Dear Hank & John - 148: Hiding Nuts

Episode Date: July 23, 2018

Why is there no $25 bill? What happens to a person’s consciousness when they're teleported? What does space smell like? And more! Email us: [e-mail] patreon.com/dearhankandjohn PodCon 2 is happening! Check out the Indiegogo campaign here.

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John, I had my mic sensitivity up a little too high, so my apologies to everybody's ears, but I was just very excited that we had the same elephant finally. Yeah, well, so this was the week when Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin met in Helsinki, Finland. And, well, I would say that I would say that things went about as expected, which is to say that Donald Trump continues to have a jet, to me at least, a genuinely baffling relationship with the president of Russia. And we should say here that Russia is a large and tremendously diverse country of more than 100 million people. And in American discourse, I think a lot of times,

there is this kind of mono with the sizing of Russia that synonymizes Russia with Vladimir Putin. That is wrong, and it's the wrong way to talk about any country. But the American government's relationship with the Russian government seems very different from the leader of the American government's relationship with the leader of the Russian government, which is odd and like almost without precedent as far as I can see in recent American history. Yeah, yeah, and I mean, it's important to recognize that Russia has done a lot of things that, you know, our contrary to a general goal of stabilization of geopolitics,

particularly violating sovereign borders, and encouraging the use of weapons that should, you know, we've agreed as a global community not to use. Those, you know, those things are pretty significant reasons to not be friends. And I'm actually not, I'm, again, pretty, pretty significant reasons to not be friends. And I'm actually not, I'm, again, what concerns me the most is that we see

that the government of the United States seems to have a very different position, even the executive branch of the United States seems to have a very different position than the president, which tells me that something is a miss, but we can't know quite what, we are living amid history, Hank, as is always the president, which tells me that something is a miss, but we can't know quite what. We are living amid history, Hank, as is always the case,

and this story will only be written by history, but I suspect that we will listen back to this recording of this podcast at some point in the future and be like, hmm, they didn't know something that turned out to be important. As if you listened to all episodes of Dear Hank and John, you no doubt will think to yourself many times every episode. I mean, it is our area of expertise failing to know things that turn out to be important.

Oh goodness. If there was a week in which you could have a short poem for me, I wish I had one for you. I just I do want I do want some kind of palette cleanser. So instead, let me tell you a story about my baby, John. Please do. Every morning that I don't get up before Catherine, Orrin will inevitably come into the bedroom while I am still in bed. And and then Orrin will point at my nightstand,

and he will say, Dadda, and I will put on my glasses, and then he will accept the fact that I am there. Oh, that's how you become his father. Yeah, like before that, he won't even look me in the eyes. That's very cute. He's like afraid, he's like, who's this alternate dad dad that happens once a morning in bed and only then?

Yeah, that's very cute. My kids also don't think that I look like myself until I'm wearing my glasses. Can I tell you a cute Alice story? Okay, yes, please. Alice and I were out to dinner a few nights ago, and I told her that wild Taylor had left AFC Wimbledon. Oh no.

And Alice's response was pretty adorable. She said, why would someone leave the best soccer in the whole entire world? Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha That's real good. That's perfect. She had just genuinely baffled, but they're the best soccer in the whole entire world. And then Henry God bless him was like, Alice, they're not. This is a story that your dad has been telling you. That is not really locked in with reality.

You're gonna have to learn a thing or two about dad. You know, necessarily, he doesn't necessarily know all, like not everything he says is totally 100% true. All right, let's move on to questions from our listeners. This first question comes from Mary, who writes, dear John and Hank, so my mom and I were talking and we started to wonder, why is there no $25 bill?

Oh God, Mary, like we need to introduce more currency to the United, sorry. Or introduce more currency to the United. Sorry. Or just more complexity to the system. Let's just let's deal with the problems we have. I'll read the rest of the question. I feel like it would make more sense to make dollar bills mimic our coin values. We should have a one dollar bill. If we're going to mimic coin values, we should not have a one dollar bill because we should not have a one-cent coin. A $5 bill, again, shouldn't exist. A $10 bill, a $25 bill, and so on, just as we have pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters, why is there a $20 bill and not a $25 bill? Should we eradicate the $20 bill along with pennies and replace it with a $25 bill? Pumpkins and penguins, Mary. Mary, thank you

for acknowledging the importance of eradicating pennies. The greatest problem are species currently faces and the one that Congress seems least interested in solving. John, do you know why we have 25 cent coin instead of a 20 cent coin? I don't, tell me. Neither do I, but I'm gonna say this confidently and it will sound like it's true. Back in the day, you'd have a one cent coin,

I mean a one dollar coin, or a one whatever unit coin. And then in order to divide that up, you would physically divide the coin. And so it's much easier to divide the coin into quarters than it is to divide it into fifths, which would be 20 cent coins. And that is my guess based on things

that I know about the past as to why we have 25 cent coins. Now that doesn't tell me why I don't have 25 dollar bills, but maybe because it doesn't make as much sense. I actually think that's a perfectly good hypothesis, but the larger point here is that we do not need to introduce a new kind of bill to the United States currency system. What we need to do immediately is eliminate both pennies and nickels, which now cost the US mint tens of millions of dollars in losses per year. It is ludicrous.

