Dear Hank & John - 239: Does This Have Walnuts or Pecans?

Episode Date: May 11, 2020

How do I connect with my siblings? Why do some cereals falsely claim nuts? Is it okay to call a professor by their first name? Are coffee machines a kitchen necessity? How do I format a scholarship essay? 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. It was I prefer to think of it dear John and Hank. It's a podcast where two brothers answer your questions, give you the DBS advice and bring you all the weeks news from both Mars and AFC Wimbledon John to all the people out there about to graduate college with a degree in accounting, but worried about entering into the job market. Might I suggest getting a second degree in dentistry, then you can crunch numbers and numb crunchers.

That's good, man. I like a pun where the consonants get switched. Yeah, a spoonerist puns. It's very common in the Sunday New York Times Crossword puzzle and it always delights me. Whereas I think because Sarah grew up with a spoonerist father who loves a spoonerism. Whenever there are those puns in the New York Times, she's always like groaning, but I'm like, oh, it's a delight. It's not Ned Flanders, it's Ned Flanders. I mean, that's, it's weird to me. If you like that, I don't know how you hate any of my jokes

here on Dear Hank and John. Well, they are all positive gold. They are not all gold. That's a factually inaccurate statement. Speaking of factually inaccurate statements, how about Twitter? Ah, indeed. That's the end of the joke. Boy.

Alright, let's answer some questions from our listeners. Oh, wow, we're going to jump right into it today, John. This first one comes from Liana who asks, dear Hank and John, I'm home with my three brothers for quarantine. I get teased by them for being a bit of a recluse and being in my room all the time. The thing is, I don't know how to participate in a lot of their conversations. They really enjoy video games and Star Wars, and a lot of the time that's what they talk about, and I just don't know how to relate. I have different interests, but even still, I want to participate and laugh along with the jokes I don't understand, but I don't know how to do that.

I'm worried this disconnect will continue into when we're all proper adults, but all I want is to be close to them. Any dubious advice is appreciated. I don't live in Montana, Leana. Thanks for helping me figure out how to pronounce your name correctly. We've had a few questions like this. People who are newly with friends and family and are trying to find ways to connect with them

and to feel like they are part of a community with them, because of course, family is a very important piece of community when we can have it. And like, this sounds especially hard because you have three brothers who are all going to video games in Star Wars. And there is one Liana who seems to be less into those two things.

And so it's sort of hard to break in, but my guess would be, you gotta try and chisel one of them off. Like don't try to, like, get them as like one solid group that's all sort of into the same things, but be like, like, Matt and Steven leave them be, but be like, you, Jeremy, I want you and I to do something,

and we will have a shared interest, and then they will get, they will get interested in whatever you have decided to do with Jeremy. And I don't know if that's going to be video games or Star Wars or if you're going to be something else, but that is my only way. You have to approach this problem,

not as a monolithic block of brothers, but one brother at a time. I think all of that advice was terrible. That's all I got. I know. And I thought it was what I liked is that you talked for a long time and that you didn't say, um, very many times, but I thought the content of the message was awful. You don't like it?

No. No. Well, what? Tell me. Your solution to this division among siblings is to create yet more division. And I think that's a bad solution. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah, you need to create teams.

You need to be on your own team, but you need to have somebody on it. No, I also think every part about it is unrealistic. Like I think you have to have an honest, earnest conversation with your brothers where you say, look, yeah, that sounds way more realistic. I know, I think it is realistic. I think you say, look, when y'all talk about Star Wars and Fortnite and nothing else,

it doesn't leave a lot of room for me. Are there things that we could watch together? Is there a movie we could watch together tonight that's from a new series that none of us has seen, that can we watch Star Trek the Next Generation? Can we watch that one movie that had Mela Kunis in it in space? You know the one. Yeah. Yeah. Let's watch that. Because if we don't have all of us together a thing, I'm going to be in my room because I can't get your jokes about pod racing

and I don't really have like 5,000 hours to go into like Reddit's list of prequel memes so that I can become fully versed in your language. Instead, we need to build a new language together that includes all four of us. Yeah, yeah. I just think that's a lot. I think it's hard. I don't think that's a lot. I think it's hard.

I don't think it's a lot. I think you say like the next time they say like, hey, you're in your room all the time. Just be like, you wanna know why I'm in my room all the time? It's because you guys converse primarily in Fortnite gibberish. In prequel memes. Like I don't understand the words that you're saying.

