Dear Hank & John - 217: Rocks to Earth 2028!

Episode Date: December 2, 2019

Can stinging insects sting other insects? What is the scientific difference between stuffy and fresh air? Why aren't there many books about twenty-somethings? When did limos become uncool? How do I survive as the fifth wheel at Disney World? How do we know no two snowflakes are alike? What do you do on a bus with 51 twelve-year-olds? John Green and Hank Green have answers! 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. Follow us on Twitter! twitter.com/dearhankandjohn Subscribe to the Nerdfighteria newsletter! https://nerdfighteria.com/nerdfighteria-newsletter

Hello and welcome to Dear Hank and John. Of course I prefer to think of it dear John and Hank. It's a podcast where two brothers answer your questions, give you the idea to be a advice and bring you all the week's news from both Mars and AFC Wimbledon. John, it was recently Thanksgiving. Unfortunately though, it decided to no longer eat leftovers. Yeah, I just quit cold turkey. Hey.

That's pretty good. All right. It reminds me of, I mean, there's a lot of things in English that are just ludicrous. The more I think about this language, the more I think that we just scrap the entire affair, and I feel regret that English has become the lingua franca of the world. But the phrase cold turkey is a great phrase. Sure. It's just, even though I have no idea what the etymology is,

it's so evocative. If somebody says to me like, oh yeah, I quit cold turkey, I'm like, oh boy, I must have been challenging. It's one of those etymologies that like you know is there, but like I'd rather not. I'd just rather not. I wanted to keep this complete nonsense piece

of my language, preserve it as complete nonsense. I don't need to know. Don't tell me. I just want to know that language is this weird. It means nothing. It has nothing. Cold Turkey has nothing to do with the doing or not doing of different vices. Also, you know, just quit vices cold turkey.

I find that I often quit virtues cold turkey, which is much easier. But yeah, I love the mystery of etymology, I don't understand, and it reminds me of, you know, like all of human history before about 2005, when if we didn't know something, we just didn't know it. We just didn't know. Yeah, you either had to be an expert in that thing

and you're like, oh, yes, I already know that. I've known that for a while. Or you just said, ah, and that was it. The conversation and a weird thing, for example, that I know, you know how Lice is the plural of Laos. Sure, of course. And mice is the plural of mouse. Yep. Vice is actually the plural of Vouse. But I mean, one example of how ludicrous English is, is that whileC-E is a word and for some reason it's pronounced voice. I don't believe you.

Do you want to answer some questions for our listeners, John? Yeah, I guess so. I mean, I could I could spend the rest of the time just talking about how angry I am about spelling. Yeah. But let's answer this question from Catherine who writes, dear John and Hank, I was wondering, can stinging insects such as bees or wasps sting other insects? And is this a common occurrence?

Thanks for reading. Hank, I'm not your wife, Catherine. Thanks for letting me know. That sounds like something your wife would say. There's no way to know for sure, but I'm just gonna trust you. Yes, I know for a fact that bugs can sting bugs, and I know that like ants, for example,

I think mostly that's what that's for. Oh yeah. Is to like combat invading bugs. Sure. To bite them. And I know that there are lots of bugs that eat bugs and their main way of doing it is by biting them.

Spiders, for example, do that lots. People come at me for saying to spiders a bug, I stand by it, and bees definitely also sting other bugs. I got stung by a bee yesterday. Oh no, where? I had a terrible day yesterday. Oh, it was one of those days where you start to think that the universe is conspiring against you, which in my case, and really in the case of most people requires like such a limited and selected version of the facts, right? Like, yeah, yeah. I'm only counting the bad things that happened today and only because I can only like only experience the world through this one body. Right. I really only care

about one thing, which is where you got stung on, right. I really only care about one thing, which is where you got stung on your body. I don't know why this is, but when somebody tells me they got a bee sting, I'm just not interested in less it's somewhere weird. Yeah, so I don't know how weird it was. It's a part of my body that I don't know has a technical name, but in our family,

no, it's English John, there's a word for it. In our family, we have always referred to this part of the body as the woofs, because of a Missy, Missed Meater Elliott song. Hank, as you know, I think that Missy, Missed Meater Elliott is the only pop artist that will be listened to in a hundred years and that she is a proper and actual genius. There's a lyric in one of Missy Elliott songs where she says,

