Dear Hank & John - 253: Tensor Tympani Work With Me

Episode Date: August 17, 2020

How much paint does it take to make a room smaller? Why can't we hear when we yawn? Are we always expanding the same way the universe is? Why does gatekeeping happen? Why is there an L on a hill in Missoula? Hank Green and John Green have answers!If you're in need of dubious advice, email us at [e-mail] 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. Nor is I prefer to think of it Dear John and Hank. It's a podcast where two brothers can't even maintain a high energy level through the intro. Oh I thought I actually thought that I was sounding positive and cheerful. Did that sound negative? No I couldn't hold on to it through the first sentence. Yeah.

Well, the first three words. What we do here is we answer your questions. We provide you with dubious advice. We bring you all the weeks news from Mars and AFC Wimbledon and we stare into the middle distance, wondering how we're going to make it through this. John, last, you know, we've been talking on this podcast a lot about bad accents, but I would like to now

have you listen to the worst accent. Here it is. Psh. Psh. P? Here it is. Pshh. Wait, and what was that? That was dark temptation. I don't know what dark temptation. The body spray. It is an accent.

Oh. Ha ha ha. Ha ha ha ha. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha I worked on that one for a long time. That's good. It's very, that's as good as a dad joke gets. It kept delivering. Yeah, really kept you off, kept on your heels there. Off balance.

That cheered me up considerably. Hank, I wonder if we should address an issue that has been on both of our hearts pretty heavily. Do you think that there is any way that this will still, like people will remember this a week from now? I think we could jog their memory. And yes, I do think that there is a chance, because the thing about the song All Star and the thing about the band smash mouth is that they have sailed through the calmest seas for 19 years. mess up the perfect trajectory of their stupid one hit until, and I got, I mean, I'll just, let me, I don't know what they've been up to. Let me tell you what bothers me about Smash Mouth playing a concert in South Dakota in front of hundreds of people in August of 2020. It's not that decisions like that writ large are the reason

why millions of kids can't go to school, although that is frustrating. What gets me about smash mouth playing a concert in South Dakota in August of 2020 in front of maybe a thousand people not wearing masks is that smash mouth has plenty of money. They're doing okay. They are fine. I don't I don't have access to Steve's bank account. They're good, but I think he's doing okay. They have all star. The song that has been played more in the last 19 years than any other song. It is unfortunately the yesterday of the 21st century. Somehow, somehow. And like, can't you just be grateful for that?

Yes, can't you just think, wow, what a wonderful thing to have happened to me, despite the fact that it's like, an okay song. I think since I can stay home, I will stay home. But it, and also like, do you like that? Do you like, I don't know, it's August and South Dakota. Like, do you want to go to South Dakota right now? That was you want? Hank and I have spent an inordinate amount of time thinking about the song All Star. Yes. Like, truly. Possibly more than anyone else on Earth Earth, like maybe, except for maybe Steve.

We might have thought more about the song than Steve has thought about the song Steve, of course, being the lead singer of Smash Mouth. We don't know his last name. That's one of the things we haven't found out in our 30,000 hours of thinking about Smash Mouth All-Star. It starts with an H and N's in an L. I can tell you that. I already regretted like 96% at the time. I've spent thinking about Smash Mouse All-Star.

Now I regret a full 100% of it. The only silver lining to any of this is that thank God we didn't do your proposed 478 part video series where we make a video analyzing each shot of the All-Star Music video. Because now we would be like 80 episodes into that series. We would both hate it in the same way that we are both deeply resentful

of certain other All Star-related projects. And we would still have like 400 videos to go, and we would have to make those 400 videos while knowing that Smash Mouth is part of the 2020 problem. Yeah, that is a thing. I have been expecting one of us to make a video. It sort of takes on the topic of when you start doing a thing

and then you're a certain way through it and you realize that it's not that great. Do you finish or just bear it and be like, well, at least at the end, there will be this feeling of I accomplished the thing. Or do you just leave it hanging there? Wait, done. Or worse than that, 75% of the way done.

