Dear Hank & John - 264: The Opposite of a Trophy

Episode Date: November 2, 2020

Do you put your mask or earbuds on first? Why were soda fountains a big deal? Why don't holes in the ground below sea level always fill with water? Where did XOXO as hugs and kisses in letters come from? How do you tell if someone has been quantum leapt? Why is pint pronounced the way it is?  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

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That's pretty funny. It's a true story too. I believe it. I believe it. That's pretty funny. It's a true story too. I was like, I believe it. It's TikTok forbidden. I believe it. It's exciting. You're like, oh, I finally made it to the part of TikTok. Yeah.

I would like to talk to you today, Hank, about the only person I've been thinking about all day. I think we all know who it is. It's Alexey Leonov, the first person ever to walk in space. Oh, Alexey. Sure. Alexey Leonov, the first person ever to walk in space. Oh, Alexei, sure. Alexei Leonov, who did the first space walk, and then when he was coming back into the capsule, discovered that his space suit had inflated too much

for him to fit back inside of the capsule. And then found himself in quite a pickle. And so the only thing that he could do was the thing that he did do, which was poke a hole in his space suit and listen as the air hissed out of it so that he could climb back in to the capsule as the air hissed out of his one and only space suit after being the first human ever to walk into space.

Alexei Leonov, Hank, whose troubles, as it happened, had only just begun. Do you know the rest of the story? He made it home. No, incorrect. He did? Correct in the broadest sense, but incorrect in the narrowest sense.

Okay, he made it back to Earth. They did land on Earth, but they landed way off course. So the other thing to know about Alexei Leonov's space suit is that it was drenched in sweat. Like he had like sweat up to his lower calves because all the sweat just like went down yeah. So they land. It's winter. They're in Siberia.

They're in the taiga. It's a way off course., they're in the Taiga. It's way off course, it's not anywhere. And nobody around. And they don't have any way to communicate where they are and they don't have any way for the people to find them. So they have to survive in the frozen tundra wearing spacesuits that have swept up to the ankles.

It was just a crazy situation. That does sound bad. I would like to read you, Alexei Leonov's memories of getting out of that space capsule in the middle of nowhere. We both squeezed out through the hatch and sank up to our chins and snow. Looking up, we could see we were in the middle

of a thick forest, a tiger of fur and dirt. Oh no, I tried to determine our approximate location by measuring the sun's height above the horizon, but it soon disappeared behind the clouds. The sky grew darker and it started to snow, so we sought shelter back in the spacecraft. Fortunately, Pasha and I were used to harsh climates. Now Hank, I would like to call your attention

to one particular adverb in this memoir, and that adverb is fortunately. What I'm saying, Hank, is that there is a kind of person who, having poked a hole in his own space suit to be able to get back in the space capsule, landed far off course in the frozen endless wilderness, can begin a sentence with the word Fortunately also that fortunately being the fact that he was raised in that they were both raised in harsh climate Yeah, maybe the one of the worst places at the time in the world. Yeah, so what I'm getting at Hank is that I need to put more Fortunately is at the front of my sentences. Yes, yeah, that's a good practice, John.

What do we learn? I guess we learn that you can make the transition from being in a leaky space suit into being in a capsule that will deliver you safely to a place where you will eventually be rescued. But you do have to, you do have to poke a hole in your space suit first. Anyway, Hank, all of that is just to say that I'm a little stressed out, but fortunately, it's time to answer questions from our listeners.

It sounds a little bit to me. Also, like you're writing an answer piece and reviewed about Alex Lienov. I'm not actually, although I could, I'm not opposed to it. This first question comes from the Girstman family who writes, dear John and Hank, deeply your mask on first or your ear buds first, the Girstman family. I never wear my ear buds when there are people around. I'm a headphones person.