The United States lost 70 million dollars minting pennies last year. And what did we get for that 70 million dollars? We got a currency that no one uses to purchase goods or services. I cannot believe that pennies are still happening. 15 or 20 or 40 years after we should have gotten rid of them. It is a true study in the inefficiency of the US political system. But I don't think we need to introduce a $25 bill because it works fine to have 20s.

You know what I think is interesting about this question, though, John, is that at some point, there was a decision made? Yeah. Like, there was like somebody somewhere made this happen. And maybe it was just sort of like, they had a bunch of bills and this is the one that people were using the most. Maybe it was a collective decision.

I don't know how it happened, but no matter what, there was a point at which this thing that affects our daily lives and like what's in our pockets every day? A lot. But at the same time, if someone had made a different decision, it wouldn't have had any impact on anything. So I think that's very interesting. These big things that like do have like they do like affect this like surface level examination of what the world is like. But if we had gone with $25 bills, nothing would have changed. Yeah, that's very true. The world would essentially be the same place. Yeah, but it would be it would still like it, but if you lived in that world like suddenly that like everything changed to have $25 bills, it would still be very weird and upsetting

and strange and awkward. Like there would be that like deeply uncanny-ness to the world if suddenly like your $20 bills all have fives on them. I wouldn't, not that deeply uncanny. Like I think things would be fine. Like if that's my sliding doors moment and tomorrow I wake up in a completely different universe

that's the exact same except for 20 bills, are 25 dollar bills like I really don't think like the core stuff in my life Is gonna change that much no, but wouldn't it be like wouldn't it wouldn't you know that something had happened? And like never be able to give that up Yeah, I would I would say to I would be like, listen, in my reality yesterday, we had $20 bills and she would be like, I don't know what you're talking about, we've always had $25 bills and it would bother me for the rest of my life, yes.

Although actually, in my particular case, I think I would quickly accept it because I do quickly accept that kind of thing because I'm just like, I got enough mental health problem without adding that to the file. And so I just let it go. That's totally, I think that is definitely the healthiest way to approach it.

Be like, well, I'm not gonna get back to the $20 universe. I don't know how I got to this one. Right, just time to go. So let's just, let's just be like, I was a thing that happened in my brain. Maybe I should go get it, maybe I should go get an MRI or something,

but other than that, we're done worrying about this. Did I ever tell you about when I became convinced that I'd hallucinated? No? All right, so one day I'm walking over to my garden and a black cat falls from out of the sky and lands about five feet in front of me. And it looks at me in a panic and then it runs away.

And I look up and there is a tree up there, but it's like way high up there. And I'm like, well, that was weird. And then I keep walking and I see this deer with like huge antlers, which you never see in the city of Indianapolis, just standing about five feet in front of me. And I was like, all right, I mean, this is getting a little weird, but stuff happens, maybe the deer scared the cat out

of the tree, whatever, this is good. I water the flowers for like 45 minutes and then I walk back. And as I'm walking back, I see three people who appear to be in the tour de France like in full on like like, biker outfit, going incredibly fast, and they turn into my driveway, the driveway of my home, and then they disappear, like, behind a wall.

And then I was like, all right, we've got a problem. Like, we have a, we have a level one emergency problem. And I'm walking up to my house, and the whole time I'm just thinking, one of two things is about to happen. Either I have to call Sarah and tell her that we have a level one emergency problem, or there are gonna be three guys sitting there

taking a rest from their bike trip, and I turned the corner and it was the ladder. What were they doing there? One of them was like affiliated in some way with the renovation that was happening. Oh, okay. They were like, oh yeah, I just wanted to show my buddies the work that we've been doing here on the outdoor kitchen.

And they're like drinking, they're like juice packs with the protein in it and everything. And just sweating buckets. And I was like, I was so relieved. I was just like, yeah, great. Awesome. And can you guys just confirm from me real fast that you are human? Can I poke one of you? This next question is important, John. It's important and it comes from Megan, who asks, Dear Hank and John, my name is Megan. I recently turned 18 and I'll be going to college outside of my home state in the fall. I planned a registered a vote, but I'm not sure how voting will work since I'll be going

to a school and a state that is not my state. Will I need to be home on voting day to vote on issues pertaining to my state? Will I be confined to voting on things that are in the ballot in my college state until I graduate? Thank you for your dubious advice. Mangoes and monkeys, Megan. Do you know the answer to this question, John?

