Dear Hank & John - 185: Time-Traveling Battle Axes

Episode Date: April 15, 2019

Who owns the bones? Why are American coins so confusing? Would dragon eggs have scales? 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. Or as I prefer to think of it Dear John and Hank. It's a comedy podcast with two brothers who will answer your questions, give you a DBS advice, and bring you all the weeks news from both Mars and AFC Wimbledon. John, I've heard that you're going to be starting your garden soon. I already started it because the peas get to put the peas in very early. I heard that you also added a bunch of soil.

Okay. Because the plot thickens. I mean, that's a pretty good gardening joke. I wasn't a great setup. I feel like I could have found a better setup, but that's what it was. That's where we were. Yeah, it was clearly the setup of a man

who doesn't garden a lot. How do you thicken a plot, John? Explain to me. Well, yeah, I mean, that's the part of the joke that's not great is that you don't really thicken the plot. But you do, like, I mean, that's the part of the joke that's not great is that you don't really thicken the plot, but you do like, I mean, I did put some compost and mixed, mixed some stuff into the beds. And I guess in that process, they were slightly thickened. In news of what I would have tweeted this week, I would have tweeted about Sarah and my trip to Sierra Leone. We've just gotten back from Sierra Leone, where we were learning about the healthcare system with partners in health and lots of healthcare workers in Sierra Leone who very weak and it is not effectively meeting the

needs of lots of the people there, but there is cause for hope. And yeah, it was a tough trip. It was very, you know, it was emotionally difficult, but I'm very grateful for the opportunity and I feel extremely motivated to continue helping partners in health with their work. I do too. Thank you for making that trip and telling me all about it. I've heard a bunch already. I look forward to hearing more and.

Oh, I've got a PowerPoint presentation. I on, on, later this week, I'm making a PowerPoint presentation to Hank and Catherine and my parents Basically asking them for a lot of money. Yeah So I I feel like I feel like you're just testing your presentation on me over and over again Correct. I'm trying to figure out what will be most effective. What a thank-rothed to. Well, I look forward to giving you lots of money, John. By you, I mean partners in health, and by partners in health, I mean healthcare workers in Sierra Leone. Okay, we're not going to spend the entire time talking about my trip to Sierra Leone,

as much as I would like to. I understand that this is an advice podcast in which two brothers provide extraordinarily dubious advice to people who write us at hankajonajemo.com. Beginning with this question from Ali, who writes dear John and Hank, who owns the bones? Like after a human dies, bones are often left over? Often.

Well, I guess that's true. Yeah, sometimes not always. Yep. Do the bones own themselves? Can bones own land like those bones once had meat and bought the land? But can they own themselves after they aren't a person anymore? Does the family own the bones or the state who owns the bones? Who owns the bones? It's a great question. I feel like, don't, like, John, if, you know, having forbid you died someday, Sarah would own the bones, right?

Yeah, I think so. I think the bones are technically the property of the next of kin. Although, you know, like the thing about being a dead person, and I think about this a lot, the thing about being a dead person is that you still have a surprising amount of control. Like, yeah, exactly. Yeah, you have a surprising amount of control over what happens to your stuff and over,

like, I've always kind of, if you've read Moryne Johnson's beautiful novel, 13 Little Blue Envelopes. I have. Yes. I just love the idea of being a dead person and sending the people who want my money on adventures. What?

Yeah. Yeah, and that's a right that you have as a dead person. No one can stop you. Up to a point. Yeah, I think there are some things that you can't put in your will, right? Like you can't say like, I will give a million dollars to my niece, but only if he commits this like,

incredible art heist. I don't know, I think there's some rules about what you're, but I'm not positive. The long and short of it, Ali, is that you need a will. And the reason I wanted to put this question first is to remind my brother that he needs a will. I see, I'll get one of those, no problem. I was gonna do it right after pod con, John.

Wait, that'll happen like four months ago. Okay, well, one of the things that really impressed me about the community health workers in Sierra Leone and I am gonna get back to your will is that when they would visit with patients in their homes, they would ask extremely specific questions, right? So it wouldn't be like, have you been taking your medication? Like my psychiatrist asks me,

like over the last 12 weeks, have you been taking your medication? Well, you know, sometimes it would be like, did you take your medication yesterday? And if you didn't, why weren't you able to like, what are the, you know, what, what are the obstacles between you and taking your medication?

So let me just ask you this Hank, did you call your estate lawyer today? Okay. I appreciate the harassment and I will get on that. I'm gonna strongly disagree with that pronunciation. Sorry. I'd like to lodge a complaint with the board. All right, well, look, John, sometimes I pretend to be British.

You know this about me. That was very close to a British accent. That was dangerously close to the return of your fake British accent. Oh, that's cool. Dead people don't own anything as far as I can tell. Well, yeah, except like they're pulling the strings of their own estates. Yes, well, yes.