And I only wear my mask when there are people around. Right. I do wear headphones when there are people around so that I won't hear them. I like to hear them. Yeah, I don't turn on music or anything. I just turn on the noise cancelling part and then just can't hear them very well. It's the mumble, mumble of people around you. It's very comforting.

But I put on my mask first because if I put on my headphones first then I can't put on my mask properly. And also you'd have to get your headphones off. It would be hard to do without getting your mask off, which you don't wanna do. Whereas you probably, at some point, do need to take your earbuds out, right?

So if you're gonna talk to somebody. I mean, an ideal, I guess in an ideal world, when I go out with my headphones on, I hope to not take them off. Right, okay, I see what you're at. Yeah, I think that that makes a lot of sense. One thing that I've noticed that's quite nice is putting my earbuds in and then my mask on

and then my hat over the whole thing because it's cold now. It's like eight degrees outside. Yeah. And then that sort of like locks everything in place. It's like the ears don't have to do as much work because the The hat starts to supplement that the needs of the ears because our ears are being asked to carry great weights these days It's true. There's just so much information coming in through them. Yes, it's intense

Yes, the information as well as the physical weight Yeah, the metaphorical way of our ears is greater. They have to hear so many things that they really would rather not. This next question comes from anonymous. Who writes, dear John and Hank, what's with the old time experience of a soda fountain? Why is it so nostalgic? I'm 23 years old, stop bragging anonymous. I'm 23 years old. And on occasion, I've heard much older people mention back when they were soda fountains. They seem really happy about this soda fountain memory. That's the big dang deal. Thanks a non.

I love that you felt like you had to be a non-nastown as this question. It wouldn't want to get caught. It's too hot. It's too dangerous. So we have a soda fountain pretty close to us. That has been open since there were soda fountains. It's not in Mizzula, it's up the river a bit. But yeah, I've been to it.

And it's like, there's a portion of the place that is a soda fountain and they have ice cream and they have sodas. And that's it though. They don't have hamburgers or hot dogs or anything. And then the rest of it's a pharmacy. Yeah like, that's it though. They don't have like hamburgers or hot dogs or anything. And then the rest of it's a pharmacy. Yeah. So that was very common.

Also greeting card store, like, basic anything but like groceries, basically, is what this place has. So it's like a hardware slash greeting card slash pharmacies, slash soda found. And yeah, well, as you know, hang from listening to the Anthropocene Review, Dr. Pepper, the most important, hang from listening to the Anthropocene Review, Dr. Pepper, the

most important soda in the history of the world. Dr. Pepper was invented at such a soda fountain by a pharmacist named Charles Alderton, who went on to go back to being a chemist. And if you think about what soda fountains deliver as their core product, especially back in the day when they were making up their own flavors, basically what they delivered was drugs. It was chemistry. Yeah. So it makes sense that they were also pharmacists at times. So the imagining is like, okay, so it's a coffee shop is what it is. I have just realized this. It's a coffee shop.

A little bit. But like, yeah. Yeah, well, it's more than a coffee shop, but like in a small town where there's like not a lot going on downtown, this is the place where you go and you sit down and there are people around. And there are, they're almost definitely people who you know. And then we took that product that you could kind of mostly, I mean, you could get it bottled, but I think it was significantly

cheaper not getting it bottled. And it was not a thing that you had like five of a day, like this somewhere that I will occasionally drink. So does these days. And I know that John certainly does. It was a thing that was like a special treat, like ice cream, where you would go and you'd get it. And it was kind of like not, oh, there may not have been another way to get that specific flavor, or even to easily get any soda. So it's basically a place where people gather

and got sugary drinks, which are tasty. Not just that though, especially at the beginning of the soda fountain era, it was a place where people could go and get ice cold drinks. Yeah. And we take this so much for granted now, but the taste difference between ice cold water or diet, Dr. Pepper, or whatever, and like slightly chilled diet, Dr. Pepper, or whatever, and like slightly chilled, Diet, Dr. Pepper, or water is like the taste difference between a tomato grown in your garden,