I hope you will make this video, Hank. And I hope you will begin the video by saying, say you're 75% of the way into a really stupid project that you already like semi regret that like you originally started to try to bring people joy. But at this point it's become like a catalog of absurdities, but you can't figure out a way out of it. And then at that very moment smash mouth plays a concert in South Dakota. How do you move forward?

And you can call that video, you could call the video, hit the ground running. Pfft. Oh God. People who don't know anything about our relationship with all Star must be so confused right now, but like Hank has been playing, I don't want to explain to them.

Okay, yeah, great. Let's not, let's just move on. This first question comes from Maisie, who writes, dear John and Hank, I was painting the ceiling in my bedroom, listening to Smash Mouth's All-Star, and it got me thinking, at what point do the layers of paint make

a noticeable difference in the volume of a room? Oh! Okay, this is a great question because it raises the possibility of a really beautiful and cool art project wherein you paint a room over and over and over and over and over again until you eventually literally like paint yourself into a corner. Oh, you know, like you paint yourself into into a situation that you can't get out of. I find that like a very beautiful idea for Conceptual art, but that is can't get out of. I find that like a very beautiful idea for conceptual art,

but that is not an amazing question. So like the phrase paint yourself into a corner except like, it's not that you have to like step on some wet paint, is that like you die there. Yeah, yeah, it's things. But one of them is a really giant supply of fortite. When I went to visit the world's largest ball of paint, which is this idea in reverse, and it is slowly taking up all of the space inside of the room that it's inside of, he occasionally clips off paint from the bottom

because it drips down and starts to touch the floor because the ball was too big. And those clippings are basically like stones with gorgeous layers upon layer of paint and they look really, really cool. And this is a thing, it's called Fordite. And it's when at car manufacturing plants, they spray paint the cars, but then like paint falls in certain areas over and

over and over again. And that is actually harvested by jewelers. And they carve that paint stuff into like stuff for pendant, surf or rings. And it's called Fordite. And you can buy it on Etsy. And I think it's super cool. That is cool. So you have created a massive amount of Fortnite, and Fortnite isn't like, it costs money. You have to buy it.

So maybe you just got a gold mine there. You'd also have to buy the 400 million layers of paint that would be required to exercise this. It's true, probably not super, super cheap. All right, yeah. Mazey goes on to say, apparently, you're supposed to repaint ceilings every 10 to 15 years, and most people repaint their walls more often than that.

So are all rooms shrinking? Yes, they are. And it appears, I've done a little research here. Per coat of primer is about 25 microns, so that's a millionth of a meter. So you'd have to paint a lot, but yes, you are sacrificing some of your cubic footage to paint when you paint. So if you want to do the math, take what you will from 25 microns, but it's going to be a while. I wouldn't worry about your particular walls, Maisie.

Unless you're a conceptual artist, and you're looking to do something really cool that will take you like three or four lifetimes. This next question comes from Poppy who asks, dear Hank and John, why can't we hear when we yawn? I had a yawn during the pod, and I'm worried I missed something very witty and or insightful.

Poppy. Go percentage chance there, Poppy. Yeah, I wouldn't be worried about that specific thing. There's also a button on your phone that will let you go backward if you're that worried about it, but I wouldn't be. But so, John, it turns out that there is a muscle in your ear that protects you from yourself

and that if we didn't have it, the sound of our own chewing would over time defen us. Wow. Really, what's the muscle called? It's called the tensor tympani. And when it contracts, it does something to your eardrum to make it basically not be able to hear as well. And it will actually do that if you are exposed to a loud noise.

