Dear Hank & John - 292: AlienzBop

Episode Date: May 31, 2021

Do you burp? Have you ever had hot Dr Pepper? What are mausoleums for? What's the best gift for aliens? Who coined the phrase "coined a phrase"? Can water condense on me? 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. Gorgeous, I prefer to think of it Dear John and Hank. It's a podcast where two brothers answer your questions, give you a advice and bring you all the weeks news from both Mars and AF Swimbleed and John. Yeah, yeah. I got a copy of your book, but it's a special copy of your book. It's about, same width as all of your other books, but it's about eight

times, eight times taller. And I got it so I could walk around, people can ask me about it, and then I can say it's a long story. And that's my joke. It's a real high quality joke, and thanks for bringing that to the podcast. I'll take any form of Anthropocene Reviewed Advertisement and you want to deliver. And so I accept it and I embrace it and I am grateful for it. And thanks to everybody for their incredibly kind responses to the Anthropocene Reviewed book.

I'm so glad that it's out in the world and that the reviews have been so lovely. And I'm also just honestly hugely relieved. That's the main emotion when you start when people start reading it. have been so lovely and I'm also just honestly hugely relieved. But it's been- That's the main emotion when you start when people start reading it. You're like, okay, so you don't, people don't hate this. Yeah, I was also very worried that people were going to like meme-rate it on a five-star scale because it's a book that makes fun of the five-star scale. But no, people have been, instead, been very nice. In fact,

it's my highest rated book on good reads. So that's nice. That's nice. It's my best book, according to data aggregation systems, that I consistently lampoon throughout the book. Yes. Hank, all the stars. I want to get to do. What if instead of counting the average number of stars, we just kind of the total number of stars? And that would be great. It would be like this book has seven million stars. I do kind of do that. Not that many people like it,

but almost everybody's read it. It's called the Scarlet Letter. Okay. When I am curious about it, this is like the only way I know of to like look and see overall how well a book did is the number of reviews it has on Goodreads, which of course is deeply imprecise because there are some authors whose audiences spend a lot of time on Goodreads and some who don't. I get don't imagine that there's a ton of like time on good reads and some who don't. I get don't imagine that there's a ton of like

Da Vinci code readers who are like super dedicated to good reads. I don't know, there might be, but I agree with you that it is not a perfect measure of the popularity of a book, but I also inevitably use it and I also occasionally glance at good reads to see use it and I also occasionally glance at good reads to see how people are rating the book. But I tried to remember in that process that it's like an inherently ludicrous enterprise to try to distill any reading experience down into a single data point. That said, I can't help myself. I've looked, John, and the DaVinci code only has two million ratings on good rates. So. Nearly two million.

It turns out, I don't understand why people use this website or who its users are. Now it only has 48,000 reviews, which is a very low rating to review rate, which makes people a lot of people have gone through and been like, oh yeah, I did read that at some point. Right. Because that's apparently what we do as people. Or even maybe a bunch of people have gone through and been like, oh yeah, I did read that at some point. Right. Because that's apparently what we do as people,

or even maybe a bunch of people rated it who didn't read it. Because you don't actually have to like pass a pop quiz to read it. It's still the review. Yeah. Yeah. That's a good point, John.

Hank, before we get to answering questions from our listeners, which I am excited to do, I just, I feel like we need to talk about the sneeze issue. We've done so many bits on this podcast over the last 17,000 years. And in a way, the podcast, it's just a bunch of bits stitched together into a quilt that makes absolutely no sense. But the sneeze thing has captured the imaginations of not just our listeners, but also of myself more than any other bit ever. You still thinking about it? I'm thinking about, I think about it. I'll tell you

when I think about it Hank, every time my sneeze. Well, here's every time my sneeze I think about the bit. And for those of you who didn't listen, it was a question that came in from someone whose allergist, a medical doctor, had said, it is not normal to sneeze, it is never normal to sneeze. I never sneeze. I never sneeze. Well, here's a weird thing, John. I also think that I would think about this every time I sneeze.

But I haven't, I don't know that I've sneezed. I don't know that I've sneezed in the last two weeks. Well, we got it amazing. I think I might be a non-sneezer. I think I might be a never-sneezer just like this. I think it might not be normal to sneeze. Yeah. Like when? Yeah.

Like when have I sneezed? And then like every other never sneezer, when you do sneeze, you're gonna say to yourself, that didn't really happen. And that was it, that was it a proper sneeze. We got this wonderful email in from Jesu writes, dear John and Hank, I'm not sure if this information is useful to you, but here's a data point regarding sneezing.

I sneezed 566 times in 2020. I kept track. Wow. I'm doing it again this year and so far, I'm at 1906 times in 2020. I kept track. Wow. I'm doing it again this year. And so far, I'm at 190 sneezes in 2021. This track's well with last year, as I had 200 sneezes on June 1st of 2020. I'm a fall allergy person,

so it picks up in the second half of the year. One thing that may skew this data is the fact that I sneeze when I see bright lights. That doesn't skew the data. I think a lot of people sneeze when they see bright lights. That is the kind of high-quality data-driven email that I love to receive. Thank you, Jess, for confirming that at least for this person, it is normal to sneeze up to 566 times in a single calendar year.