I lost a few pounds in my woofs for you, which isn't really like a well-defined thing. But I've always treated it as the kind of part of your back, your lower back that's near your side, kind of near your hips just above your hips. Like your love handle? That is, some people would call it a love handle, but I find that, I don't like that term.

I much prefer woofs anyway. So on my left. Now that I've used the word love handle, but I find that I don't like that term. I much prefer wooths anyway. Now that I've used the word love handle out loud and thought about the origin of that phrase, I no longer want to use it. Ew. How is that a word that we have that we're just okay saying to people? Right. Hence, hence my use of wooths. So anyway, it was on my left. Oh, gosh. While I was cycling, I was on a nice, what was going to be a really lovely 40 mile bike ride. I got stung by a bee at about mile eight and I was like, oh, that's a bummer.

I wish I hadn't gotten a bee sting on my wolfs. And then at mile 12, both of my tires exploded simultaneously. Whoa, neat. Did you drive over some bees? No bees, just, I mean, it's Indianapolis. So I bike over glass constantly. So you wouldn't think it would be an issue.

But this particular glass, I guess, was the wrong kind of glass. So then I had to just be in this neighborhood. I didn't know in Indianapolis for about 45 minutes because I was waiting for Sarah to come pick me up. And I know I should have had like two different inner tubes or whatever, whatever. But I didn't, okay, I'm a bad cyclist.

So then I had to wait for Sarah to pick me up. And then Sarah called me and she said, you won't believe this. I have a flat tire. Wow, that's amazing. I think it was all bees. I think every one of those things was done by bees. Yeah, the bees stung the tire, the bees stung the tires of my bike. So then Chris had

to come pick me up and he was very nice about it, but he clearly, it wasn't how Chris was hoping to spend his 3 p.m. Sunday hour, which is his favorite hour of the week when he watches the NFL Red Zone channel. So all in all, I is his favorite hour of the week when he watches the NFL Red Zone channel. So, all in all, I just caused a lot of problems yesterday. And also that bee probably died, right? Like I probably killed that bee. Right.

If it was a bee, it definitely died. So I just, it was a bit of a bummer of a day, but we're here now. Uh huh. And we're safe. And we're going to answer this question from Tucker, who writes, dear brothers green, but mostly Hank, correct, correctly surmised, Tucker. What is the scientific difference between stuffy and fresh air? It could be a number of different things, I think, like heat is a part of it when you're

in a room and it gets warm. We say that that's stuffy, but the thing that we're not great at knowing, but our bodies are, is CO2 levels. So usually, like this is usually what we're talking about when we're in a room and there's a bunch of people in it and like after a while it just starts to feel stuffy. It's actually because like the carbon dioxide levels in that room have gone up. It's just sort of like a mild irritant and you are cognitively less effective. They've done studies on this. So that's a big part of what it is. And some people will say put some plants in there. That doesn't won't do it. What you need is to open the door and the window and get a fan going

to recirculate the air in your enclosed space. I was just recently in a space like this. We had a lot of people in it. It was warm. It was stuffy. And by the end of the day, it was like, we need to figure out a name for this. And everyone was like, but not right now. Right now, we need to just go the freak outside, which is what we did. Oh, that just, that sounds like my idea of hell. Yeah. Well, and we've all been sick too. It's like six season here, and so everybody had the sniffles at the same time.

You wouldn't have been happy. I know one was. Was this like a day long meeting kind of thing? It was so, yeah, it was exactly a day long meeting kind of thing. It was fine. It was great. I was very glad to have been able to have the meeting. I just wish that it hadn't been a meeting.

As you know, Hank, I don't love meetings. Uh-huh. But I do hate them. I hate them so, so, so, so, so, so much. And even attending them for one or two hours a week is very difficult for me. You know how Anakin Skywalker gets really frustrated that he isn't on the Jedi council at one point,

and he basically turns you Yeah, he's like nan of the other No, it's fair. It's just meetings. What do you think the Jedi Council does they meet? That's it. It's that's the only thing probably occasionally they like put out a white paper It's got some impenetrable title. But they argue about it so much beforehand. Right. Like, if I were a Jedi, which is a big if, I know very few people who are less likely

to be a Jedi than me, but if I were a Jedi, I would do anything to stay off of the Jedi Council. Yeah, and can you imagine being like a 17 year old, just like swordsman and being like, I wish there were more meetings in my life. And if not, I will turn evil. Right. Exactly. Yeah, if you're not going to let me into your five hour long meetings where you discuss

the minutia of the force and argue with each other, then I'm going to go work for the emperor. It's funny. Screw you guys. I wanna. Yeah, some people are just really into the bureaucracy. The emperor is that I can meet with him whenever I want. Ha, ha, ha.

All right, I think we've over answered this question, which I don't even remember what it was about. This next question comes from Lauren who asks, dear Hank and John, why are there not? Many books about 20 somethings, or am I just looking in the wrong place? I love YA novels, young adult, but the experiences that I can relate to

aren't the experiences of 16 and 17 year olds any longer. But when I try to find adult fiction to read, much of us are about people with children and their divorces and their 30 plus year old lives. I just want to read stories that I can relate to more as a 22 year old college graduate starting my life in the quote, real world. DFTBA, Lauren. To me, the evidence for the fact that this genre is amazing is your book, an absolutely remarkable thing, which is about those.

Yeah, I should have read the PS to this question, which is PS, an absolutely remarkable thing, which is about those. I should have read the PS to this question, which is PS, an absolutely remarkable thing by Hank Green is a book about a 20 something that is available in bookstores everywhere. Thank you Lauren, and also thank you John. Yeah, and it's about those heavy, difficult, complicated days when you are asked to be an adult on your own

for the first time. And I love books about that time of life, like microsurfs by Douglas Copeland and a heartbreaking work of staggering genius by Dave Eggers. I just think like that time of life is really rich and fascinating and difficult. And I want to read more books set in that time. Yeah. What's the problem? I guess I don't think there is a problem because I think there are lots of like so-called

new adult books out there and lots of different people writing them. I just think that it isn't a well-established kind of category the way that young adult lit is. And the reason young adult lit is well-established category. In the end has lots to do with teachers and librarians and the kinds of people who pay attention to the critical discourse around different categories of literature. And it would be great to see a similar thing build up for books about people in their 20s. It just doesn't feel as separate a category as like books for teenagers does. Sure. Right. They're in there. They're just hiding amongst all the books about the divorces and the children in the 30s. Right. Exactly. Whereas books for teens, like there's a place in the library or in the bookstore that you go to find them.

Right. Books about being a so-called new adult, whether it's Sula by Tony Morrison or Mr. Penumbra's 24-hour bookstore are just categorized as adult fiction. Yeah. Which I remember when I started to work at Booklist and I was like 21 or 22 years old. And everybody just casually said adult fiction all the time, I would always giggle. Because it sounds, you know, it sounds a little 50 shades. Yeah. So I think that you question asker should become America's leading scholar of 20-something

fiction. Yes. That's your job now. We need it. We need someone out there establishing the genre. People always think that writers are the people who make that stuff happen, but it's, it's just not true. Critics and librarians and teachers make the space that then writers fill.

Yeah, and the store is too. Yep. All right. Hank, this next question comes from Caitlin and it's a doozy. Dear John and Hank, when did limos become uncool? This is such a great question because yeah, just happened. Well, I didn't know. It's also says, chauffeurs and stofers, Caitlin.