So it doesn't contract immediately. So like a short loud noise is more dangerous than a prolonged loud noise. Though prolonged loud noises are also something that you should be careful of. So it actually contracts for a couple different reasons. One is when our jaws are moving just to protect our ears from the sounds of our own jaw muscles, which is gross, and also chewing, which can be very loud if you're having something crunchy. So wait, is that why when I'm eating Doritos and watching TV, it starts to feel not only

like the sound of my chewing is loud, but also like the sound of the TV is farther away? Yes, yeah, so it's not just the chewing. Oh, wow. It's also a muscle in your ear, making it harder for you to hear, protecting you from Doritos, which would otherwise actually damage your hearing. You know the way that it is blowing my mind most deeply, is that it makes the greatest movie ever made, my favorite film, Penguins of Madagascar, even one guzzle better. Because there is a cheesy

dibbles joke in Penguins of Batagascar that's one of the greatest jokes ever captured in the history of cinema, where the main character is being told by the organization that's come to save the penguins, the North Wind, that they are a highly trained organization that cares deeply to save the penguins, the North wind, that they are a highly trained organization that cares deeply about animal welfare, but the penguin is eating cheesy dibbles. And so every time the guys start talking, the penguins like, oh, I'm sorry, I can't hear you, I got the cheesy dibbles. I just haven't had these in days. That's not good. The thing that is deeper for me about that joke right now that it was three minutes ago is that like the cheesy

dibbles thing is the penguins way of like self reflexively not hearing this voice of the Anthropocene saying, oh, we care so much about animals, but only cute ones like you. It's like, oh my God, it's a great movie. It's so deep. It's so deep. And, you know, Timpani also can contract when you hear loud noises. So it actually has an effect of dampening loud noises

to protect your hearing. If only it could do that for certain people's voices, who I am tired of hearing this in the year of 2020, and would just rather not have to hear anymore. TensorFlow Timpani work with me. I need you to collaborate more effectively. I get so mad when people don't like penguins about a gasker.

Like sometimes they'll be at a conversation with somebody I'll tell them that I really like penguins at Madgaskar and they'll think that it's like a thing that I'm putting on and they'll be like, oh yeah, that was an okay movie. Like it wasn't like Wally. No, it wasn't like Wally because it's 500 times better. Wally is a movie that is about exactly what it pretends

to be about, whereas, thank was about a gas car is about everything. It's about, if I was about a gas car, works on every level imaginable. It's like citizen cane or Ulysses. Like, oh, God. It's next question comes from Joey who writes, if it is true that the universe is both infinite

and always expanding, like constantly inflating balloon, okay, Joey, get this. Everybody says it's like a constantly inflating balloon, except that a balloon has an edge, right? No, that doesn't, John. Not the two-dimensional part. It's not like the balloon getting bigger. It's the elastic getting bigger.

The elastic is the edge. There is a place that is beyond the balloon. It's a sphere. There is no edge to a sphere. Okay, okay, all right. There's no edge. There's no edge. In the same way, there's no edge to the earth.

But there is a thing and the thing has limits and it is finite. Yes. And the limits, like edge in the most like, wait, you don't wanna think about a constantly expanding balloon. You wanna think about on infinitely large sheet of balloon material that is constantly being stretched out.

So it is both infinitely large, but also stretching. That's what you want to think of, except it's three-dimensional. Imagine a t-shirt, except that it's infinitely large. I can't. Where are the arms? Okay. All right, continue the question. Anyway, does this all mean that we are always expanding to?

I don't mean are we growing because, you know, like we're all growing psychologically and emotionally or whatever. I mean, like what's going on with the empty spaces in my body? Are they getting bigger? And I just don't notice it because everything else empty space is also getting bigger too.

How much bigger is the universe inside me since I started writing this email? How loudly should I scream and constant tear about the fact that I am expanding alongside the universe, Joey. So you, you are being held together, Joey, by a bunch of forces. And those forces still act over the same distance. And so the universe expands, but we, like, the things that are being held together by forces, don't expand. So we are not getting bigger, but not noticing.