It's very strange to me that you can like, so this is a weird thing. You don't necessarily own your bones in the same way that you own your organs after death. This was a surprise to me. That is a surprise to me as well. That like so, organ donation you have to sign up for. But like tissue donation you don't.

So sometimes if you don't do an organ donation you still can't, you still will have like ligaments donated to people. I don't know about bones. It's complicated. Yeah, I mean, but in any case, the estate, like your bones are part of what you leave behind. And you need to tell the people that you love what to do with them, because those bones are theirs now, and they need to know. Because otherwise, there is something like, I got a bunch of bones.

You know what, Shakespeare's tombstone says, it's one of my favorite Shakespeare poems. It says, good friend for Jesus' sake, for bear to dig the dust and close it here. Blessed be the man that spares these stones and cursed be he that moves my bones. Ooh, did he decide to put that there was that somebody else that did that?

You know, great question that I don't know the answer to. Well, it's probably no one knows the answer. There's a lot of mystery surrounding Shakespeare. It was a long time ago, turns out. Yeah, do you all, the other thing about Shakespeare that I like, he had a will h his wife, his second best bed. Oh, who got his first best bed? I don't know.

I don't know. It's the only part of the story I know. I know a lot of trivia Hank. I don't know a lot of context. Yeah, well, he was buried with his first best bed. He was like, look, I want to be comfy. Mm-hmm. That's the sitch.

Yeah. Well, some people think that like the second best bed thing was like, look, I wanna be comfy. Mm-hmm, that's the sitch. Yeah, well, some people think that like the second best bed thing was like a sentimental gesture that it was like a kind of sweetness between the two of them. And others think that it was just maybe a burn. Yeah, right. It was definitely, it was one of those two. Either that or he just wanted his bones to be so comfy

and that's why he was so mad about the idea of people moving them. Right. Here's another question, John. It's from Jess, who asks, dear Hank and John, over the course of my lifetime, I have heard of countries being in debt. Yeah, you will continue to hear about that.

Yeah. But I've always wondered, who are they in debt to? Are they in debt to each other? Is there some kind of secret iron bank like in the game of Throats that all the countries owe money to? Please explain, Jess. Yeah, all those things, but both of those and also other things.

Yeah, the answer is both and like the vast majority or the majority of the United States is debt is money that we essentially have loaned to ourselves. In some cases, it's parts of the government have borrowed money from other parts of the government. Yeah, that's fine. It's some cases, the government has borrowed money from its citizens that it will, it has promised to repay. But then we also,

That's what a savings bond is. Yeah, we also owe money to other nations like China has a certain percentage of US debt in the form of treasury bills or savings bonds that they have as a nation. And then we also own a certain amount of Chinese debt. And this is kind of a way of ensuring that no big global economy is allowed to completely collapse.

Yeah. But at some point, the debt a country has becomes so much that people start to worry that they might not pay it back and then the debt starts to get more expensive. So instead of like the United States basically being able. John, I don't mean to interrupt you, but if you're gonna explain all of monetary policy,

it is gonna take a while. So I don't know if this is all necessary for answering Jess's question, which is that it's owned by countries, people, and banks. Is this not planet money? Ha-ha-ha-ha. This is the truth, I think. I've always wanted to be the host of planet

money. Welcome to Dear Money Planet. This is a podcast about death and money. It's called Dear Money Planet. What I really want. Yeah I mean I'm not gonna lie. My dream is to be the host of planet money or a host of planet money.? And that was my audition and you interrupted it. That's some point, the country has so much debt that it stops being able to set its own debt prices and that is called a debt spiral. And it is super scary. It happened in Greece.

It's very hard to get out of, once it starts. We wanna avoid that. Okay, so we want to avoid that. Okay, so we're going to avoid that. This has been Planet Money with John Green. Thanks for listening. Why don't you just start a podcast called Money Planet? Oh yeah, because I don't want to host an economics podcast. I want the people at Planet Money to think that I'm cool.

They are my favorite people. I once spoke to the spouse of someone who works at Planet Money. I won't say their name. And they told me that they were married to this host of Planet Money. And I went bonkers. It was like you told me that you were married to Harry Styles or something. I was like, oh my God, what's he like?

What's, is he smell like tick-tax? I've always thought he was smell like tick-tax. I've always imagined him smelling like orange tick-tax. Is that weird for you when I get really excited about your spouse? Anyway. There's also a bank though, right? Like there are banks that take on country debt and there's also, like there's also a bank though, right? Like there are banks that take on country debt and there is also like there's specifically a couple of big

like the IMF and the World Bank are these like like institutions that loan money to countries. Yeah, but like with a lot of strings attached and with like certain ideas about how to develop economies. So the answer is there are iron banks. There are also countries wanting money to other countries and then there are individuals buying up country debt. Yes.

