Dear Hank & John - 183: John's Subway Safety Procedures

Episode Date: April 1, 2019

How do you stay focused on one project for a long time? Should I tell this stranger to examine their zipper? Are there other kinds of ketchup? And more! Follow us on Twitter! twitter.com/dearhankandjohn If you're in need of dubious advice, email us at [e-mail]. Join us for monthly livestreams and an exclusive weekly podcast at patreon.com/dearhankandjohn.

Hello and welcome to Dear Hank and John. Of course I prefer to think of it Dear John and Hank. It's a comedy podcast where two brothers answer your questions, give you Dubie's advice and bring you all the week's news from both Mars and AFC Wimbledon John. Yeah. You know I recently thought about buying a Velcro hat but I decided not to. What made you decide not to Hank? I just thought it might be a rip off.

All right, I'm gonna retell the joke, but make it better. Hank, I recently was about to buy some Velcro shoes, but at the last second I decided not to, you know why? What, why? I just, I like the, the tying. Ha ha ha ha ha. I'm here all week. I just like the feel of us string on my fingers.

Yeah, I don't know. It just makes me feel accomplished when I tie my shoes in the morning. I'm always like, look what I did. I did something today at least. I did the whole shoe tying thing. My feet are snug in their booties every time I tie my shoes. I think about Mr. Rogers.

I'm a 41 year old man and every single time I tie my shoes, I think about Mr. Rogers and I will for the rest of my life. That's well at this point definitely. So Hank, it's not that long. You know what? Yeah, I know. I got the joke. I was just trying not to comment on it.

What's up, John? Here's what I would have tweeted this week. Oh, I'm sure that there's plenty of things. There was a lot of pressure on me to tweet this, actually, but I held firm. I would have tweeted one of the many amazing pictures I took of the looking for Alaska Hulu TV show sets. Oh, okay. Oh. I thought I was expecting to hear. It was so surreal to walk through that place because the Culver Creek that they have

built, the people who are making the looking for Alaska show, looks so much more like the Culver Creek of my imagination. And indeed, my actual high school memories than my current high school, because of course like all the buildings at my current high school have been long since renovated and the place looks completely different. And walking through covert creek with the cast of looking for Alaska was definitely one of the weirdest experiences

I have ever had. I was visiting the Uncanny Valley and it was beautiful and weird and overwhelming and I'm very grateful to all the people who are making that show and I had an awesome time. But now I'm back. That's longer than 280 characters. It occurs to me. It is, but you I'm back. That's longer than 280 characters. It occurs to me.

It is, but you sure you would have had some very pithy things to say about the Mueller report. Would I have, I mean, I really don't miss engaging with news stories in 280 character bits. Yeah, I'm not saying it would have been good or helpful or for you or the world, but I'm sure you would have had them to say. I'm sure I, I'm sure I would have. And I'm sure I would have found the whole thing irresistible.

Fortunately, I found it and find it utterly resistible. This first question comes from Abigail. It writes to your John and Hank, what is the proper way to get your body into the bathtub? Also, should you fill the water and then get in or get in and let the water run over you while the tub fills up, bombs and bubbles, Abigail? You fill the water, are they getting in? No.

I think? No. Wait. Oh, God, I bathed wrong. I don't know how to do it, John. I've done it like 13 times. It doesn't matter how you get your body into the bath. That is not relevant. Anyway, you can, Abigail. The point is to get into the bath. Now, you want to get into the bath

when there's about an inch and a half of water in the bathtub. And here's why. You want to be able to change the temperature of the water as the bathtub fills in an extremely specific way, right? Like because we all know a bath that is slightly too cold or slightly too hot is barely even a bath, right? Like the whole benefit of the bath,

the relaxation benefits all come from it being the perfect temperature so that it feels like your body is almost floating in like a slightly warmer womb, right? Right. Yeah, it's all about the womb. So you get in with about an inch and a half of water in the bathtub and then you're able to calibrate as you go if you want the water a little warmer or a little cooler.

If you have a bath bomb or bath salts, you're gonna wanna put those in just before, maybe like two minutes before the bath is done filling up so that they have time to dissolve or make some bubbles if you're a bubbly person. And then you're gonna wanna spend 10 minutes after you've turned off the water before you wash yourself, just relaxing, just making time for you.

Every time you have a thought that's like an anxious thought, that's a worry, that's a fear, whatever, you just let that go right out into the wound of the bad. What if you have now created a situation where I'm having constant worry about whether it's the right temperature, because apparently if it's too hot or too cold, the whole situation is worthless.

