Dear Hank & John - 245: We Are Held Together by Sunlight

Episode Date: June 22, 2020

What happens to viruses when they die? Is it possible to separate the art from the artist? Why did you guys talk about Al Gore so much in 2007? How do you retrain your brain? How do I feel confident in my abilities around older people? What is the statue of limitations for the term "late"? What do I do with my new One Direction action figure set? Hank Green and John 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

Hello and welcome to Dear Hank and John. Or is that for the sake of a dear John and Hank? It's a podcast where two brothers answer your questions, give you to be a advice and bring you all the weeks news from both Mars and AFC Wimbledon John. Yeah. John, it was just Father's Day and Aaron looked up at me on Father's Day and he said, well, it's Sunday every week.

I don't get it. because it's his day. Sunday is my son. Oh, oh, yeah, it's pretty bad. Hey, can we talk about the fact that your book that comes out in July, a beautifully foolish endeavor, just got its first review and it's a rave review from library journal. For those of you who don't know a ton about the world of book publishing, when these pre publicationpublication journals,

like the one I used to work for, which is called Book List or Library Journal, or Publishers Weekly, when they review your book, they either give it a regular review, or they give it something called a starred review, where they put a little star. Yeah, there's a little star. A star next to the review, and that's very good.

It's very good to get a star review. It's hard to do. Surprisingly important. If you don't know about it, everybody just starts talking about it. Like an amazing thing happened and you're like, I don't know. It's like you're talking in a different language. But now that's my second book. I do know. Right. And also a lot of times people are like, my book got a start review and you want to be like, just one star, that sounds horrible. Like on John's podcast, the Anthropocene Review, Collar gets one star. But no, it's the maximum number of stars you can get.

It's the most stars you can get. And Hank just received a star review, or I should say Hank's book, just received a star review from Library Journal. And I mean, it's very well deserved. And it's just a great review. Here I'll give you the verdict, Hank, throughout this adventurous, witty and compelling novel, Green Deliver's Sharp Social Commentary

on the Power of Social Media, and both the benefits and horrendous consequences that follow when we give too much of ourselves to technology, which really does get to the heart of the book and what's so brilliant about it. And I'm just thrilled for you that this reviewer got what you were doing. Thanks. I have spent so much time worrying about how, and I'm, you know, obviously this isn't the end of that, but worrying about how the book's going to be received and

getting the, having the first review that I saw be positive, it feels very good. I literally jumped up and down and said, Ray, so I let myself have that moment of just being really excited. And it was great. And now I want to make a podcast with you. Well, I'm excited to make a podcast too, but I should say that Hank's book of beautifully foolish endeavor comes out July 7th. And you can preorder a signed copy if you live in the United States right now. Except not on Amazon because they already sold out on Amazon. Good preorder it from somewhere else. This first question comes from Stella who asks, dear Hank and John, what happens when a virus dies? Do they disintegrate into nothingness or do they just lay their dead for a long time?

Is earth a burial ground full of the corpses of virus bacteria and dead things we cannot see. Is there a journey to the microcosmos video that talk about all these corpses? I don't want to live in a cemetery. Stella, Stella, too bad! Yeah, you live in a cemetery, Stella. Not only do and without of a cemetery. You are a cemetery. You really are. Like there's a cemetery inside of you and there's also a cemetery on your skin

but you're also breathing. You're also just made of things that were once in other organisms. Like we know that because we eat them. Yeah, I think sometimes people don't fully grasp the extent to which we are like a collection of atoms that have chosen to work together for a while. Yeah, and all the sort of the energy that keeps it from falling apart,

originally came from the sun, which I love. Yeah. Very nearly all, unless you're eating something from the deep sea vent or some kind of chemosynthetic bacteria from Yellowstone National Park, we are just, we are held together by sunlight, which is better, which is a better thought than I am a cemetery, but both are true. Yeah, it's hard to talk about the extent to which we are made out of sunlight because it becomes cheesy so quickly. Right? Like the moment you say, like, we are sunlight, everybody's like, oh, that's a cringe. That's a big cringe for me. Okay. But it's true.