Not all that is bad. That is not always bad. That is a common misconception. But another common misconception is that debt is never bad. Complexity. This has been planet money is never bad. Complexity. This has been planet money with John Green. This next question. This next question.

Who wants? This next question comes from Seoul, who asks, Dear Hank and John, I'm originally from Argentina, and I happened to have visited the US a couple a month ago for the first time. I was very surprised and kind of upset by your coins. I wanted to do another money question,

since John seems to be so into that right now. Oh my God, it's a special plan in money episode. It's finally happening. None of them have numbers on them. I was constantly confused because their value is not linked to their size, either. What the hell?

Is this on purpose to keep tourists on our toes? Is it a secret plot to make every foreigner feel inadequate or dumb? Or is it just a low key way to let everybody know that sometimes you don't make any sense either? Stakes of all that. So, boy oh boy, I hadn't even thought about this. Of course I've been to other countries where the number value of the coin is on the coin, that is just not the freaking case.

I don't know what to say. We're just really into our president's heads. Yeah, the weird thing is that like George Washington was opposed to putting like people's faces on money because he worried it would be a form of like idolatry or like too close to the monarchy. And yet here we are with like essentially nothing but people's heads on coins.

Well, in buildings, we put a building on them on the other side usually. Sure. I remember the first time I saw a coin that had a number on it, and I was like, what a system. It had also never occurred to me, but the very first time I saw it was like,

I was like, this is a 10 cent coin that says it's worth 10 cents. It doesn't even say that, it's just like 10. They throw it right in your face. Yeah, no, we want it to be difficult, Saul. I mean, I don't know if you've noticed this about the United States, but like, yeah, we want it to be hard.

The other thing that we do, and this is a fascinating strategy for coinage, is we spend more money per coin than the coin is worth. So like, we spend nine cents to make a nickel, which is worth five cents, and we spend like two cents to make a penny, which is worth one cent. So it's a great system. I'm holding a penny in my hand right now. It does say one cent on the bottom there, spelled out. Why? It's from 1993 and it looks like it's been through a lot. Now I'm suddenly feeling a little bit apprehensive about touching it at all. But I do, like I look at this and I think to myself, this, remember when they made pennies

as if they don't anymore? Yeah. I have, I am now, like, in my subconscious, live in a world where all pennies were already made and they're not doing it anymore, because why would we? I've moved on. It's mad.

I now live in that beautiful world, but the rest of the world doesn't. It's absolute madness. I mean, what you should do with that penny-hank I now live in that beautiful world, but the rest of the world doesn't. It's absolute madness. I mean, what you should do with that penny-hank is you should just drop it somewhere anywhere. That is the appropriate response to encountering a penny, like the opportunity cost of putting the penny in your pocket is not worth it. You should just, when someone gives you a penny,

you should just drop it. I just threw it across the room. I don't even know where it is now. Well, now you're gonna have to deal with it later. You need to drop it in some kind of public space. We need to have a large-scale penny protest where people just throw pennies on roads and it just like, no.

This is ridiculous. Why do we have a coin that does not facilitate the exchange of goods and services? Right, maybe we could all come together and throw them into a giant pot where we then melted and then sell the copper and nickel for something useful. Oh my God, that's exactly, you know that's illegal

because they had to make that illegal. Of course, of course people were doing it because why wouldn't you? Yes. So they had to make it illegal. You can't turn your one cent coin that has two cents of metal in it into two cents of metal. This has been Planet Money with Hank and John Green.

All right, this next question. We're gonna move on from finance, which by the way, Hank and I don't even know anything about. We have, we have strong opinions. I was the, I was the third best C student in the state of Alabama in economics at the academic de catholon in 1994. That is the level of my qualifications.

I'm impressed. This next question comes from Jasper who writes, Dear John and Hank, I can't stop playing Tetris. I also have this problem, by the way. After John's video a few months back about how humans have suddenly gotten better at Tetris, I started watching the classic Tetris world championship. I watched all the content I could until I realized I could try to start playing myself. I didn't know the game was so addicting.

Plus, when I'm not playing, my head is still playing Tetris as I constantly imagine blocks falling down and placing themselves to trominos and micro computer jasper. This is a real phenomenon, Hank. I made an Anthropocene Reviewed episode about it. It's called the Tetris Effect, the Anthropocene Reviewed by the way, is another podcast that I make. I think you'd like it. You should download it. It's available wherever you get your podcasts. People who play Tetris get obsessed with Tetris, and I am one of them because Tetris is the only game that has ever been made that is perfect. Okay. All right, explain.