Like I don't know what a John Wick skin is. And I also like don't have a burning desire to learn. So let's find a language that we can all be part of. Right, and I agree with that. To find something that's maybe not melecunus' space movie or a stretch of the next generation, maybe something a little more in the present tense.

Or I don't know, maybe you do want to go and watch a bunch of old movies from the 50s and 60s, and that'll be the thing. But find a thing, and that would be great. If you could say, okay, you want me to be out of my room, then you're going to watch Drag Race with me. Boom, ha, let's do it. I'll watch a prequel. You got to watch, you got to watch some Drag Race. Are we talking about the Courtney Force kind of Drag Race, or are we talking about the RuPaul kind? No, we're talking about the Courtney Act kind of Drag Race. or are we talking about the RuPaul kind? No, we're talking about the Courtney Act kind of drag race.

In the same way that I don't know who that is, I think that you probably don't know who Courtney forces. I definitely don't know who Courtney forces. And I'm devastated that you don't know who Courtney act is. Well, I'm a little hurt that you don't know who Courtney forces. So, you know, suddenly we're in the same boat, where it turns out that we didn't have anything in common all along and I'm just gonna spend the rest of this time inside of my room. Forget you. I'm moving on. I'm only

hanging out with people who know who Graham Ray Hall and Courtney Forza are now. I wonder if Courtney Forza and Courtney act know each other. They look like they might. The Venn diagram of people who get both sides of our joke is, that connecting point is very small. Please write us an email. If you are that person, there's a fair number of listeners who are like, I get half of that joke. And there's a fair number of listeners who are like,

I get the other half, almost nobody gets both out. You gotta be both Hank and John. To know who both of those people are. All right. This next question comes from Sarah who writes, dear John and Hank, why are they called honey nut Cheerios? When in fact, there are no nuts in them. This also applies to grape nuts. Is the serial industry okay? Peanuts and penguins. Sarah. I mean, I got to say the cereal industry cannot be 100% okay.

I've heard that millennials are killing them. I feel like the cereal industry is doing significantly better at least in our house than that it was six weeks ago. The amazing thing is that like, there've gotta be lots of cereals that don't exist from the era of grape nuts. Yeah. But grape nuts of grape nuts. Yeah. But grape nuts somehow held on.

Right. And if there has ever been a better example of being first, being better than being best, grape nuts has to be it. Because grape nuts were like, we've figured out how to make a thing that you can put in your mouth. That's the only, that's all it is. It is acceptable to have this in your mouth and they still exist.

Yeah, grape nuts is like that. But only because they were first, they were first and like every cereal is better than grape nuts, but they're still out there. Being a tiny box that it takes a six months to get through. Yeah, grape nuts is like the last surviving member

of its genus. It's like the duck-build gladapuse or two-hattara of cereals. Where I bet there were a lot of things like grape nuts 150 years ago, but now grape nuts is the only way we have of glimpsing the distant past. It's like a different fossil. That's absolutely.

I mean, it is made of rocks. It is, I mean, that's the other thing. You said, like, you can put this in your mouth and you can eat it, but not really. But yeah, you need some assistance. You got to wait a while. Yeah, you got to wait. Your enzyme has to work on it before you can eat it.

Uh-huh. Oh, there's a lot of people out there, by the way, speaking of people who don't know who Courtney forces who have no idea what grape nuts are. Yeah, well, grape nuts is, I'm sorry, I didn't know it's singular. Yeah. Grape nuts is a serial,

and that's the end of the sentence. I can't say anything else about it. Yeah, it's not like the individual thing, like the individual nugget of grape nuts is a grape nut. Right. I think that that has been well and truly debunked by the people at grape nuts. They want to be pretty clear that this is not a grape nut. I think that that has been well and truly debunked by the people at grape nuts. They wanna be pretty clear that this is not a grape nut.

Yeah. I don't know what they think it is. They also wanna be clear that this cereal neither contains nor tastes like either grapes or nuts. Hank, do you remember any of the 12 taglines for Honeynut Cheerios? Hank, do you remember any of the 12 taglines for Honey Nut Cheerios? Oh, what a relief it is. No.