I actually made an episode of the Anthropocene Reviewed about sunsets because I didn't know how to live with the fact that sunsets are both very beautiful and extremely trite. Right? Like if you paint a sunset, everybody's like, oh, I think I've seen a painting of a sunset before. But the truth is, they are wildly beautiful. And you have to overcome your cynicism and, you know, this irony that you use as armor in order to protect yourself from the world, you have to overcome that to acknowledge and welcome in how frickin' beautiful it is that we are all made of sunlight. Yeah, I feel as if my life is about constructing the right sort of armor, the right sort of strength that allows the light through, you know? And I want to be able to look at a flower and be like, what?

Look at that. That's wow, or just a bug, or my son, or the son, or any of that stuff. Right. But yeah, I mean, we also need protection. I have such a complicated relationship with sincerity. Like, I can't help but be earnest. And it's something that I actually like about myself and want to cultivate.

Yeah. But I also know very well how annoying over earnestness is. Like, I am aware, oh yeah, that like to try to live in this world earnestly is to like be on an absolute knife's edge because on the other side of that lies empty platitudes and BS encouragement and you know, everything happens for a reason. Right. Puh-ha. Yep.

Anyway, when viruses die, they don't disintegrate into nothingness. Viruses are made up of a bunch of different molecules. And in fact, you can detect a virus even after it has died. So when scientists are testing to see if a surface has been, has like, an infectable amount of coronavirus on it, they can't just like swab it like they swab your nose and then run a DNA test to see if their DNA is there. Because the DNA could be there even if the virus is dead.

Like the DNA remains even if the virus has died. So what they have to do is actually use it to try and infect something to see if there is a reaction or an infection that happens. So yes, the DNA, the RNA, the genetic material remains even after the virus is no longer capable of infecting something. And it breaks down over time,

but like those molecules just sort of sit there in a thin film over everything. Yeah, very thin film, though. I guess that's some encouragement. I guess I can take a measure of comfort in the thinness of the film. Sorry. It might be more like specs than film. Okay, that's even better.

Depending on how often you clean. The point is you can see through it to see the beauty of a sunset. Absolutely. All right, Hank, we got a lot of questions this week along the lines of this one from Eli who wrote, Hi, I'm Eli and I'm a 19 year old transgender man. I've been out for about three years now and I've been on hormones for about 1.5 years.

I love Harry Potter as many of your listeners probably do, but recently with JK Rowling's tweets and articles about trans people, I don't know how to feel. I feel really frustrated because I've had to work for the validation of my gender every day of my life and to hear stuff like this hurts. But I also just feel really sad. I know I shouldn't care what others think, but it stings to have the creator of such an amazing universe openly mock and criticize your existence. How do y'all feel about it? How did you react to her saying things like this? And how do I continue to enjoy her work?

Or can I? Any advice would be appreciated, Eli. I mean, first, I would not say that you shouldn't care how other people think. Like, we have to. That's where human and we listen. And, you know, we put a lot of stock in the creators of the things that we love. And we want to listen to them. And we want to appreciate them and finding out that they have invalidated you, that they have a damaging

perspective. They believe things that are frankly from my perspective, difficult to understand how one could believe. Of course it is sad, and you should care. Well, it's not only that, though, Hank. It's also that these people who have a lot of power and have a lot of money and have a voice that gets amplified onto national news services. When they say things that are hurtful, they are harmful. It hurts in every way.

And so I think it's really important to say at the beginning, Eli, to you and to anybody who's listening trans rights or human rights. And that shouldn't be a political statement. That is the consensus of medical and scientific professionals. That is where we are. So I don't know how to tell you how to feel about Harry Potter now. I don't feel like it's my place to tell you how to feel about Harry Potter. Yeah. I do have a book recommendation, which is Jackson Bird's book, Soarded. It's a wonderful book written by a really important member of the Harry Potter fan community who helped

lead the HP fan community into activism into the idea of decreasing world suck and part of what's been so heartbreaking about this on a personal level for Hank and me is that the Harry Potter fan community really gave Nerdfighteria a lot of its initial energy and modeled for us what communities online could accomplish, what they could do when people work together. They helped found the project for awesome. And yeah, it was really sad, it's really disheartening, it's discouraging and I'm sorry. I think that reading Jackson's memoir is great. Jackson's also a friend of ours has been for a long time now and really proud of him and I think that he has probably the perspective you might be looking for right now. Yeah, I agree.