It's a great sign off. I should read this sign. It's great. Yeah, you can't miss that opportunity, John. So literally, I didn't know that limos had become uncool. So you apparently have caught on to this trend before me. Tell me about it. Well, I think there's something a little uncool about them right now. And I hope that it passes because I love me a limo. Like my 40th birthday party was in French with Indiana, which is the gambling capital of Indiana. French lick is an amazing place. I recommend it.

It's been an amazing name. I recommend it unreservedly. And what happens in French lick comes with you for the rest of your life. For my 40th birthday, no comment. Sarah got me a limo and the limo took us to Frenchwick, and so it was like a two hour drive, and we got to drink champagne, and we were in a limo, and like, I loved it.

I loved everything about it. I think limos are amazing, but I have heard from other people, especially when I was bragging about how incredibly generous and wonderful Sarah was to get me a limo, and they'd be like, you like limos? And I was like, yeah, of course I like limos. Who doesn't like a limo? Who doesn't like to be in a car that's bigger

than a regular car? It's like a car, but long. Yeah. Limos. So I did hear that from some people in the office who were in there like 20s. And that maybe think maybe limos aren't as cool as they used to be.

My friends rent a limo and they drive around with a bunch of kids to look at the Christmas lights. Oh, that's a thing. It's a total thing, but it's very weird because it's clear when you're in the limo that the limo is not designed for kids, it's designed for like partying teenagers. So there's all these like a kutramal that are not necessary. Right. Like lots of coolers for your champagne bottles and very neat lights

and it's just like this is not what this is designed for but we have co-opted it. And like that might be part of it. Like grown 40 somethings, putting their five and to nine year olds in a, in a limo to like go look at Christmas lights is the least cool thing you could possibly do with a cool car. What are you going to do Hank? We grow old, we grow old, we show where the bottoms of our trousers rolled. It's next question comes from Rachel who asks, dear John and Hank, in the last year my family faced a lot of rough circumstances.

Because of this, we've decided to take a trip to Disney World. My problem is that it's gonna be me, my parents, my brother, and his wife. I'm the fifth wheel. I'm gonna have to sit next to a stranger on all the rides. Do you have any tips for conversation starters? What else can I do to feel less lonely on this trip?

Best wishes, Rachel. Well, you gotta investigate all the rides that are three across, which there are some of or four. Yeah. Make sure you hit those. Most of the rides are not two across. Like I think Thunder Mountain might be two across, but most of them aren't.

That's one thing. The other thing is that like I think you should say to your parents like, Hey, it's your time to be the single this time. Like your parents know each other. They've been married for a while, I assume. They've been sitting next to each other for a while. Yeah, they're not going to mind splitting up. Like when Sarah and I took our kids to Disney World, which I regret to say was tremendously fun. But when we took our kids to Disney World, and I mean, I was a complete, I was a scrooge about

the entire affair. As someone who grew up in Orlando, I have an active hatred for Disney World and the entire time. I was like, wrong humbug, bomb bug, bomb bug, everyone was like, isn't this fun? And I was like, yes, yes, very fun. Unfortunately. Humbugging through his smile. Yeah, yeah. God, I do enjoy space mountain.

Anyway. Oh, God, space mountain. I'm so good. That's not Yeah, yeah. God, I do enjoy space mountain. Anyway. Oh, God, space mountain's so good. That's a one-seater. You don't have to sit next to anybody. It's magic. You can also say, you know what, mom and dad, I'm gonna go do Buzz Lightyear by myself a bunch. Do they have Buzz Lightyear at the world or just at the land?

I think they still have Buzz Lightyear, but I think it's also like closing to be replaced by a ride that isn't terrible. No. I just like, I like rides that have no lines, and so I love the bad ones. Well, then you must have loved Buzz Lightyear. Hank, yeah. I have to read you our all-time best name specific sign off.

