Dear Hank & John - 281: Reverse Photon Farts

Episode Date: March 15, 2021

Would Earth bounce if you shrank it? How do you write italics by hand? How do I overcome vaccine jealousy? How do pupils dilate? How do I write a story without my parents knowing? Will The Anthropocene Reviewed book have special signatures? What is tape made of? 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

[♪ INTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ [♪ INTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ Hello and welcome to Dear Hank and John! Where's I prefer to think of it dear John and Hank? It's a podcast where two brothers answer your questions. Give you a db's advice and bring you all the weeks news from both Mars and AFC Wimbledon. John, spring is here and as I look out my window, I can see that a sign of that spring on my lilac tree. What a relief.

No, boy. Well, this actually, there's not any leaves out on it yet. It takes a while. It is Montana after all. I'm so excited about spring. I am going to allow that joke to pass unmentioned. It's really wonderful to have a bit more sunlight and warmth here in the Northern Hemisphere.

It's been a long, just to state the obvious. It's been a rather long winter. Despite having been a relatively short winter and I am very, very excited for spring. Oh, the days of light and interpersonal interaction are coming. Let us hope. My father-in-law lives in Mizzoula, and we will occasionally be over at their house, and he does this kind of adorable thing, where whatever the sun comes out, he goes, oh, a shadow! Ha ha ha ha!

Big guy! And he, but he'll do it like four times an hour. Because, you know, like, it's not like, it's like a pure blue sky, but occasionally the sun will peek through and he gets very excited and points at the shadow and then Orin will run over and be like, where, where? So that is adorable. And that's how I feel, like every little chance to celebrate the sun coming out is one we

should take. Johnny, what answer some of these questions that we got from our listeners? I have a question from a listener that's also just a question I have for you, Hank. This question really, really got my mind working. Jesse, you're right. Steer, John, and Hank, you know that children's song, he's got the whole world in his hands that talks about God holding the whole world? Yeah. First off, I didn't know Jesse until you wrote that, that that was a religious song. I have the only words to it.

It's a big giant. Yes, I thought it was a big giant who had the whole world in his hands. And the only reason I even know the chorus of the song is because the melody was repurposed to sing about famous Liverpool goalkeeper, Jersey Dudeck. Oh, you're going to sing it for us, aren't you? I'm not. I'm definitely not going to sing it. But I'll tell you the words, uh, Jersey Dudeck is Polish and the words where we've got a big poll in our goal.

That's my only relationship to this song. How would earth feel if you shrunk it down, hold it in your hand? Would all the trees be scratchy? Would it feel hot? Because if it's core and most importantly, would it bounce? Would it bounce? Would it bounce? Okay, so I thought about this, and I don't know a lot about science, but I thought it might bounce because of its atmosphere. I know, like it's surrounded by this like air pocket sort of that makes it maybe bouncy so sorry

We imagining that the earth shrunk down And it still has an atmosphere and is not inside of an atmosphere Because I imagine that like you shrunk the earth down, but then you're still on the earth or us an analogous planet No, I think you're on this because you have to you have to bounce it off of something Yeah, the surface of Mars you're on, the Earth is the size of your hand, or it's actually smaller than your hand, so it can fit in your hand. And you throw Earth down as hard as you can

against the surface of Mars. I think, at least in my imagination, Earth bounces right back up. It's not like bouncy ball level bounce, but it's like, it's not like bouncy ball level bounce, but it's like, say tennis ball level bounce. I think it's like pool ball level bounce. And pool balls do bounce pretty good. I would take a pool ball bounce for sure if that's what we're talking about. Yeah. But the other question, which I find completely fascinating is, would it be