So yeah, so I hope you like sorted as much as I did and feel like it can maybe be part of helping chart a path forward. All right, and we have another question. This one's from Catherine who writes, dear John and Hank, I'm 25 and I've been temporarily promoted to head of the entire digital marketing department at my mid-sized company while my boss is on maternity leave. It's been an awesome but overwhelming experience. One of the biggest issues has been that I am a plucky young lady whose job now largely consists of meetings with the office weathered 35 to 50 year old men. I feel really seen right now. Office weathered. Man, that description office weathered. Catherine tells me that you deserve every bit of your job as the head

of digital marketing at a mid-sized company. I mean, if anything, maybe you should be the head of digital marketing for all of human experience office weathered. What a phrase that is. I can see it. I can see the the can see the, the, the Warren patches on the flannel shirts. Oh, that's good. That's good. All these guys seem to value my input and I'm generally quite confident in my work, but every time I walk into a meeting with them, oh, remember walking into meetings. Every time I zoom into a meeting with them, I instantly feel like the world's smallest

child and who's all faith that I know what I'm talking about. Brothers, how do I not feel like a kid in a room full of grumpy dads? So, Katha, the first thing I'd say is that it's partly the job of those office weathered people to help you feel comfortable and to make space for your voice because they need it, like they benefit from it, the company as a whole benefits from having you as their head of digital marketing, like they need somebody who understands that world and can navigate it effectively. And you are that person, like you have a kind of expertise that they don't have.

Yeah, I mean, you are, you're in those rooms to help solve the problems that they have, to help, to help do the business that they do. And so, and it's important to remember this, like when you're new, but also in the future when you won't be anywhere, like how do we feel? And it's totally normal to feel, you know, like new in a new space.

But look at the ways that people helped you feel empowered in your work so that you can do that for other people in the future when they're the new person, when they don't look like everyone else in the office. And that is how we do a better job of all of the work that we're doing because we can't just do it from one perspective is what we continue to learn. And they, yeah, they really, they need you right now. And that's the thing to keep in mind.

I would argue, I would argue that we can't just do it from one perspective as a thing that we continue to not learn. But yeah, you're right. Yeah, it's a thing that we should learn. Yes, and they need you. I just think that that's the thing that I tried to remember when I'm in rooms where I feel like the sort of smallest potato

is, I don't know why I'm a potato in this scene, but I am. And to remember that, like I've been asked in that room for a reason, and to try and like do that thing that I'm there to do. Yeah, so I hope that it becomes more comfortable for you over time, Catherine, and that soon you're the head of all of marketing at a mid-sized company. And eventually, one day, I look forward to working for you when you are the head of marketing at WNYC. Yes, please invite us to speak at your corporate events back when that's a thing again.

Oh God, I love a corporate event gig. I just, I really do. I really do. I think my favorite part of it is the check. Yeah, they're just like, glad me to take care of you for a day and pay you for it. And I've been doing several, I've done several now that are, that are, I do an exchange for donations to partners on health, which I love because the, like the, the reaction that they have. And I'm like, I need more money, but I need you to give it away. Yeah. Yeah. By the way, if you hire people for corporate speaking gigs and your corporation is willing to make a donation to partners in health, send us an email. Let us know.

We're at hankinjanajimil.com. And we've got $25 million to raise. And we ain't cheap. Speak for yourself, Hank. I'm quite reasonably priced, I think. John, this next question comes from Michaela who asks, do you hear Hank and John? Because the world is hard right now, I've been rewatching Brotherhood 2.0.

Wow. Okay, real quick for people who don't know before Hank and I were TikTok phenomena. By the way, Hank, this is a tangent to the tangent but I've been walking in every evening to read tangent, but I've been walking in every evening to read Alice her bedtime stories,

and I open her door, and I say, good evening, Alice, it's your father, TikTok's sensation, John Green. It is really frustrating now. This is a tangent of the tangent, but like that you have uploaded one TikTok, and you have more followers than me, and I've had like four viral TikToks.

And I have one as viral as my TikTok. Nope, not one as viral as your one. Also, everyone who watches your TikTok follows you, because they're like, oh, well, he never posts. So it's not a problem for your feed, which just made one TikTok so that I could walk into my kids' room and announce myself as viral tick-tocks sensation John Green. Anyway before we were tick-tock or is that correct? It's tick-tockers. Yeah. And before we were podcasters we have

made YouTube videos for a long time and back in 2007 we made YouTube videos back and forth with each other every weekday for the entire year. And that was called Brotherhood 2.0. Mm-hmm. Look to the question. I have noticed you guys talk about Al Gore like a lot. Why? Why?