and like the one on the McDonald's Big Mac. I mean, it's a different thing. And so there was that thrill, which I think was part of what made Soda Fountain such a big deal. But then the other thing you gotta remember anonymous is that old people can nostalgia size anything. And we will. And so will you. Oh, you know, Alexei Lianov is out there or was until he recently died out there talking about the good old days back when he had to poke a

hole in your space suit to get back into the capsule. Like we, we think of these times as the good old days, even though like if you look at it in terms of data, everything was worse. Like, really everything. Crime was higher. Well, didn't live as long. There were lots and lots of constant, really bad wars. There it was not a good time. Yeah, well, what I will say.

That's not to say that we live in a great time now. Yes. We are having a bad year. Sure. But still, it's still better than 1927. Oh, certainly. The thing that I will say for 1927 and for soda fountains is that I think that we do,

we have through our ability to get, to satisfy needs easily at the, through various systems. We have lost the sort of like connection of being in a physical space with a lot of people that you know. And I do, I do think that we need that. And I do think that that, like that is a thing that you can nostalgia find. Like, if you separate, and this is part of the process of nostalgia, is you remember the one good thing and you forget all the bad things. Exactly. But I think there is a good thing there that when people are remembering the good old days of soda fountains, what they're remembering is like the feeling of community and of

connection and of knowing everybody. And I know that'll, and like these days, a lot of people are like, God, I don't want to go to the grocery store because I might see somebody I know and then it'll take forever. But that is actually also a service. Like it is a thing that when I used to go to coffee shops, and that I liked about coffee shops, is that I'd see the same people, and then we'd develop a kind of relationship.

Or it would be somebody who I hadn't seen for a while and used to work with and got to see them and like that That is a thing that I like and I think that that is good and is good for humans So that's a thing that I that's probably what it was about at the same and and also like there are things that you tasted in the past that you You can't taste again. Yeah, and that was definitely more the case in the 20s than it is now Mostly now if there's a thing that you like you the case in the 20s than it is now. Mostly now, if there's a thing that you like, you'll be able to get it 20 years from now. But back then, there were lots of things that you'd get and never, and like, you know, the person who made it

would stop making it. And so you'd never get to taste that thing again. Yeah. And nothing makes the heart believe something was amazing quite like not being able to get it. It's like the phenomenon where the piece of writing that you lost when you're computer crashed. Uh-huh. You think it's so good. Is by far the best thing you've ever written. And then if God forbid your hard drive gets recovered, you have to learn the terrible

truth. Oh, this next question comes from Laylin, who asks, dear Hank and John, recently a sinkhole opened up in Newport, Richie Florida. Oh, Newport, Richie, I used to hang out there. I live near there and as of now it is 130 feet deep. For as long as I've lived in Florida, I've heard people say that we're basically at sea level. So I was under the impression that if you dig deep enough,

you would just hit water. So how is it that a sinkhole is 130 feet deep, but not full of water? Was I misinformed about science? Could we have built basements this whole time? Pumpkins and penguins, Lailin. So it isn't the ocean that is making the aquifer higher. So you can have, for example, a river and there are places in

Mizzou where this is the case that is higher than the land around it because the sand and clay and silt and stuff will hold the water back. So it isn't that the sea is seeping in from underneath, it is aquifer water and we sometimes aquifers are imagined as underground lakes, but they are more like water that is existing among and in the spaces between all of the rock and dirt and stuff. So sometimes that's like big cavities, but usually it's not. And it's just sort of like sort of like seeping into each other and crossing between a lot of porous ground. And in Florida, the ground can be very porous. limestone is very porous. The rock there is full of water, though we are doing a better

and better job of emptying it out. Yeah. In order to water our lungs and drink and do manufacturing and et cetera. But mostly to water our lungs, just to be clear. And agriculture. Yeah. There is less of that now than there used to be cool. And agriculture. Yeah. There is less of that now than there used to be.