The one from 2013 to the present, which I definitely remember is based on Nelly's song, Ride With Me, where N says, must be the money. Uh-huh, and the tie. Yeah, you do it, I can't do it, but you're gonna do great. I have total confidence in you. Okay.

Hey, must be the money. Like that. No, it says exactly as I expected it to be. And their tagline is must be the honey. Wow. Because it can't be the nuts. Because they're antennae. So I think that this is a completely different situation from grape nuts.

And you know why? Because there is nut in honey nut cheerio. It is almond flavoring. Yeah, there's flavoring. It just doesn't come from almonds. And it doesn't come from almonds because people are allergic to almonds. But it also comes, and this is wild, from peach pits and apricot pits.

But people who are allergic to nuts are also sometimes allergic to these chemicals from peach and apricot pits. So they still have to put contains nut allergens even though it doesn't contain nuts. Wow. But they did have ground almonds in them until 2006. And they stopped.

I don't think for allergy reasons, but just because they were too expensive. It would rather not. Thank you very much. Right. Yeah. Usually, when an organization makes a change that is ostensibly for for health reasons. It's really for money reasons. I love my favorite example of this is the orange juice that's 50% sugar free. So 50% sugar free orange juice is orange juice that's half water. Yeah. Which by the way is how I drink my orange juice

but I just get it. I just get it in concentrate, if you will, which is to say regular orange juice, and then I add my own water. And in doing so, I save half of the cost of the orange juice. Yeah, and you have half calorie orange juice. Another of Honey Nut Cheerio's taglines that I'm pretty fond of is Little O, big taste. It's never done I have felt about a honey nut cheerio.

I've never been like, whoa, my whole hand popped off. This is like a gusher. No, it says, that's a bigger taste in the non-honey nut cheerios by the virtue of the honey. Yeah, but only marginally. Yeah, I feel like the non-honey nut cheerios are for people who've temporarily or permanently lost their sense of taste. I have those cheerios. I actually, and you

want to know, we mix them with the honey nut cheerios to create low calorie honey nut cheerios or low sugar. It's like watering down your orange juice a little bit. Yeah. Like, what is wrong with my home? or what is either there's something wrong inside of those four walls or is there something wrong outside of them? And I think that there's something wrong outside of them Which is that everything housed too much sugar in it, but I water down everything including my Cheerios with Cheerios Because there's too much flavor John my head. I head! I can't be contained in this single hole! I'm fine.

Good. You know one of the other taglines for Honey Nut Cheerios? I'm pretty fond of. Okay. From the hive that's nuts about honey. What? Because now they're like, we don't have nuts. Yeah.

In our Cheerios anymore. So we're gonna make it about being crazy for honey. Like, yeah. This... I'm Honey Nuts in our Cheerios anymore. So we're gonna make it about being crazy for honey. Like, yeah, I'm honey nuts. These Cheerios are nuts for honey. This isn't about nuts. God knows we don't have any of those allergens. We do. Yeah, we do, just for clarity.

But we're gonna print it in small letters on the box. Yes, John, this is the Cheerios for honey nuts. Yes, exactly. this is the Cheerios for honey nuts. Yes, exactly. That's it. Yeah. That is, that is what they are trying to transition to me. Yeah. Where they attempted to, but then they're like,

Hey, must be the honey. Yeah. They were like, if we stick with this for 20 years, we'll make the transition and then a long comes Nelly. Oh my God. Well, somebody found the Wikipedia page for the Honeynut Cheerios slogans, I guess. Yeah. As you know, Hank, Alice has a nut allergy.

It's not thankfully super severe, at least so far as we know, at least so far. But it has led to the cutest thing in the world, which is, Alice will not eat anything without saying does this have walnuts or pecans. This is a little bit less the case than it was when she was three or four. In some ways, like the first full question that she learned to ask was, does this have walnuts or pecans? And so it made her seem extremely precocious at restaurants. Yeah, she's like, I'd like the French fries. her seem extremely precocious at restaurants. Hahaha.

Yeah, she's like, I'd like the French fries. Is that have walnuts or pecans? Exactly. So she'd be like, yes, I have a question. The chicken tenders, do they contain walnuts or pecans? Great. Well, then I will have the chicken. Oh, and that comes with French fries. Follow-up question.