warm to the touch or would it be warm to the touch, or would it be cold to the touch? Because in certain places, it's quite warm in other places, it's cold. I assume that the trees would be so small that they wouldn't matter, but like, you'd feel Mount Everest, right? Like, you'd feel it'd be a bumpy ball. No. No. It would not be a bumpy ball. Okay. It would not be a bumpy ball. It would be significantly heavier than a billiard ball, about twice as heavy. If it was the size of a billiard ball, it'd be twice as heavy as a billiard ball. Okay. It would not be a bumpy ball. It would be significantly heavier than a billiard ball about twice as heavy. If it was the size of a billiard ball, it'd be twice as heavy as a billiard ball. Okay. But it would be smoother than a billiard ball. What? That is no. Yes. No. Is the pits and scratches on the surface of a billiard ball. If you blew that billiard ball

up to the size of the earth, would be deeper than the deepest sea and higher than the highest mountain It would be wet though, right because it would be 70% water a little bit wet Yeah, if it was on I mean you've now introduced Mars So it's on the surface of Mars the atmosphere immediately dissipates into no no no no no no no no no no no It's magic. Okay. Look, if we're going to have a hypothetical situation, let's have a hypothetical situation. Okay.

I'm saying the earth's atmosphere, forget everything I just said, Mars blows up to make it so big that the earth is now the size of a billiard ball. And I have also blown up in conjunction with Mars to make me so big that the earth is now the size of a billured ball. And I have also blown up in conjunction with Mars to make me so big that I am now, so I am now such a giant that I can hold earth and its atmosphere in my hand. I'm in space. I can live in the vacuum of space because I say I can when I bounce the ball, all the water shakes around in the atmosphere, but in my imagination, at least it's like a snow globe, like the atmosphere stays. Yes, the atmosphere stays. So like the water goes like up into the sky and then it comes back down. It's like the hydrological cycle, but sped up. Right, and everybody who's

on the planet is having a bad, bad day. Okay. Yeah, I definitely think this would be bad for the other humans, but I'll tell you what, giant me would be loving it. All that power hits it. It would be a little bit damp. It would be very, very wet. It would be a little damp. No. Are you going to tell me now that a billiard ball actually has more water on its surface than Earth would?

A billiard ball, actually. Actually. No. It would not be a little bit damp it would be soggy no I think it be a little damp I think it'd be a little damp no uh it's 70% water it's of course surface is yeah so some of it would be dry and some of it would be wet but I don't think it'd be that deep I guess that's true but I wouldn't I'm not cutting through the bouncy bill yourard ball that is earth. I'm holding it.

I'm only touching the surface. So my question is, so I think the answer to, is it warm? Is it warm, but not hot? But maybe there's like one really small cold spot, like when you're swimming in the ocean and you feel that like inexplicable cold spot. No, no, it's going gonna be cold at the poles. Yeah, it's gonna be warm at the equator. Right, and like there are gonna be spots

that are gonna be super warm. If like the moment you shrink it down, it's got the same warmth as all of it. It's just the surface temperature that we're talking about here. Yeah, but I'm saying that like when you're holding it, some of that temperature gets like distributed, I don't know, now that I'm saying that, I'm not sure.

It starts after some time, but it's, yeah, it's got a little film of ice on the, just some frost on the top and bottom. It's a frosty damp billiard ball. Okay. But it's twice as heavy. And bounces. I'm pretty sure it would bounce.

I think it would bounce. I'm 100% sure it would bounce. And people who are going to say it's not going to bounce are not imagining the right hypothetical. Would the earth bounce? I'm not going to put that out there. I'm going to say there are things that I do not know intuitively. If anybody has more information, please let me know if the earth would bounce. Okay. Definitely a damp billiard ball. It's a soaking wet billiard ball Just to I can't let that go. I'm sorry, but there's a lot of damn most of the billiard ball is wet That is not a damn billiard ball if most of the billiard ball is wet

It is a wet billiard ball. Most of the billiard ball is damn No, some of it's try Yes, yes. As is the case with every wet billiard ball, part of it is dry. No, you can make a billiard ball 100% wet. If it's underneath the water, you can make it entirely wet. But the moment you pull it out, there is little parts of it that are dry, which is what I mean, we're having here a crisis of language. Imagine a hank,

close your eyes, imagine that you put a billiard ball into a full bathtub of water. Now, you pull out the billiard ball. Yes, it's wet when it's under the water. You pull out the billiard ball four seconds later when it is still mostly wet, but in places dry, that is what it would be like. All right. Whereas you're arguing that it would be a slightly damp billiard ball, which implies to me that somebody has like, like an eye draw has missed it and puts like four beads of water on the billiard ball. That's not it.