Though that would be really cool, and if physics had played that out, I would have been like, I guess so. I guess that's what the cosmologist say. So I guess we're all just, you know, over the last 200,000 years, humans have gotten like two inches bigger because the universe is expanding. But the universe expands, but the forces continue to hold things that are being held together by forces together in the same way they were held together before. If that made any sense.

I mean, it didn't, but to be fair, it also doesn't make any sense that the universe is both infinite and expanding and doesn't have an edge and you should imagine it as a balloon, but not like a balloon because it's infinite. And I mean, the thing I've had to come to understand is that to comprehend this, I would need a different brain. And I would, I would, I would feel completely hopeless about it. Like I'm just never going to understand how the universe can be infinite and expanding and have no edge, except that I was completely hopeless about ever solving a Rubik's Cube because I don't know my left or my right and can't navigate my way home from my best friend's

house. But now I can solve a Rubik's Cube and not only can I solve a Rubik's Cube, but I can consistently solve a Rubik's Cube in under three minutes and occasionally in under two minutes. And so having solved a Rubik's Cube through the tutorial made by Robby Gonzalez, I now feel like maybe I'm just one Robby Gonzalez tutorial away from understanding how the universe is infinite but also expanding. This next question comes from Yes Meen

who asks dear green brothers, why does gatekeeping happen? Like it just doesn't make sense to me why people wouldn't want to share the thing they love and talk about it and get excited about it with others. Yet for some reason, it happens all the time. And even I kind of feel that way sometimes, I don't get it, humans are weird.

Maybe you guys could give me some insight. Sincerely, yes mean, pronounced yes mean, though I try to be yes, nice. So I think the word gatekeeping has changed a lot since I originally learned its meaning in the early 2000s, so you may have to redefine the word for me. It meant the people who decide like critics, librarians, people who are on award committees, and the institutions like publishing houses and movie studios that decide what kinds of work gets access to a large audience. But it seems like maybe some of those definitions have changed or evolved based on yes means

question. Yeah, I think that that's true. There's definitely that sort of idea of the gatekeepers. But now I think gatekeeping has talked about as a way of like, you can't come into this fandom unless you have certain qualities. Oh, okay. I can't believe you don't know this. Right, like you're not a real K-pop fan because you don't follow this or you don't know this or whatever.

Mm-hmm, right. And I think that this exists in all kinds of things. I think it's true in sports and I think it's true. Yes. In politics. And to some extent, I think that there's like, we have our own personal experiences of how we started to engage with this stuff. And if your experiences are different, it's almost like, I don't understand how you can

love this if you don't have my experience into it, because that's how I love it. And so it's like a literal failure of empathy, which I think does happen. Like, we fail at empathy all the time as humans. Yeah, there's also the fact that empathy is built to be limited. Like, if we all felt the death of each person

who dies as if it were someone in our family, it would be difficult to function. Yes. But when it comes to those barriers to fandom, I also think there's an element of trying to establish who's in by establishing who's out, like trying to establish who's legit by establishing who's definitely not. And, you know, people who are seen to have to be hopping on the bandwagon or whatever are treated or in some communities are treated like they aren't real fans. My favorite fan communities are the ones that are like, hey, welcome on the bandwagon. You are 100% welcome.

Here's some stuff that you might want to know to help you on the sweet bandwagon ride we're on. Yeah, we're so happy to have you. Yeah, openly embrace them for who they are, for where they are. That's the coolest thing. The second coolest thing. The second coolest thing, I think, I'm excited, is when you know a lot about something,

but you like the popular thing anyway. Like if you're like a huge fan of Hank's books and somebody says, so who's your favorite character? And you say, Maya, that's the obvious answer. Like, yeah, she's the most charismatic person, the kindest person in the books, and you could say, I don't know Carl, but it's way cooler, in my opinion, to say Maya.