I mean, I've definitely been in that situation before Hank where I got into the bathtub and I waited too long to get in. It was almost full when I got in. It was a little too cold and you sit there and you're just like, well, what is even the point? Why am I even bothering? This is not relaxing.

In addition to, yeah. It would be relaxing if I wasn't so upset about the fact that it is not relaxing. In addition to, yeah. It would be relaxing if I wasn't so upset about the fact that it's not relaxing. Yeah, I might as well be in like a freezing cold swimming pool right now. Like I might as well be like out in a snow storm. Sounds way too complicated. I'm just gonna keep taking showers.

That's great. The thing about a shower, there's so many things that disgust me about showers, but I think the thing that I find the most disgusting about them is the way that the little pellets of water Shoot you like babies like Bang bang bang bang bang bang they just like shoot against your body Versus just soaking in a tub. Oh, it's so nice

John I have a question. I want to ask you you didn't highlight it as the question you wanted to answer But I'm very curious. Okay, it's from May who asks, you dear Hank and John. Why does my bottle of ketchup specify that it is tomato ketchup? Are there other kinds of ketchup? I have never seen any of them in the store. What hidden forces are keeping me from trying onion ketchup? Come what may? Oh, that's a great name specific sign off. There are non-tomato ketchup, right? Like other fruits can be ketchuped. Yeah, I think there's a Wikipedia page called fruit ketchup. I know that there is banana ketchup.

Banana ketchup was a replacement for tomato ketchup, though, when in the Philippines, they couldn't get tomatoes during World War II. So they started making banana ketchup, and now they still make it. They call it banana sauce now. They don't call it, maybe some people still call it banana ketchup. There's also other, like, I feel like there's a curry ketchup I've heard of. But I probably also is sort of, uh, there's apple ketchup, uh, which I've had before actually. And, oh, yeah, I mean, it gets at some point,

it gets to be a fine line between being so distant from what I know is ketchup, that it's inaccurate to call it ketchup. You know what I mean? That's the thing. Like tomato ketchup won this battle so hard that you might as well not have other kinds of ketchup. Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Like obviously there are other diet sodas, but when you say, I'd like a diet soda, you mean I'd like a diet doctor pepper. Hahaha. Of course. Sometimes I'm at a restaurant and I ask if they have diet doctor pepper and they look at me as if, of course they don't.

And then I say, do you have diet coke and they look at me as if, of course they do. And I'm like, well, that is the wrong way to go about running your restaurant. John, I don't have any particular interest in your particular interest for diet, Dr. Pepper. So I kind of feel like moving on to a different, were you drinking diet, Dr. Pepper, right now?

Yeah, I was actually. Sorry, you were just talking and it was kind of boring to me. So I would just really, that was the diet, Dr. Pepper. you were just talking and it was kind of boring to me. So I would just really go for the right, Dr. Pepper. The theory of where the word ketchup comes from shocked me a little bit, because ketchup to me seems like a very American thing, ketchup. Seems like America, I don't know why that seems American,

but like, I don't know, because French fries and ketchup. Right. We like that. It's the thing we do when I like it very much myself, but it's probable that the word ketchup either comes from the Malay or Chinese. The Malay being a word for various fermented savory sauces like soy sauce and the Chinese being from the brine of pickled fish.

So you'd pickle fish and then you take the like a leftover, like you take the fish out. And now you sell those, but then you got this leftover pickled fish brine. And people were like, ketchup, that's what that is. All of that is surprising to me because tomatoes are a new world food. Like tomatoes didn't exist in Malaysia or China until after the Colombian exchange,

which is just a reminder that everything is new, including Diet Dr. Pepper, which always says it was established in 1885, but in fact, didn't exist in its current form until the 1980s. By the way, Hank, do you know what Diet Dr. Pepper's newest ad campaign is? Be a pepper. No.

No, all their cans these days say, you deserve this. Which is not clear if it's like a punishment or a reward. Like, if the Dr. Pepper Snapple group is like, you've been bad. Have a diet, Dr. Pepper. Or you've been good. Have a Dr. Pepper. I think probably they think you've been good. And apparently everyone thinks they've been good, which may diet, Dr. Pepper. Or you've been good, have a doctor, I think probably they think you've been good, and apparently everyone thinks they've been good,

which may be a problem. Well, or maybe it's just the way of the universe. This next question comes from Marissa, who writes, Dear John and Hank, how do you stay focused on one story or project for so long? I've been going through old vlog by those videos, and when the Faulkner stars came out,

John said he'd been trying to write that book since he was a hospital chaplain. And Hank's first mention of his book was in late 2015. You both seem to keep the story going for so long, and I can only stick with the story for a few months. I have hundreds of pages of scenes and character descriptions and storylines. Is this just because I'm young? I am only 20, and I will improve with age?