John, there is a possibility that I think is unexamined here, which is that the doctor who thinks that sneezing isn't normal. Yeah. Is it denying their own sneezes? Isn't confused about what a sneeze is, but just as very forgetful. Oh. Because like, do you remember your sneezes? I don't remember.

Like, I do now. It's because every single time I sneeze, I think of a doctor somewhere saying, sneezing isn't normal. I never sneeze. Never sneeze. I do now because every single time I sneeze, I think of a doctor somewhere saying, sneezing isn't normal. I never sneeze. Never sneeze. It's the absolutism, the certainty that I find so shocking.

I never sneeze. I never sneeze. I would have thought that that sentence had never been spoken in human history. John, we also got an email from Missy about a rule, it was a related question, who asks, dear Hank and John, I just listened to the episode you guys were talking about,

Dr. said it wasn't normal to sneeze. I have a rare condition that makes me unable to burp. And whenever I tell people that, I know someone who has that. They try to catch me burping when no one is looking, which doesn't happen because I have a condition that makes me unable to burp. I just kind of wanted to tell you guys that,

but I guess that I do have a question. So do you guys burp? That's not really normal if you do. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha Yeah, maybe the doctor has a condition whereby the doctor can't sneeze. Doesn't know that they are the one that has the problem. Exactly. And so like, pursuit of career as an allergist because they grew up not sneezing. And what is wrong with all of you looking at a sneezey world and just being like, oh, I've got to treat this epidemic of sneezing

that I see everywhere except in my own life. So the condition, I had a friend who never burped and I was like, hey, he was like, I just don't, I refuse to. He wouldn't burp, even though he could. Oh, and I guess he just farted more? I guess, like it does get out eventually. The other way, if you don't burp,

because it is a thing that does happen where people don't or can't burp and then the swallowed air goes out the butt. I burp a lot. So, need to. There you go. Everybody's different. I burp less now that I've stopped drinking soda.

I bet. It's kind of a bummer because I do love that soda burp. Yeah. Well, all I know for sure is that sneezing is never normal, never, ever, ever. Yeah. And that for the rest of my life, whenever I sneeze, I will imagine a person in a white lab coat saying to an actual patient of theirs, sneezing is never normal. I never sneeze.

Same with pooping, by the way, not normal, never normal. Never normal. Never normal. I'm always like, the doctor being like, you shouldn't have a body. Bodies are disgusting. Ha, ha, ha. Having a body is not normal. You should be a disembodied mind. It's like, so there's this thing your body is perfectly able to do, causes no problems,

but it is a huge problem. Yeah. John, I have a question that is very definitely for you and I am excited by it, though I don't know, I don't know, ultimately that we will reach satisfaction. It's from Monica who asks, dear Hank and John, I just saw a vintage ad that read, try Dr. Pepper Hot.

Oh yeah. Now, I have never once considered drinking soda pop hot. Were there other sodas that encouraged this type of behavior, more importantly, have either of you ever drink Dr. Pepper at diet or otherwise hot, if not, can you and report back? Thank you, a little bit of Monica. And first of all, for a second,

I thought this was a variety of Dr. Pepper that was spicy. No, No. So this is a thing that long time Dr. Pepper CEO, Footh's Clements was obsessed with. So he would notice that, when was he CEO? For like 40 years until, but no longer. The 80s. No, he's currently deceased and with his Dr. Pepper money founded the Dr. Pepper Museum and Free Enterprise Institute, which is a museum devoted both to the history of Dr. Pepper and the importance of free market economics. But anyway, foot's climates noticed that sales of Dr. Pepper would dip in the winter because people don't need as much of an ice cold refreshing drink, especially in the south. And for a long time, Dr. Pepper was a mostly regional phenomenon. And so he was like, all these people are out here drinking hot tea and hot cider and hot chocolate. We need to be selling hot Dr. Pepper.

Now that you put it this way, and this is Dr. Pepper that you put into a kettle, and it's actually, I have had it, it tastes like hot Dr. Pepper that you put into a kettle. And it's actually, I have had it, it tastes like hot Dr. Pepper. It doesn't have much in the way of bubbles. So that's a weird taste profile, but I mean, hot cider also doesn't have much in the way of bubbles and is sweet and a little gross. And it has done fairly well over the centuries. And so he really tried to make hot

Dr. Pepper happen. And of course it didn't happen because one thing Americans don't really want is hot Dr. Pepper. Yeah. You know, like advertising can create a market for a lot of things, but it cannot really create a market

for flat hot Dr. Pepper. Did you try it with a lemon slice? Because they've all got lemon slices every picture I'm seeing has a lemon slice on top. Yeah, so like, foot's clements drank hot Dr. Pepper all the time with a lemon slice, and he said it was better than tea. And his concept was that like, the place that tea had in the American south would become a place that Dr. Pepper had. I mean, Dr. Pepper in his summer and hot, Dr. Pepper in the winter.