Ah! Ah! I consider myself to be politically engaged. I have had a poster of Barack Obama on my bedroom, well since 2009, when I was 10, was Al Gore a lot more important in 2007 than he is now? Yes, if so, why? He really was.

He was way more important. Well, you have to remember, he was only seven years removed from having lost the presidential election by something like 34 votes in Florida. Yeah. 34 contested votes we should acknowledge. And also he'd start in this documentary called an inconvenient truth about climate change

and getting people to understand the size of the climate emergency. And so he really was very, very important. Yeah. I don't remember talking about him a lot in 2007. very, very important. Yeah. I don't, I don't remember talking about him a lot in 2007. He was, I, well, I think he was also getting ready to run for president like, was he? Yeah, I think. Well, I, yeah, no, no, he, yeah, I think he did. He didn't run.

He didn't run to the other. He did a John, you're, you're thinking of John Edwards. You're right. I am thinking of John Edwards. Yeah. Oh, my. So Al Gore was important in 2007. I'm not sure why we talked about him a lot

But I also don't remember like anything from 2007. I tell you it's weird It's it's weird to me that of course all of those videos are still on the internet And I want them to be on the internet because I want there to be like a record I think I think it's quite lovely that there's this record of What we were thinking at various points in time or what we were interested in that now like spans over 13 years. But I also like almost want there to be a disclaimer at the beginning of every Brotherhood 2.0 video where it's like this was made in 2007

and John feels differently about almost everything now. I mean, I mean, this video was made in 2007 is broadcasted by the aspect ratio and quality of the video. Mostly Hank, when I watched those old videos from 2007, I remember the time that we were on the phone with somebody from Adobe or something because they wanted our opinion as like leading edge technologists about the future of YouTube. And they were like, do you think it makes sense to the future of YouTube. And they were like, do you think it makes sense to release video cameras that can shoot in high definition? And we're like, no, why would anyone want to upload a high definition video? I was like, I don't want to see that aspect ratio on YouTube.

YouTube is four by three. I mean, yeah, we were like, it'd take forever to upload. No one will do that. Yeah, I try to remind myself of that every time I think about the future. Like, I am so wrong about the future so consistently and we all are, but me especially. And yet, I continue to have opinions about the future. I don't know. I don't know.

I stopped that. At what point am I gonna learn that I don't know what six months from now looks like. I don't know. I don't know. I stopped that. At what point am I going to learn that I don't know what six months from now looks like. I don't know. Maybe we're going to go back to standard definition YouTube. Maybe. Yeah. I mean, I think that could totally happen if there was a legitimate apocalypse. John, I want to say a sentence to you and see what it does to your brain because someone

said it to me this week. Okay. Any individual entity that pretends to understand the rules that guides this space is under an illusion. Does that do anything to your brain? Yeah. But I don't know where it comes from. I've heard it before.

Yeah, right? I had the same thing and I was like, I can hear it being said. It's from Zay. It's from the original show. Oh, so the reason that Hank and I started making YouTube videos was because we were a huge fan of this guy, Zay Frank, who made a show on his website, Zay Frank.com. They weren't even on YouTube. And we just loved this show so good. So good. So much.

Oh, good. And that there's so many episodes of the show that hold up really, really well, but that line. I know. Yeah, like we do not understand the rules that govern these spaces. We do not. We do not. And he wrote a whole song, I think, or that was the whole song, maybe. But it feels good to say.

And also, I feel like we'll never leave my brain even if I forget where it comes from sometimes. Wow. All of which is to say that Al Gore is, I mean, Al Gore is still out there doing Al Gore stuff. Yeah, he's doing Al Gore stuff. I was in a meeting with him once. I looked up to him a lot. He was like a big influential in the environmental space.

Yeah. He disappointed me a few times. Definitely. But who doesn't? I mean, all of which is just to say that, yeah, I mean, Al Gore is still important, I think. Yeah, I'm sure he's doing stuff. Like if he emailed me and was like,

I wanna talk about something, I'd be like, yeah, okay. Yeah, I might pass. Ha ha ha ha. I don't take a lot of meetings, but Hank, Hank will take a meeting. I like me, I like a. I don't take a lot of meetings, but Hank, Hank, to Hank will take a meeting. I like, I like me, I like a good meeting with Al Gore. Just, honestly, just email Hank, he'll take the meeting.