It's 70% wet. I think it, no. I don't mean like little dots. I mean, it's misted. That's wet if you have a ball. if you have a billiard ball. I don't really know what it's a mega billiard ball dump. Like now that we're talking about it, like hard things don't get damp. Yeah.

This is, I mean, obviously it's a completely ludicrous conversation that start to finish, but your notion that if you spritz a billiard ball with water, that the billiard ball isn't wet, fascinates me. Well, I'm just thinking like the ocean-y parts, like they're not wet, like you're not gonna stick your finger in and be like, like, and like, have a bunch of water on your finger. No, because as you explained to me,

it's gonna be much smoother than that, but it is going to be wet. Wet. This next question comes from Tremaine, It's gonna be it's gonna be much smoother than that, but it is going to be wet wet Thanks question comes from Tremaine who asks dear Hank and John is there a hand written equivalent to using italics How are you supposed to emphasize something if you're writing not typing all the other things work for both you can bold You can underline you could do quotation marks is ital italics just for typing? What gives? Not Johnny Tramain. Uh, I mean, you can, I, when I'm typing, sometimes don't bother to italicize

and I just put slashes around it. You can do that. The longstanding way of thinking about this, though, is that italics in text, in print text, is the equivalent of underlining in handwriting. And now there is also underlining in printing, and so it's a little confusing. But if you think about it, most of the time when you're reading a book, you read italics. Like when you're reading something that don't see it underline. Yeah, when you're reading something that would be underlined handwritten like the title of a book or

a word for emphasis in printing its italicized. Tremaine, that was great advice, but I have another tip for how to do italicized handwriting. Okay. You have to get to an airport and get on a plane and then fly to Rome and then whatever you write there will be italicized. Oh my God. I mean, thank God you didn't save that for next week's pod. That's all I can say. I do think that it's funny that the way that we,

like, underline writing in printed books and stuff is by making it look more like handwriting. Like the actual handwritten equivalent to me is if you wrote out everything in print letters and then when you wanted to italicize something you wrote it in cursive. But for me that's not an option because among the many things that I have forgotten since third grade is how to write in cursive. Where the heck does the word cursive come from? Is it only for when you're using the bad words?

What? Has this cursive? Oh God, are you just, is this gonna be like the Hank makes bad joke spectacular? No, I'm serious, why? I assume I always thought it was called cursive because it's got all kinds of curves in it. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha loopy ways. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You are correct. I think. Well, no, you're not. You're not correct. It is from it is from the proto Indo European root curves, which means to run. And

it means that with written with a running hand. Oh, okay. That makes sense. But this sometimes I have the same word, I would think, because like it means like to run on in various directions away from the meat of the sentence. Did you miss the part where I said, sometimes I have cursive boobs? Oh, I did. I chose to miss it, but then you really wanted me to hear it.

So I heard it the second time. It really hit home for me that time. Thank you. He asked me the question before I ruined our relationship. We're getting there. We're getting there. Oh goodness gracious. Okay. I know. I know why it would be really funny to you. And I feel like when I tell Sarah about it later, she will also find it really funny. I don't have that part of my sense of humor that's like extremely scatological.

I've never had it, but I'm happy for you that you have it. This next question comes from N who writes, Dear John and Hank, how do I handle feelings of jealousy when my friends who are also young and work from home start to get vaccinated before I do? How do I patiently wait until it's my turn? XOXO and, yeah.

First off, and I just, real quick, there's no, we can't kiss and hug, buddy. That's why XOXO is so good. No, get that in stand. XOXO means hug, kiss, hug, kiss, and no. But virtually. Oh, okay. As long as it's just X's and O's and that's fine,

but if you want to XOXO for real, I'm gonna need you to get that shot. For also, gotta mean to make you feel worse if I'm not having been vaccinated. Ha ha ha. Is there a word yet for like vaccination jealousy? Because like, I definitely have seen it arising internally.