I know that this is one of many ways in which the fact that it is difficult for young people to vote is essentially weaponized by power structures to keep young people from voting. And as a young person, I know that a lot of young people listen to this podcast who may have recently become adults or who are about to become official adults, do not let intentional complexity added to the system to disenfranchise you, stop you from making your voice heard. Because if you do that, you're giving them exactly what they want. The people who

don't want you to matter to the election process. You are giving them the exact thing that they have sought. So figure it out and vote. I agree with that 100% and there is some element of like you will have to figure this out for your particular situation. But basically you have to probably you have to choose which place you would like to vote and register to vote in that place. There are some places where college students have to vote in the place where they came from, not in the place where they are currently living, and so you would have to register in your home state where you came from, and yes, this is intentional complexity that has been added to the system, and then you will have to absentee vote in that place. And so you probably should be setting that up

as quickly as you can because in some places absentee deadlines are quite early. But you can literally Google how to vote in and the name of the state where you are from and figure that out and you have to do that. You have to do that soon. In fact, go ahead and hit the pause button and just do it now. Everybody, excellent point, John. Everybody, if you're over 18 and you haven't registered to vote, pause right now, just do it right now.

It only takes like 10 or 15 minutes. You'll be done, you'll have done it. Just Google, how to register, like just Google register to vote in the state that you wanna register to vote in that also was the place where you live. Hank, I completely agree. We are moving on to another question.

This one's from Taylor, who writes, hello, John and Hank. I've had this conversation a bunch of times with a bunch of people and this is it. Is there at least one person from every country in New York City right now? I think yes, but I've had many people disagree. I'm curious to hear what you guys think.

Best wishes, Taylor, from Boseman, Montana. Oh, hey, Taylor, and Bos Boseman Montana. No, hey Taylor in Boseman Montana. You and Hinker basically neighbors, you're only a six hour drive away from each other. I am very interested in the answer to this question. I don't, my guess, my guess would be that there are times when there aren't. I think that there are probably times when there aren't. I think that there are probably times when there aren't.

I think a lot of times there is a person from every country in New York City, but I think on January 17th, maybe not. I've lived in New York, and on January 17th, and also in the height of the summer, it's basically empty. Who's there? There's hardly anyone working.

There's hardly anyone working. It was my favorite time to be, but everybody takes their vacation. It's the one time a year when people leave the island of Manhattan. I think, look, let's think of it this way. San Marino has a population of what, like, 20,000 people.

I think it's unlikely that one person from San Marino is in New York all the time. Right. Yeah, and it does sort of come down to what you count as a country, too, because there are, like, in the Vatican, there's only, like, 800 residents. So you do count the Vatican.

I wouldn't. Like, you probably should only count, like, you and recognized countries. John, did you know that there's a country called the Caribbean Netherlands? I did not. Yeah, I did not. Did you know that that sounds like the best of both,

like is it the best of both of those places? Cause that sounds like a good place. I agree. The idea of the Caribbean Netherlands, I mean, you just named two places I love. So I'm definitely interested. I'm looking where they are located and I can't help but notice that the Caribbean Netherlands are a bit closer to South America than I would like in terms of proximity to my current home. I don't know what that means. Like it looks like it would be a long flight.

Oh yeah, I think it could be a pretty long flight. I was also a little surprised to find that it is really not on the Caribbean. Yeah, the Caribbean and other ones look lovely, but I just don't think they can compete with Indianapolis and July. This next question comes from Heather, who says, oh no! Dear Hank and John, I accidentally ruined my close friend's shirt. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha What do I do? Hope is the thing with Heather. Yeah, it's pretty good, Heather. I'll give you four stars out of five on that one. We don't know what happened to the shirt. Like, is it truly ruined?

Was this a thing where you like over-ironed it? Was it a thing where you threw it in the dry ruins? I think it's ruined. You think it's ruined. You think there's no coming back? Yeah, I mean, I think I can imagine a number of circumstances. I once threw a piece of wets, like spaghetti sauce spaghetti onto a friend of mine.

I was wearing a white shirt, and it was not funny to her in the way that I thought it would be. And I had no idea. I'm a match. That's like a joke that was last funny in second grade. Yeah, well, it took me a while to grow up. And this was high school. You know, we're not sure what we are when we're high school students. We're terrible at everything, or at least I was.

And what I found was that we just needed to move past it. Like there was no making it better. It just needed to be, because of the intentionality of it. There was never, we just needed to move past it. I mean, right, well, we just needed to move past it.

You had no trouble moving past it. As is obvious from the way that you're telling the story. Yes, Kasey needed to forgive me. And I needed to give her the time to forgive me and let her know that I was aware of my infraction. It sounds like probably Heather, you did not intentionally ruin this shirt. So it may be that your friend is trying to tell you

that they understand that sometimes when you step on someone's toe, that hurt, but everybody comes out of it without anyone being at fault. And it sounds like maybe no one was at fault and so you don't need to worry too much about it. Also, I would argue that a new shirt getting ruined is much, much better news than a beloved shirt getting ruined. Right.