This question comes from Caitlin who writes, dear John and Hank, I'm just really confused about snowflakes. How do we know that confused about snowflakes. How do we know that no two snowflakes are alike? I mean, is that just something that we've been told as kids? That isn't necessarily true. It's not like we can see every single snowflake that's ever dropped. How can we know that a snowflake that fell in Alaska a thousand years ago wasn't the exact same as a snowflake that fell somewhere else last year.

There are infinite ways to form a snowflake, but only 155 ways to spell Caitlin. It's the, it's the worst of the names for this reason. It is certainly, it is certainly the most heterogeneous of spelling. Yeah, you got it. You're at Starbucks and you're like, it's Caitlin and they're like, with a K and then you're like, yeah, and they're like, and an A and they're like, yeah, and a T, yeah. Any eyes in there? Essentially a game of wheel of fortune.

Sell it out, please. So one of the things is there are so many molecules in a snowflake that there will always be some variation. And that is by virtue of just the sheer volume, the number of molecules in a snowflake is very, very large. But also the way a snowflake forms is extremely dependent on its physical situation, the humidity, the wind, what the shape and size of the nucleus of the snowflake is, so the little grain of dust that it started to form around.

And then also we're generally talking about these six pointed snowflakes when we're talking about identical snowflakes and they have more opportunity for variation than other kinds of snowflakes, which we don't tend to like it's snowing, but it's not a snowflake in the same way and they can be much simpler structures. But interestingly, scientists can make snowflakes in a laboratory and when they do that, they can make them form roughly in identical ways.

Now they're still not identical just because like one's going to be a different size and have slightly more molecules of water than another, but the crystal will form in roughly the same way. And then you get like this sort of perfect little snowflake that you make and you can study like the ways that snowflakes form themselves and what influences how they crystalize, which is really neat. But the chances of that happening in a single snow storm are very, very low. But when you're talking about two

that would be visibly identical, it is possible that you could find two snowflakes that you could not visibly see with your naked eye any difference between. It's just very, very, very, very unlikely. All right. I feel that that was an extremely comprehensive answer. Do you know how, that I probably got something wrong during

and people, of course, the more comprehensive you get, the more likely you are to make a mistake. That's why I like to stick to the broad analysis. Yeah. When I was a kid growing up in Florida, and I don't know how I came to this incorrect belief, but I had all kinds of incorrect beliefs, right? Like I was 37 years old when I found out

that it was a chest of drawers, not a chest or drawers. Yeah. But one of my incorrect beliefs was that I thought that snowflakes were about the size of the cutouts you would do in kindergarten that were about the size of like the cutouts you would do in kindergarten that were about the size of a human palm. Yeah. We both had this shared, this shared incorrect belief because they make you cut snowflakes

out of big pieces of paper. Yeah. And then you're like 12 or 13 years old. And you find yourself at some point in the great white north. And I'd seen snow before, but I'd only seen it on the ground. You know, like I'd only seen it in a host falling. And it's snowing, and I remember thinking,

this, like this is it, this is such a disappointment. That's what all this fuss is about. That little guy. I had been told that beautiful geometric shapes fall out of the sky and each of them is visibly different. But this is just, this is nothing. This is crap. This is the most, it was the most disappointed I have ever been. My first snow storm was just emotionally devastating. Anyway, today's podcast is brought to you by the largest snowflake Hank has ever seen.

The largest snowflake Hank has ever seen less than an inch in diameter. This podcast is also brought to you by the 155 different spellings of the name, Caitlin. This is not anyone's fault, but I want to blame someone. It's English's fault. I blame English. What a disaster of a language. This would never happen in French. Additionally, today's podcast is brought to you by Disney World.

Disney World. I mean, it's nice, okay? And also this podcast is brought to you by the Jedi Council. The Jedi Council. Having meetings and doing nothing but having meetings for thousands of years. Oh my god, having meetings for thousands of years. Oh my god, imagine living for thousands of years how many meetings you'd have to go to. Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!