Oh, externally. I feel it so intensely. I also, I saw someone refer to shot and Freuda, which is the opposite of shot and Freuda, it's when you feel good about your friends getting the vaccine. Oh, I wanna have shot and Freuda, but instead I have shot and jealousy.

I do have shot and Freuda, but I also have some shot and jealousy. Like even when I know it's people who are wildly more deserving than I am, and for whom it absolutely makes sense. Like say, my parents. And whom I love. Yeah.

Yeah, and I'm like, obviously they should get vaccinated before me on every level and I'm 100% behind it, but also, that seems nice. It does seem nice. Yeah, I don't really know what to do about this except to know that it's coming. And also that it's not like the world just reopens to you once you get a vaccine. Like we're going to have to get this into a lot of people before it is responsible to behave the way that we once behaved, regardless of whether you're vaccinated.

Like, there are certainly things that you will be able to do once you have a awfully vaccinated, but like, the thing we're working towards isn't really individual. It is a collective vaccination. Absolutely. And the positive outcome is also collective, and that we have to work toward that said, because the vaccines are at least currently so incredibly personally beneficial, I understand it. If it were more like a flu vaccine that had a 60% efficacy or something, then we could all talk about, oh, it's about the collective, and it is about the collective,

but there is also personal, real dramatic personal benefit in getting vaccinated. And so I understand it, I feel it too. I think the way that you deal with it is by waiting because it's not gonna be that much longer for many of us. Like, it's gonna be pretty soon for most people. Yeah. And every time it's longer, especially because we're vaccinating a fairly good clip now,

that means the more people are doing it, and that's very good news. So people who maybe were sort of waiting on their back foot for a while, I know people like this who want to kind of want to make their own decision and weigh it in their own ways. Every person who decides, oh yeah, actually this looks like it's working really well. You know, kind of pushes me back in line, but is very good news for them and very good news for all of us. Right, exactly. So that's the other thing, is that being pushed back in line is actually good news for the social order. Yeah. Oh, he still really want good. I am going to I have dreams about it all the time. Oh, wow. All the time. I have wonderful dreams about it. And for whatever reason,

every time I get the vaccine in my dreams, Sarah gets it first and she's crying. And this is notable because Sarah never cries like Sarah's cry maybe like 10 times in the last 20 years that I've known her. And every time I think, but Sarah never cries. Oh, it's adorable. Oh, God. I'll report back when I actually get it. I'll report back on who cries. I've got a pretty solid idea of who it might be. Oh God. Okay. John, I got another question here.

If it comes from Abby who asked Dear Hank and John recently, it occurred to me just how odd it is that our pupils dilate. I get why pupils contract and dilate according to like this surrounding light and stuff. But what happens to the iris closer to the center of the eye? When your pupil dilates, where did that portion of the iris go? Does the pupil just cover it up, or does it contract it some way to make room for the ever-expanding abyss of our eyes?

Eye, and quite puzzled, Abby. John, your pupil is nothing. Well, it's not quite nothing, but I know what you mean. This is actually something I know a lot about on account of having had orbital cellulitis. Yeah, so the iris is the thing that's doing the expanding and contracting of the pupil. The pupil is just the space that's left in the center and the iris is a sphincter.

So it's a muscle that contracts radially and can get quite thin and can make the hole really smaller. It can make the whole really big. So you got a sphincter in your eyeball. So that's fun. Yeah, and your pupil is basically the thing through which light goes and then the sphincter of your iris decides how big that needs to be for you to get the amount of light that your iris thinks would be most beneficial.

So your seeing is basically like farting and reverse but with photons. That is not incorrect, right? Yeah, that's not a terrible way to think about it. And you wanna be able to control, how many photons go in and out, just like you wanna be able to control farts? Actually, you don't wanna have an active choice.

It's true. Because you're, if you have an active choice. That's true. Because you're, if you had an active choice, it's to be able to be controlled. Yeah. Exactly. If you had a super active choice, it would take you way too long to be like, dial it back there, dial it.