Or do you have any tips on how to stick with a story? Uh, boy, do I not know, I guess I don't have any choice, I'm too busy to mess about. I'm not. I still write things that I abandoned all the time. I think that some of it is being 20, like when I was 20, I found it impossible to finish long stories. Or when I did finish long stories, the length was like 20 or 25 pages. I think that you do over time get better at living in a world for a long time

without losing interest in it. But I also think that the reason it took me 11 or 12 years to write the fault in our stars isn't because I was writing the Fault in our Stars every day. It's because many days I had most days I had abandoned it. You know like many months, many even whole years. Yeah, and then I'd come back to it and I'd write a bunch of things and a lot of, I mean there were several times when I went and tried to write the story that eventually became the Fault in Our Stars, and I'd work on it for a few months, and I'd write, you know, 10 or 15,000 words, and literally none of them ended up in the Fault in Our Stars.

So, I don't think you can like judge yourself that much, especially when you're young. I think you have to follow your interests and your passions and part of learning to write is about learning to write fragments and then eventually you get better at stitching those fragments together. I've found that the thing that kept me with the story and still now keeps me with the story is like legitimate concern for the characters. I'm just worried about them and I want to know what happens. And ultimately, I have sort of a rough sketch, but as I'm writing, I often find that things take turns

I don't expect them to take. And sometimes, like last night, the stuff I wrote, as I was laying in bed, I was like, they wouldn't do that. They would do this other thing. And so tonight, when I wrote, as I was laying in bed, I was like, they wouldn't do that. They would do this other thing. And so, tonight, when I write, I will change it so that they did the other thing. And so it's like both trying to be true to the characters while also trying to give them the freedom

to move in their world and also to give them the structure to go to the place where they need to end up. Kind of keeps me driving, solving the problem, being interested in it and being worried about what they're, you know, how they're gonna do, and if they're gonna be okay. And the thing you have brought up to me a lot and talked with me a lot is like how much value there is,

and that maybe we didn't see in previous decades of our lives in just spending a lot of time examining one thing and I think that's a lot of what the Anthropocene Review is about. And that is really helpful for like creating a fictional person or world or situations because you have to spend the time understanding them and the world in greater detail than is gonna be on the page. Because you have to really get into

the dirty work of imagining, which is kind of a wonderful opportunity to get to be a professional daydreamer sometimes. Yeah, and it's best. And it's best. There's also lots of other things that go into that process. Yeah. This next question comes from Crystal, who asks,

dear Hakejohn, I recently purchased a book on Amazon and I did not read the description very carefully and when it arrived, it was a giant coffee table book. I have never owned a coffee table book before, and now I feel like I am not going to let it live up to its life's purpose. While I do, in fact, own a coffee table, then what's the problem? I rarely have guests over to have it worth having a book constantly on the table. Any help would be appreciated, not a rock crystal.

You don't have coffee table books just to impress other people, although that is one of the central reasons you have. You also have coffee table books to impress yourself. So you'll sit down and get ready to watch TV and you'll be like, wow, that is a beautiful coffee table book about the work of Kerry James Marshall. I am very sophisticated. Now I have going to watch House Hunters International. Now I'm gonna watch people make really bad choices about moving to Bolivia, having never visited there before. I're going to rent an apartment that is a single room without a window that is inside of a church that is itself inside of an office building.

Fascinating. Yeah, I at least I feel comfortable that this couple is going to stay together since they met on the internet nine hours ago. And I'm sure that all of this is not staged at all. that this couple is going to stay together since they met on the internet nine hours ago. The, and I'm sure that all of this is not staged at all. Um, I feel like, God, when somebody pointed out to me that all of House Center's International was staged,

I was so devastated. Like, it ruined, like, a large swath of my consciousness. Yeah, and it was really good. Well, also, like, it ruined the part of you that's, like, how did I not notice that? Oh, I know, I know. Yeah, and it will also like, it ruins the part of you that's like, how did I not notice that? Oh, I know, I know, yeah, I know. Like I will occasionally say to Catherine when we're watching some like reality television thing,

I'll be like, well, the camera was already in the house, so they're not actually surprised that they showed up. And Catherine's like, oh man, why did you say that? It's okay for me to live in the fiction. It's really, you don't want to, never, when you're watching any fictional content, never think about where the camera is, because it ruins everything.