There is no way to improve upon it. Ergo, it is perfect. But like, okay, so that's what perfection is. The inability to improve. The guy who invented Tetris, like released like several other Tetris games and they were all like more complicated and more interesting than Tetris,

but also like less good. Tetris is so beautiful in its simplicity, and the pleasure, I think especially, for somewhat obsessive loopy minds, the pleasure of seeing the blocks all come together and then clear as you get that long piece into the well as it is called is just so intense that we like seek that again and again and again. I was dreaming about Tetris last night actually because I played Tetris right before I went to bed. I like I think the classic

Tetris world championships as you know Hank because it is affecting your YouTube search algorithm. I think it is the best content in the history of YouTube. Like, it's incredible. They're so good at Tetris. Ah, yeah, they are. I mean, you're competing against a lot of YouTube though, and those marbles are very good at marbling. Oh, it's true. The marbling fix is definitely the second best thing ever,

ever released on YouTube. Oh, God. If I was going to have a podcast, it wouldn't be a Planet Money podcast. John, it would be a Marvel Olympics podcast. Oh, that sounds good. Is the point that that person should just become a professional Tetris player? Yeah, Jasper, leave it all behind and focus on your Tetris playing. Become a somewhat professional Tetris player. And then the other part of your living, you can just like cobble together because

Tetris is the meaning of life. This next question comes from Miss Holiday, who asks, dear Hank Adjohn, I only go grocery shopping for myself, and I'm having trouble figuring out what I'll actually eat before it goes bad. I try to pawn stuff off on my pals, but I live in a boarding house full of old battle axes that I'm not allowed to have anyone over, and I can't just show up at the bar with a sandwich for a friend, right? Wait a second.

Can I slay you down real quick Hank? Okay, yeah, go. When this person says old battle access, is that like a euphemism I'm not familiar with, or do they actually live in a boarding house with old battle access? Yeah. And just like sentient access that will not allow visitors. Well, yeah, and of course, like you can't pawn food off on them because they're battle axes. They don't eat food. No, battle axes like slang for like a old forceful woman.

Oh, you're not aware of this term? No, but I'm very happy to have it in my arsenal. Yeah, I think it's like a negative connotation. Well, I mean, look for it in my next novel, because I like it a lot. Okay. Yeah, so I'm very interested in the simple question here. How do you buy the right amount of food for one person?

More interested in living in a boarding house full of old battle access. Yeah. Yeah. It seems like the phrase battle axe came from a carry nation, the woman who wielded a hatchet while destroying bars in her mission to bring about prohibitions. It does make me wonder if Miss Holiday is writing from the 1920s. That seems like the most likely situation. Yeah, including the phrase Old Battle Acts, which again, I have not heard before,

but I guess it has like a negative connotation, but I was thinking it's kind of awesome. Like... Yeah. They had snap peas in the past, they had bread in the past, they had yogurt in the past, they had yogurt in the past, the only three options that Ms. Holiday was suggesting be items that they have purchased. So Ms. Holiday gives me no reason to suspect that she is from the current.

Including like calling yourself Ms. Holiday is highly suspicious. That doesn't seem, that seems like a 1920s kind of thing. I think this is our version of Nicholas Sparks' The Notebook. A book I have not read, and I also haven't seen the movie, but I think that's the premise. Right, yeah, no, I know nothing about it, but I am happy to be getting advice questions from the past. And if we, by chance, got more, I wouldn't mind. Oh my God. What a great

special episode that would be. Yeah. No, it doesn't not any particular past could be the 80s could be the 18 80s could be like 1500s I'm ready. I mean it could be like 250 million years ago, and it's somebody who's like listen This is gonna sound crazy But I am a you carry out And I'm I'm considering now don't know, like, there's this, I, now I should take it in another cell inside of my body. It's there's another cell inside of me. It's producing a lot of extra energy.

I'm considering not digesting it and allowing it to stay. I might call it the mitochondria, the powerhouse of the cell. What do you think? I think honestly our advice in that situation would be like, where have two minds on this one? A lot of. Like, ultimately, it's like organelles are good for you, but maybe like in the long term, it's going to be pretty complicated.

Yeah, like, you know, right. I think it will lead to you having a better eukaryote life, but I'm concerned about the longer-term consequences. It's actually the same way I feel about like cars, Coca-Cola, a lot of things. Yeah, like I'm in, I like that these things exist for me, but probably better if they didn't exist at all I also I feel like I have to say I know that that mitochondria happened way before 250 million years ago Oh my god

Kill over here who cares I don't know people are gonna tweet at me, John. Oh man, I'll be there. Yeah, okay, all right, that's good to know though. When did it happen? Give me a week. I don't know. Give me a week.

You're having on a Tuesday, having on a Friday, what was the weather? I bet it was hot. It was about, it was billions, like 2.7 billion years ago, was the first eukaryotes. The month February, the year in February, it was February, the moon showed brightly in the sky

because it was much, much bigger than it is now because it was far closer. The answer to your question, Miss Holiday, is that you've got a meal plan. Like that's what people did in the 1920s. I know because I have a lot of my grandmother's meal plans. And I think that's what people should do now. Like the way that you don't over buy food

is you know approximately where you're gonna eat for the next few days. Right. And also like if the, I assume that you're buying your yogurt directly from a person who makes it, if they can't package it in packages small enough for you because it is the 1920s and I don't know how it works, you're gonna want to just eat a lot of yogurt. I mean the crazy thing Miss Holiday is that you are just happened to live at the very beginning of the self-service grocery store

with packaged goods and highly processed foods available at grocery stores like Piggly Wiggly and you are at this critical moment of history. And what you're gonna learn is that you're just gonna over buy and there's gonna be a lot of foods, Wailage. And that's gonna be a lot of food swallage. That, and that's gonna be a thing for the, for a hundred years after that. Okay, Hank, we have another question.

It's from Natalie who writes, Dear John and Hank, I'm a big fan of fantasy and I follow a lot of production companies. It seems every company now creates dragon eggs that have scales as was seen on Game of Thrones. If dragons were real, would their eggs have scales? It seems kind of strange to me. Like, dinosaur would their eggs have scales? It seems kind of strange to me.

Like, dinosaur eggs didn't have scales. Bird eggs don't have like feathers or beaks. So like, scientifically speaking, how would this thing work? Obviously not a mother of dragons Natalie. Yeah, no, I don't think that, I think that probably they'd be nice and smooth. But like, look, I don't know how dragons work.

I don't know what the inside of a dragon is like I think that they're probably closer to a Reptile than to a bird in which case like it's would be surprising even if the eggs were as hard as chicken eggs are Like I think they'd probably be pretty gooey and soft Hank you really blew my mind when you pointed out to me years ago that the reason dragons don't make sense isn't that they are like huge flying lizards. It's that they have six limbs. Yeah, nothing.

We're called tetrapods, you and me and everything else that walks around or crawls around, like all vertebrates on land, because we have four pods, feet. So there are no hexapods, except in Avatar land, where James Cameron is from. And so there are also, witherns in fantasy, which are much more realistic. They're basically bats That world had the lineage of reptiles Then just have like their front arms

Our wings and then their back legs are feet just like birds and and bats Yeah But there are no wiverns in the real world and have never been which is interesting All of which reminds me that today's podcast is brought to you by Game of Thrones Game of Thrones literally coming out very soon and they've done such a good job of infecting all of us That here we are giving them free promo all of this podcast is brought to you by the Tetris world championships It's better than Game of Thrones Mmm. I don't know, they're both great.

How do you pick? How do you pick? Between the two greatest achievements in human history. Today's podcast is also brought to you by the owner of the bones. The owner of the bones. It might be you. It could be you. We also have a project for awesome message from Johannes, who donated to the project for awesome, to get us to read this message to Andrea. Thank you for being in my life. I love singing with you, dancing with you, cuddling with you, and everything else we do together, I think you seem cool, but yeah, but thank you, thank you very much,

Johannes and Andrea for being part of the project for awesome and for donating to great charities. All right, Hank, we don't know the question. This one comes from anonymous. It's very obvious why they don't want their name revealed. It's because they're embarrassed about a lack of vlog breathers knowledge from 11 years ago. Dear John and Hank, I was hoping you could explain to me where the phrase dude no edge originated. I'm a fairly new nerd fighter but a very big science nerd so when I heard the song The Universe is weird I loved it. Originally I figured dude no edge was just a great lyric in the song but then I realized

it's on the poster behind Hank while he sings. Where is the original Dude No Edge, DFTBA anonymous? John and I were on tour. I believe this was the paper town star? I think it was the fault in our stars too, but I am also not sure. Okay. And I was just thinking about the universe. Yeah. We were talking about the universe. I don't really remember how it came up, but we were talking about the universe.

And Hank revealed to me the fact that the universe, still known all the way by this, the universe has no edge. Even though it's expanding and it must be expanding into something. No, it's not expanding into something. It's just so like, imagine a balloon getting blown up. The balloon that used this metaphor for me,

and it makes no sense because when I see, when I imagine a balloon getting blown up, I imagine the balloon expanding into space Everything is all every bit of the balloon is getting farther away from every bit of the balloon Right, so it's just if you if you exclude if you just imagine an infinite plane of rubber and that plane stretches That's what's happening. That's where you lose me. I cannot imagine an infinite plane of rubber. Like that is the issue. It is not to say imagine a balloon expanding.

I'm like, yes, balloons have a ton of edges and they expand into space. But apparently the universe is not like that. The universe doesn't have any edges and it isn't expanding into anything although then yeah. Ha, ha, ha, ha, what is on the other side of its expansion? And so we were having this conversation

and John didn't seem like tremendously receptive to how remarkable and like a mind blowing this is and so I just said to him, oh, my mind was blown, the problem was that I just didn't believe you. And so I was like, how can the universe not have an edge? And also like, it seemed like you wanted to start talking about something else.