Like, I don't actually, I don't want to be able to contract my iris the way I can contract my bicep. So I, it doesn't work. It doesn't work. This is another thing where the body is doing a great job without me. Do you ever feel like your mind is doing a great job

without you? No, no, I feel like my mind needs active intervention. Yeah. I think it would be great. my mind needs, needs active intervention. I think it would be great. I think your mind does work sometimes. Sometimes we will on its own sometimes, but I feel like my mind needs constant intervention.

Sorry I brought it up. No, it's okay. It's not like, I don't know about it. And you don't want that kind of stuff to not be mentionable, right? Like you want to be able to talk about it don't know about it. And you don't want that kind of stuff to not be mentionable, right? Like you want to be able to talk about it and be honest about it. But yeah, I certainly know people who, like, their background way of getting through the world

works really, really well. Like, they're sort of natural, inherited, unconscious way of navigating works awesome. Yeah, I am not such a person, but I also, I think there's advantage. Well, no, not really. I was gonna say it, no, no, it's not though. Okay.

You have another question for us, John? Yeah, but unfortunately, Hank, I've just been informed that we need to read some sponsor advertisements. Oh, yeah, like for instance, did you know that today's podcast is brought to you by cursive poops? Curse of poops.

They just, they go on and on. It's podcast is also brought to you by a damp billiard ball. Nope. It's possibly moist. It may be wet. Yeah. But it's heavier than a billiard ball and it's possibly moist. It may be wet. Yeah. It's a, but it's heavier than a billiard ball and it's very smooth. And today's podcast is also brought to you by a wet billiard ball, a wet billiard ball, a more accurate description of a billiard ball that is 70%

water on its surface. And also this podcast is brought to you by vaccine dreams, vaccine dreams, who's crying in yours? Ha ha ha ha. Hank, I do want to ask this question from Ben. I think it's a really interesting question, and I think we should try to solve it without dealing with the underlying problems, which are real and complex. Ben writes, dear John and Hank, I want to write a story. That's great, but my parents have access to my Gmail,

and therefore my Google Docs, which is the only place I can think of writing it. I do not wish for my parents to see it, and they have been very pushy about seeing other things I have done in the past. I am worried that they will sign into my Gmail and look at this story. Should I get over these issues,

or is there another solution? Note that I hate writing with pencil and paper and refuse to do it. Well, that's a good thing to know. That's that. Pumpkins and penguins been. They're, yeah, they're gotta be, like if you have internet,

they're gotta be places where you can write that aren't Google Docs. I don't know what they are because I don't, and also, Don, did you know about Doc.new? No. If you go to your web browser and you type in Doc.new. Mm-hmm. What happens?

Well, look at that. It's a new Google Doc. That's nice. I look at that. It's a new Google doc. That's nice. I mean, that. That's cool. It is so convenient. It is. It does not solve.

That saves me like six clicks. It does not solve Ben's problem, but it is a good life hack and I appreciate you sharing it with me. So I thought of a few possible solutions. One Ben is that if you're okay with having the document saved to your hard drive, there's usually on any computer, like a basic text editor note, taking text editor kind of app that you can use. And I actually wrote much of looking for Alaska inside of a text editor. And so I know that this is possible. That's my first book, Ben.

It's available wherever books are sold. Wow. I'm not afraid to sell something I wrote 17 years ago. I'm not above it. The other thing I thought of Hank is, all right, Ben, this is my idea. I don't know if this is a great idea, but I really like it. I want you to go to Sheets.google.com. Oh, and then your parents' sheets are gonna look at your spreadsheet

and they're gonna be like, oh my god, this is so boring. It's one of Ben's spreadsheets endless. I like it. Make a real spreadsheet, it doesn't matter what it's about. You can make it like, oh, this is my net worth goals for the next 15 years or whatever. But make a real spreadsheet. Make it about something that your parents

are gonna find intensely boring. Like if you have a Pokemon collection, make it a Pokemon spreadsheet, whatever your parents are gonna find super boring. Like if you have a Pokemon collection, make it a Pokemon spreadsheet, whatever your parents are gonna find super boring. So what you're gonna do then, Ben, is you're gonna create a second sheet down there at the bottom. It's like a second sheet. Nobody even knows about it.