Do they have walnuts or pecans? Okay, then in that case, I will have the chicken. Oh, and that comes with French fries. Follow-up question. Yeah. Do they have walnuts or pecans? Okay, then in that case, I will have the chicken nuggets and the French fries. I would also enjoy a glass of chocolate milk. Don't mean to repeat myself, but does that contain walnuts or pecans? And you don't know these days with milk.

You don't, you don't. Could've been made of anything. Plenty of pecans milk out there. Yeah. All right, Hank, this next question comes from Chelsea, who writes, Dear John and Hank, in the present times, I am emailing my professors more when I would typically go to office hours or ask questions in class. Sometimes they sign off with their first names rather than doctors such and so. Does this mean I can call them by their first name?

Hmm. Chelsea. Yeah, I think they opened that door. I think that I think they did too. Yeah, but I don't like, I don't know why they did. Like, if you could be called Dr. Sutchen, so you should do it. It's so much work to get to the point of being able to be called Dr. Sutchen, so and that's why I always call people Dr. Sutchen, so yeah. Here's the thing, Chelsea. I do think that they've opened the door. My own experience, even with professors,

I'm really quite close to, is I still keep the door closed. Like, you open that, but I'm just gonna, Oran does that sometimes, where we'll open the door, if we're in the other room and he's watching TV,

he'll come and close it. Yeah, I'm like, okay. Yeah. Sorry, we were distracting you by doing nothing. Yeah, I think this is different for everybody, but I always felt like even when I was friends with my professors, they were still my professors. Yes.

Like there was still an authority role there and that was my way of acknowledging that even Like long after I graduated from college. Yeah, when I would talk to my mentor my religion professor Professor Rogan who I still call professor Rogan even though he's dead When I would talk to professor Rogan I would always call him professor Rogan and I felt very uncomfortable calling him by his first name because that was the nature of our relationship. And it wasn't gonna like stop being our relationship.

Now for some people, I think that does change in transition. But for me, it was always going to be kind of a mentor, a mentee relationship. Somebody I looked up to, somebody who, you know, I just thought of differently than I think of my friends. Yeah, I feel the same way. And I, I, to this day, like I know the first names of all of my professors who I worked with very closely in college, but I would never think about calling them by their first name.

But, but Chelsea, this is up to you. If you're asking the question, does it mean you can call them by their first name? I think it does. You can. If you want to try question, does it mean you can call them by their first name? I think it does. You can. If you wanna try that shoe on and see if it's comfortable, go ahead. I think that my foot would protest personally.

I do agree though. I look to how someone signs off in how to respond to them. Yeah. But then now that I think about it, it would be very weird if you signed off like best wishes, Dr. Green. What?

Like, that would be a little weird. That's a bit of a weird sign off. That. And by the way, I can't say that because as you know, I have two doctorate degrees, both honorary. Ha-ha-ha-ha. What are they in? Are they just like, do they have a qualification?

Are you just like an honorary doctor at in giving commencement speeches? The arts. Oh, yes. Yes, quite. I'm a doctor of the arts. And then I've seen people, you know, the worst people in the world,

yeah, call themselves doctor after getting an honorary degree. Oh my God. And the best part about it is that they call themselves doctor after getting an honorary degree. Oh my god. And the best part about it is that they call themselves doctor such and so. And then in parentheses, H-O-N period, which means honorary, which means not actual. Not a doctor. Well, at least they put that in there.

But now I wouldn't have known what that meant. I thought I would think maybe it was some kind of like Latin thing for like extra. Right. Like an honors doctor. Doctor of the arts even more so. Like a double doctor like myself honorary. Well, I'm glad you've been honorary. Yeah, no, I'm licensed to practice medicine, but only of an honorary variety. I can participate in all this ceremonial medical services. Yeah, which include saying goodbye as they're leaving, all the pomp and circumstance, Hank. So I guess you could do that.

The washing of the hands I'm allowed to do. You're right. I'm allowed to put on gloves, but I'm just not allowed to touch anyone. Touch anyone. Yeah. Okay, anyone. Yeah. Okay, good. Yeah, yeah.