Ha, ha, ha, ha. This next question comes from anonymous. Dear Hank and John, how do you retrain your brain? I've been listening to Dear Hank and John since 2018. I've also listened to a lot of your other stuff, but I've only recently started watching Vlog Brothers. It's come to my attention that I thought Hank was John and John was Hank.

How do I remember who is who a mixed up child? So I've had this experience a bunch of times in my life. Sure. And the thing is you relearn it all at once and then once you relearn it, you can't unlearn it. Yeah, it's like a switch that gets flipped. I listened to like six months of McElroy brother's content before I finally like, it locked into place who was who

and then it was like, how would I not know that? For me, it was Rhett and Link. Oh really? For many years, like the first like three years that I watched Rhett and link, so 2007 to 2010. I thought ret was link and link was ret. And the moment when I realized I was wrong, I was like, oh jeez, I think I've met those guys. I think I've done that. I may have said it out loud. I once jokingly said to ret. You're link, right? And he was like, no, no, no, I'm retin'. I was like, it out loud. I once jokingly said to Rhett, your link, right?

And he was like, no, no, no, I'm Rhett. And I was like, it was a joke, but like apparently it happens often enough. Well, there is something about Link that looks reddish and something about Rhett that looks Linkish. That's just a fact. Excellent, good point. But yeah, I don't worry about it.

It doesn't really matter which of us is which. Yeah. I can't tell you how many people have gotten it mixed up anonymous, so don't feel bad at all. I see a tweet or TikTok daily that's like, did you know that there's two of them? I see that a lot. I also get credit for your work. Oh, yeah. Same. Which I'm grateful for. And people will come up to me and they'll be like you help me so much with a P biology and I'll be like you're welcome. I mean, I know I know I know I did it weekly called me a prolific YA Well, I mean you're not even that prolific. I was gonna say by what definition am prolific, like in comparison to whom exactly? Well, me five novels in 16 years. If I've written one, uh, yeah, but you weren't writing the whole time. No, it's true.

You've actually, you're, you're on pace to be far more prolific than I am. You can see how that turns out at current rates. You're going to pass me in like 2027. I definitely make more TikTok than you. I'm just like pumping them out. I made four in the last two days. Oh my God, really? At least, I'm at a may like five in this weekend. All right, Hank, we have another question.

This one comes from Scott who writes, dear John and Hank, what is the statute of limitations for the term late? For example, at the moment, I would expect someone to say reference the late great Fred Willard. However, an article mentioning the late great Abraham Lincoln, which is B. Silly. Yeah. What's the cutoff? I guess the goal of the work that that word is doing,

the load it is carrying is just in case you were wondering this person is not alive anymore. And so if we can reasonably expect that all people reading it will know already that that person is not alive, then we do not have to use that word. Am I correct? Yeah. I think that's exactly what it's designed to do. Hank, I think the intention is that if a certain percentage of readers will not already know that this person has passed away, that can help contextualize the quote.

What about if the person just isn't on time though? Right, like the, then you say the perennial elite. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha So, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, like kill time while waiting for you to join. And so I have like four or five things I always say about you to get people excited for when Hank comes on the call seven minutes late. And like the best is that several people have heard that hype speech more than one time. Oh, oh yeah. So the first thing I say is I apologize for my chronically unpunctual brother. He will be here. He's just sent me a text message that says he's five minutes away. And then the second thing I say is, did you know that in 1998, Hank Green was actually named the best dancer of Winter Park High School?

But and then the third thing that I say is, did you know that my brother, Hank Green's new book, A Beautifully Pollution Devere just got a star review from Library Journal? And this whole time, I've just been on TikTok. Right. Yeah. No, that's the thing. You're not five minutes away and you haven't texted me. You're just on TikTok, which reminds me, John, that apparently this podcast is brought to you by TikTok, for which I deeply, deeply apologize. Yeah. I mean, the only thing worse than having TikTok as an actual sponsor is basically giving me free marketing.

And of course, today's podcast has also brought to you by the cemetery of yourself, the cemetery of yourself. It's crawling within and without, but not crawling because it's all deceased. And also, this podcast is brought to you by Al Gore. He was vice president for eight years and was important in the environmental movement, okay? And also, this podcast is, of course, brought to you by a beautifully foolish endeavor out July 7th, available for pre-order now. Start review in the library journal. We've also got a project for awesome message, John. It's from Moore's the Mama to quote my youngest babe,

from teletubbies to my favorite Martian, from Mr. Spock to Buffy to the good place. You've been my constant companion. Now you've shown me the green brothers and nerd fighters. We are on a new journey together. That's cool. That sounds cute, whatever it is. Thank you, Moorse, for donating to the project for awesome and for joining your child in the wonder of nerdfighteria.