I can't. Or you just scroll down. Do you just scroll down a bunch? Or do you open like a sheet tab? Because there are sheet tabs and sheets. I would open up a second sheet tab and then scroll down a bunch for extra security. And then you can actually write a paragraph inside of a Google Doc, Control Exit, and then paste it into this secret second sheet, scrolled way down, and just go paragraph by paragraph

by paragraph by paragraph. And then the Google Doc is empty all the time, but your sheet is where the story is stored in the sheets. And I like this, especially because you're going to need to learn how to use spreadsheet software. Exactly. So might as well get that out of the way with your fake spreadsheets about your Pokemon's or like just do some science, like go measure some leaves or something.

Yeah. And I can't imagine that someone would look farther than being like, oh, Ben's super into leaves right now. Okay. Alternately. Oh, you got a third option. You could have a conversation with your parents Ben where you say, listen, I'm old enough now

to be writing my own stuff and I need to be able to write stuff that y'all can't read. Yeah. And that's a hard moment for a parent, but it's also an important moment because parents can't, they can't be over their kids' shoulders for the kids' whole life.

Like you've got to be able to grow up. Mm-hmm. But personally, I would do the sheets thing because I love to avoid conflict. Ha ha ha ha. John, this next question is from Morgan, who asks, dear Hank and John, no frustration has ever flooded my body more than when I lost my copy of Turtles All the Way Down that

was signed with the Pokeball. I moved multiple times and it got lost. John, will you be adding anything special to the Anthropocene Reviewed books? Looking forward to May, Morgan, not Freeman. Thank you for that clarification, Morgan. First off, we'll send you a copy of Turtles All the Way Down with the Poke Ball Minute. That's not a hard problem to solve.

I still have the Poke Ball creator here in my household. Wow. But yes, so I'm signing 250,000 sheets of paper that are going to get bound into the Anthropocene Reviewed book. Most of them just have a signature, like the overwhelming majority, but about a hundred of them have illustrations either from, or maybe two hundred have illustrations either from Henry or Alice. So Henry tends to draw these stick figures that say, hi, or that engage in minor acts of violence toward my signature.

It's very funny. And Alice draws these, I would call them cat people. Like I don't know if you've seen the movie cats, but it's sort of in that vein, although I have to say I like Alice's illustrations more. So there are a couple hundred, by the time I'm done, maybe a few hundred of those. And then there are probably like a few hundred that I draw spirals on because I like to draw spirals. The vast majority of them, like I said, are merely signed.

I wish that it were more. But yeah, and there will be a few with Pokeballs just because I'll make Henry draw some Pokeballs at the end as we're stacking them all up to go into the boxes. I do not think that I will ever do this again, Hank. I do not think you will ever do it again, either. I think I'm done. I think this is the proper number of times to do that. I think this is the last time I will sign

the first printing of a book. Unless I get to a point where the first printings are like 800 copies, and then I might do it again. We gotta work toward that future. I think the first printing of are like 800 copies. And then I might do it again. We got to work toward that future. I think the first printing of looking for Alaska was like 6,000. So I could have done that in a day, but 250,000 is, I understood in the abstract that it was gonna be difficult,

but now that I've got 87,000 to go and my hand hurts, I'm, this is the last time. So if you wanna get assigned first edition of one of my books, this is it. This is the last the last time the Anthropocene reviewed coming to bookstore near you on May 18th. All right, Hank, before we get to the all important news from Mars and AFC Wembleton, I want to ask this question from Grace who writes to your John and Hank, what is tape? Like Scotch tape? What is it made out of? Why is it sticky? Why does it smell so weird, Grace?