And you could say goodbye when they leave. I can hold the scalpel. I just can't do any of the cutting. I can hold the scalpel. And then they have to disinfect it before they actually use it. Yeah, I'm allowed to listen to hearts with the stethoscope,

but I'm not allowed to make conclusions. Yeah. Hahaha. Oh, God. but I'm not allowed to make conclusions. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha is a monster. I thought they were. I've watched a bunch of very long graduation speeches. Mine was very long. No, they are. I think the perfect commencement address, the greatest commencement addresses of all time are all every single one of them under 20 minutes. Oh, all right. Well, that's still like four vlogwriters videos. John, this next question comes from Ari who asks, dear Hank and John, after graduation, my girlfriend and I will be moving in together. Neither of us drinks coffee, but our friends

and family do. Shall we get a coffee machine anyway so that we can offer people coffee when they visit? Would it be all right to just offer guests tea if they want a hot drink? Beans and befuddlement, Ari. Man, our lives do appear to be controlled to some extent by these by these good beans, John. The beans are a hugely important historical force for sure. They are. And they continue to be a big historical force. That said, I don't think that you need to have a coffee maker if you don't drink coffee. Not least, Ari, because if you do have a coffee maker and you have beans or ground coffee and you only have like two guests per year who drink coffee, you're going to be serving

them terrible coffee. It's all beans. Because the beans will be very old and there's just a bunch of reasons why you don't want to do that and it's not worth having an extra appliance in your house. If you don't use it often, you can offer guests tea and you can also say there's a Starbucks down the street. I think both are acceptable. Right. So, yes, there's two things that we have to get out of the way here.

One, do you live in a place where there's a coffee shop fairly nearby? But even if there isn't, if not, do you live in a place where your kitchen is very, very big and you have like space to have? Because this I was shocked by and continue to be shocked by how you have to choose what appliances are most important to you. Because you do not have space for infinite appliances. You do not have money for infinite appliances. And there will always be more appliances that the world is inventing. And so you should take your counter space

seriously and do not add things to it that you're not going to be using on the daily. Yeah. I which I mean, you need a microwave, you need a soda stream and that's it. A toaster. You need a toaster. Right. I guess you need a toaster. And then there are a couple of other things that you also need. You need a coffee maker. If you're me at least, not if you're a Ari. But I need a coffee maker. Yeah, Catherine and I use what's called an AeroPress,

which just goes into the cabinet. But it's like you make one cup of coffee very slowly, which is a nice ritual for me when I want coffee. We have a plumbed coffee machine. A plumbed? Yeah, so it's built into the wall, the water goes directly into it, it makes coffee. Yeah, I've seen it. I've used it, in fact.

We call it Helga. It seems like the kind of thing that'd be like a huge pain if it broke. It's the only appliance in our house that has a name. Hmm. I should name my soda stream. And we have named her Helga because she is the only thing in our house that has a name. I should name my soda stream. And we have named her Helga because she is the only thing in the kitchen important enough to have a name. Where is Helga from?

Oh, Germany. Oh, okay. Is that a German name? She's German. So you have a coffee machine named Nint Helga. This is good. I feel the same way about my soda stream. I am very connected to it.

I've had a soda stream for longer than nearly anyone and I would like to name it. And so if you would like to send in names for my soda stream I will pick one and I will be excited to tell you about it next week. That's a great idea. I Do not have a name for my soda stream, which is maybe the problem. Maybe it would help me feel more deeply connected to my soda maker if I named it. But that reminds me, John, that this podcast is brought to you by Helga. Helga lives in John's wall and spits out the good black juice. Today's podcast is also brought to you by a single grape nut does not exist. But the fight has also brought to you by Jupiter ascending.

Oh, that's what it's called. It's that movie with me lacunus from space. Kind of a great movie. And of course today's podcast is also brought to you by being nuts for honey Cheerios. Nuts for honey Cheerios. Almost honey nut Cheerios. We also have a project for awesome message from Rajan, from Gothenburg, Sweden, who writes,

uh, wanted to say thanks to Tom for being a great friend and fellow nerdfighter all these years. And to John and Hank for doing incredible work to fight world suck and especially infant mortality in Sierra Leone, also shout out to my fellow Swedish nerdfighters as an American who recently moved here at this country has been incredibly welcoming and I'm so happy to call it my home. That's really lovely. And thank you so much for donating to the project for awesome. All right, Hank, we have another question. This one's from Emily who writes, dear John and Hank, I'm currently in the stage of my high school career where I spend all of my free time writing scholarship essays. As by the way, that's not free time as such Emily, but I get what you mean. As a future teacher in Oklahoma, I really need these scholarships, or else I will be in

debt literally until I die. A few of the scholarship applications have essay requirements listed as quote one to two pages, which is rather vague. Like what size should my font be? What font should I use? Should I double space or single space? Does this include the title slash header? Please help not the owner of a big red dog, Emily.