It's worth taking the risk on that. Like if you can become the new tea, become the new tea. Yeah, I know, but he could, but as often happens in the world of a free market, Hank, the people said, no. I tried it and I don't want it. Oh, man, there are times I have seen where the leader of the organization says this is going to be huge. And everyone says, you are wrong.

And they say, I am the visionary. That is my job. And then they are wrong. And they say, I am the visionary. That is my job. And then they are wrong. And it's like, well, I mean, it was their job to be the visionary. They were just wrong. Yeah. And to be fair, like Fitzclemmence continued to lead Dr. Pepper to greater and greater heights.

And today it is the only major American soda that exists indigent of the Pepsi and Coca-Cola corporations. So like, he succeeded in a way. It just, he didn't succeed with hot doctor pepper. I've wanted for a while to make a vlog by this video where I try like regional, weird mixes of drinks like in some places they put salted peanuts in their Coke. Yeah.

And like a hot Dr. Pepper would be fun. I think you should do that. So I think I'm going to do that sometime. It's sort of like very 2014 vibes of like YouTube. Yeah. But like I like that era. Me too. By the way, if you want to learn much more about the history of Dr. Pepper and the astonishing

life of Foot's Clements and the Dr. Pepper Pepper museum and free enterprises to check out my book, The Anthropocene Reviewed, which contains the chapter on Diet Dr. Pepper. Is there a clue about hot Dr. Pepper? No, I wrote a bunch of it, but I cut it because I was like, this is not relevant to the overall argument of the piece. One of the pleasures of writing the Anthropocene Reviewed book was writing like an extra, you know, 110,000 words that didn't go into the book. That's like my favorite part of writing in general, cutting. John, I've got another question that I feel like you would be good at answering. It's from Jesse who asks, dear Hank and

John, what are Mausoleums for? I've always thought they were either tombs or fancy garden sheds for cemetery upkeep, Jesse. Which one of those is it, John? I mean, all about graves. I think it's mostly tombs, but now that you mention that, it seems plausible to me, like, if you've got to have a rake somewhere, why not have it in like a fake mausoleum? Nobody's going to look that closely.

It's true. It's true. Have the grounds keeping thing just look like, except that that's like more expensive than a normal shed, I'd imagine. Yeah. Yeah, that might be an issue. How do you, so I've always kind of wondered,

can you get into a mausoleum? Depends on the mausoleum. Some of them are public to anyone. Yeah, a lot of them have doors and then like a tiny little bench thing on the inside. If you really want to sit up close to the graves, but I mean, I've always felt like that's for family, you know? Sure.

In fact, Sarah and I were just walking through Crown Hill Cemetery, my favorite cemetery in America, home to more dead vice presidents than any other location on Earth. And we went on a walk there on our anniversary because, know, that's kind of party we enjoy. And we came to the mausoleum of Eli Lilly, the drug company executive. Yeah, sure. I've no idea what that I thought that was two people. I thought there was an Eli and a Lily. No, no, no, there's just one kernel Eli Lilly. A lot of people named just after their last name, not Eli. Yeah, yeah.'s like, take the whole thing. Right. So the Eli Lilly Mausoleum was

erected by his widow and it has like a few tombs in it, I guess. But it was, it was really lovely. I really, there was something about it I really liked, which is that most of the time Mausoleums are like, you know, so and so lived from such and such, such and such beloved father and in founder of the Eli Lily company or whatever. But this one was much more personal than that. It was I erected this mausoleum in loving memory of and then the people. And I was like, that's so much better

to acknowledge the perspective and place of the mourner who is actually the person that the mausoleum exists for in the end, it's not really about the dead person. It's really about the people who wanna have a place to come and visit and think about their loved ones. And I just thought that was really lovely. So yeah, I like a mausoleum. For the record, I personally, as you know, Hank,

do not particularly want a mausoleum. Although it's not about me, it's about, it's about whoever comes after, whoever. The main thing that I want, of course, is to be buried just above James would come right at the top of Crown Hill. Oh God, do you know why it's called a mausoleum? I don't.

Because there was a guy, his name was Mauselos, and he died and he was a king, and I think probably Greece. That sounds Greek. That sounds Greek. That's a guess. And his wife and sister, not two different people, built a really big building for him. And then it fell over. Oh, so who is like I erected this mausoleum in honor of my husband and brother.

Yeah. Mausoleus. And it was so big that everybody was like, wow, any grand structure that contains a tomb will be called a mausoleum. And now they tend to contain more than one, but the original one was just him. It was just mausoleus all by himself.