Like, anytime I get a new shirt, there's like a 60 to 70 percent chance I'm never going to quite like it. Oh, yeah, absolutely. Oh. So it might have been that you were just doing Ryan a favor by allowing him to part with a shirt that he was gonna hate anyway. I mean there are so many of those shirts in my closet or I'm just like, ah this one that I need to iron it. Yeah, I know I've got all these shirts, I've got all these shirts and I'll look at them and I'll be like, what was the person who purchased this thinking? Like, that's not how I usually feel. Walk me through the steps at the store

that go to that moment. Right, and it's good to have a lot of that. I do feel that way, not a couple of your shirts, by the way, Hank, to be completely honest with you. Sometimes you'll wear a shirt and a vlog withers video, and I, like, people who watch our videos are so nice, and they never comment on our clothing, but sometimes you wear a shirt and a vlog with those videos

and I will have to restrain myself from commenting, can't notice anything but the shirt. I think I have great shirts. I don't know what you're talking about. Well, don't worry, I will be giving you an example. I look forward to it. I do feel strongly that a shirt that will need to be ironed, needs to have a label on it.

That's for this, this should be a government regulation. There should be a separate tag that says needs ironing because I just can't have a shirt like that. Like eventually I'll wash it, like it'll be three times later and all of the collar will be like weirdly crimped in the button line, I'll have a fold in it that just decank it it out. And I'll just be like, well,

I'm never wearing the shirt again. That's just where it's at. That's where I'm at. This is going to goodwill. So I have an update. Okay. I've found the shirt that annoys me. And you've worn it like

Three times in the last month of vlog, but there's videos. So you obviously like it. It's there It's it's a it's a blue shirt with like dots on it, but the dots are very Unevenly distributed in a seemingly random pattern just to frustrate me It's in the video John's best gift to me for instance. And what is going on with the dots on that shirt? I like that shirt. I got that shirt with the first gen of it. Oh, you got it at the thrift store.

Okay, I thought that maybe it was some kind of, I don't know, like, Morse code or something. But you actually were just like at a thrift store It was some kind of, I don't know, like Morse code or something. But you actually were just like at a thrift store and you looked at that shirt and you thought I would like to wear that on my body. Yeah, and I have worn it in a lot of videos recently, so I do need to make note of that.

So I don't, I don't, I, cause I do have a lot of shirts, I don't need to hit the same ones all of the time. Oh, I just wanted it. I'm glad we could have this talk because now you know that I don't like that shirt. Thanks, John. I really appreciate that.

You're welcome. I think that's important feedback to get sometimes. This next question comes from Ryan. Rosiana notes in parentheses, a real one in as much as anyone is real. Dear John, I parentheses, a real one, in as much as anyone is real. Dear John and I, I am having a philosophical dilemma with absolutely no real life applicability. There are many sci-fi shows such as Star Trek that use some manner of teleporter to quickly

transport a person from one location to another with a minimum of fuss. Ostensibly, this technology will destroy the original version of the person being teleported encoded and reproduce an exact copy, less transcription errors on the other end. This is a cause of concern for me. What happens to a person's consciousness when they are teleported? If my entire being is destroyed and then rebuilt, would I retain my consciousness, or would I cease to comprehend where my original body was, leaving my body and life in the hands of some other me. Please help me in this conundrum because if it ever comes up, I want to be sure that I can trust myself philosophy and Earl Gratine Ryan.

It's not ever going to come up. So that's good news. It's like the best news. It is a, it's a known thing that in these fictional worlds, like how does this function? Are you killing a person and creating them in the same instant? And that's kind of okay because the net outcome was that the person, there is still a person where there was a person,

even if they aren't technically the same person. Right. There's lots of videos about this on YouTube. Minute physics and CGP grade, both made really good videos about this. Because teleportation, of course, isn't real and isn't likely to become real, although we've made plenty of incorrect predictions on this podcast and the past, so who knows. It's mostly philosophical exercise and a bit of a rhetorical question rather than one

with real life consequences. The one that has real life consequences for me, Ryan, is if I am not choosing my thoughts, and I am not choosing large swaths of what people say is me, then what exactly about me is mine. And that has something to do with teleportation, but it also has something to do with, you know, for instance, the fact that bacteria tell you when to feel anxious, which is weird and discomfort.

It just increased your odds of feeling anxious, I think, more than telling you to feel. They tell your brain, some people have bacteria in their guts that tell their brains that they should feel anxious now, or potentially even that they should experience major depression. Here's what's interesting to me about this question, is that it's clear that in the universe of Star Trek, they don't think about this anymore, despite the fact that it's definitely happening, which makes me think, man, people will ignore anything for convenience. Right, totally. Like, you will not believe the crap that we will normalize

in order to have faster travel. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Oh, right. Yeah. Like imagine, oh, I may cease to exist. I may literally die right now, but it will seem to me as if I got to the planet without having to get in a frickin' shuttlecraft.