Oh my God, this is deeply frustrating to me. As a person who assigns stories and editorial assignments of varying kinds of the idea of giving a page count. Yeah, well some people... Why do they do that? I used to write by page count for many, many years. I would say I have no idea how many words this is. I only know how many pages it is.

And I would even figure out how many words something was by multiplying the number of pages. So like by 250 or something? Yeah, people would be like, it's about 300 words per page. And I would be like, in that case, my novel is 60,000 words long about, oh, God, well, yeah. I mean, I guess with something long, if there wasn't like an easy way to count words, like there is now.

Right. So I think that's where it comes from. I think it comes from a past where it was relatively hard to count words and relatively easy to count pages. But we no longer live in that past. And so the scholarship application should say how long it wants the essay to be, not how many pages it wants it to be.

That said, I do have feelings here. Oh, okay. I mean, I have a guess. What's your guess? My guess is you can go on one at like hit 12 point times new Roman Ariel, something like it, and do like 1.5 spaces. I think that's exactly right.

I think you can single space it if you want to. I think 1.5 spacing is ideal, and I think double spacing just isn't right. Doesn't look right. Doesn't look right. Yeah. It's not the right vibe. It's not the vibe that you're going for in your scholarship application.

Now, it may be that we are completely wrong and that every scholarship application in the world requires everything to be double spaced and the reader of those scholarship applications will be like, oh my God, I'm blinded by this 1.5 spacing. Because really what it's about is expectation. Like really when you're reading something, you want it to look like what you read looks like.

Everything else you read. Yeah. And that's why when it comes to picking a font, I am a big believer in opening Google Docs or Word or whatever you're using and beginning to type. Yeah. Use, they've picked that. Somebody worked long and hard thinking about

which font Google Docs uses. And it's not that it's the best font because it's it's not yeah and if fonts are extremely important to you you probably look at the default Google or Microsoft word font and you're Dolly horrified and disgusted by it got thoughts but for most of us most of the time what we want in a font is a kind of transparency. So we're not thinking about it. And that's why I like to use default fonts is because when I'm, at least when I'm writing something before it's published in a book, I want it to the font, the design to just kind of disappear off the page. And so the reader is just inside of what I'm writing. Yeah, it's wild.

I like, when I'm writing, I actually switch from one word processor to another word processor, like at a certain point in the process. And when that happens, the font and the font size and everything changes, and it takes me forever to like get back into the flow of just having it blend away again. And it shit, like, I don't like, it's wild to me. It's just words, but like it really is. It really does affect me. No, I mean, it's away again. And it should, like, I don't, like, it's wild to me. It's just words, but like, it really is. It really does affect me.

No, I mean, it's like anything. The tools that you use are important. Yeah. But it should tell you the word count. Not only should it tell you the word count, it should tell you whether it should be single-space or double-space. Like, why wouldn't they do that? Yeah. Well, here's the thing. Is probably, you're going to write this thing one to two pages and then you're going to copy and paste it into a form because it's the year 2020. Right. And so they should just say 600 to a thousand words. Yeah.

Is what they should say or 500 to a what they should say, how long they want it to be because nobody reads a certain number of pages. They read a certain number of words. Yeah. But we have to we have to said the problem is with the system. The system is failing you. And not just because somehow it's acceptable to us to create a lifetime of debt so that people can become teachers of profession that we so sorely need more of. Yeah. But also because of word

counts and essays and spacing. It's probably the smaller piece of the problem. Okay, before Hank and I fall all the way off the cliff of being super frustrated with systemic failures, we wanna let you know some updates, including this critical update. Remember that person, Hank, whose 13th birthday was totally ruined and they cried and their hair dye didn't arrive on time. And everything was a disaster.

They have written us an update, Hank. Yes. Dear John and Hank, being 13 has been awesome so far. I got my hair dye in the mail as well as a DFTBA hoodie that I wasn't expecting. And it's a very good hoodie. You're welcome. The only problem after having turned 13 was that I had so many Google classroom classes. I have eight classes a day, plus model United Nations, plus photography, plus this sounds

horrible, plus playwriting, plus podcasting, all online, plus my extracurricular literature class, plus student government, plus Shrek and the Tempest. I'm designing costumes for Shrek and writing an adaptation of the Tempest. Oh my God. This anonymous 13-year-old has accomplished much more in the last week than I have accomplished in my life. Okay.