And I was like, no, we have to keep talking about this. Dude, no edge. Yeah, there's no edge. And Hank was really passionate about it as he gets about certain things and then we were and then we Re- recounted this story while Michael Aranda filmed us and Michael made a video of that and Shared in and that's how that is where it was popularized Yeah, so

Hank song the universe is weird is one of the favorite Hank Green songs in our family Which is really saying something because we listen to a lot of Hank Green music in our family. My kids love Hank songs. And I will say, if you go to your Google home right now, or your Alexa or whatever, and you say, hey, Google play Hank Green, it's just, it's just, it's just hits top to bottom. Uh, this is, so here's a problem that I have, John. Uh, Orrin likes to listen to Daddy on the Google home. Yeah. But when I play him my songs, he looks at me and then he says, Hey, Google,

Hey, Google, play Hank Green. And I'm like, come on, man, you got it live. Ha, ha, ha. Now he's like, no, no, no, I don't want that one. And then he like, and then he points it, and he points and he whines. He points at the Google and he whines it, man. He yells about it and I'm like, man. Yeah.

No, the recorded versions are much better. Dear Hank and John, I help plan a regional library conference. And one of my responsibilities is getting the 900 plus name badges printed. As I was pulling together the list of registrants today, I saw someone named Mark had typed his name in as, quote, skid Mark in the online registration form. Oh, God. Should I save this man from the embarrassment

of having this on his badge and professional conference, or just printed exactly as he typed it in? Hello, my name is Hannah. Hannah, don't even pretend like you did not notice this. It's just, it's, you like you did not notice this. It's just, you can't take this responsibility on. Mark has made his bed and he must sleep in it. There are three possibilities here, right?

Like, possibility one, Mark is nine years old. And then it's funny, right? Yeah, right. And it's okay. Possibility two, somebody who Mark works with, who does not like Mark did this. That's possible. In which case, you obviously don't want to like further

the workplace bullying by having it being printed on their badge. Possibility three, Mark is not nine years old and thought this was like a clever thing to have on his badge at a library conference. That possibility is by far the most disturbing. And so, John, there are two definitions of skid mark.

There's the one where like you stop your car very fast and it leaves a mark because of it was skidding. And this is by far, like this is the original term, of course. Yes. But no longer what anyone thinks of when they hear the term skid mark, correct? Yes, it is a poop related joke. And that's, that's, I mean, obviously Hannah, you've got to just, it's just, it's just mark.

And you know what, like if you run into mark at the conference and Mark is like, hey, why is it my bad? You should just be like, Mark, I'm gonna stop you right there. You're welcome. Just grab him, buy his bow tie, and shake him a little bit. Yeah. I have a bow tie and I wear it sometimes

that I am a little offended. Okay. I also run, I help run conferences, Hannah, and one thing that we realized early on is that we have to have a section that says, name as you would like it to be displayed on your badge. And that is helpful in eliminating this moment of like, did he mean for this to be Skidmark?

Is that what he's saying? But then I mean, don't the VidCon employees occasionally save people from themselves? No. Maybe if it's like a creator and we're like, hey, just so you know, this is what's gonna be on your badge, but if they want on their badge, like, that's not our job. That being said, I don't think we've ever had

a Skidmark level incident. Like a proper badge crisis. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. John, on a previous podcast, Paloma wrote into us to talk about the fact that she very much hated her co-workers ringtone. Do you remember this question? I do, I do. And we expressed skepticism because they did not include the name of the song.

And so, Paloma sent in the song. It's called Roma. It is by Torah Blanca. And Paloma has also, I corresponded with her because I listened to the song and I responded to Paloma and I said, this is a BOP. And then I responded one minute after that and I said, sorry, I was not properly conciliatory.

This sounds like it would be devastating in the long term, but in the short term, this is a BOP. And a Paloma responded to me with a translation of the song. And I would like to read you, this is a 30-second long ringtone that is apparently a very common ringtone if you have a certain cell cell phone company in wherever Pelloma is and here is the translation. The wonder of that mouth illuminates everything like the sun. One thing leads to another and life is much better. I choose a place to go for dinner, a bottle of wine to start. I know that saying is simple, but when?

The wonder of that mouth of yours illuminates everything like the sun. I would like to metamorphose it, make the best impression. I don't stop talking, trying to pretend that I'm not dying of my nerves. And now thinking I will get closer any moment now that what is happening is love. Tell me that you feel the same way as I do. I know I'm not crazy, love plays along.