So I think like being infectiously enthusiastic and not being pretentious about your enthusiasm is a wonderful thing. Yeah, and I also think it's really important to allow for people to be at different places, and to be enthusiastic when they say something that you kind of might feel is a little bit of like, like if you're into super into beer and the person is like,

I'll just have a corona and you're like, that's great. Yeah, I got it. That's wonderful. Not too wrong with the corona. Great. Or clearly an enjoyable beer. Yeah. Or I'll just have a lacroix. Fine. Yeah, that's probably better for you in the end. Definitely. That's definitely fewer calories. Which reminds me that today's podcast is brought to you by Corona flavored La Croix. Oh my God. It's only a matter of time. Ah!

This podcast is also brought to you, obviously, by the penguins who live in Madagascar. No. The penguins. God, you really haven't seen the movie. The the fliteless birds that live upon the island of Madagascar. Are there penguins that live on Madagascar?

There aren't. Today's bygones is also, of course, brought to you by an infinite piece of balloon material that because it is infinite has no edge but is nonetheless expanding into something but that something is get this nothing. I can't help, I'm sorry. And this podcast is also brought to you by John Green, consistently solving Rubik's cubes in under three minutes. John Green consistently solving Rubik's cubes

in under three minutes seems unlikely, and yet this is what the pandemic has brought. It's, I mean, now I dream of Rubik's cubes and in my dreams, like, I'll wake up and I'll be like, okay, so that would be our U prime R, you are to U prime L F prime B. Yeah, it's, oh my God. I can't stop myself, Hank. That's very weird. We got a project for awesome message. Also, John, it's from Kate in California to TJ. Happy 10th anniversary. You are my best friend and my soup snake.

I don't think that was an auto correct mistake. I think that's actually what it's supposed to say. And we hope that that's a personal thing. Yeah. Thank you for putting up with my nonsense. And for all that you do for our family, I love you so much that this is the, my only chance to convince John and Hank

to be my best friends. And instead, I'm spending it on you. 16 years together has been amazing. And I can't wait to see where this adventure goes to next. I am YA. Whatever that is. I meet you always. I miss you always, maybe.

I is Mars your All Star. I hope not. I hope not. I really hope it isn't. I hope that your all-star is something that smash mouth, stay the heck away from. This next question comes from Lindsay, who asks, dear Hank and John, but mostly Hank,

I recently moved to Mizzula. And though I've known for a long time about the M on the top of the hill, it's actually like three quarters of the way up the hill. I had no idea that there was an L on the adjacent hill. Why is there an L on the adjacent hill. Why is there an L on the other hill? None of my housemates know, so we've resorted to guessing that there are hills all across

the state that spell out Mizzula out of order, like giant lost gravel pieces. Any dubious enlightenment would be appreciated. The L probably does not stand for Lindsay. It does indeed not stand for Lindsay. So for context, if you visit Mizzoula Montana, which is a fairly small town, I believe Hank is actually the third largest employer in Mizzou, that's not true.

I'm not. No, the third largest employer is Cafe that's also a casino. Anyway, when you go to Mizzou, almost anywhere you are in the valley, you can look up and see this gigantic white M that's like three quarters up a mountainside. And you can also see tiny little people walking up a series of switchbacks to visit this M, which gives you a sense of like the overall quality of tourist attraction.

They're not going, they're mostly not going to see the M though there is a bit of that. I guess a little bit you're going to see the M, but then you turn around and it's a nice view of the city. It's mostly what you're going for. But no one goes like past the M. Right. I've got the views even better on top of the M, but I've never seen anybody up there. Weirdly, if you continue going up from the M, you can, if you are clever enough, find a weird cave. That's full of drug apparel. What? I don't think that you know what apparel is. Yeah, not apparel a large collection of free t-shirts with marijuana weeds on them. Anyway, on the other side of the somewhere else on a different mountain, about three quarters of the way out, there's a gigantic white L. And I have also never understood what is the

deal with the L because I figured the M stands for the University of Montana, but I do not know what the L is about. Yeah, so this is confusing. So some people think that the M stands for Mizzula. It apparently actually does stand for Montana, the University of Montana, which that portion of the hill is owned by the university. So if you wanna visit the M,

you have to park at the university. But I've always wanted it to stand for Mizzula, but it doesn't. Alas, the thing that I tell people, because the story is actually not great, and it kind of, I don't, it's just a little frustrating to me, the story I tell people is that all of the mountains in Montana are able to alphabetical order, and you've got LM and then like down the way there's L. That's funny.