Well, different tapes are different. Scotch tape, I looked at this. It's made of a bunch of different things. And I was shocked by how many different things it was made of. So there's, there's, there's weird. Like, I never thought about this before now, Grace, but tape is weird. And I feel like if about this before, now, Grace, but tape is weird. And I feel like if you pitched it to people

of the eighth century, they would be like, wait, what now? Well, in fact, Scotch tape came out just before the Great Depression. And because of it, 3M was one of the only companies during the Great Depression that didn't have to lay anybody off because it was so useful that people bought it. Wow.

And it was inexpensive to make. So they could sell it for cheap and still make money. And everybody was like, oh, this is extremely useful. So there's four layers of Scotch tape. The top layer is a layer that like makes it so that it will stick to itself but not too much. So it's like an anti-stick layer. And then you have like a matte layer

that makes it not shiny but matte colored. Like matte, you know, like it it not shiny, but matte colored. Like matte, you know, like it's not shiny. And then there's the actual film that the structure, the structural part of the tape, and that is made mostly of cotton, which upsets me a little bit for some reason. I would not, I would not have guessed that. It's cotton mixed with some plastic stuff, but like it's cotton pulp that gives it some structure, and then it's the sticky part.

And that is made of, basically, it's refined out of crude oil, and then they are mixed with water and sort of sprayed onto the tape. And that's the stuff that you're smelling. So there's some volatile organic compounds in there that were sort of like the, maybe the solvent that those compounds were dissolved in,

that then evaporated dissolved in that then like sort of evaporated it mostly. They smell like solvent. Yeah. Yeah. Or it might just be that that's what the sticky stuff itself smells like. But I don't know what the smell actually is. But it was invented because car manufacturers wanted a tape that they could use so that they could paint a car two different colors. Really? Yeah. Wow. Which I also found very surprising. But then it became extremely useful for everyone.

And of course, in the way of these things, because it was created at a company, the company made all the money and the guy who invented them, this name was Richard. Got, you know, we know who his name is. You can look it up, but you, I don't think that he got super rich off of it. Yeah. His name was Richard Drew, John, Richard Gurley Drew. Okay. Well, thank you, Richard Drew.

Let's move on to the news from AFC Wimbledon Hank. As you'll remember, AFC Wimbledon has a new manager, the former manager of the kids team, Mark Robinson. And we are a different football club. Now I want to be clear, that doesn't mean that we're good. Right? Like we have the same set of problems that we have before. One of the smallest budgets and league one, all the same problems.

We don't have like a whole new crop of players or anything, but we have a very different attitude. And I love it. I, we are possessing the ball. We are passing the ball from one player to another, which is almost unprecedented in my time as a, as a Wimbledon fan. It's, it's, it is, it is joyful to watch.

Not only that, but two games in a row. We have been down one nil with five minutes left in the game and we have come back Instead of giving up late goals. We have come back to score late goals in our game against Shrewsbury or as apparently happen eventually in the UK Shrewsbury. Oh my god in our game against Shrewsbury we had 53% of the possession, which is again unprecedented. And this 19 year old kid, Iube Assal scored a very late goal, came on as a substitute. His first game ever scoring for any kind of, in any kind of professional football.

He's from the youth side. He's 19 years old. As Mark Robinson, the manager said after the game, you doesn't look like a footballer, but he has the heart of a footballer. He's tiny. I mean, he's a very small kid. but I mean watching him in that game was so joyful. He was relentless. He was playing with, oh, it was so fun to watch him. So then he scores his first goal in professional football of his whole life. He scores. What does he do? How does he celebrate? The answer is he doesn't celebrate Hank. He runs into the goal. He picks up the ball and he runs back because he wants to put Wimbledon in a situation where maybe we could get a second he doesn't celebrate Hank. He runs into the goal. He picks up the ball and he runs back because he wants to put Wimbledon in a situation

where maybe we could get a second goal. I have never admired a 19 year old kid so much in my life. Now we didn't get the second goal as it happened, but it was still very heartening to see. And then we were down one nil against blackpool. And in the 93rd minute, Oli Palmer, a long injured, very big guy who has not played as many games as he would have liked this year scored a goal in the 93rd minute in the last minute of injury time. Essentially the last kick of the game. In that

game, we had 56% of the possession. Wow. I love the new Wimbledon. It's so fun to watch. Everybody is playing with just such relentlessness and you feel like they are just playing to the absolute limit of their abilities and it is joyful. And I love Oli Palmer and I love, I love, love, love. Are you a, a, a, a, I love that he has come from the youth squad and that he's brought this energy into the team. I'm just, I am loving sponsoring AFC Wimbledon. We are still in the relegation zone.