Okay. I got it. Are you adapting the Tempest for podcasts? Because I'm in. Tell me more. I'm also, I am very, or for YouTube. I am interested in both of those potential ways of adapting the Tempest.

If you can make the Tem tempest in a socially distant way, as a YouTube series, like the Lizzie Bennett Diaries, but it's the tempest, I'm interested. Being a teenager has been pretty good on the whole. I also get to rub it in to my mom's face that she will have a teenager for the next 10 years, because my brother is 10, signed anonymous human. It's great stuff. Oh boy, you're gonna be in that boat not too long from now.

Me? Got no. I have a whole decade of teenagers. I am gonna have a whole decade of teenagers. I'm gonna have 11 years of teenagers. Oh no. Yeah, you'll be okay. I also wanted to let you know Hank about this email

from Val who wrote to say, dear John and Hank, your discussion of the average height of waves and troughs in yesterday's episode made me think of the famous John Maynard Keens quote, from Attract on Monetary Reform, which you'll be surprised to learn, Val, that neither Hank nor I has read in detail. You know, we've read like the first couple chapters.

Sure, sure, I did the cliff snouts. Yeah, I paged around. I got the gist of it. Oh, yeah, I have a PhD in Keynesian economics, I paged around. I got the gist of it. Yeah, I have a PhD in Keynesian economics, but HOM. Both in substance and in style, you came so close to invoking John Maynard Keynes' famous joke about the idea of being on a boat in dangerous seas. In that book, he wrote, but this long run is a misleading guide to current affairs. In the long run, we are all dead. He really was my kind of guy that John Manard kids economists set themselves too easy, too useless at task. If in tempestuous seasons,

they can only tell us that when the storm is long past, the ocean is flat again. Great mind. That's a great couple of sentences right there. And it made me want to read the rest of a track on monetary reform. Not like a lot though, just a little. Yeah, not right now. Not like so much that I'm going to do it. Yeah.

But like I'll have the thought and then I'll think more highly of myself before discarding it. I'm, you know what, I'm going to, I'll report back next week, Hank, on, all right, my, uh, my, my review of Attract on Monetary Reform. You can get, get the audio book. Well, right now I am listening to the last of Hillary Mantel's three books about Thomas Cromwell.

Oh, wow. It's like 39 hours long, and I was doing the dishes last night, and I'm about four hours and 45 minutes into the book and the narrator paused for a moment and then said in his beautiful British voice, chapter three. And I was like, wait, what? I've been listening to this for nine days. We're listening to this for nine days. Yeah. Hahaha. What what what what page are we on here? Yeah.

Give me a give me some sense. I need to feel the thickness of what I have left. We also got a couple of people right in about putting googly eyes in the moon. One great suggestion was smaller, very reflective patches spaced out. And then from here, it would appear that that would be averaged out into less reflective patches spaced out and then from here it would appear that that would be averaged out into less reflective patches. So that would be a way to make that happen more effectively. Tyler also wrote in to let me know that this happened, of course, in the 1994 animated series The Tick, which I, not Google-y eyes, but Chairface Chippendale

tried to carve it into the moon with a laser. I'm well aware of that. I was I was referencing just for you, Tyler. I was referencing that and hoping that you would know. I know, of course, everything there is to know about the tick. Oh, Hank is a proper tick super fan. I am. I do love. I do love, love, love the tick. And then some people let us know that sea level is not level and that it is

different heights and different places, which is indeed true. I've looked it up. It's very strange. It's a big ocean and sea level, of course, changes with the tides, but also with a bunch of other things, like winds and heat and warmth and cool cycles and stuff like that. Super cool. Hank, it was a year ago today, as we are recording this, that mission impossible was completed by AFC Wimbledon. One year ago today from Wimbledon's incredible survival in League One, one of the greatest escape from relegation stories in the history of professional football. Ten points from being in second to last place at Christmas and survival on the last day in