Okay, Hank, we don't usually address the, you know, the elephant in the room, that is one direction. But I thought this question from Ella was very important. She writes, dear H and J M G, it's a reference to a previous podcast. I recently found myself scrolling through the One Direction Shopping page on Google in the middle of the night. That sounds about like my current life. And I found that the complete set of One Direction Hasbro figurines from 2012 for a starting price of $35 on eBay, which is a steel considering that Harry alone can cost nearly $100, although Liam is usually less than $10, but we need to talk about that.

My family all tried to talk me out of this, but I'm currently the leading bid. And likely I will soon be the owner of this set. And so my question for you is, when I come into possession of these one-direction figurines, what should I do with them? Should I make a one-direction shrine in the middle of my house? Should I buy a Barbie dream house and make them live their lives inside of it?

That one. Yeah. I mean, it should do that one. I would watch this TV show. Well, I would watch this YouTube channel and I would literally watch it. You do a animated inside the Barbie Dreamhouse life of one direction as lived by this Hasbro figurine set. And I will subscribe to that YouTube channel. Ella, I promise you right now.

I'm very excited for you. I hope that it goes well. They, I'm looking at the one direction Hasbro. I'm not sure if it's the ones with the giant heads or this sort of more traditionally proportioned ones, but I, it's their way, it would be great. What? It's the ones, it's the traditionally proportioned ones. Okay, great. Either way, I'm into it.

Although, yeah, the big-headed ones could make a cool, could make a cool YouTube series too. It doesn't really matter which ones you have. It's gonna be magical. It will. And Wes, I outbid you right now. I'll tell you, I try very hard not to have a favorite member of one direction and precisely the same way

that you don't pick among your children, for which is your favorite. But, that hairy styles. He's just got something. Yeah, I'm more of a Nile man myself. Oh, no, you're not. I don't believe you. That sounds like something that you just said to be provocative, you know, the way that like sometimes somebody who's intentionally trying to like get your attention

or be like, you know, Abraham Lincoln was actually the worst president. And then they'd be like, oh, God, why was Abraham Lincoln the worst president? And they'll say some stupid reason why Abraham Lincoln was, oh, definitely the worst. Yeah. Sure. Worst and you're not a Nile fan. I'm sorry. Okay.

You got me. Fine. Poor Nile. He really is just Andrew Johnson of one direction. Are you talking about the late Andrew Johnson? Yes. Yes. The late president Andrew Johnson.

Very, very late. All right, Hank, before we get to the all important news from Mars and AFC, well, then we have to address one super important issue, which is that a million people literally wrote us about what the size of Italy would be if it were a shoe. And nobody liked either of our answers and lots of people used very complicated math. And I can't even read most of these emails because some of them were like 3000 words long.

Like they were big. A couple people wrote actual PhD dissertations on what size shoe Italy would be if it were a shoe What I will say what I will say is that everyone agreed that you You may know sense Okay, that's not quite true a lot of people understood what I was trying to do They just disagreed with my calculations Depending on your worldview, the actual size of Italy, if it were a shoe, is either a

women size seven, according to the most convincing argument I read, which was written by someone named Lyle. It's either a women size seven or a size 40,157,478. There's really two schools of thought. I will say that the original question asker also wrote in. That's great. Dear Green brothers, thank you for answering my question about what shoe size Italy would be. Hank's interpretation was what I was going for.

Although John, I appreciate your answer too. That's very sweet. Thank you. I appreciate your blank too is just like what? That one sort of always at the disposal for me. Hank, I'm going to start with the news from AFC Wimbledon because it is big. All right. It is important.

AFC Wimbledon will play next season in the third tier of English football because they escaped relegation just barely. And I have to say this is a horrible way to stay up. Like I feel awful for the teams that are going down, especially for Transmere Rovers who would have had a very good chance of not being relegated if the rest of the season had been able to play out. It isn't fair.