But it's not supposed to be fiction, but it is. This is about coffee table books, John. I am a little bit on the fence about coffee table books. Like I feel like there are a little bit on the fence about a coffee table book. Like I feel like there are a little bit of, there like if you put art on the wall, you put a carpet on the floor, you put a book on the coffee table. It's just like an object,

and I know that carpets serve other purposes besides being decorative, but that's one of the purposes they serve. I feel like it's just a way of constructing your space. And I have not ever, and I imagine that this is the case for most coffee table books like Red One. Yeah, I mean, one of the things about being married to a curator is that I am married to somebody

who has to read coffee table books. Because in a lot of cases, books about art and artists are kind of coffee table shaped. And so sometimes, Sarah will be researching an art assignment video and she'll be in bed reading a book that is two feet high and a foot and a half wide. And she often comments on how.

That's a little picture. Don't fall asleep while you're reading that book, you could die. She often comments on how incredibly unpleasant a reading experience it is because the columns of text are so long that by the time you get to the end of one, it's like takes you forever to track back to the next column of text. And so you're right that they're not for reading. They're for paging through, right?

Like I have a coffee table book about the history of Liverpool Football Club and it's not for reading. It's not for, you know, you start on page one, you end on page 652. It's for paging through and being like, oh yeah, Kenny Dalglish, scoring that goal. That was amazing, things like that.

And so I think having a coffee table book is great as long as you don't Ask it to be a bunch of things that it's not which by the way is the same for all of us It's also not just coffee table books not just coffee table books, but also househounders international Individual humans, etc. Yeah, Bolivia Yeah, just ever It's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, money. Okay. Alright. Do you want to answer that question a different way? Not really. Okay. This next question comes from Paloma who writes, dear John and Hank, I hate my co-workers ringtone. I cannot freaking stand it. It is the most annoying song ever. She receives like six calls a day and then takes forever to answer. I mean, who wouldn't? If you set a song as your ringtone, like that's basically

saying, I'm the kind of person who always answers on the fourth ring because this is my jam. Should I ask her to change it? Should I get her fired? So I don't have to listen to that horror daily. Oh my gosh. I'm sorry to think the problem might not be with your co-workers ringtone. Or should I continue to live in despair forever? Okay, I mean How bad is this song that I'm suspicious that Paloma hasn't named the song because it makes you think that maybe it's great. Maybe it's a good one Maybe it's a and maybe it's a banger. Paloma just doesn't have good taste in music

I understand how it's annoying to hear the same song no matter what the song is six times a day in music. I understand how it's annoying to hear the same song no matter what the song is six times a day, but I'm wondering, so here's my suggestion Paloma, go home, listen to some of the artists' other songs, and you may find yourself over time kind of getting a little bit into that artist, and then maybe it can be a place of empathy for you instead of a place of resentment. That's bold, John. That's bold. Yeah, you hate this song so much. Go, like, exposure therapy. Go have more.

Exactly. Well, yeah, or at least, like, try to find, is there a song you like that's by a similar artist from, like, a different album? And then you can go in and say, like, hey, Joey, I don't know if you've listened to the new 21 Savage album, but it's significantly better than the one you took your ringtone from. I really like this song a lot. I wonder if you could maybe listen to that, see if it might be your jam. Is it possible that in general music as ringtones is bad, especially in a public setting where?

It's not great. I agree that it's not great. Why don't you just put your phone on vibrate? You're at the office. It's not like you need to be awoken from a slumber. Yeah, because I just occurred to me right before I went in to get the colonoscopy, the person in the little room next to me separated by a curtain. Their ringtone was the Game of Thrones theme.

And if that played as I was entering the operating theater, I would be very weird, like very worried. Yeah, you'd be like, I guess this is it. That's, I've seen how this show goes. Yeah, if I could go back just real quickly to the 21 Savage song a lot. I've been trying to think like, why do I like that song so much?