Yeah, okay, I'm doing it. Yeah, people play an incredibly high value on convenience and on time-saving, which of course is hilarious because almost all of us spend almost all of our time doing and thinking things that, you know, like squirrels could do and think This is true like if I think about what I did this morning. I basically did the grown-up human version of

hiding a bunch of nuts in a tree version of hiding a bunch of nuts in a tree. Yeah, no, that's like what I do all day. It's just, I just, I just, I just find more nuts to hide. I was like, oh man, I got to make sure that I hide these nuts in a tree so that nobody comes and finds them and also through the magic of compound interest, maybe I will magically have more nuts in a couple years.

Yeah, what I'm saying, Ryan nuts in a couple years. Yeah. What I'm saying, Ryan, is don't worry about teleportation. We're just a bunch of talking squirrels, which reminds me that today's podcast is brought to you by a bunch of talking squirrels, a bunch of talking squirrels. They built a civilization on this, this beautiful plan of ours. That's amazing. What an accomplishment. Today's podcast is also brought to you by the $25 bill, the $25 bill coming to you as soon as we eliminate the penny.

And also this podcast is brought to you by Huluson, a generic bike team. Just a few bikers gone their way to the Tour de France after you see a cat fall out of a tree almost onto a big old deer with antlers And lastly today's podcast is brought to you by convenience convenience We will give literally anything for it and also John I wanted to tell you about pod con do you know about pod con or you were about can I say a word pod con a bunch of times now because I'm very excited about pod con I am also really excited about pod con pod con is a conference that celebrates the world of podcasting and there will be a there was a wonderful podcon last year and in wonderful news there is going to be another podcon this year. Hank, when is podcon happening? Where is it happening and where can

I get tickets? Well, podcon is happening in Seattle, Washington, it's happening not this year, it's happening very early next year, January 19th and 20th. So because we skipped a year, we can't call it the second annual podcon, which is terrible. It's actually great. We can just call it the second podcon. We are calling it podcon two.

It's podcon two. So excited about podcon two. And here's some testimonials from people that I received on Twitter. This was legit one of the best cons I've ever attended. To see my favorite podcasts live and discover ones I've never heard of was a perfect blend from my social anxiety brain.

I would replace my legs with mustard to have another podCon. I would become an astronaut and punch the sun for the light that is podcon. That's actually something that someone wrote to me on Twitter. Wow. Thank you. That's impressive.

That's very, that's, I really appreciate how much you liked the event. I also had a very good time. We have just launched our crowdfunding campaign for podcon. You can find that if you go to podcon.com, there will be a link to it. And we have many podcasts already already confirmed creators from the stoop the broadswords done in and present invisible Ono Ross and Carrie the McAroy brothers the night veil guys Hello from the magic tavern will be there Catherine is coming. We're gonna do a live delete this and we're gonna do a live dear hank a John and we're gonna have a lot of fun

It's a very it was such a weird, fun, cool event, and I think Seattle was a great place to have it. I know that January and Seattle is not the most exciting place and time to be, but the good news is that that's how we bake pod count work is by not having it in peak season because the things are much cheaper than 10 to 10 a year. It'll be really fun. Hank, how much tickets cost?

There are a number of different ways to attend. We have remote attendance where if you can't come to the physical event, you'll get all of the things that happen to the event delivered into the podcast application of your choice and you can listen to the massive podcast. But if you want to be there physically, the base price is $95 during the crowdfunding campaign and then the price goes up 13% after the campaign ends. So there are also a number of things that you can only get during the campaigns. Go on to podcon.com and see what kind of fun we're going to have and whether you want to join us for this really special

great moment that I am so glad that I get to share with a bunch of people. The last thing I'll say about PodCon is that it will be for me the very first time that I have ever debuted an episode of MyPodcast, The Anthropocene Reviewed Live. I'm nervous about that, but also really excited. I'm going to write some Anthropocene Reviewed essays specifically for PodCon and then record them there. So it should be fun if you like the Anthropocene Reviewed essays specifically for PodCon and then record them there. So it should be fun if you like the Anthropocene Reviewed

or any of the stuff that we do, we would love to meet you at podCon.com. Thanks. Thanks. Also, we have a project for awesome message from Sam from Southern California who donated to the project for awesome to get us to read this.

If you're on the lookout for quality vlog channels, check out youtube.com slash Thin's Games with one N. That's F-I-N-S-G-A-M-E-S. Thin is a charismatic, young graphic designer and videographer from Canada who produces a variety of content, focusing on vlogs, which are always fun and uplifting. From exciting travel vlogs to activities around his Canadian hometown, his content is superbly edited and family friendly. That's youtube.com slash fins games. Check it out today. Thank you Sam and thank you fin. Check out youtube.com slash fins games. Cool. Let's go back to some questions. John, this one comes from Catherine who asks

to hear a hank of John. I have a very large garden and we have a lot of sugar snap piece and I've been eating these almost every day as they make a delicious snack but John, this one comes from Catherine, who asks,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, you ever noticed that there is only, because I've definitely seen even an odd numbers in my piece, but the more important thing here is that you don't look at the piece. Right, it should be a Schrodinger's piece, situation, Catherine, but you shouldn't know how many peas

are in your sugar snap peas because you just eat it all at once with the pod, you don't look carefully at it, you just get that crunchy deliciousness. So I think you're stressing out about something that you shouldn't even be noticing, which come to think of it as the story of 95% of my life.