And now there is a ruin that you can go and see, but it did fall over in an earthquake. And to be fair, they will. It was very big. And to be fair, they will all fall over because such is the nature of time. Yeah, I mean, the nice thing about the way they built the pyramids, it's hard for them to fall over. I can't really fall over, but they can't erode away slowly. Yeah, something's still going to happen to them eventually. Yeah. I think all the time, there's like a giant M on the mountain here, which is the thing we do in western states. Yeah. Or maybe all the time, there's like a giant M on the mountain here, which is the thing

we do in western states, or maybe other places too, I don't know. There's a giant concrete M on the side of the mountain. And I go up there because it's like a hike that everybody does. And you can see that as time has gone on, like the front of the M is like eroding away. And I'm like, eventually this M's gonna fall down the mountain. Yeah. Like it's just gonna, it's like, like if we like, eventually this end's gonna fall down the mountain. Yeah. It's just gonna, it's like, like if we did nothing, it would just slowly fall down and break

into a bunch of little pieces. And even like now, when you're hiking up, you can, you like start to see little painted pieces of cement as you're getting close to the end because they're already falling off. Right. And yeah, human timescales are so weird compared to geologic timescales. Right. And yeah, human time scales are so weird compared to geologic time scales.

Like the other day, we were driving in the car listening to the Indy 500 qualifying and the announcer mentioned that it was the 105th or whatever running of the Indy 500. And in the back, Alice was like, do you think they're gonna have like 500 runnings of the Indy 500? And I was like, do you think they're gonna have like 500 runnings of the Indy 500? And I was like, probably not, you know, like,

woof, but it's a great question. Yeah. And I think that like, you know, the most likely outcome is that people lose interest in the sport, which happens. Yeah, it happens, I mean, yeah, like there used to be like, you know, like a chariot races and those aren't big anymore. No, no, no. We could be having our like 20 to 200th consecutive

Roman chariot race, but we aren't. So yeah, what's the longest running sports tournament? It's got to, can I make a guess? Yeah. The Kentucky Derby. The Kentucky Derby is close. Okay. What is it?

And I don't buy this, honestly. So this, I've looked this up, I don't buy it because all of these things are like in England or America. So I'm like, you're probably missing, so you've probably got a narrow focus. Right. But the year first awarded for the Carlisle Bells was $15.99. And the Carlyle Bell is a horse race in

Carlyle Cumbria, England. Oh, okay. All right. That's a very old sporting event. That's an old sporting event. So good on them for keeping it going all this time. And I don't know that they've they've never missed a year. I bet you they've missed some years in that time, but like, hey, yeah, we'll give it, we'll give it to them. I mean, I hope they've missed some years because I for one, like, feel like the year like 1937 and 1945 was not a time to be like, let's all have our horse race here in Carlisle doing some fun horse races. Oh, God.

Hank, I want to ask you this question from Edmund who writes, you're John and Hank, I'm I'll do it in some fun horse races. Oh God. Hank, I want to ask you this question from Edmund, who writes to your John and Hank, I'm watching a movie about aliens and it seems to me the perfect step one in a first contact situation would be to present the aliens with a gift, to show them that we can be peaceful

and that we are willing to share resources. Okay. Edmund, I don't want to disagree with the premise of your question, but I think that we have shown very little evidence for the fact that we are peaceful and willing to share resources. But I agree that is the version of ourselves that we should try to present to the aliens. Yes. What would be the best types of gift and offerings we could provide to the aliens for a first

contact meeting, alien pumpkins and space penguins, Edmund. Gosh, I really kind of think that anything would be bad. Really? I think that giving a physical gift to an alien might be a little weird because no matter what you're doing, you're gonna be trying to sort of embody a lot of different information that you're not gonna be able to do it. So I think like a handshake and a conversation.

I think that that is the thing, that is the gift that we need to give to each other more often. And they, well, I don't agree about handshakes. That's specifically, not specifically the handshake. Yeah. But the, just the openness for connection is the gift. Because that is, that's the thing that's gonna be the most important thing. And I say that's as if this is coming around the corner,

like I've received an embargoed press release, which for clarity, I have not. Well, there's so much energy right now around UFOs and aliens are already here, which I find really interesting. Actually, I don't know if this is going to end up being what I write about, but I'm writing about it now for the Anthropocene Reviewed podcast. I find it really interesting because it happens periodically. It's sort of cyclical. Our fascination with aliens, our belief that aliens are already among us, like, pops back up. And I think it's because it has so much explaining power.

Like, in the same way that God has a lot of explaining power, like God can explain a lot of things that are difficult for us to understand. And so can aliens. And did you see my tweet? No, that's wild. Because I tweeted basically this. I said last night I tweeted the reason, I mean, this is now a week ago for you listening. But the reason people like me never think it's aliens is that aliens could explain anything

no matter how weird. Yes, exactly. people like me never think it's aliens is that aliens could explain anything no matter how weird. Yes, exactly. In the actual, but completely expected situation where we really don't know what the what WTF is going on, defaulting to an explanation that could explain anything is lazy. Well, okay, I agree with the first part of your tweet. I don't think that it's necessarily lazy, but I do think that it's a shortcut if it's not carefully considered. Right.