And I think it's because there's one line I find really relatable. It's when 21 Savage says, how many lawyers you got a lot? I also have a lot of lawyers. And I find it to be really overwhelming at times. And I just, it's funny to me that he and I would have a point of connection because I feel like

we've had vastly different life experiences. Right, yeah, that I know, it's funny to me that he and I would have a point of connection because I feel like we've had vastly different life experiences. Right. Yeah, that I know what I definitely know how it feels to like not know if things are good or bad so much as they're a lot. Right. Right. I think we all know that feeling, but not particularly with lawyers. So it's interesting that that is a hashtag relatable moment for you. It's interesting that that is a hashtag relatable moment for you. Yeah. That's why you gotta have a lot of words in your songs, so that like some of them will be relatable. Right, like hyper-specific. Yeah.

How many novels about Conjoined Twins You Read, a bunch, like 18? It's weird. Yeah, like more than most people. More than most people. Might have a record. I don't think might have a record. I don't think I have the record, but I think I definitely the top half.

This next question comes from Maggie who writes to your John and Hank, do I tell the stranger next to me that he needs to examine his zipper? What's the protocol with talking to strangers about their pants situations? Wake up, Maggie. I don't get that name specific sign off, but thank you for that. Wake up Maggie, I think I got something to say to you. Oh, oh. It's late September. I really should be back at school. How many lawyers you've got? A lot.

So I think with teeth, with teeth stuff, if I'm at the pharmacy and I got teeth stuff, I don't mind the pharmacist going to stuff, like you got a little something in your teeth, I don't mind that. With zipper, I'm feeling a little bit different. I feel like, I just gotta live that life and assume that when I discover it on my own, that nobody noticed, because that's the world I wanna live in,

even if it's not real. Yeah, friends, yes. Equatences may be strangers know. Yeah, like if there was some way to broadcast information in a completely values neutral way, like if I could just like have a text message come up on that person's phone and it says xyz I do that but I could not and I don't think you should say to their face I can see your boxers bro. Yeah, I don't it's a complicated one but in general I try to pretend that strangers don't exist especially their zippers.

Yeah, I just try to block out that there's all these other people at the target. Yeah. Oh, that's really not how I live my life. I have way too many conversations with strangers in the target. I can't remember the last time I noticed that anyone's zipper was down.

Because I feel like I'm a very like shoulders up looker, partly because I'm tall. You know, right, if you're sitting on the subway and the person standing on the subway, then maybe. Yes, then it's an issue, but I have it the last time I make the last time I was seated on the subway, was literally 2006. Oh, wow.

Yeah, I like to stand on the subway because then it's easier to leave if there's an emergency, which is not unlikely. And people are like, oh, it's so polite of you to leave a seat for me and I'm like, oh, no, no, no, no, no, I just, in case something bad happened, do you have any more subway safety procedures for us? Well, yeah, I mean, the number, like the hardest thing is that obviously you have to be standing so that you can be one of the first people to get out when the emergency happens. But then the hard part about that is that, of course, you don't want your fingers to touch

any surfaces. That's not safe. Because then if the subway suddenly stops, then you're all up on other people. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, you just have to, basically, you have to develop like Alex Honolde level balance. But instead of climbing up El Capitan without a rope,

you're just trying to make it to 86th Street. Yeah. I do like to try and stand without touching anything on Subways, which I generally find. Yeah. I can put different parts of my body against the pole, including like the crook of my elbow, which is usually enough, which reminds me, John, that this podcast is brought to you by a little pamphlet that you've put together. It's called John Subway Safety Procedures.

It's available at dftba.com. April Fools, maybe, I don't know, what is this? You can buy it as a coffee table book as well. It's 800 pages long. Well, that's a diagram. Today's podcast is also brought to you by wrong temperature level bathing, wrong temperature level bathing useless. It's also brought to you by various non-tomato ketchup.

Some of them got fish in it. Hey, we've also got a project for awesome message. Somebody donated to the project for awesome to get us to read this message. In fact, it was many people in this particular case, Diana, the Queen of Microwaves, Huggai, the Death Doggo, Alice, Kath, Lily, Alex of the Cuckoo Crocs, and the Booy, Geo, to Goose, Meg, Ev, Katie, Sky, Rob, Ali, Glenn, Alice, and Jake, Mac, Aaron, Lai, Will, Bex, Cody, Hayley, Emily, James, Jack, Ench, and S.J. are lovely to Atariya, modmins. This is a callout post to tell you that we think

you're pretty amazing. Thanks for modding the server real good and for dealing with us as we norm the general and threaten to fondue your bots or burn down the discord. So to all of our hardworking modmins, yes, even the Jonathan's, thanks for being awesome. We love you.

This message is cat approved. Eat dab. I don't know what any of those words mean, but Tuitaria is an amazing community of Nerdfighters. They have a great Discord server. You can just Google Tuitaria if you want to join them. And they do lovely projects together and also have a lot of inside jokes I don't understand.

John, do you want to discuss paper clips? Oh boy. We have never, in the 72-year history of this podcast, the 964 episodes we have made never have we started such a bonfire as when we announced to the world that paper clips should be long-end in the front and short-end in the back. Lots of people agree, lots of people disagree. I think we got over a thousand emails about this, which is ludicrous. This one is from Amber Marie. Who says, I work for a judge. I handle paperwork all day, every day, and our office uses tons of paperclips.

There isn't really any benefit to having a paperclip face a certain way. Sometimes the paperclip binds larger stacks and gets a little stretched out so in order to reuse it, I actually have to flip it to face the other direction or bend it back in place. Also, I have to just stop right there.

West, we start another bonfire and say millions of people disagree with Amber Marie and have extremely strong opinions about whether the short end should be in the front or in the back. And I'm pretty sure everybody is wrong. Like, I'm pretty sure that like there are no right answers here. Yeah. But Amber Marie's email was my favorite because it basically argues for like a Brexit approach to the paperclip problem. We don't like this, so we're just quitting. Right. As someone who works in an office that functions around paperwork, binder clips are immensely

superior. They're more secure, less prone to loose pages, less prone to lose pages due to slippage or snatch pages from an adjacent stack. I wish that paper clips would be eliminated much like John wishes. The penny would be, I hope that this insight helps your paperclip dilemma. Hashtag use more binder clips, a millennial who remembers Clippy, Amber Marie. To be clear, Amber Marie, millennials are not young anymore. amber Marie. To be clear, amber Marie, millennials are not young anymore.

When we talk about young people, amber Marie, we mean, you know, young people. The only, the only paperclip thing I saw that made even a little bit of sense was don't put the big side in front because it might cover up some of the text. I will, however, say that this can be solved in two ways. One, reading the line despite the fact that there is a very, very small amount of occlusion or two, just move it over a little bit. It's a paperclip, it's not stuck there. No, the thing that it made me realize

is that so many of us in our jobs have these repetitive tasks that we build, like you build a world view around it. And like I've signed my name 475,000 times while sitting in my basement. And as a result of that, like I have extremely strong opinions about sharpie, sharpie color. I believe in this conspiracy theory.

I said a conspiracy theory when you're the only person who believes it and you've never even mentioned it to anyone. But I believe in this conspiracy theory where certain colors of Sharpie last longer than other colors of Sharpie. No, they do, that's absolute. Like I have also signed my name a bunch, that is absolutely true.

Yeah, but nobody talks about it, and I'm like, is nobody talking about it because I've made this up, is nobody talking about it because it's not interesting, it's probably that one, or is nobody talking about it because there's a massive conspiracy. Well, the question is, do they run out sooner? Yeah.

Because there's something about the ink that's different, or do they run out the sooner because the ink is more the ink that's different, or do they around the sooner because the ink is more expensive so they put less in. Exactly. Yeah, and I don't know the answer to that. I've actually tried to do a bunch of research into the chemical composition of Sharpies because there are people who are still alive who invented Sharpies. At the time, it was like a discovery, And the reason Sharpie is Sharpie and other permanent markers

aren't is because Sharpie made a better mouse trap, in this case, of permanent marker. But anyway, it just reminded me of that, because I think so much about Sharpies and the thickness of lines and the kinds of paper and whether the paper sticks together and how the paper gets bound into books, and yada, yada, yada, and there are a lot of people

who feel that way about paper clips. I want very badly to make a video that tests sharpies in many different ways and we'll see if that is ever gonna come to a different, which I need to work with. Need to work with like Mark Rober or Simone Gertz on a way to test Sharpies? Yeah, no, I love that idea.

I, I mean, I'll tell you, I'll tell you one person who's gonna be a super fan of that video, your brother. So that's, it's not about having a bunch of people like it, it's about having one or two people like it a lot. That's the future of YouTube. I actually agree with that.

