Dear Hank & John - 289: No Moon Chickens

Episode Date: May 10, 2021

Why are crisp packet wrappers so noisy? What do you do with a second copy of a book? What's between your organs? Why are podcast ads so different from TV & radio ads? What is a relegation zone? Are Martian sunsets really blue? 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. Who is that preferred to think of it dear John and Hank? It's a podcast where two brothers answer your questions, give you these advice and bring you all the weeks news from both Mars and AFC Wounded and John. Yeah. A lot of people ask me how I have so many dad jokes to tell on the podcast. And I'm a little bit nervous to tell them that I have a database.

That's okay. Seriously though, do you find them on the internet or do you think of them while you're walking around doing your daily business? I tend to go to the Reddit, the dad joke subreddit, and then I look around for specific kinds of things I would like to talk about. Oh, like related puns. And then you sort of optimize them for our audience. I optimize them for the story that I'm telling. I mean, I would,

now that I've said optimize, I realize that's the wrong verb. You shine them up a smidge. Yeah, okay. Well, right, or down, sometimes I depolish, just because I, yeah, you don't want them to be too good. That way, the main reason the digokes exist, as I understand it, is a kind of barrier to entry for fans of the podcast.

Like, we don't want just anyone listening. That's right. Pass the first 45 seconds or so. Uh-huh. And so it's a way of weeding out the less committed listeners. Yeah. On delete this, we do this even more by starting the podcast off by having what will probably be the least interesting conversation that we have during the podcast. Right. We want the real, yeah, it's about selecting for an audience that will be kind mostly. Exactly. There is an this is a very old trick on the internet actually. It goes all the way back to Zay Frank who in 2005 when his internet video, Shio started to become very popular. He introduced a new segment called are the new viewersers Gone Yet, where for the first like 45 seconds of a video, he would do something utterly nonsensical and completely strange

and never explain it and then say, Are the New Viewers Gone Yet? And then go into the regular video. Yeah, he specifically started doing it because like that when he got like a New York Times write up and he was like, Oh God. Yeah. I mean, I need to weed these people out. Well, fortunately, dear Hank Adjohn has never and will never be covered in the paper of right now.

Oh yeah, no. The thing that we do is no longer exceptional or interesting, which is lovely. Yes. No one is so confused anymore. They're like, oh, you're a podcaster. I'm like, yeah, podcaster, sure. Yeah, it is weird to have watched this way of making stuff

become mainstream enough that now when I say what I do, people know what it is. Because very early on when I would explain that I've made YouTube videos, people would be like, oh, that's nice and weird, but I don't wanna talk about it anymore. And now people are like, do you know Mark Rober? That's the number one question I get as if we all like live, I don't know in the

same neighborhood or something. I mean, I do know Mark Rober though. I know you do. All right, let's answer some questions from our listeners, Hank, because we have to do that part so that we can get to the real meat of the podcast, which is the news from AFC Wimbledon. By the way, on Reddit recently, I saw a comment from somebody who said that they were talking about AFC Wimbledon and they said, Hank and John's podcast, dear Hank and John is actually a really good source of AFC Wimbledon news, but you have to skip the first 30 minutes.

This first question comes from Rachel who writes, dear John and Hank, why are crisp packets so loud, I suspect Rachel might be English heck? So you're going to have to finish this one in your English accent. It's question number three. When I crush a crisp packet, why is this little bit of plastic so incredibly noisy? Pumbas and Pringles? Right, shall. I went all over the place.

I was in every region. I was in a little while. I felt like I was in the musical Oliver. And then at one point, I felt like I was at a fish and chip stand, but not in England, like maybe one in like Peoria, Illinois, where the, how are they faking it? Where the employees have been like instructed to only sell fish and chips in an English accent. That was a, yeah, I went all over.

That was wonderful. Hank, why are what I would call chips packets so loud? Like when I get dirty, you know, you would call them, for clarity, you would call them a chip bag. Packet is great. Not even, not even anywhere near what we would, for us even packet is usually to pretentious. We prefer bag.

Yeah. Give me a 50 gallon garbage bag full of chips for all, you know, just for some reason, the image of somebody hiking the Appalachian trail, but with their gigantic backpack only containing Doritos just came into my mind. And so they just stop every now and again. And there's no tent or anything like that. That would be a waste of time. No change of clothes, just Doritos.

They keep you warm. Why are they so loud, Hank? Why are they so loud? I assume that it's so that you can't get away with not sharing because the chip companies, they want more people to eat the chips and they want that noise. So that everybody in the house is like yink. It's true. And then like the dog is there. Your your brother is there, your sister's there, your uncles there, everybody's there. The neighbors coming over. It's the it's the announcement.