And it's also a shortcut to say nothing can explain this except aliens or God or anything else that could explain everything. Right. Well, the thing is, what you say all the things that could explain everything, could explain everything. Yeah, which is the problem, because as you said, as you have been saying, which I love, we don't know almost everything. And it is hard for us to confront that because we don't spend a lot of time thinking about the fact that we don't know almost everything. And so when we encounter something that's like, we really don't get what's going on here, it's just, I guess the problem isn't that it's lazy, it's that it's usually wrong, because when we are so confused that we're defaulting to an explanation that could explain anything, that means that it's likely that there is something else going on there that's much more specific

and that explains just that one thing not that could explain everything. Yes, there tend to be very few simple straightforward things that explain lots and lots and lots of stuff. Right. But most things that explain something actually explain one thing. Yes, but occasionally, the thing is occasionally there are simple ideas that have immense explanatory power, like gravity, right? Yeah, like natural selection, where it was like, oh wow, wow, wow, wow. Yes, that explains a lot. But with both those examples, because it explained a lot, people were immediately like, oh, I'm

going to use it to explain a bunch of other things as well that it doesn't explain. That's totally true. Yeah, it's wild. And this is one of the things that happens most in science where science gets stuff really wrong is that there is this extremely powerful new idea and it is really powerful. And then we're not sure the boundary of its power.

And so we have to over time redefine the boundary of its power and realize like, oh, actually this doesn't explain X very well. Yeah, and there are a few ways that we can notice that we're doing that while we're doing it before we fully understand that we're doing it. Yeah. Like for instance, if it reinforces existing power structures, it's probably wrong. Almost every time we discover something really big and new, we're like, wow, it's amazing

how that explains my racism. Right, right. It does an amazing job of explaining all of the ways that I want to feel about people who are different from me. Gravity less so, but still, like, you know, gravity was so exciting when it was, you know, when the underlying ideas were first being explored in the 17th century, that people like Edmund Haley were like, oh, that probably means that there's another earth inside our earth. And it probably has its own atmosphere.

And it probably has little people who look up and see our ground as their sky. Oh God, it's so much fun. I love smart people being wrong, except when it's me, John. It recently, someone was weed whacking out in my alley, and I was like, well, that's not too loud, but now they've turned on a chipper shredder, and they are feeding trees into it.

Yeah. So I'm not sure if this should be just the sort of real, like bring the real today of the chipper shredredder, or if we should stop recording. Cause I don't think it's gonna stop anytime soon. No, we should just keep going and people are just gonna enjoy hearing a Chipper Shredder in the background. Let's bring the real.

I have an idea for what we could give aliens other than a handshake and a conversation, which by the way, I think might be the worst thing to give aliens. Like, who are we gonna nominate to have the conversation? I don't trust, I don't know anyone I would trust to have that conversation. We'd have an election. Be like, everybody's sort of, oh yeah, that'll work great. That's how we find the best people. That's is via Paul Dover.

God, we never made a, we never got not wrong before. What's your idea? What's the, what's the present? I think it should be a periodic table with little examples of all the elements. Because I think if we gave them a periodic table with the little examples of all the elements, we'd basically be saying, this is how far we got. We're gonna lay it on the table.

This is the basics of where we are. I assume since you're visiting us that you made it a little further, and I just wanna kind of give you a sense of what we got to. I think, so now I'm circling back, and I think that we should probably pick, like, the best album. So I think that maybe we should give them 1998's,

megaphone speaks by Timo Shinohara, and just let them sort of rock out for a little bit. Be like, ah, I see what you got for me. And look, a lot of people are gonna disagree with me about that particular choice. Particularly like, it mostly that no one has any idea what that album is. But I think it's the best album.

Yeah, that's another one I don't want to leave up to popular vote, you know, because like, well, I think we'd end up with BTS and I think that would be fine. Yeah, we probably wouldn't end up with BTS. Their fans are so well organized and also their music is good and I think that would be fine. Yeah, but that's a really interesting question.

And I think you were a tiny bit flippant with it. What would be the actual album you would give to actual aliens? I don't like, I think that the instinct to try and like pick very good music is the wrong instinct. I think that it should be like, my first thought is like, you gotta go with something that every this,

I broadly respected. John Coltrane's a love supreme. Exactly. Yeah. Which is a great album. And I think the aliens would be impressed with John Coltrane. Anybody would be.

I think that there is a, like, I agree. But I want to find something that doesn't require a lot of, like institutional knowledge. Like I something that doesn't require a lot of institutional knowledge. I think that jazz builds on jazz builds on jazz. And so I'd worry about that, whereas I might be a little bit more, like if it is just a really classic pop album. Right, so my argument is that it should be John Coltrins,

I love Supreme. Hank's argument is that it should be, now that's what I call music number seven. Exactly. Yeah. I don't know that we could miss by going with one of the now's. The peak, now that's what I call music era.

Yeah. Hank wants to do the, he just, Hank wants to do the kidship op version of Old Town Road. That's, Old Town Road is a great choice. I, no, Old Town Road is a great song, but clearly you, you haven't heard the kids' pop version.