Like I know. You know, make stuff for people who will love it, not for people who will like agree to watch it begrudgingly. Speaking of which Hank. Yeah, huh? I just love Dr. Benji's football manager series right now. I thought you're gonna ask another question. Can you get a, I know you like Dr. Benjy, John. We share a YouTube account. I'm aware. Yes, and I know that you like looking at microscopic life. I do. In

a rich high definition, I actually have gotten into that too. So you've YouTube's algorithms has like and your YouTube algorithm has infected my brain. Maybe. Beautiful way. Everyone should share a YouTube algorithm with someone else. Like maybe this is the actual problem with YouTube. Is that like if you only focus on what you're into,

you are like, it's not good at it. YouTube needs to be like, okay, here's this person. We're gonna pick a rando to be their YouTube sibling and start to infect their recommendations with recommendations from this rando. Right. And then at the end of it, YouTube can be like, congratulations, you're now married.

You like the more like all the same things. And YouTube will be like, no, no, no, no, no, the algorithm has told us that this is the person for you. And you can be like, well, no, I'm pretty sure I don't really want to be married to this person. And then YouTube will just continue to tell you that you're going to marry that person, the way that they continue to show me the same six videos over and over and over again, every time I refresh the page. You get Google be like, I'm pretty sure you want to watch this one.

And I'm like, I know that I don't want to watch this video that's about like how alt-right people are misunderstood and totally correct. Like I'm sure I don't want to watch YouTube. I'm going to hit repress. 100% OP. And then eventually Google is just like, actually, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, So good luck and Godspeed. This next question comes from Tara who asks, Dear Hankajan, My good friend recently gave me a plant for my birthday, which is really lovely. I like giving plants.

This is one of my favorite presents. I, however, have a lot of plants in my home already. This is the thing. They only gave you a plant because you already had a bunch. I recently started a new job, and I was already thinking about getting office plants. Is it rude of me to take the plant my friend gave to me to my office? I'm pretty sure they would notice when they come visit, but the sad truth is that I'd probably

spend more time with it at the office than I would at my home. Not a Spinoza Terra. It's a gift. It's a guess. It's a gift. You can do whatever you want with it. It's not their plant. It's your plant. You can do whatever you want with it. It's not their plant, it's your plant.

They gave it to you. And if they come over and they say, where's my plant? The right response to that is, oh, I'm sorry. It's not your plant. It was a gift. No, I mean, you could say, you're gonna have to wait for them to say that. You could say, oh, thank you for the plant.

And then like two days later, take a picture of it on Snapchat and snap it to them with a Heart and say thank you so much. Look how nice it looks at my office desk like yeah Or yeah, you or you could just say what you said to us, which is like unfortunately I spend more time with the office than I do at home So I thought I'd take the plant to the office where it brings me so much joy that I don't want to think so much about paper clips. And like other people's ringtones. Yeah, like it's hard out there in the office life and this plant brings me so much joy and happiness. And it's bringing happiness and joy to all of my co-workers as well.

We need more plants at our office, John. I've been recently thinking about this. It's a good idea. I feel like we are a bit sterile. Not a lot of stuff on the walls need to get the action on. Sorry to all my employees. We need some plants up in this business. Yep, I actually agree with you.

I think you're correct. This, yeah, that's not a joke. It's something I actually wanna do for our office. Yeah, I don't really wanna have plants in our office, but I do wanna have better art. Oh, no, art doesn't really want to have plants in our office, but I do want to have better art Oh, no art doesn't make oxygen Hank It's time to get to the all important news from Mars and aFC Wimbledon is it already that time and I have one I have wonderful news That's a bit of a surprise aFC Wimbledon continue to not be last

In League one, despite a fairly infuriating four to loss to Jillingham, what made it particularly heartbreaking is that AFC Wilden's longtime captain and my personal hero, Barry Fuller, now plays for Jillingham. He's just so good. I mean, he's 33, 34 years old. He doesn't have the pace he once had, but he's just such an intelligent footballer

and such a hard worker. And it was a little bit heartbreaking to see him playing for a different team. Wimbledon went one-nil up and then gave up one good goal, one really, really bad goal, the one kind of medium sized goal. We went for the whole Goldilocks vibe, at which point it was 3-1, then it was 4-1 on a, you know, like a goal that was all right, and then it was 4-2. We scored in like the 97th minute, a pure consolation

goal. So now Wimbledon are pretty much where they were when we last spoke after their incredibly good run of form. We'll see if this is the beginning of the end or if it's merely a blip in Wimbledon's great escape, but Wimbledon after 39 games have 39 points, they probably need to win four of their last seven games, which not easy. Yeah, no, that's the end of the sentence. They've won three of their last five. They have. They have.

We need to win four of our last seven, which is possible. But you know, are you playing Bradford City in all of those games? We are playing Bradford City in the last game of the season. And I think Bradford will be relegated by then, so hopefully they will have nothing to play for. So one way of thinking about it, in fact the way I've been thinking about it in my head,

is Bradford City's currently in last, and that's our last game of the season. So if we win three of our next six games, then we just really probably have to win that last one. So you need even odds. You need to be as good as Oxford United. Yeah, we need to win three of our last six games. You need to be exactly as good as Gillingham,

which you've just shown you are not not at the moment. But I mean, we'll see. I still think it's possible. It's not likely, but lots of things that aren't likely happen. So I'm not giving up hope. What is the news from Mars? Well, in news from Mars, John, did you know that Jeff Bezos has an invitation only conference called Mars? Does he really? He does. It stands for Machine Learning, Automation, Robotics and space. Okay, and I read a little op-ed newsletter post from somebody who was at the Mars conference event thing that Jeff Bezos does which he refers to

moments that are particularly stressful for For engineers who are doing pitches to Jeff Bezos, and I'm just like, oh gosh, wow. Oh, that makes me feel away. But anyway, a fair amount of that happens, but ultimately this take from Jonathan Vanian who writes a lot about artificial intelligence was that mostly the event was like, we don't really know how to do any of the things we need to do,

and artificial intelligence is not smart enough to solve these problems yet. A good, I guess. Yeah, but they sure did have a lot of really cool people come together to hang out with Jeff Bezos. And it looks like probably AI is not going to get us to Mars by 2028. Right. How what was the big plan for AI getting us to Mars by 2028? Like it gets really good at reading stop signs and then eventually takes us to Mars.

The sort of artificial intelligence robotics thing is you launch up robots that are really smart and they are able to go to an asteroid, mine that asteroid for materials and fuel, and then you need to shoot far less stuff into space. You could also send intelligence, like, because all the hydrogen and oxygen that you need will already be up there, and you won't won't have to like haul your fuel into space. And also you can send those things to Mars and they could be on the surface of Mars, digging up oxygen for the colonists to use, digging up water for them to use. And that's the idea. And like sure, I think that that is probably going to be the thing that actually makes space travel something that people do frequently.

Like, if it's ever a more commonplace thing, like if we are ever able to have, like, not sustainable, but like permanent colonies on other planets in the solar system, which we'll start with Mars is the guess. Then we're gonna need that infrastructure of smart robots doing a lot of the work for us. Yeah, but first they've got to figure out when a stoplight is green and when it's yellow, which they still also can't do.

Yeah, first they've got to be able to tell the difference between a Jersey barrier and an empty lane. Right. Yeah, I just, to say that it's not close, I think, is an understatement. Maybe I'm wrong. Yeah. And obviously, the pace of change does consistently surprise people. Right. But oftentimes with stuff like this, it's very easy to come out on a stage and say, imagine what the possibilities could be, if this were possible, and it's like, yes, agree. But also to say that self-driving cars

is an insignificant problem, it's not, it's very hard. It's easy to do when the road conditions are perfect. It's very hard to do when there's snow everywhere, and the whole system breaks in a way that humans don't, because humans can adapt in a way that computers can't. Right, it reminds me of the great onion TED talk about how in the future all cars will run on garbage. Imagine a world where all cars run on garbage.

We have lots of garbage and we have lots of cars. It's the perfect match. How will it work? That's for the technologists to figure out. Yeah. Yeah. Well Hank, I hope we get to Mars soon, but not by 2028. I hope we get there in 2029, but by the time we get there, the artificial intelligence has made us swimming pools and hot baths and everything else will need to survive. Thank you for potting with me. Thanks to everybody for writing in. Thanks for all your questions.

Sorry we didn't answer more of them. You can email us your questions or your comments or your paperclip concerns, but please know more paperclip things at Hank and John at gmail.com. This podcast is produced by Rosie Anna Halsey-Rohas and Sheridan Gibson. It's edited by Nicholas Jenkins, our head of community and communications is Victoria Bonjorno. We're off now to record our Patreon-only podcast this weekend, Ryan's, which you can get at patreon.com slash deer hankajon.

It's really bad. The music that you're hearing now and at the beginning of the episode is by the great gunner rola and as they say in our hometown. Don't forget to be awesome. our hometown. Don't forget to be awesome.