I don't like I don't know. There might be like a, the material science of a chip bag is probably pretty interesting. Like the fact that I can open it fairly easily, but it doesn't do that on the way to the store. That's kind of amazing. Yeah. Though sometimes you can't, and the newer chip bags can sometimes be it like basically brain teasers

to get open. And yeah, just gotta go get a knife. I know you would think that they contain like some kind of highly illegal drug. Wouldn't want your dog accidentally eating this. Right. So the short answer, Rachel, is that we don't know, but that's not going to stop us from speculating. Yeah, absolutely. And it's also not going to stop me from launching a new company that sells chips in like cloth bags. Oh God, that's just what I don't need.

One thing that my life cannot handle right now is supporting Hank in a new endeavor. Yeah. You know, everybody knows that cloth is for some reason greener than plastic, which for clarity, it's not, unless you use it a lot. It's not, it is much less green because it's extremely difficult to make cotton. But it feels like it a lot. It's not. It is much less green because it's extremely difficult to make cotton.

But it feels like it's green. So I'm going to make it out of hearty that tote bag fabric. And this is going to be chips and you can see the oil through it. It's great. You really know what's up in there. I like that too. You know how when some people eat pizza, they put the like a paper towel down on top of the pizza to leach off some of the grease. Yeah. This bag does that for you. Does that, it does that work. Yeah. That's not, it's not going into you. It's already a healthier chip just because the cloth has leached out some of the oil. Right. Right. And if you want to, if you're getting cold, it doubles it as a fire starter, just like each corner. And it's like a ever log. Dura flame. That's

what they're called. Not ever log. Never log. This next question comes from Rayland who asks, dear, and John help. I just saw that John is going on tour for the Anthropocene reviewed. And I'm very excited, especially considering my stop is in the Midwest and we'll have Ashley Seaford as a guest. She's my favorite dear Hank and John guest host. My problem is, I have already pre-ordered my copy of the Anthropocene Reviewed. The tour comes with a copy, so what do I do with my extra copy? Oh my God, it's burning, Ray Lynn!

I hope your extra copy is currently not on fire. Yeah, me too. Well, I don't think it's arrived yet, because the Anthropocene Review doesn't come out for eight more days. That's true. As this is being uploaded anyway. Well, I don't think it's arrived yet because the Anthropocene Review doesn't come out for eight more days. That's true. This is being uploaded anyway. So that means that if it is on fire, a bunch of other ones are on fire too, because they're all together right now.

Yeah, which is a worry. Rayland, first off, thank you for coming to see Ashley and I on tour. I'll be at a virtual tour. We are very excited. I just saw Ashley a couple days ago and we chatted about it. And anybody else who wants to see me on tour, you can go to my website, johngreenbooks.com, and there's a thing that says appearances,

and there you can find links to the tours. They are virtual events, and they exist to raise money and sell books for independent bookstores around the United States. So they are regionalized, but you don't have to go to the one in your region. It's up to you. I'm not here to judge Midwestern people

for wanting to go to the southeastern Anthropocene of You Tour Spot or whatever, but whatever day you got free. As for what you do with your extra book, I think that you either give it to a friend or you find one of those like little free libraries in your town and you just sneak it in there. Oh, yeah, yeah, you can do those little mailbox library

things, just sneak it in. Those are all over the place of Mizzou. That's how you know what kind of town we are. Oh, yeah. What would you do? Well, hey, full disclosure, you likely will receive an extra copy of the Anthropocene Review book.

What? Yeah, no, I'll definitely give it to a friend. We have an office, so probably we will, I might just leave it at the office and be like, whoever wants one, or two or three. So that's nice. You can sort of like take it to your workplace and be like anybody want to book. Yeah, especially because in my case, the book is was written by one of the founders of the company.

So maybe that's a little bit of, uh, yeah. People want to see what I've been up to for the last like three years when I was not doing a good job running the company. Yeah. But it's also a beautiful and weird book. And so I think it is a very good gift book because it doesn't, one of the nice things is it doesn't ask you to like sit down and like read the whole book. Yeah. It is compartmentalized. It is experiential. There are sections to it. And so you can sort of pick and choose what you want, which is sort of a lower pressure gift book, which I very much appreciate in a gift book. I do too. I like a gift book that doesn't ask me to like read 900 pages all at once. Yes.

And hopefully the Anthropocene Review does not ask you to do that. Also, there are lots of little miniature jokes inside of the book, which is my favorite thing about it. Hank, I think your copy is arriving tomorrow, so I don't want to spoil any of it. But there are three, there are three like mini reviews inside the physical book, a couple of which are downright hard to find. Okay. I bet I'll spot him.