You are still in the relegation zone, but two draws is great compared to two losses. Yeah. I mean, let's face it, Hank, if we draw the rest of our games, we'll probably survive. So no, no more score and no more letting anybody else score. That's right. Let's just let's no one void the season. Just zeros on the board from here on out. But yeah, I just I mark Robinson's AFC Wimbledon is an absolute just a wonder to watch. And it's just so encouraging to see, you know, somebody who's never had a chance to coach anywhere near professional soccer, get a real chance and just show what he can do. It's wonderful. So it's just, it's been a

lot of fun. If you can watch AFC Wimbledon on the I follow app, I really encourage it, which you'll you'll know that I wasn't saying earlier in the season. Um, it's, it's just great fun to watch this right now. In Mars News, John Perseverance completed its first test drive on March 4th. It took it out for a little bit of a spin. It drove for 33 minutes during which it moved forward 13 feet, turned for 150 feet, and then drove 8 more feet. That served as a test of the mobility and a calibration of all the rover systems.

It's working great, which is, I mean, I don't know why I always have this like, this happens. It's like, ah, the rover is on the surface of Mars. And like, that's the hard part, but like, maybe it's wheels just don't work or something. Right, right, right. There's a little hitch in my giddy up, and I'm just gonna sit here for the next four years. But yeah, it is roving effectively. Curiosity is also still roving effectively and sending about some amazing pictures right now.

It's approaching a seven meter tall cliff face that is a hundred percent sedimentary rock. It's gorgeous, really, really cool. In addition to testing out Perseverance NASA has named the Perseverance's Touchdown site. So they do this, they name the landing sites. They called it the Octavia E. Butler landing for Octavia Butler, the author who wrote

Parable of the Sower and Kindred and the Xenogenesis books. Who is wonderful? I think that would mean so much to Octavia Butler. To me, I wish you were here. I mean, I wish you were here to see the big resurgence and interest in her work, but yeah. That is, that's the right person to honor with that. That's really wonderful to hear.

That's so cool. And it's so cool that the rover is roving. I also have this fear that like, I know, they're going to do the hard part, but like, you know, like the axle on my car brake sometimes. Yeah. Like, what if, what if, you know, what if the landing was a little rougher than it looked and something happened? But no, it was great to see that it's, it's roving as you put it. I think I've a landing, looking a little tougher than it looks.

I don't know if anybody else watched the SN10 launch that the new SpaceX missions and they are trying to get this thing reusable and they launched it up for a test and it came down and The for the first time. So this is the 10th one of these for the first time it landed vertically very You know and it looked a little rough and it was like it kind of seemed like it came down a little hard But then it was sitting there and it was like I guess we did it and then it exploded and it just a Spectacular explosion too. Like movie style thing.

Yeah, I mean, it's hard. I would think based on my home rocketry with those little engines. my home rocketry with those little engines. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's, I can't get those things to have their parachutes deploy with irregularities. So I have a lot of empathy for people who are trying to do it with real rockets. Yeah. John, thank you for making a podcast with me.

We're off to record our patron only podcast. This weekend's stuff. And I'm looking forward to that. You can send us your questions at hankandjohnatgmail.com. Thank you to everybody who does that. There is no podcast without you. This podcast is edited by Joseph Tuna Metash. It's produced by Reziana Halstrow-Hasson, Sheridan Gibson. Our communications coordinator is Julia Bloom. Editorial assistant is Deboki Trochrovarty. The music you're hearing now and at the beginning of the podcast is by the great Gunnarola and as they say in our hometown,

don't forget to be awesome. you you