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. I sometimes I think that people, like I think people are missing out on some of the greatness of a sugar snap pea by only eating the peas. The wonderful part of the sugar snap pea is how good the pot is. You might want to break off the ends

if you really want to, but in general, just throw that whole thing in your mouth. You don't even need any orange dressing for that to be a delicious snack. I love it. I will say garden fresh sugar snap peas like from the moment they are taken from the plant and placed in my mouth.

One of the best foods I've ever had. I made that video about not sugar snap peas, but like regular English green peas. I made that video about how to cook eight peas and a bunch of people were like, no, no, no, no, no, you should just eat them directly off the vine, which is such good advice. The remaining like 12 to 14 piece that I got from my pea crop, I ate directly like while I was still in the garden, the moment that I harvested them, and it was just so good.

By the way, I have been having the best time gardening as I hope you noticed Hank in my video about how to eat 213 tomatoes. I've just, it is just a blast. It is a good, it's a really good activity. We're, our first tomato just came off the plant and, uh, oran ate it all by himself. So I didn't get to try it.

Well, that's impressive. My children sadly do not like tomatoes, or at least they claim not to. I think that eventually they'll come around. This next question comes from Christa, who asks, do you John and Hank, what does space smell like? Well, if you were to just go out into space and take off your space helmet and take a deep breath, all the air would be sucked from your lungs and you would suffocate. But if you took space and you compressed, like I had a lot of it and I compressed it down

real tight until it was about a breathable density of atoms and molecules, then apparently, according to an article that I read, a space would smell like burning stuff, like a NASCAR race and barbecue. Because those molecules get thrown off of stars when they explode, or those, yeah, they're basically hydrocarbons.

So you would, that's mostly what you would smell, because you wouldn't smell the hydrogen, because hydrogen doesn't have a smell, but you would smell the hydrocarbons, which would smell like burn and stuff. I find it fascinating that you think that NASCAR races and Barbecue smell the same. Not both of those things,

not like that's what it was, it's both of those things combined. Ah, okay. So it's like, it would smell like having a barbecue at a NASCAR race. Yeah, correct. So where does the smell of all of the like human body odor come from in space?

Wait, what? Oh. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha Okay, John, let us attempt to get some actual advice to an actual person. This one is from Alissa, who asks, Dear Hank and John, my dad owns and runs a small business and he found himself without an office manager a few months ago, but wasn't in a place where he had the time to hire and search for and train a new office manager. So I offered to fill in until the company gets through the summer crunch and he has time again. But working there, I have found out that he is a micromanager

and it's very irritating and frustrating. What do I do? What do I do? What do you do when it's your dad, but also this is not not great when it's easier boss to. I wonder if Alissa's dad is always a micromanager or just a micromanager when managing a kid. Because I micromanage my children's lives in a way that I would never, ever manage people I work with. You know? Like, absolutely. I would, for instance, people I work with, I would never say like, I'm not sure

you should be friends with that person. But yeah. Yeah, and also like, you know, I don't know how many jobs you've had at this time. I don't know how old you are, but maybe this is one of the first jobs you've had, and maybe your dad is trying to impart some skills upon you. And that feels like he's not doing it in a skillful way.

And so it feels like it's being perceived as like, do it this way, do this this way to, and like looking over your shoulder all the time. And maybe he's trying to help you out. Another example is that when one of my employees stops by to tell me that they're getting married, I say a blanket, congratulations, no, nothing else. You don't like, you know, like check up on them, you know, check up on the, on who they're looking at.

Whereas when Alice recently told me that she's getting married to Avi, who's a nice nice kid don't get me wrong, but also five. I said I don't think that's appropriate And I said you know you don't know who you're gonna love in a long time and Alice was like well You didn't know that you were gonna love mommy in a long time when you got married. Oh Gosh Alice you're not f***ing marrying Avi, it's that's not true. Yeah. Hahaha.

Sure, that's how that conversation went down precisely. He's a nice boy, but f***ing. Hahaha. You're five. And if I said that to an employee, it would be extremely inappropriate. Yes, and also inaccurate. Hopefully, I think of this and what you got to just grin and bear this one. Hopefully, you have a productive relationship with your dad outside of the business.

But unless you can leave and have a little bit of expertise that you're bringing. It's gonna be hard for your dad to be able to take this advice from you as a person who's running a business. Unless he's like super, super open to criticism, I don't know your dad. Yeah, if your dad's open to criticism, I would say that you could go and be like, listen, dad, I actually got this. I think I understand this.