Or N, I guess. And it comes after it. It's fine. You're doing great. Please tell. And it comes after it. It's fine. You're doing great. Please tell me why it's as the L stands for Loyola, which is a private school. It's not a particularly big

private school. It's not a private school. But that mountain even. And so there was there was at some point a reason why they got permission to put the L up on the mountain. But there are other schools, and none of them got a mountain.

And so I, in general, find this to be both disappointing and also questionable. Well, I love the idea of increasing Montana tourism by making it so that 26 of your mountains have gigantic letters on them. And people then would try to do all 26 letter mountains in one week or whatever. I think that that could be a big, big thing.

I think I know that you're looking for your next big idea, for your next big project. And I think that it could be purchasing and labeling obscure Montana mountains. Yeah, it should be a J because the mountains called Mount Jumbo, which I just like a lot. Is it really? Yeah. What are we going to call this one? Mmm. Mount Jumbo. It's so big. It's pretty big. Not like super big, but it's pretty big. What about jumbo? Mount jumbo. Okay, Hank, before we get to the all important news from Mars and AFC Wimbledon, we do need to address one issue that came up in our previous episode that we got a lot of

responses about which was your purportedly British pronunciation of compost. Still hurts my heart. One thing that everybody who wrote in from the United Kingdom agreed about whether Scottish, Northern Irish, Welsh, or English, is that your pronunciation was wrong. But many Welsh people felt that it was Scottish,

many Scottish people felt that it was English, and many Northern Irish people felt that it was Welsh. It was a little bit like how in the old days everybody in Italy called syphilis, the Polish disease and in Poland they called it the German disease and in Germany they called it the Italian disease. But Jake wrote in to say, dear John and Hank, and I thought this is really fascinating. Okay. Hank put the stress on the second syllable of two compost, and you two wondered if it had something to do with Hank's inherent desire to have a British accent. I don't think it did write Jake, but there is actually a good linguistic explanation for what happened

in that moment. Basically, in English, there are a number of words that are both nouns and verbs. When these words are multicellabic often, but not always, because God knows nothing is always in English, the noun has the stress on the first syllable, and the verb has the stress on the second syllable. For example, a project becomes too project. A record becomes too record. You have a conflict, but things conflict. Oh, that's so cool.

A brain like many native English speakers' brains has internalized this rule without knowing it. So when he encountered the verb to compost, he automatically applied the rule. My mind is blown. Isn't that amazing? You applied a rule that you didn't know about, and that's why you said to compost. Okay. I just switched it it because the noun is compost and I was like, okay, then the

verb would be compost. And Jake also says, I know all this because as well as having studied college level linguistics, I made the same mistake myself last year with the verb to surface. I pronounced it like surface, which is John did with Hank, my friends rightly roasted me, but Hank should sleep and speak soundly, knowing that there's a good reason why he said that it was just his brain being a little too observant. Well, much appreciated Jake. I know. I know. Oh, it helped me. It helped me.

And bringing me from the burden of believing that I had said composting correctly for some British reason instead it wasn't just a normal normal language reason I have this this is gone worse than I expected And I thought it was going to go bad. I haven't been so upset with someone who's work I admired since earlier today when smash out for the concert. It's South Dakota. Oh my God.

All right, John, it's time for the all important news from Mars and AFC Wimbledon. Do you have any Wimbledon news? Oh, I have Wimbledon news. Oh, I have Wimbledon news, Hank. We have signed the great hope of our next season, six foot five inch tall, Ollie Palmer. You talked about Ollie last time. I know, but we hadn't signed him, and now we have.