No, I have heard the kids' pop version for some reason, or enlashed onto the kids' pop version of Uptown Funk, which is not great for my mental health. That's perfect. That's it. That's the one. We're settled. We are we are handing the aliens a compact disc that includes 13 times in a row the kids pop version of uptown funk uptown funk is a great song I'm sure kids pop and I know that a lot of kids pop producers listen to this podcast and so I apologize in advance, but y'all know And I think that will tell the aliens what they really need to know about us. Because like, look, a love supreme

would tell the aliens who we want to be. Right. The kids' pop version of Uptown Funk tells the aliens who we are. You know, one of the great things about it is that whatever you give them becomes like an instant forever, like the most iconic object. It's the most important object of all time.

Right, right. And so for that reason, I think you should probably be of a Furby made of beans. Project. That's like if I had a choice, I don't know, like it's really about, it's definitely about the story we're telling about ourselves rather than making a particular impression.

And so that's why I'm worried about it because I worry that whatever story we're telling about ourselves is too simplistic and very sort of like narrow inside of a particular culture. So. Yeah, no, I agree. I would be very worried about giving anyone that responsibility. No, it would be. I got it. I got it.

Okay. A dog. Yeah, that's a great idea actually. Like a really, yeah. Be like, you got you a twiggy. Just like a good dog. The queen loves them. And so we got you a corgi.

It's named Mack. Everybody, yeah, dogs are distributed across the whole earth. Yeah. People have dogs everywhere. They are good, good fun. Yeah. They bring joy. And, yeah, they're good buddies. You know, they're also ultimately temporary, which might be nice. The other thing about giving a dog to the aliens is that the moment that we like gave Max the Corgi to the aliens, Max the Corgi would walk up to the aliens and be like, all right, so what do you want to know about these weirdos?

I got the load out. We've been tracking them for 250,000 years. They are nuts. It may, you know, I think to a certain extent that the dog might be one of the greatest human inventions. Yeah, I mean, I don't know that I would describe it as an invention as such. Yeah, I agree with you. But it's certainly one of the greatest human series of choices, which is, yeah, that's

wow. What a wow. That's a way to look at us. It's one of the oldest best things that we've done. Yeah. It's older than agriculture. And maybe better than agriculture. Well, I don't know if I would say that.

I don't know. I don't know. Agriculture prevents a lot of... I'm a big fan of agriculture. I love an economic surplus. Believe me. I really love economic surplus, believe me. No, you're saying. I really love dogs. They're good.

They bring a lot of joy, John. Yeah. John, I love this question, question number 29. I don't know what they've turned on in the alley now, but it's something else, so. It's exciting. You never know. It's from Caitlin who asks,

dear Hank and John, who coined the phrase, coined the phrase? That's so good. Do you know the answer? I don't, but I do have an interesting story to tell about it. Okay, I do know and it's fascinating. Oh, well, I mean, okay, you go. Tell me what you found, because I did research

and I found not a definitive answer. It is very old. The phrase is extremely old. And it's at least as old as the Romans. And the first time we know of it being used was in reference to Augustus, who coined the phrase, son of God, in Latin Latin by putting the phrase on a coin with a picture of Julius Caesar. I don't know, man, that might be a folk etymology. Oh, I mean, it's completely made up, but I was really, I was trying to sound confidence.

Sounds great. Oh, okay, at least it sounded good. Yeah, absolutely. Like, it sounds 100% like the kind of thing that you would read by a guy who was like, I bet this was the reason. Right, yeah, it does. You're right.

I should have dug a little deeper because it sounded too much like somebody else made it up and I read it rather than, yeah, you're right. I should, okay, I'll use that in the future. My next trick, Hank, is going to be so good. It's going to trick you successfully. But what is, Hank, is gonna be so good, it's gonna trick you successfully, but what is, what did your research indicate? Because I did none. Okay.

Yeah, so it just seems like coin is a word that we used for create. Oh, so it wasn't really a phrase that was coined because it was just a thing that people would say, things would be made. So, creating goes back to creating coins, which were not what we think of as coins, they were the blanks before you stamped something into them.

And that word came from the stamp that you would use to stamp something into them. So neither, like the coin was not called the coin, the blank and the stamp were called the coin, but not the final product. Wow. And that comes from a word for wedge, which is just like the thing that they used to stamp. But the earliest known use of coin a phrase, or coin the phrase, was not that long ago.

But it was from 1848. And it was the phrase, Angel of Assassination. Oh, it was the phrase that was coined. It said, we had to find a name which should at once convey the enthusiasm of our feelings toward her. And so we would coin a phrase combining the extreme of admiration and horror and the term,

and term her, the Angel of Assassination. Who, so, and that was, Who's the her? Do you know who this was? Was Charlotte Corday? Oh. I don't know who that is. Charlotte Corday was the assassin of Jean Paul Marotte, who was the man who made the French

Revolution more revolutionary. I guess it's probably what it's saying. Just more. I think you can stop it more. One of the people who made the French Revolution more. Da, da, da. He said, had one of the bellows and he pushed it at the fire. Which, it's very good description.