I think I'm good on this part. I have other questions on other stuff, but I think I'm good with this. Yeah, and he may listen to that. He may be able to hear you on that. If you're working in a big office and everybody feels like your dad is a micromanager and it's a problem for the company,

then I would probably try to find some way to talk to your dad about that, to be like, I think people actually know what they're doing and I don't know, it's hard though, listen, this is a tough one. I think the main thing you wanna do here, listen, is place the father child relationship before the employee boss relationship,

because that's gonna be the one that lasts for more than the summer. Yeah, also, I just think that's good advice in general. Hank and I always try to do that to remember that our relationship with each other as brothers is more important than any of our business relationships with each other. And so we've got to prioritize that. That said, I do report to Hank, which continues to be which continues to be both hilarious and inspiring because Hank is an incredibly good boss. Like, he provides great feedback and makes you feel special. It's amazing.

I can't recommend Hank as a boss enough. And which is interesting because I am a terrible boss. So. Yeah, I mean, you are just, you know, you've got a lot to, you got a lot of think about, John, you got a lot to focus on. That's the nicest way of putting it. Yes, we have a response, an important email response, Hank that came in from Trent, Trent wrote into say, dear John and Hank, last night at a bar in Madison, Wisconsin, I was looking at the menu and was surprised to see Zima was an option.

Wondering of course for those of you who aren't aware, Zima was a popular quasi beer alternative in the early 1990s that was responsible for, I would say 80 to 90% of our early experiences without both Hank and me. Wondering of course why Hank so fondly remembered this beverage from the decade I was born in, I ordered it. I'll just tell you now Trent. He remembered it fondly because he was drunk. The bartender replied, you really want a Zima? And after I assured him that I had meant to order it, he

half-ran to the other bartender, he half ran to the other bartender and jumped up pushing down the other bartender's shoulders as someone does when excited. He spoke quite loudly when he said, I just sold a Zima upon returning with my beverage he explained that they were doing a limited run of Zima this year and that they had never sold one. When I returned to the group,

there were many people asking me what I was drinking and if they could try a sip, I actually quite enjoyed it. Well, pretty sweet. It was less so than many other wine coolers. So that is how thanks to your podcast, I became the cool hipster ordering the drink that no one had heard of. Thank you for that experience, Trent.

That's pretty great. Yeah, that is kind of what I like about, you know, I have had Zima since they re-released it. And I'm like, yeah, this is a lot less sugary than like a Mike's hard lemonade. And that's kind of nice. At the same time, I would say that Zima is responsible for a lot of bad mornings and nights,

not just in my own life, but in general. So always drink responsibly. Yeah, please drink responsibly. On the subject of alcohol consumption, Hank, I recently took, you know, they're making a Hulu series of my novel, Looking for Alaska, my first book is gonna be Hulu series multi part.

I can't remember how many parts, but, you know, like one of those one season things. Yep. And I recently took Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage who are heading up that project and have been working on this for literally 13 years. I recently took them to my old high school and showed them around some of the places that I used in the book, the book is fictional, but I based the physical place pretty closely on the place where I went to high school.

So I showed them all these places, took them to the waffle house, just tried to give them a good day, you know, in Pellam, Alabama. And then at the end, they were like, hey, does that place where you bought alcohol really exist? And I was like, yeah. So I took them to the place where I bought alcohol as a teenager don't do this obviously don't buy alcohol underage this was a different era the 1990s when laws were different it was

totally legal anyway I took them there I purchased strawberry Hill and we like drank a little strawberry Hill in the woods at Indian Springs while just having a talk. I felt closer in that moment to high school than I have felt in, I don't know, 15, 18, 20 years. And I also have to say that even though they were like, oh, this is terrible, I was drinking it and I was thinking like, you know, for a $2.49 bottle of wine, this is not half bad.

I like boons farm. I guess nothing wrong with boons farm. I don't... Why did I get a brand deal from Boons Farm for putting it so front and center in my first novel for teenagers? Geez. I thought... Seriously though, do drink responsibly if you drink and also if you don't drink great

Hi fives. All right, John. Do we have news from Mars and aFC Wimbledon for the people so much news from aFC Wimbledon We are drowning in aFC Wimbledon news. It's been one of the most eventful off-season weeks I can remember in aFC Wimbledon's history. AFC Wimbledon have now signed seven count them seven new players. It's basically, it's a whole new team. You've got players. You got people working.

We've got players. We've got 22 year old Tarell Thomas, a defender who has just signed from Wigan. We actually paid money for him. Which is unusual for us. Do you usually pay money? Do you just like it from the salary? Or what?

We usually do not pay a transfer fee, but we did pay a transfer fee for this transfer, which means that, you know, it's a pretty big deal. George Long, our brilliant goalkeeper from last season, did officially sign for Whole City who are in the championship, and I think he's gonna have a great time of it there. I don't think that I've talked about the fact

that we signed Anthony Wordsworth. Anthony Wordsworth, of course, the relative one presumes of England's fifth greatest lyric poet uh... anthony words worth signed from uh... hold on to the bed up but but but but but but but but anthony words worth sign from a fellow league one side south and united a very exciting guy

i mean i like the look of them i like the way he plays so we've got michi pins we've got anthony words worth we've got this new guy to real tomas i i i just feel like the squad he plays. So we've got Mitchy Pins, we've got Anthony Wordsworth, we've got this new guy, Tarell Thomas. I just feel like the squad is really coming together and while I was super worried a month ago, I find myself being dare I say it, cautiously optimistic. Wimbledon season starts August 4th, not too long from now. So I don't know how many more sightings we're going to get, maybe one. I've been hearing some rumors that there might be one more coming in, but we'll have to see.

Well, that's, I mean, you don't know how this team's going to play until it's a team, right? I mean, is there a lot of concern about the fact that like, these people aren't going to know each other that well, as players or as people? Not a ton. Did I tell you by the way that we also signed a midfielder name Scott Wags staff I mean the names great the names are taught not wags. I'm gonna call them wags Scotty Wags. We got Michi pins Scotty Wags It's just it's gold. I don't even know. That's it. That's that's all I need to tell you Okay, we've got new players. I'm full of hope. I actually just talked to Eric Samuelson,

who is the director of AFC Wimbledon about the new stadium as well. So the Greyhound Stadium is being demolished. In fact, if you go to AFC Wimbledon's website, you can kind of watch pictures updated almost every day of the demolition project and then once it is ready to build upon the stadium will start being built. That is going to be expensive and that's a big deal.

It is a big moment in AFC Wemble and S history for sure, but that is it. That will be the, I mean, for many people associated with the club, this will be the most important thing that's ever happened to the club to be back and wimbled in, back at their historic home, but in a beautiful new stadium. It'll just be a new chapter in this club's already incredible history. So I'm really excited. All right. Well, the news from Mars is kind of news from Earth this week because it's about looking at Mars from Earth.

So there is a time that happens at regular intervals, though it's a weird interval when Earth goes around its orbit, Mars goes around its orbit, and then occasionally they line up, so they're on the same side of the Sun at the same time, and that's when Earth and Mars are really close together. And when Mars is directly opposite from Earth, that is also, there's a line that you can draw from the Sun to Earth to Mars,

that's also when Mars is basically full. So this is a kind of a weird thing, but as planets go around the sun, from earth, they wax and wane, just like the moon does for us, except that the function is different, because those planets aren't going around us, they're going around the moon, or they're going around the sun. So there are two things that affect Mars' brightness in the sky. There's how close it is to us, and there is how much of the surface of the sun is being lit from our perspective. So when it is in that position, which it will be at the end of July, so July 27th is when it will be 100% full,

that is when it is brightest in the sky. So you will be able to look into the southeastern sky and see a really bright Mars for the next month or so, starting, you know, if you go and listen to the podcast, you can go look at it now. And I think that this is sort of like an a Northern hemisphere thing, though I'm not entirely sure. I only know it from, I can only tell you what I,

what like we see here because I don't, I'm sorry. I don't know how the planet works. There's a lot of other places and the sky is different in them. But Mars is very bright in the night sky right now. So if you want to go check out a real bright Mars or even go and get a telescope and take a look at it, that this is one of the best times to see it. This is as close as it's been, as bright as it's been since 2003.

Wow. So this is not quite a once in a lifetime opportunity, but certainly a once in a decade opportunity. Yeah, though if you looked in 2003, that was once in a lifetime. That was as bright as it was for the last like 60,000 years. Wow. Well, I feel like I missed that completely.

Yeah, so that's a bummer. It's like a thing. I'll get, you know, a vague notion of what it might have been like by looking at, from Indianapolis, you said the southeastern sky? I think so, yeah. All right, cool. I'll make a point of looking at it,

and I will report back at our next pod. OK, thank you. I hope that you enjoy Mars, John. I've really been enjoying the night sky lately and you have something to do with that. Hank, you have greatly improved my appreciation for space since we started making this podcast. So thank you for that and thanks to everybody for listening. We're going to go over now to make our hit podcast this week in Ryan's Vailboat our patreon patreon.com slash deer hank and john where you can also get lots of free stuff without signing up because we put all the updates there This podcast is produced by Rosiana Halsey Ross and Sheridan Gibson It's edited by Nicholas Jenkins The music that you're listening to right now and at the beginning of the podcast is from the brilliant gunnerola

Our head of community and communications is Victoria Bonjorno. You can email us at hankandjohnalloneword.com. We love to answer your questions and read the emails for questions that we can't answer. Thank you again for listening, and as they say in our hometown, don't forget to be awesome.

and as they say in our hometown, don't forget to be awesome.