I actually am not entirely sure why they don't do basements in Florida. If it is, if it is a, uh, the bedrock is varying near the surface problem. If it is a, you don't want to disturb that limestone problem or if it is a water will invade, I think that it's a water will invade problem. And I have in Florida dug down because I grew up in Florida and sometimes you just dig for fun, deep enough that it started to get a little sepia. Yeah. And it definitely was wetter down there than it was on the surface. Yeah, I mean, Florida is a large state and there are places in Florida

where you can have a basement. Yes. But certainly where we grew up, I mean, when Hank and I were growing up, we thought that having a basement was a sign of extreme wealth because only the fanciest people had either second floors or basements in their houses. Yeah. Like, I remember there was that kid, Dax, who lived in Bay Hill. Do you remember that kid? Yeah, yeah, yeah. He had a basement.

And I remember like going over to his house and like first off, he had like every toy. So he went into his room and he had an infinite supply of toys, just box after him. Yeah, and the room was in the basement. Yeah. And then you went to the basement and it was a whole new level of toys.

It was like- There's more toys. Yeah, it was like being in the movie big or something. He just had anything he could dream of in his amazing endless basement. And I just thought it was so cool. And now I'm speaking to you from a basement, not to brag. And it's a little dank, you know, it's a little musty. It's not exactly all that I pictured.

No, it's not. Yeah. I will say there's a bunch of toys down here, so they got that going for them. But the oceans and the water of the continent, so water that is continental water, there's separate systems that do not interact. Otherwise, the water and the aquifer would be salty, which would be a big problem for us,

because we drink that water. All right, Hank, this next question comes from Oliver who writes, dear John and Hank, I've been wondering for a while now why we use the letter X as a kiss, and the letter O as a hug. This is a great question, Oliver, because if you make a kissing face, as I just did to test whether or not it was maybe just because that's the way the face looks. You're clearly, oh, is kiss. And X is like, X is hug, because you cross your arms maybe behind the back, maybe. Exactly.

We've got it all wrong. Did it come about because of early tech speak and emojis or were Victorians also signing off their letters with kisses and hugs? Food, glorious food, Oliver. It's actually older than the 19th century Oliver. It goes all the way back to the Middle Ages when people would like put across, like in the, you know, in the Christian sense, and then they would kiss the cross as a way of

like sealing the letter metaphorically. And that's why the X became a symbol of that kiss. The story of the O is a little less certain. And in fact, like that also isn't totally certain, like that happened. That isn't necessarily 100% why we got to X's and O's. But the story of why we got to O is a little sketchy or and I don't feel confident enough in my sourcing to say anything other than, I don't know. Yeah. Well, it's like I want to, I, kiss a kiss. We got a kiss letter because that, that definitely is old and was around before the hug letter.

Yes. You got a kiss letter and you want a hug letter. That's what I think. And maybe you've played TikTok too. Oh, feels like a hug, but you, but I think it's because people played TikTok too. Yes. I think that's what I agree. I think people's because people played TikTok too. Yes, that's very honest. I think that's very honest. I think people are like, well, you know what,

what the opposite of an X is, according to TikTok too, to know. And the opposite of a kiss is a hug, everybody knows that. Everybody knows that. Yeah. Opposites are a very weird John. I have not, so I have been doing opposites with Orin, and I'm like,

why is this the opposite of that? Yeah. But really is it is spiky the opposite of opposite of smooth or bumpy? What is smooth? And it tells you more about what smooth is if you figured out what the opposite of smooth is. And I get into like deep like overthinking about what the opposite of things are. I like to think about opposites that have no opposites. Like what is the opposite of a trophy? Oh, yeah, yeah, sure. And I feel like the opposite of a trophy is a certificate, but it's not, but I like it is.