Oh, okay. We've signed him up, Hank. We are officially back to an old school, proper Wimbledon side. On my favorite soccer podcast, Men and Blazers, they often observe that they're broadly speaking two kinds of soccer players. There are big bottom smalls, which are small people with very large bottoms, and then there are small bottom bicks, which are big people with very small bottoms. Those are sort of broadly speaking

the two categories of professional soccer players. For so long, for like two and a half seasons, when we play with two strikers at all, we have been playing with two big bottom smalls. Right. And now I am in a situation where I am looking really hard for a picture of Ollie Palmer's bottom. Well, like, oh, there's one. I'll just tell you, with the emergence

of six foot five inch Ollie Palmer, we now have a big bottom small and a small bottom big, which is just what you want, leading the line for AFC Wimbledon in the Let's Hope It Happens 2020 2021 season. This makes me want to listen to men and blazers. Oh, it's a great podcast. It's a great podcast. They like Yeah, I mean, they taught they taught like like Lino messy is the ultimate big bottom small, right? I mean just a brilliant brilliant big bottom small big bottom small Whereas Cristiano Ronaldo Also one of the best players in the world small bottom big

John yeah, I'm excited for you. Excited for AFC Wimbledon. There is Mars news as there is every week. There is a picture of Mars's night glow, which is a thing that happens on Mars. So the Maven mission took some pictures of the night glow, a set of ultraviolet flashes that are created by the creation of nitric oxide,

first observed by the ESA's Mars Express spacecraft. As bright as our own northern lights, but you can't see it because it's an ultraviolet. So it's not visible to our eyes, but these pulses do allow us to understand more about Mars' atmosphere. They're created when winds moving along the surface of Mars send gases to denser parts of the atmosphere

and that catalyzes reactions that create nitric oxide. And looking at it, scientists are hoping that maybe they can understand more about how air moves around in Mars' atmosphere. So there's just one, just one atmosphere. Yeah. So scientists are hoping to change their perspective a little bit instead of looking at the glow from above. They want to look at it sideways,

which is going to help them learn more about the vertical winds and Mars's seasons. Vertical winds. Vertical winds. Wait, they got wind coming from ups. Yeah, wind goes up all the time. Right. But I never feel it. You just don't not mostly notice it, because like, yeah, you're always at the bottom. Oh, we are, we are never in the middle of the atmosphere. We're always at the very bottom of the atmosphere. Right. That's like that time that you explained to me

that space really starts like one inch above the ground. And so like every time I jump, I'm sort of being an astronaut. Yeah, I wouldn't also not be the first to say that Earth is just a big ol' spaceship. Oh, dang. Wind is so weird. And the fact that there's like a lot of wind on Mars just makes me think more about how weird wind is.

Yeah, made all the little molecules that bump into you and you feel it. Yeah. I love that about air, how it's like completely invisible until I move my hands a little bit fast. And then I'm like, there it is. Right. I can feel it.

Or you can feel it going in and out of your lungs. Yes, that's the main thing. When suddenly this air has become a breath. It's kind of like I made it alive. Anyway, thanks for coming to John and Hank, hike to the top of the M and put on some stoner t-shirts. Isn't the word jumbo weird? Well, Hank, thanks as always for expanding my mindscape without ever quite explaining

to me how the universe can be infinite without having an edge. Yeah, I pretend like I understand. Haha. Thanks all of you for listening. You can email us at hankandjohnatgmail.com. We love your emails. We really appreciate them. Thank you for writing in.

What podcast would we have without the? This podcast is edited by Joseph Tuneim. It's produced by Rosiana Hallsborough, Hassan Sheridan Gibson. Our editorial assistant is Deboki Trucker-Varty. Our communications coordinator is Julia Bloom. The music you're hearing now at the beginning of the podcast is by the Greek and Arola. And as they say in our hometown, don't forget to be awesome. you