You probably will, but there was that was a lot of fun to do. I mean, the great thing, there's been so much that's been fun about making this book and making the new season of the podcast that's coming out alongside of it. By the way, if you don't know, we're talking about I have a new book coming out. It's called The Anthropocene Review. It's my first book of nonfiction. It's a book of essays that take the form of like reviews on a five star scale. But the book is different from the stick of the book, which is one of the things that's hard about talking about it anyway. One of the things that's been so fun about it

for me is that this really is the first time that I have written about like myself and for me, for lack of a better term, like when I'm writing fiction, I'm not writing for myself. I'm usually writing for at least so far in my career. I've been writing for people who are very different from me. And this book was written for me. And right, so I was able to have a lot of fun with it. And I was able to have a lot of fun with the bookmaking part of the bookmaking, which is also really lovely. That's nice. And I had a great partner in Dutton. I'm looking at the book now. And the bookmaking, which is also really lovely. That's nice. And I had a great partner in Dutton, I'm looking at the book now,

and there are just so many lovely little details that they were able to put in there. And all of that would have been totally unimaginable to me when my first book came out. So it's a really lovely book. I'm really proud of it, and I hope people like it. And if you don't, I hope you don't tell me. Oh, what is that?

That's it. Is that, does that help sales? Do you think that was good for marketing? And if you don't, I hope you don't tell me. That's it. Is that does that help sales? Do you think that was good for marketing? All right, I think we have another question. And this one got me thinking, I think I know the answer to it. But then I was like, maybe I don't. Abigail writes, do you John and Hank,

what goes between all your organs and stuff other than muscles and blood vessels? Like, what makes up all that empty space? Is it just water or air? Yavadava gal. Yavadava gal. Yavadava gal. Yavadava gal. Yavadava gal.

Yavadava gal. I like that too. Yavadava gal. Words are fun. John, this is so various. Now there's no air, I can tell you that. And it's not really just water either, though everything's water everywhere in your body.

Right. Sometimes you hear like, there's somebody like it's stabbed or shot and it missed all their vital organs. And I'm like, how? Like from, if you're torso, if you're in the torso, it's all vital organs. Yeah, they really are pretty much stacked on top of each other, right?

I mean, I guess they stack on top, they bump right up against each other. I guess if you went like a quarter inch in like halfway between my bottom rib and my hip, you might not get anything super important because it's mostly subcutaneous fat there. Yeah, yeah. There's not definitely like fatty areas

where you can sort of go through the edge. Right. But it is hard for me to imagine no vital organs in the middle there because yeah, it's all, it's all like, it's all pushed together. It's actually quite crowded in there because the intestines occupy a lot of space. The liver is quite large. There's not a ton of room. Bodies are very weird and

we are not good at picturing them because usually we either see skeletons which are empty. So we think like, oh, there must be a certain level of emptiness. Or we see these diagrams that are like the livers here and the stomachs here, but those usually aren't three-dimensional. So it's a little hard sometimes for me to get. In the same way that like when I watch two-dimensional video of microorganisms, it's a little hard for me to understand that they're three-dimensional. It's a little hard for me to picture the internal organs three-dimensionally sometimes. Yeah.

Like if you put your hands right under your pecs, that's about where your liver starts. And that's weird because it's also where your lungs are. And it dies for them, because the bunch of stuff happening there. Your liver is like sitting over your, yeah. But anyway, so one, yes, not there isn't much space,

it's all kind of crammed together. Two, there is kind of space. It's all kind of crammed together. Two, there is kind of space. And there is a conversation ongoing in anatomy, the anatomy world right now, about what exactly to call that space. And we just haven't been good at understanding it or knowing sort of kind of what it's made of. And so when I started to call it the interstitium,

Oh, I like that. And some people sort of call it another organ. So like the way your skin is an organ and it's all over. There's also this interstitium, which is all over the place. But it's just like, it's a network of collagen fibers with, you know, it seems to have some immune system function. So it's got like some immune cells in it.

And then it has pockets of water. And the primary purpose of the interstitium might be just so like when you jump, your organs don't get bruised. So it's like a little network of rubber bands that are around everything so that when stuff jostles around, it doesn't jostle around too much. Sort of little like egg holders. Yeah. Just to exactly.

Well, it's one of those foam crates that you put like camera equipment in, except very, very small and thin and careful. And so it packs everything in perfectly. I find bodies very weird as we've discussed many times before, like it's very weird that, you know, we have consciousness and yet we are also like just a series of chemical reactions It's pretty hard to get my head around in fact Much of the Hathorbassian reviewed book is about me trying to grapple with the fact that I am at once conscious and

unconscious that I'm like both Human being with a soul and a series of chemical reactions trying to sustain a departure from chemical equilibrium. It's hard to like get your head around all that entails. Yeah. But there is nothing that is weirder to me than the fact that there is a tube that goes from my mouth to my butt, and that tube takes food and gets rid of most of it, but then uses some of it to do all of the stuff that it does. Yeah. Yeah, that's weird. I think the weirder part is that a person can do that, and with that, they can make another person that also has a tube also has a tubing. That is weird. But that is very, the whole thing.