No, but it is. Yeah, but like, so like there should be more than one word. The opposite is not enough. Right. Because the opposite of a trophy is like a, a, a, a, a, a, a merit. Right. Or when you get kicked out of something or, you know,

being exiled, whereas a certificate is also the opposite of a trophy though, because it's like, it's a trophy, but bad. like, it's a trophy but bad. Yeah, it's a trophy you don't wanna keep. It isn't as good, so it feels like an opposite. But I'm fascinated by like, what is the opposite of a cardboard box? I like to play those games.

Yeah, like the opposite of a cup isn't a tube, right? But it feels, where it's just like something you pour water in that comes right out, or is it? It feels, I definitely think like a tube feels like the opposite of a cup. Maybe the opposite of a cup to me is like a funnel. Right. Well, at least that's a thing that you pour water in too. Yeah, but it just comes right back out.

Like, to me, the central function of a cup is it's the thing that you pour water into and then five minutes later, the water is still there. Right. That's the defining feature of a cup. The problem with opposites is it sets things up as if they're like everything can be dichotomous. And then you end up with questions like what's the opposite of Mars? Yes. And it's like Venus, but like no reason why? Just because it's the hot one, but it's also rocky. Whereas like Jupiter isn't because it's g hot one, but it's also rocky, whereas Jupiter isn't because it's gaseous, and it's like, that's different. That's a whole different thing.

So it has to be different, but not different enough. Right. Yeah, yes, but what this thinking exercise does for me is it gets me to one of the fundamental problems with worshiping dichotomous machine thinking, one of the fundamental problems with worshiping dichotomous machine thinking. Yes. One of the fundamental problems with thinking and binary, or thinking that the best kind of thinking is thinking and binary.

Yes. Which is that human cognition is able to do lots and lots of things that machine cognition isn't. And the fact that machine cognition is way, way better than us at certain kinds of thinking makes us think that machine cognition is just way, way better than us. But in fact, I think the truth is much more complicated. And you got to be careful what you worship and we worship dichotomous machine thinking. This is now, now we're on to my rant of 2020.

Well, I also, I've always thought that it's just much more effective to think in terms of probability distributions. And so there's a distribution of cup-like things. And there's, but it is not just one, there's like lots of different, like axes on the cup-like thing, and they all intersect at cup. And you can go in a bunch of different directions from the cup. Well, now you're starting to think like a machine learning AI would think. Yes. Now it's AI.

Yes. My argument is that there is a... Did not do that at all. There is another kind of thinking that we forget to consider the possibility of, which is called human thinking. And it has lots of flaws and lots of weaknesses, but we know the flaws and weaknesses of it really well because we've been doing it for a long time and we can correct it. We know that we're getting to know them better. But what we can be sure of is that human

knowledge knows what the heck a cup is. Yes, which is pretty great. Most of the time. And if we stop there, we will end it just before I go on a rant about video assistant, referring, ruining football, which is great. I think that's the perfect place to stop because I'm right on the edge of going there. This next question comes from Lindsay, who writes, Dear John and Hank, how do you tell if a loved one has been replaced by a time traveler Quantum Leap style? I appreciate your prompt response, Lindsay.

Well, if I learned anything from Quantum Leap, it's that recognizing that your loved one been replaced by a time traveler quantum leap style. I appreciate your prompt response, Lindsay. Well, if I learned anything from quantum leap, it's that recognizing that your loved one has been replaced by a time traveler is terribly inconvenient. And you shouldn't do it. I'm going to do it. This is a subject of some concern for me because as you know, Hank, from about the age of six

to about the age of 11, I was convinced that the people I loved were not really people, but were aliens in very high quality human costumes. Yes. And not an uncommon thing. It's not an uncommon thing. But the thing is, I never found an answer to Lindsay's question that was satisfactory. My OCD just decided to let it go in favor of a new thing.

And so, right. Lindsey bringing this back up for me. I'm a little bit like, well, how do you know? Yeah, and then you have my strategy, which is like, well, I mean, things seem okay. Right. So, right, it's the answer to like, unless something starts to feel weird, I'm just going to not imagine that that might have happened.