Hank, if you could pick your lifespan. Uh-huh. What would you pick? If I could pick my lifespan? Yeah, healthy, healthy lifespan. I mean, big as possible. Really? You'd go for like 5,000 years. Could I pick other people to come with me? No, that's not how it works.

I said if you could pick your lifespan. Oh, that doesn't make it rougher, but forever hell. And this question comes from Alex, who writes, dear John and Hank, I'm currently stuck on a bus with 50 other 12-year-olds. We departed at one o'clock. It's currently 3.30. This usually only takes an hour, but that's beside the point.

What do you do on a bus with 51 12-year-olds and one adult? We've already had a single long, a drawing contest, an impromptu concert, and an essay writing contest from Alex the seventh grader. First off, Alex, you are a very impressive seventh grader. Yeah. That's a great email. I thought, for most of this question that you were the adults. I also thought you were the adult Alex. So, great question. Good job. And by the way, before we answer the question, let us pause and give thanks for the one adult on that bus.

It's just the driver? I don't know. Yeah. Maybe one of the 12 year olds is driving, but the important thing is that the one adult on the bus is probably having a challenging three and a half hour period. Well, Alex, by the fact that you sent in a question to your favorite advice podcast, starring two middle aged men, uh, leads me to believe that you have a smartphone

and that it is currently not out of batteries. Right. So the first thing you want to do is switch to low battery consumption mode. Whatever you can do to draw that boy out low, lowest possible light level, all the, all the bells and whistles turned off. And then you wanna think to yourself, this rectangle gives me access to the entire knowledge of people's current understanding of the Star Wars universe via Wookieepedia. And so I am going to go to Wookieepedia

and become like expert level. I will one day work for Lucasfilm checking on whether something counts as canon or not. That level of expertise about the Star Wars universe. Yes. And share your trivia as you learn it, Alex. So you're engaging socially. Right. Just shout it out while also becoming a Wikipedia expert.

Yeah, you got a shout out like, what percentage of hot do you think is oceans over under anybody? One multiple choice. Yeah. Tank and I know just how to become popular in seventh grade. It sounds like you're doing a great job, Alex, but I would, I would I would be on a moon, he become a member of the Jedi Council. What year can I support the battle of Yavin? Yeah, BBY.

Can I ask you a semi related question? Uh-huh. Are you the kind of person who, when your phone is draining battery, and you know you've got, you know, a long period of boredom ahead of you and you have no other distractions, are you the kind of person who can successfully resist the urge to just drain it all the way to zero? No. Me neither.

No, the number of times that I've been acting like doing something with the full knowledge that my phone is about to die and then my phone dies and I've gone, ah! Yeah. Not countable. Yeah, same for me. I have, like, even if you said, John, in two hours you're gonna have to make an emergency phone call,

but for the next two hours you're gonna have to sit alone in this empty room. That would be like, all right, but just as it heads up, I'm gonna need to borrow a phone. Yeah, I need to know whether vice is a plural. I'm suddenly extremely curious about the etymology of cold turkey. So I didn't think I wanted to know, but it turns out that I need to know now. So John, before we get to the all-important news from Mars and AFC Wimbledon, we got some

responses and updates this first one is from Ants who asks, dear Hank and John, I come from Latvia and here, as well as the other Baltic states, sweet cottage cheese is very popular, especially among kids. We do not however eat it with sugar. We have it flavored with many different flavors, like chocolate, vanilla, coconut, et cetera, and covered in chocolate, by which I'm, are you talking like flakes or sauce? Like, first-piece syrup.

I actually do have this. I've got chocolate syrup. Okay. It's delicious and you should try it if you ever find yourself here. I, like, ants, I just want to say, I can make this at home. I feel like, I don't necessarily need to go all the way

to Latvia to figure out how to put different flavors and chocolates also in my cottage cheese. I would like to try it in Latvia, which is one of the places I haven't visited that I would most like to visit. We heard from a number of people who live in central or Eastern Europe that this is very common in central and Eastern Europe that this is very common in central and Eastern Europe.