I feel like if we pitched Earth life to other aliens, to like other sentient beings, they would be like, that is wild. I can't believe y'all were able to do that. That's an incredible accomplishment. Yeah, and I'm sure we'll look at them and think the same thing. We'll be like, wow, hot mercury for your blood.

Whoa, wouldn't have thought of that. Yeah. Speaking of words. That's a surprise. Stay away from us. Hank, if you had to like, if you had to like, pitch the essence of humanity. Oh God.

Two aliens. And I realize you're like, you kind of wrote two books about this. But if you had to pitch the essence of humanity to aliens, what would you say? I think I know what I would say. So if you want, I can start. And then you can use that time to come up with your own answer. I mean, I've got an idea, but maybe you should go first. I would say there was this disease called smallpox that was the deadliest disease for many thousands of years, for many groups of people. And we are species developed a way to prevent that disease that became so successful that we eventually eliminated that disease from the entire species and the entire

our entire world. So that's one thing I need you to know. And then the other thing I need you to know is that after the way of eliminating that disease became safe and effective and inexpensive to produce 300 million of our kind still died of it. Yeah, which was a big, big percentage of us. Yes, just for clarity. There weren't like three trillion of us when that happened. No, so like that is my summary of humanity. That's good.

I like that. I of course was going much more mechanical than a story. So my mechanical version is just, we transmit information very quickly between each other. And that allows us to feel as if we are individuals, but act as a collective. I like that very much. Even though we don't even know

that we're acting as a collective oftentimes, to the point where it allows us to do absolutely ludicrous things, like allow 300 million people to die when it was not necessary. Yeah, like that's both our strength and our monstrosity. Yeah.

All right, here's another question, Hank. All right, great. Man, the vibe of this podcast is all over the place, but you know what, my vibe right now is all over the place, so this is great. Julie asks, dear John and Hank, why are advertisements on podcasts on so much differently than on TV and radio?

Why are the podcasters responsible for writing the ad for their sponsor instead of the sponsor providing a pre-recorded ad? Stay unruly, Julie. Well, I mean, to put the curtain back on that, it's because it's more effective for the advertiser. Now that also means that it's a bigger responsibility for the podcaster to choose who you are willing to work with, to make, and to some extent, not guarantee, because like, can you

ever guarantee, but try to guarantee that it's a good company that provides a good service, because like, it is to some extent based on the relationship, and that's a good service. Because like it is to some extent based on the relationship. And that's a little bit what the advertiser is paying for, right? Yeah, and that actually does have its roots in radio. So in radio, there would be long time, like decades, long sponsors of particular radio shows, particular hosts or creators on radio. And those hosts would read the ads in their own words

and would talk about their own experiences using the products, and that made those kinds of radio ads much more effective than standard radio ads and also more expensive. And so that's the reason. Now, there are still lots of podcast ads that are canned reads or non-host reads. They tend to be less valuable to the advertiser, and so they tend to be less expensive.

But Hank has identified exactly the thing, which is that when I am watching, say, soccer on TV, I never think to myself, oh, the host of this soccer show, right, is endorsing my use of this particular brand of whiskey. And so television ads can get away with all kinds of absolute insanity that podcast ads could never get away with. Like at the moment, there's a television ad for a brand I like called Subaru, which basically makes the case that Subaru makes your kids safer than any other car. And it makes this case by imagining a horrible car accident that your child survived because they were

in a Subaru. And if I said that on this podcast, if I said an ad that was like, your child will be less likely to die in a Subaru, people would be like, well, one, that's a lie. Because it is. And two, what a horrible manipulative way to try to sell something. Right. Which it is.

Mm-hmm. And so, I think there are big downsides to both kinds of advertising is what I'm getting at. Right, right, right. That, that, like, you know, the fact that we get to do it in our way, both is, is kind of more valuable. And, and so that's, but that's also means it's something that we have to be more conscious of. And so we have to do it in our way. Right. And so there's a lot, in fact, probably most advertising opportunities we turn down because we don't wanna say some version of something that we think is fundamentally untrue.

Yeah. So we hear a lot from creator friends that it's really frustrating for them, that TV ads are judged on a different scale. And I feel that frustration sometimes. But I also think like it's good to ask advertisers to be more thoughtful and conscientious in their messaging. Like, I think ultimately that's helpful. Yeah. I mean, that is the world that it would be better if we were all in. Look, I think Hank and I are both deep down,

somewhat ambivalent about an advertising funded internet or an advertising funded creator-scape. Yeah, just advertising in general. Like the thing that I worry about creating artificial wants and desires and inadequacies in people. I think that that's a lot of what advertising does, but it's nice to be able to control that and when there's something that I feel like is doing that, to just say like I won't do that or do it differently or just not work with them. Yeah, and I think it's good that audiences are also holding creators to account on that front.