So this was fascinating. I read this whole Wikipedia article and the story of how she did it is wild. So she was, you know, she was a minor aristocrat. She did not believe in the actions of the French Revolution and she wanted to kill him. And so she knocked on his door and she said that she had uncovered a plot to,

there was, there was like an uprising happening, like a plot to take him was, there was like an uprising happening, like a plot to take him and his power structures on. And he said, come in and tell me about it. And she stabbed him in the bath. So he had a skin problem. And so he like went and got in the bath and was like, tell me of this plot against our, our, against me and our movement while I bathe. And she was, and she was like, well, it's me, stab stab. Wow. So that's clever.

Very clever. She wasn't wrong. She didn't lie. She was gonna tell him about a plot. It's sort of like how in fourth grade, this girl asked to be my girlfriend by coming up to my door and saying, there's a dead rabbit in the road.

And I was like, okay. And then I walked out and there was another girl. And that girl said, this first girl would like to be your girlfriend. And I was like, okay, very, very a little bit like that. Where's the rabbit? And they're like, there is no rabbit, it was a ruse. And I was like, all right, well, now we're in a relationship. Which reminds me that his podcast actually brought to you by my fourth grade girlfriend.

My fourth grade girlfriend, I'm doing all of us the favor of not naming her. The podcast is also brought to you by the Chipper Shredder in the alley. The Chipper Shredder in the alley. Probably doing some important work that I, on the whole, approve of. And of course today's podcast is also brought to you by Dr. Never Sneezer Scrooge. Dr. Never Sneezer Scrooge. Sneezing is never normal. Hank, people sometimes ask me like, what tattoo would you get if you could only get one tattoo?

And I genuinely might get the word sneezing as never normal tattooed on my arm. I can't stop thinking about it. It's the most powerful idea I've ever encountered in my life. Like it is completely overtaken my consciousness all the time. You know how like after you have like a horrible breakup, everything reminds you of that person, and you're like opening a car door, and you think like, oh, God, I remember the way

that this person opened a car door. I'm like that, but with Dr. Nevers' nearser Scrooge, like I can't do anything without thinking sneezing is never normal. Okay, the podcast is also brought to you by Artimeja II of Korea, sneezing is never normal. Okay, the podcast is also brought to you by Artemisia II of Korea, the wife and sister of Mausoleus,

and also his successor, ruling in the hectom-nid-dynasties from the 353 BCE to 351 BCE. After, it's not a long time, so likely that that didn't turn out great. Oh, the golden age. All right, Hank, before we get to the all important news from Mars and AFC Wimbledon,

we have a question from Ivy who writes, dear John and Hank, I've been wondering, you know how water condensates onto glasses of cold water in the summer? Sure. Can that also happen with other things like humans? Can water condensate onto me? Ivy, not the poisonous type.

So I thought I spent a lot of time thinking about this, John. And the answer is yes, but it in specific circumstances. So if you are outside and you have been outside, water can, I don't think that water can condense onto you because it's hot out there in a situation where there would be condensation. So there's a lot of water in the air

because it's warm and it's humid. But you are staying cooler than outside through sweating and that is an evaporative cooling process. And so if there is stuff evaporating from your body, then water is not condensing onto you. Because the whole, and if you can't evaporate water from your body, water is not,

you have a different problem. You have a different problem, which is that like you are going to overheat and it is a, have a serious problem. But this absolutely can happen. All you have to do is be in a hot humid place and go into a refrigerator or just a very cold room and then leave and water will condense onto your cold hands. So, but, but if you are at, I think if you are like acclimated to the outside, I don't think it can happen. Though I am willing to be challenged on this because I thought about it a bunch

and it was a bit of a brain teaser and water is weird. All I know is that when I worked at steak and shake, sometimes I would go into the freezer, like at the back of the steak and shake. And I would just, it would just be so wonderfully astonishingly cold. Yeah. And then for like 45 minutes after that, I could kind of like, hold in my heart that coldness. And so even though it was like kind of miserable and gross and humid and Orlando, steak and shake, 3 30 in the morning on a Wednesday. I could still like feel that coldness.

So I don't know if water was condensating onto me or not, but I could definitely, I held onto it somehow. Yeah. Well, yeah. But maybe it was just in my heart, which reminds me Hank, that it's time for the news from Mars and AFC Wimbledon. How is your heart doing? Oh, I mean, it's just relieved, Hank,

because we're still in league one. We had our first game in front of fans, 2000 fans. So it's a slow process of reopening in England. So fans are now being allowed back into stadiums for test events where with relatively small crowds, all the sort of protocols are being tested. And for a lot of people, for, you know, around, I would say, 1900 people, it was their first time in Plow Lane. Many of them called it the first home game that AFC, when we'll then had played in over 30 years. Wow. Over 10,000 days. And it was a really special day.

It was a friendly game against Liverpool's under 23 team. Wimbleden lost, but that wasn't very important. What was important was fans in the stadium fans getting to see the seats where their Season tickets will be getting to see the pitch getting to feel what it's gonna be like to play a proper home game back in Wimbledon for the first time in over 30 years what an incredible accomplishment by a group of determined, hardworking fans who stuck together through really difficult times

and found a way to make this happen. It is such a testament to what people can accomplish when they work together and what communities can do. And I'm just really, really glad to see fans in Playa and I cannot wait to be one of them. You will wait. I mean, I guess I can wait because I have to. I will wait until it is safe and both governments involved tell me that I can go.