And what our listener of a previous episode whose in-laws enjoyed sweet cottage cheese didn't understand is that it is not an American regional thing. It is a central and Eastern European thing. All of these emails totally brought me around. I tried some cottage cheese with chocolate sauce on top of it after I googled like how to do it. And it was pretty actually good as long as I didn't think about what I was eating. You know, like as long as I just enjoyed the flavors and I didn't think about the fact that this was cottage cheese with

Hershey sauce on top. It was really quite good. We also got a number of emails about that one hot dog stand in Iceland, all of which bolstered my belief that that one hot dog stand in Iceland is indeed a special place. It's one of those, it's like on the crossing of the laylines. Yes. Where it's like, if you sold, if you sold chocolate-covered cottage cheese there, it'd be the best chocolate covered cottage cheese in the world. Yeah. It's, it's just the place. It's the place, not the dogs. Although I think it is in this case, the dogs microdend to say, dear John, I just had to

pull over in a more land of Scotland. And I don't know exactly what that means. Hank, does that mean that Mike's car like went into quicksand or something or how serious is that situation? Yeah, it sounds like he's in a swampy area. All right. Anyway, Mike went on to say, I have also experienced that wonderful hot dog. My wife and I had opening week tickets to the Harry Potter play.

And then she felt pregnant. That must be a Britishism, but what a wonderful one. And we realized we couldn't make it. So we sold the tickets and used the money for a trip to Iceland while my in laws watched our baby in Edinburgh. I ate the hot dog. It was delicious. I have loved every part of your creative output for the last nine years, but reminding me of that hot dog is the best thing you

have ever done for me. Hank is cool too. And now I drop the comma mic. Y'all, when you go to Reykjavik, eat this hot dog. It's special. Oh God. I'm going to take a trip just for the dog. Also, I looked up what a more is and what morelins are and I was not swampy at all. It looks beautiful. Great. It looks like a mountain valley. Speaking of beautiful, let me tell you about what happened

to AFC Wimbledon this week. Woo! We won a football game. We did it, Hank. We won a football game. We beat Gillingham, possibly Gillingham, scientist still aren't sure. Gillingham is a home to their pretty good. They're pretty good and they're home to many former AFC Wilden players, including our

long time captain Barry Fuller, a person I have hugged on two separate occasions and I'm a huge fan of. So you would think that I might have mixed feelings, but no, I was purely, purely happy. We won one nil. It was scrappy. The goal though was really good. It involved like a big cross field pass and then some nice interlinked play of overlapping runs before Scotty Wagstaff just absolutely smashed it along the ground into the corner of the net. It was a beautiful goal. It was in the 19th minute. And then we held on and did not give up a goal, which is a nice turn of events and and a somewhat novel turn of events. And speaking of novel turn of events, as a result of having won this football game,

Hank, AFC Wimbledon have have I mean, we're so high up the table. I'm starting to get nervous. We're in 19. You're in, you're in fifth to last. We're in fifth to last, but I'll remind you, only the bottom three teams go down. Right. And you're more than a one away from relegation, but on point differential, but okay. Yeah.

Gold differential. Gold differential. But yeah, so the three bottom teams all lost last week, which is great news. I mean, not for them, except for Mill and Keens, in which case, it's great news period. But AFC Wimbledon by virtue of that victory, we now have 16 points in our first 18 games, which is not a point to game ratio that would allow you to stay up and league one most seasons, but maybe the season will be different. We'll see.

It's tight down there at the bottom. Well, I mean, this one is nice because of how there isn't, there's only three relegation slots. So that does throw things off a little. It is a, it is helpful to, to Wimbledon's chances this year. It's been a scrappy, difficult league one campaign. No doubt about it, but having won this game, Hank, with our new manager, Glen Hodges, I've become convinced that we are going to win the league and go up to the championship,

then go to the Premier League and then win the Premier League all in the next five years. And this and this year, you're going to come in and we're going to go into the last quarter of the season solidly in the middle of the bottom. Oh God, I would love that. And it's going to be a stable and fine the whole time and you won't have to be stressed out about another thing in your life. I just don't want to have to watch another game at the very end of the season where we have to tie to stay up.

Ever. It's again. It's, yeah, it's a great way to feel sick to your stomach for two, three hours. You made me feel that way. I feel that. I just, yes, Hank, let's get to, let's get to like 13th in April. Oh, that would be amazing. That's tasty thoughts.

What's the news from Mars? In Mars news, next year might be the year we sent another rover to Mars, but in the meantime, NASA and the European Space Agency are busy planning a mission to bring a home some rocks. And by home, I mean to earth. Wait, how? I'm going to tell you. So the rivers that have been sent to Mars, they're amazing. They help us learn a lot, but there's no way to do the amount of science on something with a robot that we could do here on Earth. But nothing is easy when it comes to sending things to and from another planet. So it's going to be a lot of work to get this to happen. The first part of the Mars Return Sample Mission is actually the Mars 2020 rover.

So when we get the rover to Mars, it's going to dig up bits of rock and collect them in tubes that can hold up to 20 grams of precious rock sample and then store that in a vacuum sealed thing. And it's going to keep some of those on board and it's going to store others on the ground. And by store, I mean, it's going to leave them on the ground. The next step is in 2028, NASA and the European Space Agency are going to send a lander that has both a rover and a return rocket. The rover will drive around and it will fetch all those sample tubes and take them back to the lander while they'll be loaded onto the return rocket, and then that will launch back to Earth. So this is going to be the first time that we've ever launched a rocket off another planet.

And there's a lot of work and engineering to go before we've got that mission ready. And it's worth noting, John, that this sample return is 2028, the year when I was supposed to get humans there, but instead we might just get rocks home from Mars. Right, what if instead of getting humans to Mars, we got Mars rocks to Earth.

To Earth. Yeah. Almost as impressive. Does that count? It does not count. Almost. It does not count. Less substantial engineering challenge,

but still very difficult. So the rocket is going to be sent into orbit to get in contact with a return orbiter. And then that's going to have to like grab onto the rocket. So it's going to launch up into space, connect with its orbiter, and then that's gonna have to like, grab onto the rocket, so it's gonna launch up into space, connect with its orbiter, and then that will seal up the samples and send them home by around, wait for it, 2031. Wow. Wow.

Yeah. Wow. So some of this is already in progress. Others are in the very, very, very preliminary stages of like budget approval, not even like science development. Well, now I do kind of want to live to be 8,000 years old so I can see a human on Mars. I write.

Gonna take a while. John, can we switch the podcast name back to Dear Hank and John after humans get to Mars? It's a great idea. There's no way I'm gonna still be doing the podcast, but you can call it whatever you'd like. It'll stick called, dear Hank and Kevin, my friend Kevin, who I met in the meantime. Right, yeah, no, by then, you know,

he'll be into your second life, you'll be 130 years old. You'll have a new brother. That's right. Yeah, And the future, you'll have to be able to get new brothers because of how you're definitely going to get divorced from. It's going to take so long. You're going to have to get a brother divorce. All right. It's been a pleasure to pod with you as always. We're off to record our Patreon only podcast over at patreon.com slash dear Hank and John. It's called this week and

Ryan's for another five weeks before we debut an exciting new Patreon only podcast which is gonna be great. It will we have ideas and if you've listened to that podcast You know about them. But this podcast is a co-production of Complexly at W and YC Studios is edited by Joseph Tune of Metic It's produced by Rosie on a Halsey on a Halsey and Gipson our head of community and communications is Victoria Bonjorno the music You're hearing now and at the beginning of the episode is by the great Gunnarola. And as they say in our hometown, don't forget to be awesome.