Yeah. I think the next step for all of us is to also hold corporations to account for creating this, creating needs where none exist. Yeah. John, we had another question. And this one's from Maggie. It's important because we're going to be talking about it later in the podcast. Hey, Hank and John, I have been listening to the podcast for quite some time and I love

everything about it. Well, everything, but whatever John talks about, I have to say, nobody loves everything about it. Well, whatever John talks about, I have to say, well, then being in the relegation zone, I get confused. Oh, yeah. Like, it's a place that is bad enough being in the relegation zone, I get confused. Oh, yeah. Like it's a place that is bad enough that you get relegated.

But what is a relegation zone? I don't know sports Maggie. All right, Maggie. So right now, AFC Wilden play in the third tier of English football. There's like the premier league where like Liverpool and Manchester United and Arsenal play. And then there's the championship, which is the second division. And then below that, there is it's helpfully known as league one, the third division of

Inquish football. And below that, the fourth division is helpfully known as league two. It's not your fault, Maggie, that this seems complicated. It is a really dumb system. They should name them league one, two, three, and four. And that would make it so much easier. But anyway, the best teams from league one, the three best teams go up to the championship. And so that means that every year, the three worst teams go down a league. And different number of teams are relegated or promoted from different leagues, which also makes it confusing. But, but basically what it boils down to is the worst teams in a division get demoted to the division below. That's called relegation.

And the best teams get promoted up. That's called promotion. And when somebody says the relegation zone, that means that AFC Wimbledon is currently occupying in the case of League One, one of the four bottom spots in the league. And at the end of the season, those four teams at the bottom go down to the fourth division of English football, which in England is the bottom tier that is still considered professional. And so you really don't want to get relegated.

It's a painful experience. Lots of clubs don't recover well from relegation. And so it's possible to get relegated in a quick series of cycles. And pretty soon you're out of professional football altogether. Clubs, so there are real stakes involved. It's not just playing for pride, which is mostly what it is in the US.

So you don't want to get relegated. Wow. So, so basically the relegation zone is if you are in that zone and like if we just said, okay, the season ends today, you would get relegated. Yeah. And indeed, that is, if today was the last. That is exactly what happened last year. Weirdly.

Yeah. Because those teams teams get a result in the rest of the season getting canceled in the lower tiers of English football, which resulted in the teams that were at the bottom when the last game happened getting relegated. Wow. And so this season, we will be able to finish the season and the bottom four teams will be relegated. And ASC Wimbledon will not be one of them. I have some women that never relegated. Never relegated since reforming in 2002. Six promotions, zero relegations.

How did they pull that rabbit out of the hat year after year after year? At this point, it's like they're pulling a hat out of a rabbit. It's even more amazing. Which reminds me, John, this podcast is brought to you by the Relication Zone. The Relication Zone. They're tired of everybody saying nasty things about them and they just like to have a little bit of a PR campaign. And so this is part of that. And they just want to say, hey, we exist. I know that it's no fun to be here, but like stop being so mean. Yeah, we're what makes football interesting, regardless of whether your team is good,

the relegation zone. You hate us, but you wouldn't want to live without us. Today's podcast is also brought to you by something else that I don't like, but wouldn't want to live without. The five star scale, the five star scale, absurd and not that helpful. And yet at the same time, ultimately indispensable. Oh, like too much of modern life. This podcast is also brought to you by the interstitium. The interstitium, it's possibly an organ in your body that just cushions all your stuff.

And today's podcast is brought to you by one last thing that is indispensable and yet my life might be better if it didn't exist. Bags of chips. Mmm. Yum. So delicious. We have a project for awesome message. John, it's from Griffin to Lucas.

Luki. Oh gosh, Griffin. It's, it's, it's Luki okay with this. Sorry. From, it's, it's from Griffin to Lucas, who is Griffin's brother. Luki, sharing this past year with you has been so much fun from ping pong to smash brother just to lightning in the driveway, spending time with you is always when I'm at my happiest. Keep being you because you're doing an awesome job, best of luck at college in the driveway, spending time with you is always when I'm at my happiest. Keep being you because you're doing an awesome job, best of luck at college in the fall, and make

sure to pack some Graham crackers in case I decide to tag along in your backpack. Love Griffin. Oh, that's so, so sweet. And also, that's just the best. It is. I don't want to speak for Lucas, but I can tell you from the experience of being the older brother that there is very little in the world that means more than having your little brother. Oh, like you. Well, now you made it even sweeter. I think we've answered a question about AFC Wimbledon. Let's turn our attention to a question about Mars from Q who

writes, dear John and Hank, I work in an elementary school and during our announcements this morning, the fun fact was that Mars has blue sunsets. Is this true or is this just like a fun thing to say to five year olds? It is true. Mars has blue sunsets. Whoa. Does it have like red day times?