And I feel bad about how it's ending, but of course there's also nothing fair about any of this. And in the end, AFC Wimbledon are staying up because the ranking was done by basically dividing the number of points you'd gotten, one point for a draw, three points for a win by the number of games you'd played and Wimbledon just squeaked ahead of Tranmir by that definition. So Wimbledon will be in the third tier of English football next season. And the new stadium at Plow Lane is taking shape and looking really good. Who knows when and how football will start again in the third tier. It's not going to be this season. The rest of the season has now been canceled. Those games won't

be played. But hopefully next season will start on time. But of course, the future is wildly unpredictable. When football starts back, though, Wimbledon will be in League One, which is great news. That's exciting. And it will be at the new stadium, Quistarock. Yeah, indeed, it has to be because it can't be at the old stadium, which is now the Chelsea Women's football club stadium. Amazing. That's great. This will be Wimbledon's fifth season in week one, which is incredible.

When we started this podcast, Hank, you know, the whole goal for Wimbledon was to not get relegated out of the fourth tier. And then they went on that incredible run, made it to the playoffs, made it to the third tier, and they've just clung there year after year after year. So I'm excited to see how we somehow escape relegation next season.

And every way possible is so far is how you've tried to do it. Seriously. Well, in Mars news, if you think to yourself, you know what I'd like to do is help a rover find its way on a different planet. NASA has the thing that they would like you to do. You can help train the algorithm that they use to navigate Mars's terrain using, there's a tool on the internet called AI for Mars. It's a citizen science project geared towards trying to refine and improve the algorithms that classify various terrains on Mars. So your mission, should you choose to accept it, you sort images taken by curiosity and you draw boundaries around different bits of terrain

and you choose between four labels to describe what that terrain is. So you add soil, bedrock, and big rocks. So like rocks that you're not gonna drive over. So by labeling the different images, you will improve the soil property and object classification algorithm. That is an algorithm it's already being used to help people will improve the soil property and object classification algorithm.

That is an algorithm it's already being used to help people who work on the curiosity team navigate Mars. So it turns out figuring out how to move a rover on a different planet is tough. So you're trying to navigate the rover with a big light delay. So you can't just drive it like an RC car, you have to give it instructions and it moves, and then car, you have to like give it instructions and it moves,

and then you get more information, then you give it instructions and it moves. You also have to make sure that you, like you also have to take into account how the terrain might affect the wheels. So like it might not move as far as you expect it to, if it's on sand, you have to take into account how shadows affect curiosity's distance calculations.

And also you have to make sure that the rover is pointing in a direction that will give its antenna a clear view of earth so we can keep talking to it. So you have to like also always be paying attention to that. Right. So it doesn't like accidentally like drive to the dark side of Mars. Yeah, that'd be bad. So it's a lot to figure out. It can take hours to plan the

drives. So the classification algorithm helps them do this more quickly and more easily. And you can help improve that algorithm. There are 8,000 images from Curiosity up on AI for Mars. And they hope to add more images from spirit and opportunity in the future. Volunteers are also translating the site into Spanish, Hindi, Japanese, and other languages so more people can help out. So check it out at AI for Mars. How far away is Mars these days? Well, it changes. I know.

That's why I said these days. Mars is currently 136 million kilometers away. So that's actually like quite a long way, even if you were traveling at the speed of light. Like that's a... yeah, like seven minutes. It's a couple, it's about seven minutes. Yeah. So it's a 14 minute round trip from us to the rover and back right now. And that that changes a lot over the course of the year

because when we're on the same side of the sun, we're very, we're much closer and we're opposite sides of the sun. We're double that, more than double that. So when you say it's not like driving a remote control car, it's kind of like driving a remote control car, only with like a 14 minute delay between input and action. Yeah, which would be difficult to sort of get it around a track, I think. Oh, yeah.

You have to do it. I definitely couldn't do that. Like make sure to turn 14 minutes early to avoid this sand trap. Yeah, that's impressive. I mean, I, it still boggles my mind that we are able to communicate in any way with a thing that is on the ground of Mars. Yeah, man.

It's wild. It's almost as beautiful as sunlight itself. Now I'm just looking at the graph of how far away Mars is from a synonym at a moment. They're really very dramatically. Well Hank, thanks for Pottyg with me. We're off to record our Patreon only podcast this week and Hank looking at the distance between Mars and Earth.

This podcast is edited by Joseph Tuneimedish. It's produced by Rosiana Halls-Rohassen-Shared and Gibson. Our communications coordinator is Palagar Sea of Prieto, the music you're hearing now is by the great gunarola, and as they say in our hometown, don't forget to be awesome.