But then I will go. Well, in this weekend, Mars News, we got our first photographs from the Chinese National Space Administration's Zhurong Rover. There's a, How's it looking? There is a short video where the Rover Landercombo was released from the orbiter that it was attached to, and then there is an image of the lander's ramp that's deployed and ready for the Rover to roll down it

and head on to the surface of Mars. And it suggests that everything's arrived safely and that it's got a good place to drive around it. Looks like a good area to explore will not be too challenging terrain. Do you know the genre when they first were flying, when they were first planning to go to the moon, they were like, we don't know what it's like there. What if it's just dust all the way down? Yes, I remember that. what it's like there, what if like it's just dust all the way down? Yes, I remember that. And I mean, not personally, I wasn't alive.

I remember reading about it that they thought it was possible that the lander could land and just keep falling. Yeah, because like, we don't know what it's like. So they sent a few non-manned probes and they all landed. And so it seemed like a good guess that it would work. How just fine it did. But like, maybe there would be dust pockets elsewhere. So terrifying, terrifying. Then anyway, it's also the surface of Mars turns out to be pretty good for landing on. Just great. Also in Mars news, the ingenuity helicopter, by the time this comes out,

should have taken its sixth flight. And that flight will be part of a new phase of that mission where it's going to be scouting different areas and landing in new locations just to take a look around while it still can. Now, I wanted Hank, I wanted to ask you, I saw a map of where all the rovers and etc. is that have ever landed on Mars landed. And it looked like it was pretty well spread out and it made me wonder, could we land anywhere on Mars? Like, could we land at the poles? Do we have a lot of choice when it comes to where to land?

So there are things that we don't want to do. So there are areas that we don't want to do. So there are areas that are really rocky. There are areas that don't have like really, there's a very, very steep canyon, which would be amazing to visit, but like maybe some concerns about, you know, wanting, and there are slopes that you don't want to land on.

So like, if you want certain amounts of, you don't, like there are very steep slopes. So you don't want to land on a steep slope. You want to land in the Kansas of Mars. You want to land somewhere nicer. You want to land somewhere flat and you also want to land somewhere that's not super sandy. So sand dunes can be really bad

where you just sort of like the rover wheels get bogged down or they, it's harder to move across them. So like there's a combination of the slope plus the level of sand, That makes life extra hard for rovers. And also, if you're doing a solar mission, solar powered mission, there are some like, so as roughly similar seasons to us, so there are areas that are dark all year around, or not all year round, but for a long time, that you would want to avoid. So your solar powered system doesn't get too cold though. Now,

we're doing a good job with curiosity and perseverance of having these non-solar powered rovers, which could go anywhere. But yeah, the reason I ask, yeah, the reason I ask is because it took humans like 249,800 years or whatever to get to the North Pole of Earth. Right. And I wonder how long it's gonna take us to get to the North Pole of Mars. Well, there is a polar lander. We already did it. We already did it. I don't know.

It's not on the pole. It's like not there, but it's close. Okay. Okay. That's pretty cool though. I mean, it is weird how fast human technology is changing. I know. I don't know how this story ends, but.

I wanna do, man, I'm excited to find out. I think it'd be fun to like, I think that we would be good at writing books that have almost click-bady titles that end up being deeply informative. So like, what's the fastest object? It's like a great click-bate title. This is like, what is it?

And it's like, well, so like, what, let's go through an in reference to earth because of course, like speed turns out to be fake and maybe we can talk a little bit about that. But in reference to earth or to the sun or something, you just go in like you look at like what the fastest we've gone in any given moment are like so like there's the fastest that a person can go alone and then it's like there's on a horse and then there's in a car and then there's an airplane and then there's space probes and then there's like, you know, how fast can we make

things go that don't have people in them, all of this. And I think that you could just learn a lot. But I guess that's kind of what the other person reviewed book is. Yeah, in a way, but without the clickbait title, it has the least clickbait title of any book of all time because people don't know how to spell the title, which is very advantageous for search engine recognition. What they always say, you want to have a title that people cannot spell or pronounce if you want to maximize audience. They all say, yeah, I mean, my mom can't even remember the title of my books.

She's like, she can. But there's lots. Well, I wrote a book called Looking for Alaska that is not about the state. So I should I should retire. I should name our books. I should retire. We should have our books the biggest explosion of all time. I remember there was a great AM home's book that was called this book will change your life. Yeah. And that's that's a properly good book title. Yeah.

All right, Hank. Well, thank you for potting with me. It's been a pleasure. We're off to record our Patreon Only podcast with this weekend stuff, where we talk about stuff that made us happy this week. This podcast is edited by Joseph Tuna Metis. It's produced by Rosie Anna Halsey,

Rohassin, Sheridan Gibson. Our communications coordinator is Julie Bloom. Our editorial assistant is Deboki Trocker-Varty. 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.