It has sort of a brown day times. So like if you look up at the sky, the sky looks just sort of brown. Yeah, and also like Mars doesn't have a lot of clouds. It just has dust in the sky. So occasionally we'll have clouds, and I'm sure that those sunsets would be a little bit more impressive. But as we all,

who everyone who's enjoyed a sunset knows, the clouds are kind of what make it. And so when you hear a blue sunset, you might be picturing something that is not exactly what you'd be seeing as the blue sunset on Mars. But because of the way that dust is scattered, or the light is scattered by the dust, it makes it almost the color of our sky,

sort of a light sky blue in the sunset area. Now the sun is smaller, the sun is dimmer, and everything else is sort of like a brownish, top kind of color. But it's lovely to think that Martians of the future might look up at the sky and think, this is what I've read that Earth Day time kind of looks like. Yeah, it's sort of like a dusky, dusky Earth Day.

Yeah. Do you think there will ever be anyone who lives their entire lives on Mars and has to like fully imagine Earth life? Oh yeah. I mean, if all goes according to plan, like we've got kind of two options. Like, yeah, I think probably someday,

I wonder at the physical, like how the physical sort of movement off Earth will go. I think there's a lot of people who have lots of thoughts about it. You know, obviously Moon is very close. That is very nice. movement off earth will go. I think there's a lot of people who have lots of thoughts about it. You know, obviously moon is very close. That is very nice. You can get there in a few days. Mars very much not that way. But Mars has a lot a lot of other things to recommend. It's specifically the gravity which is not earth-like, but definitely more

not gonna kill you than basically the sort of floating around that the moon gives you. Wait, you're going to die earlier with that moon gravity? Well, you, well, I mean, I don't know actually. We don't know for sure because what we do, we never had anybody on the moon for like years. Yeah, you couldn't come back. Oh, it'd be too squishy.

Yeah. So if you spend too much time on the moon, you basically will not be able to come back to Earth. Really? And that's not really that long. Yeah. Because why, you're right. Yeah, because your bones, your bones won't be dense enough. Oh.

Like your physiology changes. Oh, man. I do not want to go to the moon. No. I mean, I do. I'd like to go to the moon briefly, and as the 85,000 person more more, who's gone to the moon.

Like, I would like there to be a Denny's when I get there. Hank is ready to go to the moon. On the day there is a Denny's. If Denny's is listening, yeah, when you open up the first Denny's on the moon, here's Hank Green, it's 2021. Can you believe this predicting moon Denny's?

Here I am predicting moon Denny's, and I'm just saying I will be happy to cut the ribbit and be your spokesperson for moon Denny's. I would love some moon eggs. I wouldn't get it there like dehydrated, I guess, and then rehydrated. Well, no, I bet you that they are definitely not made by an animal.

Yeah, I can't imagine moon chickens doing very well. Just way too much resources, mostly. We've got to figure out a different way. Oh, I mean, I can barely manage to feed the five earth chickens that I have right here in my backyard. Let alone try to deal with getting their food to the moon. I can barely get their food to the coop. Yeah. And they're just breathing out carbon dioxide all the time. You don't want that. Yeah. Hank, can I tell you the exact thing about our chickens? Sure.

And they're really technically mom and dad's chickens, but I claim them. Okay. Two of our chickens are named, they're called the ball sisters, and they're named puffball and fireball junior. Cute. And I really love that fireball junior is named fireball junior because there is no fireball senior. There was no like original fireball. We went straight to fireball junior. Well, what about Willie? But they don't know about that. They don't know that Willie's brilliant with fireball Wilson Roberts.

They don't know any of that. Okay. They just call them puffball and fireball junior. That makes it even weirder. Yeah, very cute. Very cute. Love it. Kids and chickens, man.

It's adorable. I played tag this. Very cute. Love it. Kids and chickens, man, it's adorable. I played tag this weekend with a seven year old. And oh, yeah, I am still in. They can run. Yeah, they can make, they can make, uh, they can juk. You know, they can make movements. They're fast. They can, yes. And I thought I could do that. I was like, I've seen how you move. I, I could move that way, but I have much more mass. And so my legs did not, my foot did not stay stuck to the ground.

Oh, it's serious. I went down the hill and I have a, I have a butt bruise. You get to the point very quickly where they can do things. And my shoulder hurts. You just can't do. You start out letting them win and then they just beat you. Yeah, that kid can ski.

I'm like, oh my God, when's my son gonna be able to ski? I'm terrified, I can't ski. I can't ski, I'm never gonna wear not a ski. I went skiing once. No, we're way too old, or we're brittle. I went skiing once, and it was a bad experience. I didn't enjoy any part of it. Yeah, our ligaments are weak and not stretchy anymore.