So let's play today to discover the spring within. That's the song john and i mean look okay the lyrics are not great but let me submit that the lyrics to most love songs are done as crap that's basically two songs really the genre of love song where you're like that is not healthy behavior and then there's the genre of love song where you're like, man, that is really broad and empty. In John, it is a little disturbing that the song is very clearly

not about loving a person so much as just the mouth part of them. Yeah, the one who heard that mouth illuminates everything like the sun. Who hasn't looked at a mouth and thought, man, that illuminates everything just as the sun illuminates the earth. I wasn't looked at a mouth and thought, man, that's illuminates everything. Just as the sun illuminates the earth. I can barely look at it. So I did in the process of mouth for more than a couple minutes or you could have some real cordial damage. I need my eclipse glasses, boy. I did listen to the song several times and I went from being like, this is very good to being like, my life is ending every time I hear this song again. The people who made this song are nice people.

Right, are you worried about getting on the bad side of the people who made this song? I don't wanna hurt their feelings. I know what it's like to make something that becomes so popular that it becomes a ringtone and then people resent it and hate it, and it's not a good feeling. And I, I'm sympathetic to Torra Blanca on this one.

All they did was write a song that somebody like, here's the thing, you can't really have any single song as your only ringtone. Well, here's the problem, John. This thing, this song has been converted into a 30-second ringtone that is the default ringtone for many, many people. And so everyone hears this song all the time. And this would never happen. We are default ringtones are as bland as possible in America.

But like having it be a Bop is a problem. Because like you don't want to bop to this for eight years while you hear it for like the 30 second version of this song over and over again. The solution is obviously to offer your co-worker like a 99 cent ring tone. Be like I will pay 99 cents so you can have a ring tone and this is your new ring tone. Bring. It was a very quick process for me from going from like, I like this song to, after the sixth listen being like,

oh, if this was someone's ringtone, I would definitely break their thumb. Right, but I think that's the case with like, almost any song. Like, if you played me a song I love, 12 times a day. Yeah, especially like a 30 second snippet of it. Yeah. Yeah. And it's the same 30-second snippet, right? Yeah. So like the first three notes are what really

drive you mad because you're just like, oh god, here it is again. And then the mouth, the mouth is coming. Yeah. Well, I know. I mean, you know, mouths, they are just like the sun, really. If you think about it, fusion, hydrogen helium. Hey, before we get to the news from Mars and A.V.C. Wimbledon, I want to read a response. The paperclip thing, which won't die, um, our dad. Our dad wrote us at our personal emails to express strong opinions about the paperclip thing. And we don't usually get responses from our parents about the pod. So I feel obligated to read this.

Dad writes kindly, he didn't write dear John and Hank or dear Hank and John. He's very diplomatic that way. As your biological link to the paperclip era, when you place a paperclip against the top of a stack of paper, the short part automatically moves itself behind. It's the mechanical response. If you turn the paperclip over and try it, the same thing will happen.

Short goes behind, long goes in front. It is quite difficult to get the short part of the clip on top. If you clip paper from the back of the stack, it will put the short part on top. But who would do that? Best wishes, Dad. So many rationalizations for why is for both ways. For both ways. For both ways. For both ways. For both ways. People equally astonished by the other side, just like how could you put the bottom part in the front and how could you put in the top part of the front

with just complete bafflement? And it made me realize that we have a problem when it comes to political discourse in the United States but also when it comes to everything discourse. Yeah. And so many people wrote in to be paperclips our garbage, why would you use one of the many superior forms of clipping technology.

Yeah, oh God, such strong opinions. All right, John, the news from AFC Wimbledon is something else you've been gone for a couple of weeks and wow, I mean, suddenly AFC Wimbledon are no longer the worst team in League One. There's so much AFC Wimbledon news to get to. We should really have an AFC Wimbledon are no longer the worst team in League 1. There's so much AFC Wimbledon news to get to. We should really have an AFC Wimbledon only podcast. AFC Wimbledon now have five games remaining

in their League 1 campaign in their fight for survival in their most recent game. It was, I have to say, a disappointing draw against Ackrington Stanley. We had a few chances to win the game. To beton Stanley. We had a few chances to win the game. To be fair, we also had a few chances to lose the game. It ended up one, one. Good, good, good game, not great.

We don't have a lot of space for ties right now. Yep. But in our previous game, we beat Scunthorpe 2-1, which was very good. That was a very good result for us. And now, Wimbledon are 21st in League 1. We have to finish 20th. So we're not quite there. You're one point out. We're certainly not there. We need to win at least two of our last five games and potentially- But you're gonna win one of them

because Bradford City has made a garbage. Bradford City is so bad. I mean, Bradford City hasn't won a game. Like, I don't think they remember the last time they won a game and that's our last game of the season and they will definitely or almost definitely be already relegated so they'll have nothing to play for except for pride, stupid pride and what if they win so

Yeah, I'm very nervous. I'm thinking about like do I fly no Bradford on May 4th if we haven't secured if if if it's all still to play for and I think the answer is probably yes No, that sounds very stressful Just just having it show up on my Google Home app is very stressful. If whenever I catch a game when it's in the middle, like when it's in progress, Catherine is like, what are you doing?

And I'm like, hey, I see what I'm gonna do on it. I'm just refreshing. God, what have you done to me? Well, so we definitely have to win two of our last five games. We may have to win three or at least draw a third. It's gonna be tight. It's gonna be tight, tight, tight, tight, tight.

And I am definitely worried, but look, we were dead in the water just two months ago. So what this team has accomplished has been really astonishing. And hope is the thing with feathers that purchase in the soul and sings the tune without the words it never stops at all. One last thing about AFC Wimolden, I have to pay tribute to the great Eric Samuelson,

AFC Wimolden's CEO for the last 12 years who announced his retirement this week. Eric became the CEO of AFC Wimbledon when I think they were in the seventh tier of English soccer. They're now in the third tier. The ground has just been broken on the new stadium that will take Wimbledon back to their home. What he has accomplished as CEO is really astonishing. And amazingly, he's done all of that while being paid one pound a year.

I spoke to Eric this morning and I told him what I read on Twitter once and I really believe it's true that Eric Samuelson was AFC Wimbledon's best ever signing. And without his leadership, our club would not be where it is, and I'm just very, very grateful to him. And I have to say on a personal level, he's been a really great friend and mentor to me. I just love the way that he's gone about his work and his devotion both to a higher cause

to his community, but also to his family. So I wish Eric all the best and congratulations on, I would argue the greatest campaign as a CEO of any football club in history. John, Mars is great. It has, it has an atmosphere and it has different gases in that atmosphere. And we study those gases.

And one thing that we've noticed is that like sometimes there seems to be methane, but then we check again, and it's not there, and we're like, is there actually methane, or was there like some methane stuck on the rover maybe? And then it got like released when we're like, is there actually a methane? Or was there like some methane stuck on the rover maybe? And then it got like released when we opened something and we detected that, or our sensor is just wrong. Well, for the first time,

we have independent confirmation of a methane reading. So the Mars Curiosity rover detected meth methane on a spot at a time and then we had an Orbiter that detected methane at that same spot at that same time. So this is weird for a couple of reasons one because it's not there all the time it's there sometimes not there all the time, it's there sometimes. Two, methane is not stable enough to stick around in Mars' atmosphere long term. So any amount of methane, if it was created

or released in the surface of Mars, would be gone in the course of a couple hundred years just by chemical reactions that would happen in the presence of solar power, like solar radiation and the chemicals that are in Mars' atmosphere. So it has to be coming from somewhere, it has to be coming from somewhere occasionally, but not all the time.

And on Earth, we know of basically two ways that methane gets made. One is by microorganisms that don't use oxygen. So microorganisms that live and do their business, but they don't use oxygen. So I make our organisms that live and do their business, but they don't require oxygen. And swamps is where this happens a lot, and that's why you sometimes get swamp gas with a lot of methane in it that will actually catch

on fire even. But what we, but there are also ways that methane can be created not biologically, but geologically. And those are also are weird and cool and require liquid water. that methane can be created not biologically but geologically. And those are also our weird and cool and require liquid water. So you basically can't do like do like geologically created methane as far as we know without liquid water.

Now we do know that there is liquid water on the surface or underneath Mars. We don't really understand what the sort of state of that water is, is it like how like briny is it, is it like mud, is it like just like full of all, like full of stuff and so basically more of a slurry or slush than then what we would think of as like, you know, a giant lake underground. So we either way, this is a really interesting and important data point. And it also sort of reaffirms the idea that Mars is still geologically active if it was being created in a geologic process, which is, of course, the more likely of the two, created in a geologic process, which is of course the more likely of the two, but it's very interesting. And as we have more time, as we have more instruments around and on Mars to study it, we will get

better at sort of maybe localizing where the methane is coming from, having a better idea of like what seasons it is produced in and what, and that might give us a better idea of where it's coming from. So, it's weird, it's exciting, there's been a lot of talk about methane on Mars before and there's also been a lot of back and forth and arguing like, no, no, there isn't actually methane, yes, there is and this independent confirmation is a really big deal. So, look out for that in the news if you haven't seen it already and consider yourself informed. Thanks to everybody for listening to the podcast. Thanks for

podding with me. This podcast is edited by the brilliant and hardworking Nicholas Jenkins, our head of community and communications in Victoria, Von Jorna. You can email us at Hank and John at gmail.com. We're produced by Rosiana Halserohas and shared in Gibson the music that you're listening to right now. And at the beginning of the podcast is by the great Gunnarola, and as they say in our hometown, don't forget to be awesome. [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