Seems unlikely. Yeah, it's like the answer to maybe we live in a simulation. Oh, yeah. I think the appropriate answer to that is, okay. Yeah, totally. The idea that I would live any different if I live in a simulation. Like I already live on a speck of dust, an speck of dust on a speck of dust.

Yeah. Like, the universe is real big. Like, I've already been, like, I'm well and truly aware that like, from my worldview, there isn't a significance to this outside of, of like, humans and our relationships and understandings of each other. So like, I'm good with it being a simulation

or not being a simulation. The outcome is the same. I mean, a little bit other organisms. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, especially viral particles. I mean, yes. Yes, those are important, but I definitely ignore viral particles

when they do not affect me. So the vast majority do not. Hmm. I find that I try to minimize my interaction with viral particles, especially lately. And I also feel like you should too. You're not, yeah, but you're not trying to avoid, if you could avoid just human pathogens and not mind all the other ones, you would do that. Oh, yeah, totally. But it's just, it's kind of a, you can't, you can't allow some in and not the others. Right. The thing that we're getting at is that it doesn't really matter.

As long as they're still cool. Yeah, right? Yeah. And also, you got to recognize that it's got back, it was trying to help. Yes. So the period of time will end and then things will be better and he will have soft problems. And then you'll have to really be back. Yeah. He's only there to fix some kind of problem

with the space time continuum. Yes. And yes, it takes 44 minutes almost every week. So just be patient. This next week question comes from Gavin who asks, Dear Hank and John, mint tint, squint, flint, hint, lint, stint, clint, print, splint, skin sprint, kint, dint, vent, plint, and quint, please explain pint to me. Thank you in advance. Gavin. What a catastrophe. Does anything rhyme with pint?

Yeah. What? My, my, my, tnt. Okay. Okay, Emily Dickinson. No. No. You know, that's a great question.

I've looked, I've looked it up at Rhyme Zone and we've got Drint Might, Quint, Sight and Tight, which none of those are words. No, no, no. That's an example of Rhyme Zone using machine thinking to try to figure out what Rhyme to fight. Does Mint rhyme with it? Maybe. You know, Tint, everybody knows about time.

Let's get to the core of the question though Hank, which is why is pint not pronounced pint? Which is, I don't know. Interesting question. I don't know. Like the weird thing is that there aren't others. My, my, like first instinct is to blame gay lick, but it's probably not gay lick.

It doesn't sound gay lick. Hold on, let's look at it. Cite, kite. It sounds like it's got, it sounds like it should have an E at the end. It comes from Old French P-I-N-T-E. Ha ha! But if his Old French is probably pronounced like,

pinked, yeah, I would think. But then anyway, then it then it came to middle English, and then it came into current English. I have actually a question underlying the question. Why don't we get rid of pints? We don't need them. Oh, we don't need them anymore. Yeah. We should get that go. No. Yeah. Well, especially because like, pint glasses don't even hold a pint, so we're all very confused about how much a pint is. Yeah, and anyway, it would be better to have a leader glass or a court glass. At the same time, the more I drink, Dr. Pepper, I want to drink it. Why is a pint, though, the more I like the word?

It is a good word not to have a rhyme, right? Like when somebody says like orange doesn't have a rhyme, you're like, well, if an horse it doesn't, it's orange. Like it's the worst possible word. Yeah, it's a du- it's a w- it's just a bunch of bad sounds. Orange. Orange. Yeah, it's bad. Yeah. A pint though is a great word.

The more I say it, the more I like it, because it hits hard from beginning to end. Like I love a word that starts with a p- in the first place, even though it's a disaster for audio engineers, I'm sorry, tuna. And then I love an ice out. Yeah. Like rhyme. Rhyme is one of my favorite words.

I love it from, it comes out strong at the gate and then it delivers. Uh huh. I feel the same way about pint. Pint. It sounds great. It's a great sounding word. I see.

We should get rid of the current pint. We should call leaders, pints. Okay. And we should call mill should call leaders' pints. Okay. And we should call milliliters' millipints. Okay. Millipints. I'm into it.

Millipints, they should be called millipints. Can we change all of the other words that end in I&T to make them rhyme with pint? So we can fix this problem. Might, might, tight, squint, noted McElroy father, client McElroy. Yeah. Yes, exactly.

Yeah, I broke my arm and I'm gonna put it in a splint. Splint, I don't know. You had me, I was 100% on board. I was rocking it rolling and then splint pulled me all the way back and now I think we should cancel the entire endeavor and I think we should cancel pint and I think we should never ever say a hard I.N.T. ever again. It's all canceled because of the splint. Everything was fine, but splint is the worst word I've ever heard.

Splint makes moist look Yeah, I agree. I don't know why it's so bad, but I don't like it. But what if Splint is like Sprite, but it's got like something purple on it. Like lint in it, like it's got drier lint. It's great, you'll love it. Morning fresh Sprite. Fortunately, Pasha and I were accustomed to horrible climates. It's great. You'll love it. Morning fresh sprite.

Fortunately, Pasha and I were accustomed to horrible climates. Fortunately, which reminds me that today's podcast is brought to you by fortunately. Da, da, da. Fortunately, there's never been a better time to start your sentence with a fortunately. Podcast is also brought to you by a cop. A cop. You know what that is. You know, you know about me.

I'm a cop. Hello, I'm cupping the cup paid for by the American cup association. And I'm here to tell you about cups. You don't need me to explain. No. However, I am going to need you to go ahead and click on all the cups in this picture to help my friend. I didn't see Google learn what a cup is. Thanks, man. Really appreciate you clicking on these cups. I appreciate it.

Confirming that you're human so that in time, I will be able to confirm that I am human too. Before we get to the all-important news from bars at AMC, we have a couple of responses. Hank, one from Ada, who wrote, dear John and Hank in the last pod, Hank said it would make him really happy to find out that he had convinced just one person to vote. To be honest, I was always planning to vote, but Hank did make me think about my voting plan and it turns out that my default plan would not have worked.

And so by checking my voting plan, I was able to make a new voting plan that has worked and I have voted Ada. Wow. So yeah, things do move around from year to year. So it is really important that you figure out that you know where you're gonna go tomorrow. And that you know when you're gonna go

and how you're gonna get there and where it is exactly. And all those things, you can find out all that stuff at vote.org, very easy to find out where your polling place is if you haven't yet, please do it. Right after this podcast, or even maybe right now, right, you don't need to listen to us. And you can also,

but you're a bud's end. Take us with you. Yeah, take us with you. And you can also text an accountability buddy to help you walk through the process. They'll be happy to help. People want to help each other in general. So don't be afraid to text an accountability buddy.

My accountability buddy was my friend Chris. Okay, also Clem. You remember Clem wrote us about six weeks ago to say that Clem was very lonely at college, and college was not all that it had been cracked up to be. And I said, Clem, write us back in six weeks and let us know how college has got. Clem writes with an update, it's been six weeks. Oh, Clem, I love a punctual person. Thank you. Since I said in my question, and miraculously, we're still on campus. Wow, congratulations. Although I have just a couple of friends here, I have become closer with them. And I'm starting to meet some people through extriculars, all

virtual, of course, keeping in touch with old friends. And my older brother has also been incredibly helpful in the process of adjusting. Ultimately, I feel much less alone than I did six weeks ago. And I'm glad to be where I am. Thank you so much for the not so dobius advice. Clam. Nice. PS, turtles all the way down. Really helped me through a I am. Thank you so much for the not so do be a advice. Clim. Nice. PS, turtles all the way down really helped me through a difficult time. Thank you, Clim. That's very kind of you to say. But the important thing is that I'm glad that you are doing better. And I think if you write us in six more weeks,

you will be doing even better still, I hope. So why don't you just check in every every six weeks, Clim, just for the rest of college. If that's okay. If you don't mind. No, we're all gonna follow you in your process. There's going to be ups, there's going to be downs, it's going to be great. Yeah. Hank, what's it is for Mars this week? In keeping with our long-standing conversation this episode, NASA researchers have been using artificial intelligence to identify graders.

So we've been studying pictures from Mars for a really long time, but we have had to do this manually, where we like basically click around a crater to measure how big it is and learn things about craters that way. We usually start with images that come from the context camera, which is on the Mars reconnaissance orbiter, that takes low res images that span hundreds of miles. And you can't see craters in those images, but you can see blast marks left behind by meteor impacts and the things like that that can hint at where craters might be. Then the scientists take a closer look using the high resolution image science experiment or high rise to identify craters.

The process can take 40 minutes in total to identify a creator, but over 14 years, scientists have used it to find over 1,000 creators. Still, 40 minutes is too long, so researchers at JPL have created a tool based on artificial intelligence to save time. They trained an algorithm with 6,830 images from the context camera to teach it what an impact does and does not look like. And when they let it loose on a whole bunch of other images using a supercomputer, the process that would normally take a person

about 40 minutes took the classifier, the artificial intelligence around five seconds. It is unassistant, not a replacement, but it helps identify regions that have turned out to be crater clusters and also just shortens the process for scientists studying the surface of Mars. No, that's pretty cool. Well, in AFC Wimbledon news, Hank AFC Wimbledon have tied a football game. It was one to one.

We scored a beautiful goal in the 65th minute, Ryan Longman, who has turned into quite the little star for AFC Wimbledon. And it looked like maybe we were going to win a football game, but then no 35 seconds later we gave up a goal. It was very frustrating. Fortunately, I no longer get emotionally invested in negative football results, so I felt fine. All right, but man, if I were still the kind of person who got emotionally invested in negative football results, I would have been really frustrated. AFC Wimbledon now are in 16th place in League 1 after eight games. That's a totally acceptable place to finish the season, but it also is maybe a little bit

more realistic compared to where we were earlier when we were flying high up there briefly as high as 10th. So the news from AFC Wimbledon in the future is that very shortly the FA Cup draw will happen. Oh, in fact, it just happened. Oh, we are playing a team in the first round of the FA Cup called Barrow. They play apparently in the fourth tier of English football, but I think they must have just gotten promoted because dang def I've ever heard of them. So that's that's that's a pretty good draw for us. That should be a winnable game.

I mean, you can win and maybe go on to the next thing. Yeah. And the idea of the FA Cup, which is like a competition where all the teams play each other in England and it's a knockout competition. The whole idea, I guess this doesn't actually work anymore because it used to be you draw one of the fancy teams and they have like 60,000 people coming to the game and you get half the revenue. Now it doesn't matter, forget it.

I don't care if we draw the fancy teams because nobody has any people in their stadiums. So anyway, we're playing Barrow in the first round of the FA Cup. I can't wait. Oh, Hank, also we have designed our first banner for the new AFC Wimbledon Stadium. And I thought I would tell you what it says. It says 10,773 days in the wilderness. Back home at last, we showed the world the way to Plow Lane. All right. Yeah.

Well, happy times and continue sports, John. Well, Hank, thank you for body with me. Thanks to everybody for listening. And thank you for sending in your questions to Hank and John at gmail.com. We really appreciate it. We're off to record our Patreon exclusive podcasts this weekend.

Stuff. This podcast is edited by Joseph Tuna Mettish, produced by Rosiana Halstrow-Hasson-Cheridan Gibson. Our communications coordinator is Julia Bloom. The editorial assistant is Deboki Chakravarti. The music you're hearing is by the great Gunnarola and as they say in our hometown. Don't forget to be awesome.

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