No, I mean, I'm on the other side of the mountain in every way. Hank, before we get to the all-important news from Mars and AFC Wimbledon, which this week actually is important, Audrey, Kristi and Marshall came together to write an email. They had to use all three of them to write the following email. Dear Hank and John, my parents and I love listening when we eat dinner and we have questions. I think this is such an interesting question, Hank, and I don't know the answer to it.

I don't even know if there is an answer. And you're whimbleed in a Mars spectacular. Hank said that the Mars helicopter that got pooped out of the Perseverance Rover weighed four pounds. Now hold up, is this earth pounds or Mars pounds? I think it's earth pounds. But weight is different, right? Like, yeah.

So you would, you would weigh, correct me if I'm wrong, because I'm not great at math or this, but you would weigh less on Mars, right? Correct. Like a third. So it's not a four pound helicopter, because it's not on Earth. It's a three pound helicopter. I know. Well, but this is the thing because we don't have a unit in America for mass.

So if you say kilograms, that's the same. Wait, no. On Mars and Earth. No, what? Because kilograms is relative to a standard mass. Oh. So if you to a standard mass. So if you took the standard mass to Mars, it would weigh with third less and so everything. So mass is actually defined by the number of atoms

and a thing and how much each of those atoms, like how massive each one of those atoms is. Whereas pounds is just as fast. So it is pounds is just a fashion. American slash English way of weighing that's relative to nothing, because why should it be? Yeah. So you need to stop saying that it weighs four pounds

and start either saying that it weighs three Mars pounds or speak of it only in kilograms. Yeah, the thing would be to speak of it only in kilograms. Yeah, the thing would be to speak of it only in kilograms, but we don't get to do that because no one knows what that means. Including me. I don't like, I don't know, kilograms are, it's two, it's 2.2 pounds.

It's 2.2 pounds. It's 2.2 pounds. Yeah, it's heavier. Well, and the problem is that kilometers are shorter, but kilograms are heavier. And I'm like, pick a, pick a side. I think you just say there is a two kilogram or four earth pounds or three Mars pounds. I think you got to say the whole thing every time you're talking about the helicopter.

Yeah. And Hank, that brings us at last to the news from AFC Wimpleden. AFC Wimpleden, after spending almost all season in the earlier defined relegation zone, recently exited the relegation zone, and found themselves needing either a win or the other teams to draw or lose in order to secure safety and have another season in the third tier of English football over the weekend. Now Hank, as I have previously discussed, since May of 2017, four long years, since May of 2017, AFC Whippledon have played one A one singular one game when they were not at risk of relegation one in four years until

this weekend when we will play a second. How do you this weekend? We have we have ensured that we are not going to be relegated and this weekend we will play Lincoln City and I don't care if we lose by 70 million goals. Doesn't matter. John, how do you get to, how do you get to not, did not having this be the thing over and over again? Well, like are you talking about how to make it, stay all like tense for the podcast?

No. Like you're just trying to make it a good movie here? No, I have repeatedly requested that Wimble didn't do better. requested that Wimble didn't do better. Is much less stressful for everyone if we don't spend all season at the very bottom of the table and then with six weeks left decide to get good. I think that this is a bad strategy and I would like to change it. And on that front, I have to say, so we lost this weekend, we lost to Port Smith, we lost three to one. It didn't matter because the other teams that were below us also lost and thereby

ensured their relegation. So after the end of the game, the Wimbledon players found out that they had survived. And this is a huge accomplishment. I mean, we have one of the smallest budgets in the league every year. somehow we've found a way to survive. And it's a big accomplishment. And I would, like, you should celebrate a big accomplishment. But interestingly, our new amazing coach, who is the reason this happened, Mark Robinson, was like, no, we're not going to celebrate because that's a small club mentality. Like all these things that were, all these things that were celebrating,

like we don't need to celebrate not getting relegated. We need to look to the future and be in a stronger position and have a different mentality about the kind of club we are and the kind of expectations that we have around here. And I'll tell you privately, I celebrated not getting relegated.

Just don't tell Mark Robinson, but I cried, I screamed, I jumped up and down, but I absolutely agree with him that we need to not have a small club mentality. And we need to, we need to be in a different position next year. And I, I mean, we'll see, but I wouldn't put anything past Mark Robinson with him. Everything seems possible. So maybe we will finish 15. Yeah. I mean, if you could, if you could do as well as you did during his, his tenure at the end

of this season for the whole season, you'd be a solid middle of the road team or maybe even like on the edge of the playoffs, like on the edge. Okay. All right. But here's that's ambitious. Here's the true fan coming out. The kind of fan who's like, I think we could pull this off. Yeah. I think we could be a Premier League team.

