Dear Hank & John - 151: Dapper Dudes

Episode Date: August 20, 2018

How do I tell my boyfriend he's beautiful? Can I talk to my cousin's ex? How do I figure out my music taste? And more! Email us: [e-mail] patreon.com/dearhankandjohn The PodCon 2 campaign ends soon! Support it here!

Cold open, just to let you know that the PodCon crowdfunding campaign will be closing down very, very soon. PodCon, if you don't know, is an event that we did last year in Seattle and we're doing it again. It's just for people who love podcasts, whether you make podcasts or just really love listening to them. It's happening on January 19th and 20th in Seattle and there will be tons of amazing podcasts represented. I'm going to do a list, but it's gonna be incomplete. Welcome to Night Vale, my brother, my brother and me, 99% Invisible, The Stoop, Lore, Hello from Magic Tavern, Nancy, Sam Sanders from It's Been a Minute,

Oh no, Ross and Carrie, Demi and Miel from Punch Up the Jam, tons more. We'll be doing a live-deer Hingen-John, and there will be lots of other fun, weird, cool things like live shows, podcast mashups, performances, panels, ghost stories, and other good weirdness. Just go to podcon.com for more information and to support us in these final hours. Hello, and welcome to Dear Hank and John.

Or is that for the sake of it, dear John and Hank? It's a comedy podcast for two brothers and answer your questions, give you to be a advice and bring you all the week's news from both Mars and AFC Wimbledon, John. Yes. Why were the Mongols so happy? Why were the Mongols so happy, Hank? Because they were no mads.

Ha ha ha ha ha ha. God. I love this new opening bit. I love that you tell a dad joke and then I to share something that's good this week. So, John, what's good this week? Besides my very good dad joke about Mongols. That was a very good joke. Hank, do you remember the couple who we tracked down their wedding website through somewhat nefarious means and it was an unfinished website and we made fun of it. Yes, I do. It was not great. It almost seemed maybe possibly incomplete and maybe we shouldn't have mocked it.

Right, because they weren't ready to share it yet. We got a very nice email from Josh explaining that they just weren't done with their wedding website, which is why they hadn't told anyone about it. And it wasn't Josh's fault that we tracked it down through somewhat nefarious means. Anyway, they are now finished with their wedding website. And I just wanted to give you an update, Hank, because it is the greatest wedding website I have ever seen in my entire life.

Like, I don't know who designed this site, but I want them to design my new website. They have an app, Hank. They have an app available in both the Apple store and the Google Play Store. Oh, God. Just to set. Okay, and this is good.

But like, can we set the bar lower for just everything? I just like, I feel like you guys are setting the bar way too high. I don't need it. I don't want it. I don't need an app. It's a great wedding website. Their guide to the wedding party is hilarious. Their stories about how they met each other are so great.

And it's just also well done. And as apology for the fact that we tracked down your website before you were ready, Kathy and Josh, Hank and I have purchased you a fancy dinner at the Eiffel Tower, which by the way, I learned this week does have a bathroom near the top of it. But it's got pipes all the way down to the bottom. That's good because you don't want to get up there and be like, I got a poop.

There's a countdown on their wedding website, John. It's counting down as I'm staring at it. It's 214 days away. How is your website look this good? 214 days out. I just don't have time for this. Well, they're probably too organized. To be fair, Hank, they probably weren't going to get it out

this quickly, but then we made fun of them. And they felt like their hand was forced. So are they going? Are they going to Paris for their honeymoon? Or did you just see her just like you figure out how to get there? They are going to Paris for their honeymoon. And we have bought them dinner at the Eiffel Tower as an apology. So congratulations to Kathy and Josh both on their forthcoming marriage and on a really spectacular website.

Hank, should we answer some questions from our listeners? Alright John, this first question comes from Nick, who asks, dear Hank and John, I rarely hear or see YouTubers citing their sources when clearly stating information that came from somewhere other than their own minds. While I do sometimes see a link to an article or a video that holds the information from which the YouTuber got it, this doesn't appear to be common practice. Are YouTubers not required to practice any sort of rules of source citation?

Yeah, Nick, no. No, no. I love it. By what governing body, Nick? I love it. I love it. You think that's possible. Because when we're going to school,

all of the teachers are like, you got to cite your sources. Here's all the different ways you can cite your sources got to use the Chicago Manual of style or whatever and Yeah, and then you grew and then you like make a YouTube video and there are no rules because it's the internet and you can literally say anything Welcome to 2018 Yeah, I mean Imagine if everybody had to cite their sources on Facebook, there would be no Facebook. Oh, it would be way too much work.

The entire, the people who work for social media companies talk about like the barrier to expression. So like, how can we lower the barrier to posting? They want it to be very easy for new content to be created because content is the thing that makes the platform work. And so on Twitter, they make it basically so that any dumb thought that pops out of your mind becomes useful enough for you to be like, well, you know, it's a tweet.

And it's very easy to post. Same thing with like Instagram stories or Snapchat stories. The idea is like make it so easy to create content that everyone will do it. And make like putting a barrier in that that is that is as boring and frustrating as citing your sources. Ha! Good luck. We should add though that Nick in his email cited all of his sources. Which I thought was very impressive. We try to do this in Crash Course. We don't always do it, and we especially didn't do it at the beginning. But we do think it's

important, and we're trying to put more of an emphasis on it in our educational content because we need people to understand that we didn't just make this stuff up, and that we're doing our best not to just guess. The reason it doesn't happen on YouTube is because it's work and a lot of times that work is expensive and time consuming and it doesn't feel as central to the mission as for instance making or animating the video. Right, which is why there are all kinds of signals in academia to force you to do this, because in many ways, the work isn't worthwhile unless you can figure out, you know, unless you can build on the work, and you can't build on the work without knowing where the

information came from, especially because sometimes information turns out to not be good. And if the information came from somewhere and you're not sure where and you can't check and you can't see if it has since been known to not be good information, then you cannot actually build knowledge that way. And so I think that a good sign of credible content on the internet is that they do site their sources. And we have tried to do that more and we do it on Crash Course, but we certainly don't do it every time on Vlog Brothers, just because like, it's work,

and we got all this stuff to do, and it's not supposed to be work. It's supposed to be fun, right? Vlog Brothers. It's supposed to be woo-woo-woo. Not, like, citing my sources. I'm done with school. I cite my sources in informational videos, actually, but I like that Nick is basically saying,

I care, and I think more of us need to care, and by the act of caring, the incentives will change. So thank you, Nick. You're the hero we need, if not the hero we deserve. The next question comes from Naomi who writes, dear John and Hank, I recently went to my local bookstore and bought a used copy of an abundance of Catherine's, which I had already read.

Well, thank you, Naomi, for liking it enough to purchase it. When I got home, I opened it up to find a note that looked like it had been typed on a typewriter, and it said, hope you like this book, smiley face. PS, you have an incredibly malifluous voice. And then a phone number. Oh my god. I was very confused as the stranger had left me their number in a book and wanted me to call them. incredibly molyfluous voice and then a phone number. Oh my gosh. I was very confused as the stranger had left me their number in a book and wanted me to call them. I looked up the number and it's from Arkansas. I'm opposed to calling strange numbers, but we have the same taste in books, so I don't

know what to do. Help, not a Catherine Naomi. Good John, I had, so like first update is that back in that when that book came out, was it that book? No. It was a paper town, yeah. It was paper town. Well, but we had this thing where we had people leave, we've notes inside of John Green books telling people, like basically a way to communicate in the real world to like leave

a comment and it were called Nerdfighter Notes. And I had assumed that all of the Nerdfighter Notes had been discovered by now, but apparently not. Apparently not, although it does seem weird to say PSU have an incredibly Muglifuous voice, which it's just presumptuous. However, I am gonna call the phone number. You're gonna call the phone number.

He's gonna call the phone number. Yeah, but not with my phone, I'm no dummy. I got a good shared and hold on. Sh shared and wants to sit here till I'm finished to make sure that I don't miss use her phone Which is totally reasonable hold on here. We go recall in the number. Hey, I don't know who I'm calling Probably not Okay, that was fast The mailbox is full. It's full The mailbox is full. The mailbox is full.

It's full. Oh, no. Oh. Oh, this, by the way, this happens every time I call my brother Hank Green. Oh, I don't know how to empty my mailbox. He doesn't answer the phone, and then I'm told that the mailbox is full, so I literally can't leave him a message except to text him, but don't worry. He doesn't reply to texts. How do you, how do you delete voice messages? I just don't know. Like why? I don't understand.

I don't, like, look, look, okay. This is something I don't understand. I can't, like, I have gigabytes of space in my email. Why can't my voice mails just be stored in the same system so that I don't have to constantly delete voice mails? Why? Why? Why? on and my email, why can't my voice mails just be stored in the same system so that I don't have to constantly delete voice mails? Why? Why don't I want to keep my voice mails? I don't understand. Just put them on the Google Drive with all of the other files in the cloud.

I can upload literally anything I want to YouTube, but I can't keep a freaking voice mail. I'm glad that you have found something really important to be outraged about Hank because that does seem to me one of the leading problems of 2018 that it is difficult to store as many voicemails as we would like. I'm just upset that I can't call this person and it appears that we're never going to be in contact ever again. Oh man. It's a bummer.

It is a bummer. Like, like, uh, uh, missed opportunity everybody. That probably the number isn't in service anymore. Or they're just like me, and don't know how to delete voicemails. This next question comes from Allison, who asks, dear Hank and John, I am currently dating a very sweet guy. And it's all going very well.

However, he often compliments me by saying things like, I look beautiful. My problem is I do not feel like there's a socially acceptable way for me to tell him that he is also beautiful. I realize that I could tell him he is handsome, but that word feels awkward and formal. I would just break free of these laws of social acceptability and say that he's beautiful because he is, but I don't want to make him feel uncomfortable when I'm trying to compliment him. So I'm turning to my two favorite podcasters for a help. Not a stoner, Allison.

What does that mean? Is Allison a stoner a thing? Who's Allison a stoner? I think that she's on how I met your mother. No, that's definitely not. That's Allison Hanigan. Allison a stoner is... She's from cheaper by the dozen from 2003,

also in multiple step-up meetings. Oh, she was on the sweet life of Zach and Cody. Yeah, I think she was in step-up three, take it to the streets. She was in several different step-ups, but I'm glad that Allison Stoner, born 1993, is a great candidate for this week in Ryan's at least. John, do you have any good things to call Allison's boyfriend?

I would just go with hot. That's what I usually use. Or handsome. But I would also not be afraid of beautiful. What was the second step up movie called? Oh God, the streets. Was it the, I think that was was the streets hold on. I don't think she was the streets. She doesn't appear to have been in the second one, which was the best one,

which is so good. I feel bad. I feel bad if Alison Stoneier listens to this podcast and she finds out that she wasn't in what was by far the best step-up movie, but she wasn't. It's so hard to get this man to focus. He's 40 years old, everyone. Focus. I am focused. What is the question? I asked Katherine this question. I went to a source and I was like,

what would you say if you ever wanted to tell a man that he was attractive? Yep. And she said, you got to go with fit. Yeah, isn't that what English people say? I like that. I like fit. I also like handsome.

What's wrong with handsome? It doesn't seem that old-fashioned to me, although I guess I am technically an old person, so what do I know? What about like, oh, you're looking dapper today? Do you know that the first step up movie has a 19% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes? Oh my goodness. And the consensus states that quote, this tritin romance has two little plot and not enough dancing.

I mean, wrong on both counts, sir. But how did step up to the streets do? Step up to the streets is only 27% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes. What are these critics thinking? Step Up to the Streets is one of the greatest films of all frickin' time! I've watched it at least two times, and it have a 76%-like-dits score from the audience, which, let's be honest, who cares what the critics think?

And John, do you think that there's something deeper at play where we can't call men beautiful, where we feel like that's weird? Do you wanna get into it? Not only do I think there's something deeper at playhank, I think it is actually related to the reason that 73% of professional movie critics thought that step up to the streets was a bad movie.

Ha, ha, ha, ha. I think we have all of these ideas about what constitutes good and bad and beautiful. And I think that toxic masculinity plays a role in what kind of movies are treated as being high quality movies. And I think toxic masculinity plays a role in what kind of people are talked about as being beautiful. Like one of the critics wrote, this isn't a very good movie, but it's probably the best of its kind, which to me is just exactly what's wrong with a certain

strain of criticism. Like to me the job of criticism in art is not to say what is high art, what is properly good. The job is to say like what accomplishes, what it sets out to accomplish and is what it sets out to accomplish. Interesting and beautiful. And the answer for step up to the streets is yes and yes. Absolutely. It was a beautiful movie. And Alice, this boyfriend is also beautiful. But if you're gonna make him uncomfortable saying it, you could just say, you looking good today sweetie. I might say something like, if you were a step-up movie, you would be step-up to the streets baby. This next question comes from Brooklyn who asks, dear H&J, an unforeseen circumstance has occurred. My cousin, Brickett, with his boyfriend, they have been going out for 10 months, the boyfriend,

got along with the family super well and I became fairly close with them. Bonding over school and such. He's three years older than me, same as my cousin, and I'm not really in the same social setting as either of them, mostly due to this age difference. But he's really nice. I really like talking to him, but I think it would be awkward to hang out or talk to him

because I don't get out much anyway. Not a boy, not a bridge, not a burrow, or a back of Brooklyn. What a great sign off. Yeah, that's good. This is a fairly common problem in the world where we have people enter our lives because they're entering through another person

that is already in our lives, but then they don't have that relationship with that person anymore and who do we pick? Or do you have to pick? And sometimes you do. Yep, sometimes you do have to pick. And if it's family, you gotta go with family. You do usually have to go with family.

That said, it doesn't seem clear to me that in this situation, Brooklyn does have to go with family. That said, it doesn't seem clear to me that in this situation, Brooklyn does have to pick. I feel like Brooklyn could text or email this person and say, hey, I just, or just say, hey, how are you doing? Just check in on them. I think it's really nice to have people check in on you. And they might respond, they might not. But at least it puts the ball in their court and it lets them know might not, but at least it puts the ball in their court and it lets them know that you do care about them separate from your relationship with your cousin.

But what I would say very strongly is if you have any romantic interest in this person, do not pursue any relationship at all. If you're thinking, well, we could just be friends, but I do think that they're pretty cute. Nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, except maybe, you know, I don't know why you remember the plot of step up to the streets, Hank, but the whole story doesn't happen if there isn't a little bit of that. That was okay.

I would like to officially announce that it was my last step up to the streets reference for the entire podcast. Don't make promises. You can't keep this next question comes from Becky. to officially announce that it's my last step up to the streets reference for the entire podcast. Don't make promises you can't keep! This next question comes from Becky who writes Dear John and Hank. At the turtles all the way down to her last year, my best friend and I made posters for the show in Indianapolis. We were both very excited at the time, but then afterwards we realized we're a bit too

crazy. Now that we've gotten our tickets for the absolutely remarkable thing to her coming up in Indianapolis, we are wondering, should we make posters again? Please answer us, we are stressed out and don't want to be too overwhelming. Make posters and also encourage others. So what you want to do is bring everybody else up to your level. Not go down to theirs. You want to bring everybody else up. So, organize poster creation party times at your local library. I am strongly in favor of posters. Becky, I will tell you a story about early in my career.

Early in my career as a writer, I did a signing with a writer named Stephanie Meyer, who wrote the Twilight books. And I hadn't met her before, and I wasn't very familiar with her work. It was right after the first Twilight book had come out and we did this sign, we did this sign together with a little event before where we all talked a little bit about each of our books. There were like four authors there. And in the front row, there were all these people

with handmade t-shirts about the world of Twilight. And I was so blown away by that and I was so moved by it. And I remember thinking, I don't write those kind of books, like I don't write the kind of books that people get that excited about and feel that passionately about. And I was just so blown away by the passion of that fandom and the excitement and I was honestly jealous of it.

And then when paper towns came out, I saw for the first time people holding posters, wearing t-shirts, people dressing like Margot Roth's Beagleman making t-shirts like the t-shirt that she had in the book. And it was one of that tour was one of the best experiences of my life for that reason. So do not worry that you are not being cool because that kind of passion, it's infectious, and it really makes the world better. Yeah, and I remember once I did a live stream in between two tour stops,

and then I arrived at the next tour stop, and there were people who had made a handmade t-shirts referencing the live stream that I did the night before, and that just made me so happy. Yeah, and I think that like showing people and showing yourself how much you care about something is a really, is a net positive for everybody involved. So yeah, go overboard. Yeah.

Especially if overboard for you is making a poster, which is just really lovely. Yeah, don't go so far overboard that you like build a shrine. I think that's the line. Do you have candles that you keep lit all the time that flicker in the face of Leonard Neymoy or whatever? That's too far. You need to tone down your Leonard Nimoy passion a little bit. Agreed. Agreed. Anything that could cause a fire hazard in general is overboard worship. Though John, I do, I do love Leonard Nimoy.

Do you have another question for us? I do. This one comes from Sarah, who writes, Do you John and Hank? I grew up in a family that doesn't listen to music. Like at all? Oh. Okay.

I grew up to the sounds of NPR audiobooks and maybe the occasional classical or Christian radio station. Now that I've gotten older and have access to music of my own, I don't know where to start. There's so much music out there. I can relate to that. Like I get on Spotify and I'm like, man, a lot of people have made this stuff. I have no idea what to listen to. People have told me to just listen to different genres and I'll be able to tell what I like, but I can't really pin down any specific genres or bands that I like more than others. It's just also new and so good. I guess my question is, how do you figure out what your musical days are when there are infinite options?

Do you have any bands that you recommend? Scrolling through Spotify, Sarah. Before John starts, yes, he has bands to recommend and there's just one of them. But, but, but what I will say before John makes his recommendation is I have a broad overarching piece of advice, which is to pick. And when you're younger, it's so much easier to pick

because you are given these signals that like this is the thing we should be paying attention to by your friend group, by your culture, by the radio, by whatever, and you know what's good and you don't have to question it. And because we're a little bit older now, there's like, oh, there's so much stuff. There's all these different layers to every genre

and also like music has been happening for the last thousand years, so there's also all that stuff that it's very difficult to pick. But I think it's really good, and I have a hard time doing this, but I am much happier about music when I pick something to dive into for a little while and spend some time like going through a catalog of an artist and developing a deeper relationship with songs that I've heard, not just a few times, but like dozens of times. I'm going to recommend the Mountain Goats. They're really good bands, Sarah.

I think that you like them. They're the best band in the whole world. They have like 800 or 900 songs, so you'll never be out of new mountain goat songs, or at least not for a long time, plus they're always making new ones. They're so great. I do really recommend the mountain goats, but I have to say, I also listen to a lot of jazz music.

I listen to a lot of New Orleans brass, big band music. I listen to bluegrass music. I agree with Hank that it's fun to dive deep. It's fun for me, like it's a matter of going through phases. There's stuff that I like to listen to when I'm running that's different than the stuff I like to listen to when I'm working. But I love that, I just, the thing I loved about this question,

Hank was Sarah saying it's also new and so good. Yeah. Because music is so good. It's really good. There is so much great music in the world, and we are so lucky to live in an age of recorded music so that we can actually listen to it even if we aren't rich enough to be able to go to fancy concerts. John, since you made your one suggestion for one band, I have to give Sarah a suggestion

one band for you to maybe dive deep on. I'm going to go with Fountains of Wayne. I mean Sarah and their new hit song Hank and John have got it going on And also a purple tank cuz just calling it all the way back to year one of dear Hank and John so Just to be absolutely clear about this Sarah Hank is kidding Actually, you know you want to know a really good album if you're just starting to listen to music

You want to know a really genuinely good album to listen're just starting to listen to music, you want to know a really genuinely good album to listen to because I think soundtracks are good for that stuff because it gives you a broad kind of introduction to a bunch of different kinds of music. Would be the soundtrack for Step Up To The Streets. It's got, yeah, low, by flow. Oh god, that was, that's a good song. It's such a good song.

It's one of Henry's favorite songs actually. So I hear it all the time. There's two Missy's favorite songs actually. So I hear it all the time. There's two Missy Elliott songs on it. I think that Missy Elliott is maybe the pop music artist that will be listening to in like the 23rd century Assuming there are still humans. I think that she's like the the Beethoven of right now There's all kinds of great songs T-Pain church T-, T-Pain's Church is an unbearable song. Like you hear it and you cannot do anything but move. It's so good.

Oh, they called back. Hank, they called back, they called back, they called back. They called back. They called back. They called back. Sheridan just came in the room, they called back. I'm calling them now, I'm calling now, I'm calling now. Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god.

Your call has been forwarded to a Do they only turn their phone on occasionally Your voice mails all right when they call the next time we just answer and bring it into me. It's real weird This is weird. I have a conspiracy theory now. I'm a little worried about Sheridan, because it's her phone, you know? I guess one last thing I'll say to Sarah is that it's good to like popular music. It's popular for a reason, and you can focus in on that, and it's not like it's not cool to listen to pop music. It's not all popular for a reason, but I hear you.

I think there's always a reason, John. It's just not always the best reason. This next question comes from Amanda who asks, Dear Hank John, you know there's a finite amount of water on earth. The same water just continuously flows through the water cycle and the amount of water on earth stays the same, but what about when meteors or comets enter the atmosphere and occasionally hit Earth? Aren't they just rocks and ice? Does that mean that new water is introduced to Earth? Does the amount of water on Earth increase if ever so slightly? I hope this question isn't too Demand A and it's DFTBA Amanda. That's some hard work you did there.

Do you think that when Amanda is in a work situation, she says things like, I don't wanna make a demanda, but it's like what her colleagues call her. Oh, there's demand. Oh, full of demands. Hank, does the amount of water on Earth go up when we get hit by big water meteors? It does.

It does, in fact. There is some different models that are out of run and lots of people are still working on this problem. But current research indicates that if we didn't have that source of external water, that there wouldn't be much water on Earth, that it would have all been blown off by the solar wind by now.

And so we need new inputs of water or else we're in trouble. So especially there was a period of time where a lot of icy bodies hit Earth and that and probably a lot of the water that's on Earth right now was not part of the initial formation of Earth. It arrived a little later. So should I be rooting for us to get hit by water meteors now? No. No. No. Okay. No. All right, I'll read against that. Yep. Definitely rude against large meteor strikes.

If you're gonna, if there's like a, uh, I don't know, I don't know how much it matters, how strongly people support one team or another. Like if what, if one team's fans are just really gung ho and the other ones are very quiet, if that's actually good for the team, but I do know that if we just sit here and think really hard about not getting hit by a meteor,

it's not gonna help. Yeah, no, that's the great thing about getting hit by a meteor. Nothing will help. It's just a nice, pleasant reminder that we are not in control. We're in control of a lot of things, John. I'm in control, apparently, of my voice mail-in box, which, hold on, I'm gonna try that number

again. Oh, I can't, I can't, of course, I don't know if she heard it's password. You can only answer the phone. Okay, I can only answer the phone. All right, Hank, this next question comes from Tomomi who asks, Dear John and Hank, since you guys don't talk about death at all anymore on this comedy podcast about death, I need to ask you about death. In the distant future, how will humans die?

What kind of inventions will there be for death? Well, hopefully we won't invent any new inventions for death, but... I mean, it's funny that we're getting this question right after the question where we went straight meteor strike. Yeah, that wouldn't necessarily result in broad death, would it? Uh, depends on what you mean by broad death, and depends on what you mean by meteor strike. I think it's just like a nice water meteor,

you know, that just drops a bunch of nice, delicious, clean space water. It turns out that it doesn't really matter what the meteor is, well, it does matter what the meteor is made of. But an icy meteor can do like a whole lot of damage. It just makes like a nice like, space lake. You just want a big wet one.

It just rains on down. Will everyone know the space kiss. Well, I want I want the solar system. It give me a good good wet tonguey kiss French space kisses. Will everyone know the date of their death when they're born? Will death be fun? Deathly curious to Momi. I don't think I like where to Momi's coming from though. Yeah. Why not? I like it because it's like here are a couple examples of dystopias.

Everybody's just looking forward to it. They're like, oh god, did you know? I get to die on Tuesday. I have no idea how our relationship to death will change as lives get longer and healthier. I think it has already changed a lot though in the sense that death used to be something that was unavoidable and part of everyday life

in a way that in the rich world at least it isn't anymore. Well, what I, my only big guess is that as we get better at living longer, it will be very bad if that isn't distributed fairly equally among societies. Yes. Well, it already is very bad, I would say, but it will get much worse. And that is my biggest concern about life span extension, is that we'll give it to our dogs before we give it to other people. And that will be really bad, not just for the people who aren't getting the treatments, but also for the people

who die in the revolution. Yeah, I agree. I think one of the biggest challenges with new technologies that improve human life is having them be shared among all humans. Indeed, John, which is why this podcast is brought to you in part by an organization that doesn't get to sponsor a ton of stuff all that often.

So we're glad that they're here sponsoring us today. It's justice. Um, just having things that should be available of stuff all that often. So we're glad that they're here sponsoring us today. It's justice. Just having things that should be available to all people be available to more people. Yeah, it's a little troubling to me that justice doesn't have as big a marketing budget as for instance tied, but what can you do? What can you do? Today's podcast is also brought to you by Leonard Nemoy. Leonard Nemoy. It's okay to worship him just not with candles. It's a fire hazard. This podcast is also brought to you by music. It's a bunch of noises, but it's real good. And lastly, today's podcast is brought to you, of course, by step up to the street, step up to the streets, the greatest of all step up movies. Although I actually thought

step up three was a really good movie as well. We also have a project for awesome message from Mike, Gnized on most things, to Hank, John, and the lasties, and all of the friends I've made through Nerdfighteria. Thank you for inspiring me to be more positive, compassionate, loving, and grateful every day. Thank you for making this community a solace I can turn to day or night when I'm feeling lonely, or social, happy or sad. Whether we've met in person, or I've never met you in a physical space, thank you for being in my life,

and letting me be a small part of yours. You know, it's also a good dance movie. Uh, break into electric Boogelloo? That's what I was gonna say! Ha ha ha ha ha ha! Okay. Yeah, well, we're, you know, we're roughly the same age. Oh my god, I love that movie.

Oh, I wonder if it holds up. There's only one way to find out, John, and that's to do a break into Electric Bugulu project for awesome commentary perk with Hank and John. It's on Netflix. It's on Netflix. It's on Netflix. We could watch it tonight. Let's just,'s live stream. Let's do it tonight. Well, I actually tonight I'm busy, but let's do it soon. Okay. Okay. I bet it's gonna be really good. All right. I'm so excited about this. This is such good news. All right.

Breaking to electric boogaloo, which I'm sure holds up perfectly. I mean, I loved it so much going. Oh God, I loved it so much. It must be good. It must be good. It was the grease too. Was there a break in one? You know, I don't think there was. Smart, smart, smart to start with the sequel. Oh wow, it doesn't have a great IMDB rating, John.

Well, that doesn't mean that it's not a good movie. It just means that movie snobs don't like it. There was a break in. There was break in and then there was break-in to electric boogaloo, but it looks like break-in to was much more popular than then break-in. They both came out in the same year? Of course, I mean when you have a hit, follow it up, man. Holy moly, that was fast.

Alright, John, this next question comes from Grace, who asks, dear Hank and John, how do forecasters know that it's going to rain in 10 days? Amazing Grace. They don't. It is amazing. They don't. It's true that they don't. It's true they don't know.

But they do have some ability to predict beyond flipping a coin. Which is pretty cool. Yeah, but it's not that much better than flipping a coin 10 days out. It's true. Five days out though is actually like, we've gotten to the point where five days out

is extremely accurate compared to where we were even 10 years ago. And that is really like five days is a long time to have even somewhat accurate forecasts of temperature, of wind speed, of rain. It's really amazing. And how do we do that? We do it with lots of computer models,

very powerful computers, and lots and lots of inputs. So constantly updating from weather stations all over the place, what every condition is from barometric pressure to wind speed, to humidity, and knowing where things are going to move so we can model out into the future. Right, and we also have lots of data from history to work with as well.

Yeah, for a little bit of context, when Hank and I were kids, weather forecasts were often wrong about that day. Like, they'd be wrong about whether or not it was going to rain in two hours. Yeah, and it's hard when it's like spotty, and so it's going to rain in one place in your coverage area and not in another place in that coverage area, but it is amazing. But I will say that it's probably, we're bumping up against some of the limits

of what we can forecast because ultimately, some of this does come down to chaos and randomness and just like the intricacies of how a cloud can form might affect what's gonna happen 10 days from now. And that really has to, like that's the kind of thing that we so far can't model perfectly

and probably won't be able to model perfectly. So a little bit bumping I could against what's possible, but it's really good. What we have is pretty great. Hey, I have some breaking news. Yeah. And it's not that the person I called has called back. Dang it.

That's what I was hoping for. That was what I was hoping for. We've just gotten an email from Dr. Carl Vynand, who writes, Dear John and Hank, at the beginning of episode 150, you were wondering about Eiffel Tower-sized piles of poop and how long they would take to build. It seemed solvable, so I did solve it. And then there is a PDF that is only two pages long, and it begins, if this thing is going to be

free-standing, droppings just drop on a pile without structural support, it will eventually form a cone. The volume V of the cone of base radius R and height H can be computed as and then goes on in incredible astonishing detail to explore how long it would take people to make a cone of poop as tall as the Eiffel Tower and the answer is around 120,000 years. Well, that's way longer than I thought. Yep. And that's if every visitor dropped an average human daily defecation worth of poop on the pile. Every person visiting the Eiffel Tower.

Oh my god. Oh, well, that's great news. Seven million visitors yearly, 120,000 years. That's wonderful news, man. That's great news. Seven million visitors yearly, 120,000 years. That's wonderful news, man. That's great news. I'm so glad. I don't know why it's good news. It just feels like good news.

It does. It feels like the world has gotten more interesting because now I know how long it would take the visitors of the Eiffel Tower to make an Eiffel Tower of Poo. Yeah. And also that it would take a long, long time. Yeah, I know. And probably, what is the radius of that cone, John? Because it's probably gonna be,

probably gonna be wider than it is tall. I'm gonna be honest, I don't understand a lot of the calculations in this document, so I'm not sure I can answer that question. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. Okay, well, we'll put that one up on the Patreon for everybody to see. Probably also tweeted out because it sounds pretty amazing. Yeah, it's pretty great. Thank you, Carl. We appreciate it. Hank, let's get to the all important news from Mars and AFC Wimbledon.

Don't worry, I'll start. Yeah, it seems, according to my phone, which tells me AFC Wimbledon scores now because I've apparently tweeted about it enough. It's good news. We're undefeated. We haven't lost all season. It's incredible. If we continue at this rate, we'll have not just the greatest season in A.C. Wilden's history, but maybe one of the greatest seasons in football history. A.C.

Wilden had a nil nil draw with Coventry. That really, we should have won. There should have been a penalty called in the last minute Coventry, that really we should have won. There should have been a penalty called in the last minute of the game, but also we just had a ton of good opportunities and the way that we were playing was I thought really promising. And then in the league cup, we were one nil down to Portsmouth in the second half when Joe Piggitt scored a goal to make it a tie. I think Joe Piggitt is comfortable with Piggy jokes because that's his Twitter handle. It's like Piggy something, but okay.

AFC Wimbledon fans have taken to saying feed the pig and he will score. And indeed, it does seem that if you feed Joe Piggitt enough crosses, he will score. So Joe Piggitt scored, made it 1-1, and then there was an own goal in the 88th minute, my favorite kind of goal, and AFC Wimbledon prevailed 2-1, 1-0 down to 2-1 up. So that's a pretty great result. Taken on Barnes Lee this weekend? I don't know. I'm feeling really optimistic.

That might come back to haunt me. I should never feel optimistic, but I am. I can't lie, I'm excited. We're currently sitting ninth in the leave one table, which I will take that all day long. Wow, that's pretty amazing. So there are teams who are less, who are more undefeated than you, then?

There are eight teams more undefeated than us, yes. Several of which won both of their opening two games, but they're just bragging. All right, general great news. Keep it up, I'm glad that the team is playing as a, as a team. And Joey Pigs is getting his, his, his daily allowance, as they say. What's the news from Mars this week? Well, and his from Mars is, is still tense and not great as the dust storm that has been going on for the last month, or two months already now, is finally settling a little bit, but opportunity, the rover that's

been on Mars for almost 15 years, has not woken up yet. So it's been 62, well, when this podcast comes out, it will have been almost 70 days since opportunity was last heard from. And hopefully by the time the podcast comes out, we'll hear something, but it's starting to feel a little bit like we might not hear something. Because that's a really long time to go with no power.

So it's a solar powered rover. The basically the dust storm was thick enough that it was nighttime, no power. So it's a solar powered rover. Basically, the dust storm was thick enough that it was night time. No power was getting to it. And the battery may have frozen in that time. Because one of the things that the solar panels do is actually warm the battery so that it doesn't freeze. This is so they have to get a certain amount of sunlight or the battery can freeze. Right. Because it's very cold on Mars and then Then you can't recharge the battery Because then the battery cannot function to wake the Rover up so

When opportunity first landed on Mars they had a song that they would play in the admission control every morning Because everybody was so amped up and excited and the admission control every morning because everybody was so amped up and excited. So the real news from Mars is that they have started to do this again to keep morale up in the room because everybody's a little bummed. But also to just to try and wake the rover up. So they've actually released a playlist on Spotify

of some of the songs that they are playing, which include Wake Me Up before you go-go. The trooper from Iron Maiden, dust in the wind from Kansas. Here comes the sun by the Beatles. It's adorable. Oh man. Oh, that's adorable. It's adorable. Oh man, I hope it wakes up. But even if it doesn't, what an accomplishment to have a solar-powered battery working for 15 years on Mars, let alone all the other things that had to work for it to talk to us all those years. It's pretty amazing. And the team still is holding out hope, and they still are sending a little message every

day to try and wake it up and give it a little beep and say, can you beep back for us? And so far, no back beep, but, um, uh, frankly, this, this mission was, like, was planned to last 90 days, and that would have been considered a success. So 15 years on the, on the red planet is, is wonderful, but we will continue to have updates for you here. Uh, dear Hank, a John, if you want to stay updated on how, how opportunities doing. Well, Hank, thank you for the update from Mars, Ajahn, if you want to stay updated on how how opportunities doing. Well Hank, thank you for the update from Mars and indeed thank you for pausing with me. What did we learn today? Oh gosh, well we learned that the Eiffel Tower of Poop is gonna take a while.

Yeah, 120,000 years, half of human history is so far. Oh man, we've got to get more people visiting the Eiffel Tower is what I've learned. We've learned. We've learned that step up too is a really wonderful movie and anybody who doesn't think so is wrong, period, end of story. We've learned that if you gotta lean into your enthusiasm and bring people up to where you are, not meet them down there. And lastly, we've learned that there is so much music and it is so good.

John, thank you for prodding with me. As always, you can email us your questions and we really appreciate when you do that because it's how we make the podcast. You can do that at hankinjohnatgmail.com. I am Hank Green on Twitter. John is John Green. This podcast is edited by the Indifitigable Nick Jenkins. It's produced by Resyan Haas and Sheridan Gibson.

Our head of community and communications is Victoria Bones von Jorner. The music that you're listening to right now and at the beginning of the podcast is by Gunnarola. Thank you again for listening and as they say in our hometown. Don't forget to be awesome. I'm back here at the end of the episode with your final reminder that the PodCon campaign is ending very soon. So if you think you can support it in these final hours before it ends, whether you can make it to the event or you want to get the $30 digital attendance, which will deliver

the entire conference to the podcast app of your choice, you can go to podcon.com now or whenever you get home, don't do it while you're driving. home, don't do it while you're driving.