually been blasted into space, and then occasionally one of those pieces of Mars will land on Earth and we will find one. Now, we've done that a number of times in these Martian meteorites are extremely prized and all of them are all of them are you know in scientific institutions and being studied a

piece one of those Martian meteorites piece of it is actually going to be sent back to Mars Wow, the Mars 2020 rover. Wow. This is not like this is not just a reunification to say, Hey, Mars, you lost this. We found it and we wanted to bring it back to you because, you know, the possession is 910 to the law. So I'm not saying this is yours. But, you know, it's not exactly ours either. So, but because there's this instrument, it's called the scanning habitable environments with raman and luminescence for organics and chemicals, which if that sounds like a really awkward acronym, it's because it is. It's acronym for Sherlock.

Oh. That comes out in the end. It needs a calibration target to, like basically to know exactly a bunch of things about this rock and thus it can calibrate on the rock and then it can get better, more precise data about the rocks that it's measuring on the surface of Mars. And they wanted to use a rock that was Mars-like. And so instead of picking a rock that on Earth that had a lot of Mars-like properties, they are using a piece of Mars that we found on Earth. Wow.

Wow. This is pretty freaking cool. That is pretty freaking cool, man. That is science. So yeah, I'm only about 200 Martian meteorites have been confirmed to be, only 200 meteor ever have been confirmed to be only 200 meteorites confirmed to be from Mars. So this is a pretty pretty pretty you know next level thing to do but it's very cool. That is cool. That is cool. Well, congratulations on your forthcoming

Mars reunification project. I on your forthcoming Mars reunification project. I can only hope that in 2020, when that happens, AFC Wimbledon will be playing in the third tier of English football in their new home at Plow Lane. But time will tell. In the meantime, Hank, what did we learn today? John, we learned that ants have special passport pheromones that allow them to know whether or not

an ant should be friends or you kill them. We learned that the marble Olympics is arguably the best Olympics, but definitely in the top two. And we learned that my new book, an absolutely remarkable thing, comes out September 25th and is going to be the next big thing in cryptocurrency. And lastly, we learned several ways not to pronounce Oldest threat. Oldest threat.

All right, Hank. Thank you for potting with me. Thanks to everybody for listening. We're going to go record our Patrons Only podcast this weekend, Ryan's right now, over at you find out more patreon.com slash the dear Hank and John. But thank you again for potting with me and to everybody who listens and sends in your questions.

I'm sorry, we don't answer more of them. They are an absolute delight to read, and it brings us so much joy to be able to do this every week. And thank you, John. This podcast is produced by Rosiana Halsey-Rohassen, Sheridan Gibson. It's edited by Nicholas Jenkins. Our head of community and communications is Victoria von Jorno, our music in the beginning, and the end, and for this week at Ryan's is by the great Gunnarola, and as they say,

in our hometown. Don't forget to be awesome.