the most anxiety provoking nil nil draw away at Bradford that you could ever possibly imagine. And, uh, I, I, I, I have been really enjoying reliving that day. Aaron Ramstale, the 21 year old goalkeeper who was largely responsible for Wimbledon staying in league one that season made a couple of amazing saves on that last day. He is now a goalkeeper in the Premier League for Bournemouth. He is starting in the Premier League just one year later. He's going to go on to great things. It's incredible to have had him at AFC Wimbledon. All the players from that year have been posting about how it felt on that day,

that the great escape was confirmed. But yeah, it's just been nice to go back in time to this joyous occasion for Wimbledon. And be reminded that, you know, football is in our future. I don't know when, but it is in our future. Indeed. John, does this... Is it possible that if this season had... would have gone on that you would have been replicated and this is good, is good for them at least staying up for another season? If they stay up. Oh, they might not stay up. There are a lot of different ways to calculate who would go down if there is even relegation this year.

So like I believe the Dutch League just declared the season null and void. The teams that were going to get promoted aren't going to get promoted. The teams that were going to get relegated aren't going to get relegated. The season did not exist. Whereas the French League has done it differently, and it's hard. Obviously this is not the biggest problem. In fact, it might be the smallest problem,

but it's not really fair to freeze the season because not everybody has played the same teams. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So it's hard to figure out what's fair, but I mean, what the heck do I know about the future Hank? I feel yeah, too enough months ago. I was at Harry Potter world with my children and 57,000 million people. So Who knows yeah? Well in this week's Mars News There is gonna be a helicopter carried to the red planet in the belly of the Perseverance Rover and that helicopter

Has been named I don't know if they intended to name this thing, but then they decided to, because they got all these great names submitted an essay contest. And on 11th grader, Vanisa Rupani at Tusk, Lucid County High School in Northport, Alabama submitted an essay suggesting ingenuity, and in her essay she wrote, the ingenuity and brilliance of people working hard to overcome the challenges of interplanetary travel or what allow us to experience the wonders of space exploration, ingenuity is what allows people to accomplish amazing things and it allows us to explore a horizons to the edges of the universe.

So there will be an ingenuity helicopter on Mars. Now this helicopter isn't't gonna have any science instruments on it, it itself is the experiment to see if it can do its thing. It's gonna try and fly off and fly back and fly off and fly back several times just to test and see how possible it is for a helicopter to operate on the surface of Mars.

And if it does well, then we will have future missions that will have more sensors and stuff and be bigger helicopters doing that stuff. But it's super, super cool. It is amazing the things that continue to be done and the ideas that we continue to have and continue to pull off. So very excited about the launch and landing of a perseverance and looking forward, looking forward to that. Now, I'm also looking forward to it.

Hank, I have a bit of Mars news this week, which is that the rover took a picture of the hole that's been digging. Yeah, dead. I don't know if you saw the picture. It's a good picture. It looks deeper when you see the picture. It's more impressive that we've dug as deeply into Mars

as we have, even though I know we haven't dug as deeply into Mars as we were hoping to. Uh-huh. When you see the picture, you're like, that little digger has been doing some digging. Yeah. And also, I did not know that like a quarter inch underneath the surface of Mars, it totally stops being a red planet and it becomes like the moon. Yeah, it's not oxidized down there. It will turn red as oxygen reacts with the stuff there, but it has been on the surface, it hasn't had a chance to. So I recommend checking out that picture of the whole that humans dug on Mars.

It is amazing to me that we have dug a hole on Mars. I know that that's probably not the greatest accomplishment, science-wise wise of our Mars exploration, but we dug a hole on that planet y'all. We did it. We did it. Okay, thank you for potting with me, Hank, and thanks to everybody for listening.

It's a pleasure to be with you. You can send us your emails at hankandjohnadjmail.com. I'm sorry about all the emails we don't reply to. They're great. We love getting them, so please email us at hankandjohnadjmail.com. Yes, and also thank you for the well wishes we've had several people right in to say you seem like you are handling things fairly well, but we can kind of tell that, you know, you got that quarantine brain. Agreed. Yeah.

This podcast is edited by Joseph Tunehmetish. God bless him. It's produced by Rosiana Halstera, Austin, shared its Gibson. Our communications coordinator is Paolo Garcia-Prieto, the music you're hearing now, and at the beginning of the podcast, it's by the great Gunnarola. And as they say in our hometown, don't forget to be awesome. Don't forget to be awesome. [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