We're two years away from being in the Premier League. Admittedly, it would be two very weird years. But, which a lot of other teams get a lot worse. Yeah, I feel like all of English soccer would have to kind of collapse under the weight of its own massive debt in order for us to find ourselves back in the Premier League, but anything is possible. And right now it really does. It's just such a huge, huge relief.

I cannot wait to watch this game on Saturday and not have to worry about whether we're going to be relegated for only the second time in four years. So we like, I can't wait. The only downside is that it does look very, at this point, it looks beyond likely that we will be saying goodbye to our talismanic number one goal score, Joe Piggit. He looks to be headed. I mean, hopefully for him headed to the Premier League and you obviously would never begrudge somebody taking that opportunity. But yeah, that's the only downside. Everything else is golden. What's the news from Mars? Well, ingenuity helicopter continues to do all kinds of cool stuff. It's had its fourth flight after being delayed for a moment But that moment was was very short. It traveled 872 feet

Which is the longest trip it's taken. It's flying all over Mars. It's doing its Mars flying thing and To the point where it's so that the original plan was to have a fly five different flights It's going to fly its fifth flight soon, but they're also going to be extending the mission. So it will have a sixth flight as well, and that's, I'm not even sure what they're going to do, I don't think they're sure what they're going to do with that sixth flight yet, because it wasn't planned. Now, one of the problems that we might run into here is that ingenuity will live long enough that will be kind of like,

what we did everything we intended to do with you and you haven't broken yet. So what do we do? Flashing the sunset. Thelma and Rindy's style, fly off over the horizon and we never know where you end up for sure. Yeah, so it looks like, that's probably not what they will do.

They will probably land it so that it will be nice and preserved for future museums. But, come on, what about the metaphorical residents of us never quite knowing how it ended up? I just fly toward the sun like Icarus and see how far you get ingenuity. Yeah, maybe you'll fly to back to Earth. Maybe?

Probably not. Maybe. Probably not. Maybe probably not. So what's happening is in August, they are going to have to stop flying ingenuity around because they have to prepare for what's called the solar conjunction, which is when Mars and Earth have the sun in between them. And when Mars and Earth have the sun in between them, we can't talk to any of our equipment there. And so it's sort of like a scary crunch time to like make sure everything's ready for solar conjunction.

So before in August, because solar conjunction is in mid-October, they're going to stop working on an ingenuity and just focus on perseverance's mission, which is obviously much more has much more robust scientific equipment on it than a four pound helicopter. Three pound, three miles pounds. It's like two point seven miles pounds. You're doing weird math regardless. It's less than that.

Hold on, hold on a second. I'm going to do some math right now. I haven't quite got there. I think it's like two point six four Mars Bounds. Oh, oh, you didn't mean a third. One point three. You meant one third of. Oh, 1.33 Mars Bounds.

Hank, I thought you meant like discount it by a third. Not, it's not discounted by 67%. 1.33 Mars Bounds. That's, sorry, it's a one, to be clear, it's a one and a half pound helicopter. It used to be a four pound helicopter, but now it is a one and a half pound helicopter. Yeah, which is part of the reason it's able to fly, because there's like, basically,

you know, there's obviously some air. It's like 1% of Earth air, and helicopter blades have to be pushing against something, and he couldn't do it if it was as heavy as it is on Earth. He'd have to have pushing against something. And he couldn't, couldn't do it if it was as heavy as it does on Earth. You'd have to have much bigger blades. But luckily, it's only a 1.3 pound helicopter now. So anyway, that, that is the, that will be the total length. Now, it couldn't before that if the solar panels get dustier or something, but we are in a good situation with, with ingenuity. And we're in a good situation in Perth of

Errantz, both of those missions are ongoing, but it's just a little bit like kind of trying to decide which mission we want to concentrate on, and we kind of can't do both at the same time, effectively, because we can't send the data over, and also it just takes a lot of mission specialists time to be focusing on the helicopter and not per se. Well, I have to say I have watched some of these helicopter flights and they are wondrous

to behold. I mean, it is very strange and beautiful to think that we are flying a remote control helicopter on Mars like that is. Yeah, that's mind-blowing. If you told my 10-year-old self about that, he would have been like, wow. What? Yeah, that would have been his next question. Cool. We got bad news about the flying cars, little John.

Yeah, didn't happen for us. And I mean you, little John, not actual little John. Although I'm sure he's also disappointed. John, thank you for making a podcast with me. I had a good time. This podcast is edited by Joseph Tuneimada. It's produced by Rosiana Halsey-Rohassum, shared in Gibson.

Our communication coordinator is Julia Bloom. Our editorial assistant is Deboki Chokrovarti. The music you're hearing now, and at the beginning of the podcast, it's by the Greek Gunnarola. And as they say in our hometown, don't forget to be awesome. [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ you