Dear Hank & John - 307: Snizza John

Episode Date: October 11, 2021

What can a license plate tell you? Which person is the piggy in the piggy back ride? Why can't tractors go faster? Why are there so many jewelry ads on the radio? Why can't I get dressed the night before? Can non-cherry fruits be maraschinoed? What is TV static? Is a two-headed hydra two pets? 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, Drew Dere, Hank and John! Where's up for a think of it, dear John and Hank? It's a podcast where two brothers answer your questions, give you dubious advice, and bring you all the weeks news from both Mars and AFC Lombard and John. John, you know, because it's pizza mess right now, I ordered a pizza last night and Katherine asked me, will it be long? And I said no, Katherine, it will be round. Well, sometimes it be long? And I said, no, Katherine, it will be round.

Well, sometimes they're long. You know, there's like lean cuisine pizzas from when we were a kid. Yeah. Or even the rectangular, yeah. Lunch pizzas. Yeah, those ones are freaking, they can be long. Yeah, man, I especially.

I miss commodity pizza. What's commodity pizza? That's what they call those rectangles. It's when pizza becomes a commodity and it's priced like a commodity. It's sort of a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, price by the inch. Yeah. And I, I love it. And I have not, I don't know, I probably would hate it now, but I, I think about it all the time. I had a piece of school lunchroom pizza, maybe like a year before COVID. And it was all right, you know, like it was a little bit worse

than I remembered, but not much worse than I remembered. It reminded me actually of the nine month period. Oh God. Oh, oh God. Sneezing is never normal. It's never normal. Oh, there he is. Sneezing the John.

I don't know what just happened. He has. I had a moment of, I had a moment of weakness. Hank, I had a moral failing just now. And I feel like I need to tell you about it. I'd claim that I didn't sneeze, but I did. I did sneeze. I just don't know what to do about the fact that I was sneezer. John, I know this because we just had our Patreon live stream. So you currently do still have your pizza, John Mustache, as we are recording this. So you work. So you work. You can probably hear the Mustache in action.

I've been saying all day that I look like somebody ordered Ted Lasso off wish.com or I look like the Costco brand Ted Lasso. And Sarah did a great job dressing me up this morning. She really is a talented costume designer and she was like, you're gonna look most like Ted Lasso based on your wardrobe if you wear this. And I felt really good about it. And I even though like my,

by the way, all the pizza and stuff is only available at pizza.com, only during pizza, all our proceeds go to charity. But even when, even though my pants weren't gonna be in the video, I put on Ted Lasso, Kackie Pants anyway. Wow. Wow.

Just to feel more like Ted Lasso, which reminds me, did you know, and I think I might eventually this to you, but I don't know if I've mentioned it on the podcast, that the guy who plays Jamie Tarte, his name is Phil Dunster, the guy who plays Jamie Tarte in Ted Lasso, is a big fan of AFC Wimbledon because of me because of this podcast. It filled my heart with joy to know that Jamie Tarte is an AFC Wimbledon fan. And I hope someday our paths cross it.

So anyway, go to peetsmiss.com. If you have some spare money that you want to spend on just some absolutely ludicrous items and some really beautiful t-shirts, actually. It's an interesting mix this year. Yeah. Anklets, there's some questions from our listeners. Okay, John. Our first question is from Mark.

It's a question that I have always wanted to know the answer to. And so I'm glad that Deboki did the hard work of looking up the answer to it. Mark says, if you've ever gone used car shopping online, you will notice that many, many people either use their finger or an object to cover their license plates. Does that matter? Can anyone actually find information about someone using their license plate number? Mark. So John, I, yes, but only certain people. Yeah. There is a, there was a thing

passed in 1994 that was the, the driver's privacy protection act. And you're not supposed to be able to, like, the DMV is not supposed to release information about you based on your license plate number. If you are, if you work at a police department, you can get that information. The most that you can probably get, if you, unless you have access, is like the making model of the car, not your address. But I feel like there's so much, like, much easier ways to find people's addresses. And mostly we're just like, have been taught to not share numbers associated with our selves. Don't share your social security number,

don't share your phone number. Right. But this number is like literally in public all of the time. Yeah, I feel like we're a little bit like one generation behind on what information we're told to protect. Everybody's always like, no, make sure you don't share your driver's license number that you drive around your car with all the time. But don't at all worry about sharing every single second of

your location data with like a lot of apps that you aren't even aware that you're sharing your location data with. Yeah, I mean, Google knows way more about me than I do. Way more. Oh yeah, I have forgotten so much stuff that Google knows about me. Yeah. So it's occasionally a little lovely.

I can go back and see what I Googled on the day that I got married. That's a thing that I can insight into my life that I wouldn't, it's a kind of scrapbook, you know? But it's, that's a, that's a thing that I, like an insight into my life that I wouldn't. It's a kind of scrapbook, you know, but it's also a kind of scrapbook that's being monetized by one of the large, large corporations in the world, which is terrifying. And you're right that you only told Google that information or you may have only told this place or that place, but potentially depending on what kind of, you know, what kind

of settings you have online, potentially you're sharing information about where you go online with lots of people, potentially with thousands of different companies. And not only that, a lot of those places are going to share and sell information related to what you do online. And not only that, there are also places that are going to share information related to what you do online. And not only that, there are also places that are going to share information related to where your physical body was at certain times. And like, so that, to me, is really distressing.

And we need to take it way more seriously. I don't, but I also, like, I don't know how to, it's wild to me that our privacy regulations are in like 1996. And they're like license plate numbers. And yeah, but like we are someone's name, which is much easier to get than someone's license plate number. You can find out a whole lot about them.

Yeah, even if you only have access to Google, and there are a lot of tools outside of Google that are vastly more invasive. And I just think it's something we need to think about more. It's stress-heavy out. Just talking about it actually. It's something Sarah and I've been writing about recently. Like we've been learning about it, about surveillance

capitalism a little bit. And yeah, yeah, yeah. All right, and I want to ask you another question. This one's from mayor. It's one that I've never thought about, but it's really getting to me now. Mayor asks, do you join in Hank, is the piggy the person on top

or on bottom during a piggyback ride? I have red hair, mayor. I have never thought about this. It is a piggyback ride. Yeah, I've never thought about this. It is a piggyback ride. Yeah, I've never thought about it either. How did I make it to 44 years old that everyone's thinking about? Do you want a piggyback ride?

It's the person on the bottom. The key thing here, and I've never written a pig. Yes. No, I mean, I don't like to predict the future, but the chances that I'm going to write a pig are very similar to the chances I'm going to go to Mars. It's not very likely. I don't know how much you have to pay me to write a pig, but it would be five figures. Like, I'll just tell you right now.

I'm not writing a pig for $9,000. I've got better things to do in my life. Well, also the medical bills might exceed me. I know, yeah, it's too risky. I mean, basically you're offering me $9,000. I know that my deductible every year is like 6,500. So I'm looking at, at best assuming everything goes right.

Yeah, so, so, so I just don't like the value proposition, but I bet that where the term came from is that riding on the back of a pig is also a rather jossily experience, just like a piggyback ride is. And so I think the, the piggy would be the person doing the walking, not the person doing the desperate clinging. Oh my gosh, John, piggyback, it had nothing to do with a pig. Shut up. And it converted from pickaback to piggyback.

Are you serious? Yes. How could it have nothing to do with the pig? Are you telling me, wait, so first off, it not only am I not gonna ride a pig, it turns out I can't. Well, now I want to. You know what, I'll pay you $9,000. You can't know.

You can't know. I want to ride a pig. Now that I know I can't do it. Yeah, it's a pick-a-back ride was a ride up on the shoulders. I do not know where that came from though. Maybe you have to pick a back. Like, pick a shoes which one you would climb up onto. Yeah, and then it's sort of like

because it sounded like piggyback. We turned it into a piggyback ride. People do ride pigs also. They do. Just because piggyback ride isn't the origin, doesn't mean no one's ever written a pig. Are you sure about that? Yeah, people have written pigs.

I think they do it at rodeos. No. So the first Google result here, Hank, is not actually about riding a pig. It's about somebody who's imagining a science fictional universe and wants to know if it's possible to have pig-mounted cavalry, like instead of horse-mounted soldiers pig-mounted.

And then there's a lot of debate about that, but the long and short of it is you can write a pig and now I don't want to again. Perfect. That's what we needed. That's what we needed. Yeah, you could definitely write a pick. Picks get really big. I'm sure that the pig wouldn't like it. So don't, but I'm sure that it's been done. Yeah, I, I, apparently you could do it in Minecraft, which is... Well, we've settled it now, everyone. Come, come, enjoy an Uncle John and Minecraft world for Uncle John's figure-back rides. This next question comes from Megan, who asks,

Dear Hank and John, I currently live in a rural Indiana. I frequently find myself driving behind large farm vehicles. Why can't they drive more than 10 to 15 miles an hour? If we could put a man on the moon and a rover on Mars, we should be able to build a better motor and a tractor. More importantly, how on earth do I stay calm and patient while we should be able to build a better motor and a tractor. More importantly, how on earth do I stay common patient while I drive at a snail's pace for miles and miles, missing Michigan Megan?

Oh, like this wasn't a problem in Michigan, Megan. Come on. Well, where, where Megan was in Michigan? As an, as an Indiana resident who's driven behind his fair share of tractors. Let me tell you, I lived in Ohio, same issue. Like, it's not like, you're not one state away from solving the problem, Bacon. There's, there are a number of tractors

all over this beautiful land of ours. Hank, why can't tractors try fast? Tractors cannot drive fast because they are built, not for speed. They are built for torque. So one of the things that we, average person who has not worked on a farm often forget about tractors is that the tractor doesn't just power the tractor,

it also powers whatever you hook up to the tractor. So you see these like big things that like do a bunch of stuff. Yeah. They're like doing lifting and cutting and multiple. Yeah, there's conveyor belts and sorting. All of that stuff is powered by a little attachment on the back of the tractor that turns something on that piece of equipment that makes all of the stuff go. Tractors have to prioritize torque over speed.

That means lower revolution of the wheels for increased ability to pull something. That's what they're built for. They're not built for speed. And so that means lower revolution of the wheels for increased ability to pull something. So that's what they're built for. They're not built for speed. They're built for strength. And that means that they're never going to be fast. It would need a bunch of extra gears to move more quickly. And that would make the tractor more expensive. And it's just not worth it for at least for them, especially it's not worth it, at least for them, especially it's not worth it for anyone because you have podcasts and you have to worry about that because you got us delightful people

making just informing you of delightful things about pig rides that you didn't know before. And could you think in the future that this will make it easier to electrify tractors at some point? I'm only basing this on the fact that my electric car is extremely torquey. Right.

Well, kind of. Yeah, it has what we call instant torque. You don't have to ramp into the torque at all. But there is a problem, which is that it is good for tractors to be in operation for a very long time. They have to have a lot of energy for that whole time. Gasoline is good at that, diesel is good at that. Lithium ion batteries are getting better at it. So electric tractors definitely gonna happen. It's just, you know, it might not be the first thing

on the list, but yeah, they definitely already exist and I'm sure that there will be more of them in the future. I think before we get to an ad break, I wanna ask this question from Robin about advertising. I like to undercut the value of our advertising anytime we have a chance to. So this question is from Robin who asked you, John and Hank, I've always said the radio recently

as opposed to streaming or podcasts. Uh huh. Fascinating choice, Robin. Yeah. I make fun of Robin, but actually I also listen to terrestrial radio. I listen to the radio when I drive my kids to school in the morning because there is a particular radio station here in Indianapolis that they love and I want to support that.

So maybe that's Robins deal as well. I notice that there's just a lot of ads and that the ads are often for big chain jewelry companies. And I remember that growing up there were a bunch of those ads too. What's up with that? Why do I hear about sales on the radio so often? I'm no thief, but I am Robin. The advertising industry. Here's the thing, Robin. I mean, if you think about what has to be advertised, what needs advertising to sell it?

One, pizza-miss, pizza miss.com, you know, here's the thing, that's why we buy that's why we buy it on all the terrestrial radio stations. You'll hear us on Z 100.5. I'm sure. Every hour on the hour. That's right. Q 95, playing the hits and share the good news about pizza mess. But what I think ultimately needs a lot of advertising money behind it to sell you on the concept is the concept of decoration. Yeah, decoration is an inevitable human, wonderful thing to be celebrated. But particular kinds of decoration, saying like this kind of

decoration is the really valuable good kind of decoration that you need to be doing. If you're going to be the kind of person and partner that you want to be, that needs marketing dollars behind it. That is true. The other thing is that jewelry is very high margin. So converting one person from one jewelry store to another jewelry store, so they're going to be buying something, you want them to go to your jewelry store, and it is worth spending a lot of money per person who switches from one place to another place. And that is one of the reasons why jewelry continues to be high margin because watches are also this way.

Like these expensive products, they are, they're single purchase. People don't buy them very often, but they spend a lot when they do. And there is, it tend to be a fairly different, fairly wide gap, both in terms of percentage, but mostly in terms of dollars, because they're expensive items

between the cost of the item and the purchase price of the item. So a jewelry store can stay in business selling like two things a day, which is just not the case with almost every other retail experience. Yeah, and if you think about the big luxury brands, whether it's Rolex or Dom Perignon or Tag Hoier or whatever. Like a lot of what they're doing is not kind of econ 101. You have to find the place where the amount of supply meets the amount of demand and that's the cost. A lot of what they're doing is like everybody knows that they charge much, much more than the product costs. But the weird thing is part of their marketing budget is actually going to support the people who already bought the thing.

Like a huge portion of Rolex's marketing budget is going to people, going to sort of try to benefit people who already purchased Rolexes so that they can feel really good about their Rolexes and where they purchased Rolexes so that they can feel really good about their Rolexes and where their Rolexes. And then when other people see that they're wearing a Rolex, they'll be like, wow, you know, that person bought a really high margin item. And if you lowered the price of Rolexes, it might be that you would actually sell fewer Rolexes because the value is not in the like cost of making the good. The value is in something else, something more ethereal.

Oh, man. I agree with you, John. There are two questions that I really want to get to because they are both very important to my life. This first one is from Megan who asks, dear Hank and John, I can sleep in anything including bras and jeans and I'm a night owl and I will do anything to make my mornings easier. So I'm wondering whether there is any real reason I can't just change into my clothes for the next day the night before. Thanks, Megan. You and my son are both wondering this.

I mean, Megan, there's no reason reason for anything. Megan, there's no reason reason for anything. That's a good point. You know, like, I, we're just on a big ball, Megan. We're just tiny, I don't want a big ball that's orbiting a bigger ball, that's orbiting a black hole. Yeah, I, this is the problem I have when people tell me that like something is silly or irrational and I'm just like, everything's silly and irrational. Why is it arouse the reason I'm like we made it all up. It's all the only it only matters because it matters stop asking so many questions it's fine like if like give me one example of it you

can't I can't walk around town in an outfit from Star Trek the next generation without attracting attention. If I wear a t-shirt and jeans no attention if I wear my outfit from Star Trek the next generation. Without attracting attention, if I wear T-shirt and jeans, no attention, if I wear my outfit from Star Trek the next generation, attention, there's no reason why we could all be dressed like Jean-Luc Picard, we just aren't, we just, we made that decision together. Yeah. And so, Megan, you could do whatever you could put on

your Star Trek the next generation uniform the night before you wake up, and then you could go to work like that. It's allowed. Well, it depends on your particular place of worth, Bacon. It may not be allowed. You may have to wear a uniform that isn't a Star Trek the next generation uniform. But what I mean, I did this for years when I was in my 20s.

Like I did when I was a hospital chaplain. Like when I would be on call for 24 hours, like you think I would like in the 30 minutes I would have to sleep, you think I would like put on pajamas? No, I would lay down and sleep. And then when I woke up I would stand up and go to work. Like, yeah. I did you sleep in your shoes?

Because I did for a while sleep in my hiking boots and I would not want to recommend that. I wouldn't sleep in your shoes? Because I did for a while sleep in my hiking boots and I would not want to recommend that. I wouldn't sleep in my shoes. I would actually put my shoes really rigorously and ritualistically next to the bed, right one on the right, left one on the left. And I would try to make it so that when I had to get up, like when the beeper went off and told me

that it was time to go to a call, I would sit up, turn sideways, be on the bed, and then my shoes would be right where my feet were. That was always like the dream situation, like you save like three seconds that way, and you can maybe, you know, get where you need to be a little bit faster. But I mean, I'm sure that there are going to be people who tell you that they're health reasons for this or whatever Megan, but no, it's fine. It's fun. Yeah. We're Megan. I mean, I don't want to get too dark here, but we're not going to be here for that much

longer. You know, like we're talking about like, I mean, I don't know how old you are, Megan, but you seem like you're an adult. We're talking about eight, seven decades at the most. God. Yeah. Sleep the world. That's not worried too much about what you're sleeping in. If you're comfortable and you're happy, God's speed.

Yeah, it might be a little wrinkly when you get up, but it'll, you know, it'll fluff out. We're not gonna be here that much longer, Hank. Okay. Here's my other important question that I needed another answer to, John. It's from me, Steele, who asks, I love maraschino cherries. But can you maraschino other fruits?

And I need to know the answer to this because I think I would love a maraschino pineapple or a maraschino pair or anything. That sounds great. I mean, I'm not sure that it's the exact same process, but the process through which cherries are turned into marriage, you know, cherries is basically this Preserve it's a way of preserving food and you do it through a mix of I think sulfur dioxide calcium chloride I assume and some Serp some like shimmery Serp and then if that's the some syrup, some like shimmery syrup. And then if that's the question,

then the answer is yes, you can do it to other fruits. Like in fact, we grew way too many strawberries this year. Some years we have good strawberry crops. I don't even know why. If I knew why I would be a strawberry farmer, but also this reminds me actually, I do know why. It's because the Groundhog died. The Groundhog that was my great nemesis that I wrote an entire chapter of the Anthroposene

Reviewed book about celebrated, that Groundhog celebrated the release of my book, The Anthroposene Reviewed by Freakin' Dying. And I was surprisingly devastated at the loss of my great nemesis. But anyway, it meant that we had a really good strawberry crop and we had too many strawberries. So Sarah looked up this way of like preserving strawberries that they taste like sort of like strawberries plus just the way Marish, you know, cherries taste like cherries, but like more explosively sweet. And they're delicious. So I know you can do it with strawberries, or at least something fairly similar with

strawberries. I don't know about other fruits. Yeah. I think you definitely can. I have done it while you were talking. I did a little bit of research on maraschino cherries. Maraschino is a cherry lacour originally. So it's an alcoholic, like 32% alcohol,

and they put cherries in that cherry, like they made cherry lacour for drinks, and then they were like, oh, we can preserve the cherries in the cherry lacour, and then there'll be like these little alcoholic cherry bombs and we can put it into things. And then up until prohibition, there was a little bit of a, like,

there were some that were like a version of Maraschino cherries that were non-alcoholic, and they were becoming more popular, and just as a preserved cherry that wouldn't get you drunk. And then during prohibition, the alcoholic one went away permanently. So we no longer had that, and now we just have this particular thing. So if you made Maraschino pineapple, it would be cherry flavored pineapple because the Maraschino preserve is definitely a cherry flavored preserve. Right.

I think still think that'd be amazing. That might be good, but you can also make like a strawberry preserved. Right. That's strawberry based version of Maraschino. It's just like a brining and sweetening process. And you make it so sweet that microorganisms can't eat it, basically. Yeah.

It's really good, man. I mean, I'm a big fan of these strawberry preserves that we have that are just explosively sweet. I get the feeling that they're not great for me, but then we're not gonna be here for that much longer, you know? John, if you had to guess what century is Marasino from? 15th. Wow, okay, it's 16th, but you only guessed that

because I asked you. No, I would have thought around that. There were so many brining and preservation techniques around food that emerged in that period, like just after the European Renaissance. In guess you know a lot about history. I know a fair amount about food history. I don't know a lot about history. I know a fair amount about food history. I don't know a lot about anything to be clear.

Whenever I read a book by an actual expert in a subject, I'm like, I don't know this much about anything. Like, I don't even know this much about myself. Oh boy, we are definitely generalists, you and I. I mean, that's the generous word for it. Marish comes from Croatia, but at the time of its creation, that was part of the Venetian Republic. Hmm.

You know, those were the good old days when Venice ruled the world. Now, it's, uh, you know, having said that, I feel like I need to add a correction. Those were not the good old days. Just for clarity. I was a facet the good old days. Just for clarity, I was the seizures good old days. Anybody, I get, I'm not great back then. Oh, I'm really over the narrative that like life was so much better just 500 short years ago. It was, it was at worst in almost every way. Which reminds me, Jonathan, this podcast is brought to you by the Venetian Republic, worse in almost every way.

And they're not around to argue, so I don't expect to get any emails about it. Today's podcast is also brought to you by Z100.3, Z100.3 playing all the hits in the order of our choosing. And this podcast is brought to you, of course, by Uncle John's Minecraft piggyback rides. My, not a pig. At Uncle John's Minecraft farm. Today's podcast is also brought to you by Long Pizza, Long Pizza. So much better than circular pizza. Just goes off forever.

We got also a project for us a message from John F. of Boston who says the P.F. race awesome because I can donate to help make the world suck less and to get silly perks such as making Hank or John say, uh, Buddha, Buddha, Buddha, or oh my god, I think it's what I think what you're looking for is Abadabadabadabaday, Abadabadabadabaday, or oh my god, it's burning. Um, oh my god, it's burning. He has the social internet allows us to organize awesome stuff like this, but it could also be pretty harmful. Do yourself a favor and take a break from it today.

It's good to find you, John. The day that we're recording this, Facebook is still down. Yeah. Maybe you did that, John. No, I think the call is coming from inside the house on that one, Hank. I'm so curious. If I had to make a prediction, that would be my prediction.

But who knows? I mean, we live in strange times. And I will spend the rest of my life hoping for normal boring times. Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy. This is, I mean, the fact that Facebook is still down is kind of giving me the creeps now. Well, we're only here for a little while, Hank, and by we, I also mean Facebook. That's true on a geological time scale, for sure. I mean, companies go bankrupt.

Maybe today's Facebook's day, probably not. Oh, probably not. I think they'll probably pull through. Oh, all right. Let's answer this question from Katie who writes, dear John and Hank, something I don't fully understand is TV static. Wait, Katie, are you writing to us from the 20th century?

Maybe she's just heard about it. Okay. What exactly happens, and why does it make that horrible sounding noise? If the TV doesn't have a signal, then why wouldn't the screen just appear black? Thank you for curing my curiosity, Katie. So the antenna is picking up electromagnetic radiation, because there's all kinds of places that that can come from the cosmic microwave background. So the leftover energy of the big bang is part of it.

There's also localized radio waves, there's Wi-Fi, there's all like that antenna's gonna pick up something and the amplifier is gonna amplify it to show you something. And it's going to be precisely random. And that is what you are seeing. You're seeing random noise picked up by the antenna. And that is what you are seeing. You're seeing random noise picked up by the antenna. And that is what you're hearing too. You are also that the piece of the signal that is being,

it would normally be interpreted as the sound channel, in addition to the video channel, was also being picked up as random noise. If you took a text file and played it as an audio, it would also sound like static. And if you took a text file and you had it be picked up, the information from a text file and had it be picked up by an antenna, that would also appear to be random to the observer. Yeah, that is very cool. And Katie, I wanted to ask this question because I find it fascinating and kind of beautiful

that when we look at TV static, we are in part looking at the remnants of the Big Bang in the form of Cosmic Background radiation, which is one of the reasons we know that the Big Bang happened. Yeah, that's the wild thing. There was like an antenna and they were like, why can't we get it to not pick up anything? We should be able to block all radiation from getting to the antenna and they're like clean and pigeon poop off of it And they're like, there's still a signal. We're still picking something up. I was like, oh, it's the big bang Yeah, and it's everywhere because it's everywhere

Because we were once we were once all pretty tightly packed together. Isn't it weird that the universe used to be very tightly packed together, but still may have been infinite in size? That's pretty weird. That's a tough one for me. I got to say, I have a little, can you come up with an analogy that will help me? Not really, no, no.

I just imagined squeezing everything down, but also there's still everything outside of it. It's great. Yeah. Anyway, the next time you see static on a TV, which may be never actually, but the next time you do, think about the fact that you are in part seeing evidence of the

big bang. Can I tell you, as a tangent, John, but there was in the 60, 70s, 80s, 90s, there was this conversation about how like we are broadcasting out from our planet a detectable signal of radio waves. And that's like, you know, TV broadcasts and radio broadcasts. Like they're strong signals and they escape our planet. And so we thought if we looked up in the space up there that we might see other planets broadcasting those those radio signals at us and that like if there were other intelligent civilizations out there

that they would also have discovered the same technology and if they were around for a long time, then we would just be able to detect them by looking up at the sky. But now, as we enter into, you know, the latter half of my life, we realize that like the period of time during which we will be broadcasting that way,

maybe an extremely short period of time before we we will be broadcasting that way, maybe an extremely short period of time before we find more efficient, better ways of transmitting information. And so it's not like there will be a sphere of those signals. It will be more like a very thin shell of those signals. And so it doesn't mean that there isn't a civilization in a star system if we're not getting radio broadcasts from them, it may just mean that they moved past radio broadcasts over the course of 50 years. Right. Which is a very short amount of time, or a hundred or two hundred, which are basically the same amount of time when you're talking about the age of the universe. Not the same amount of time to me, though.

not the same amount of time to me, though. As a 44-year-old, I find the notion of 50 years and 100 years to be very different. That's the thing. That's the thing. Okay, before we get to the all-important news from Mars and AFC, well then I want to ask one more question. This one's from David E. Wright, Steer John and Hank. Your recent discussion about Hagrid's dog, Fluffy, being misidentified as one dog when Fluffy is in fact three dogs, sharing one set of dog legs was mind-blowing in a way that no

hypothetical conversation about mythical creatures should be. But it got me wondering, what if you live near Lake Lima and what if you had a one-headed pet hydrant named Fluffy, whose head was then cut off by a guy called Hercules. Then the hydra grows back two heads. At that point, do you now have two pets, or do you still just have one pet? Now this is a great question, David. Or I should say it would be a great question if it weren't about hydrants. What do you mean, John?

Because Hank, as I am sure that you are familiar, a hydra is a snake at its core. I mean, it's a mythical creature, but it's based on a snake. Is it? Is it? Yep. Okay. I don't know. What do I know? I'm looking at a picture of a hydra right now.

It looks very much like a snake to me. And as I'm sure you are already aware, snakes don't have souls. So it doesn't matter. What? That's not. It's one snake, it's nine snakes. It doesn't matter because snakes don't have souls.

Everybody knows snakes don't have souls. With a heated hot takes, I like the idea. No, it is. People love their snakes. You can love a snake. I'm not saying you can't love a snake. I'm saying it doesn't have a soul. There's a huge difference.

I love a lot of things that don't have souls. But that's the white river. I also don't know much about souls, I will say. But that doesn't mean that it's not like a single organism. It doesn't matter. Does it matter? Is it 500 ants? It doesn't matter.

I like the idea that the next hydra, so you cut off a hydra's head. But there are two hydras come back and you got two snake heads now. And that sounds scary, but they're little babies. They don't know anything yet. They haven't learned how the world works. They don't know up from down, they don't know what they're looking at.

So they're just like useless little babies they need to be taken care of now. I'd like to update my argument Uh-huh. I've found some flaws in it Okay Which is that like you can't say that just because something doesn't have a soul It's the relevant right like for example. I don't think the sun has a soul But if it stopped existing it would be a real real problem for me. And everybody else I know.

I agree with you on that. So my new argument is that they're clones. And so you can have an infinite number of hydra and there's still, you got to treat them like clones. The same way you would like that famous forest of spruce trees that's just all clones of each other. So what I'm hearing you say is that a hydra is a plant because if it's, so it's, that's not the, it's close to a clone of something. It's still a, still a completely separate individual. I'm saying it's cool. Unless it's a tree in which case maybe it's

not. No, well, because it's all interconnected, right? So like the room system is interconnected and you're seeing a lot of different trees, but it's all part of one organism. But it has a mind. Hydra has a mind. Doesn't hydro have a mind. Does it, does a tree have a mind? I mean, kind of. Well, so let me get you out of your predicament that you've put your own self in. Yeah. The Hydra's brain is in its body. That's the only thing that makes sense. The Hydra's snake brain is inside of the Hydra's body.

You cut off its head, it grows in new heads, but those heads don't have brains in them. Now it's just like, I got more teeth. That way it doesn't have to learn everything over again and be a useless baby hydra. Mm-hmm. It's very big, but it doesn't know anything about the world yet. So it's like, like, Google Gaga. So your argument is that a hydra is mind,

regardless of where it's brain is. It's like soul or it's being, whatever. It's ground of being as Paul Tillich would say, not to get theological is somewhere inside of the part of it that that Hercules didn't cut off. Yeah. Okay. So now it's got two Hydra heads, but those two Hydra heads don't have to like relearn

on any deep level like how to be a Hydra because they they remember because they didn't lose their ground of being when they got their head cut off. Yeah. So it's still one hydra with two heads. It's still one. So the definition of whether it's one or two is about where is about being. Uh-huh.

Yeah, it's just about where Is a Hydra's brain. No one knows the answer to that question. And so we get to decide. Congratulations on asking Google something novel for the first time in years and years. I feel like I'm having a little bit of a revelation right now, I feel like I'm having a little bit of a revelation right now, which is that good, potentially, even things that don't exist, like a hydra, still have some kind of ground of being. They still have some being about them. And so now I think maybe, maybe Hydra's do have souls. And that makes you think that maybe snakes have souls. And I've been wrong this whole time.

Maybe snakes do have souls, just because they're dead eyed creatures that only want to eat you. That doesn't mean that they don't have souls. It just means that they're, oh man, I'm going through a hard time right now, Hank. I'm having an intense moment. I'm gonna bring you back around. And I'm gonna say, if you keep cutting that hydras head off

over and over again, and then eventually, its heads are gonna be so heavy, it will not be able to go anywhere and you will have solved the problem. It doesn't take that long because it's exponential. So you cut off one, you got two, you cut off like not long after that, you've got 64 heads and then you got 120. By the time you got 128 heads, that thing, it's just heads on the ground incapable of moving its legs

anymore. It's just way too heavy for it to move around. problem solved. Now you've just got an art installation. You want to know the way that it actually happened because I know you and I both, like, you, the great, one of the great things about being Hank or me is that we both know so little about Greek mythology that whenever we hear stories, whenever we hear stories from Greek mythology, it's as if we're, like, we are hearing them for the first time, so I'm always like, this is the right way as far as I'm concerned. That is incredible. What a story.

Cheese Louise. I didn't expect you to get that violent. You all know the way that Hercules and his nephew actually dealt with the Hydra eventually. They kept cut off heads and cut off heads and cutting off heads, but then in the end, they burned the neck. So we know actually where a hydro is, you call it a mind, I call it a soul, it's the same thing. We know where a hydro is mind is.

It's in the neck. Would it be like a source of food if you could just tie it down and cut off its head's great idea? That is, I mean, finally, a solution to the fundamental problem of being a person, which is that resources are limited except for Hydra resources. That's right. You gotta just don't touch the mind. Leave the mind. It's only, you can only eat hydrohead muscles. It's the grow like trees. I'm glad we saved this bit for the end. So only the dedicated listeners who get through

are blow-viating can get this kind of high quality hydro content. So what's the news from AFC Wilma Denja? Oh, we, you know, AFC Wilma Denja love to come from behind. It's how we have achieved, I believe, 12 of our 13 points this season. And so when we went one-nil down against Burton in the 66th minute, my immediate feeling was thank goodness because we sure weren't going to get anything if we scored first. And sure enough, in the 90th minute, again,

again in the last minute at home with Rosiana and actually many other Nerdfighters in attendance at Plow Lane, Luke McCormick scored a goal. We tied one, one. We only had two shots on target the entire game, but we did have most of the possession of the in the game. We did. We were passing more. I mean, I think we looked pretty good on the whole. It's such a stark contrast from just a season ago.

Like the results aren't that much better, but the football is so much more pleasant to watch. So after 11 games, Wimbledon are on 13 points and in 14th place. This is about like just under one quarter of the way into the season. So like it's starting to be a significant portion of the season. And I feel really pretty good at the moment. But long way to go, we are still not that far off the relegation zone.

One of the big problems in League 1 this season, usually in the past, the main way that Wimbledon has stayed up is that there have been like at least two and often three teams in League 1 that are just dreadful, that are like in some kind of financial crisis or are just awful, you know, and are, and that's been a key to our success. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. This season, it seems like so far anyway, there aren't any teams that are really, really terrible. And that's unfortunate. So we'll see long way to go. Long way to go. Long way to go. As long as we're scoring 90th minute equalizers

and winners, I'm gonna be enjoying this season. Yeah, well, it is nice to see you in the middle of the pack. I'd like to see a couple green check marks. And that'd be great to win a couple football games. Yeah, that's always what I'm looking for is some green check marks in the last five. Yeah. Well, in Mars news, you remember the ingenuity helicopter.

It's the helicopter on Mars. It said, I don't want to, but that's a good thing. They were like, can you take off? And it was like, I think no. I think I'm going to say, I'm thinking I'm going to turn you down. It was, it was, it was doing what it was designed to do. So it's been very good. It's scouting around.

It's helped perseverance figure out where to go. But things are going to change as Mars gets colder and the atmospheric pressure goes down, creating conditions that are going to require the helicopter to change how it flies and the compensate, the helicopter, it's going to have to spin its rotors faster. So the team behind the ingenuity did some initial tests to make sure this high speed spin could work and it seemed to be going fine. But then on September 18th, when ingenuity was getting ready for its first test flight with all these changes, the helicopter said, I don't think so after finding some irregularities in the motors. The team did some more tests to figure out what those irregularities

were. And so far, they've identified some issues with a series of motors that help keep the flight stable. They're very important, even though they're a little bit boring, which is why they are automatically checked off before every flight. And some tests have shown that those motors are a bit wobbly. So it seems like right now, this probably isn't a huge deal. And hopefully after the solar conjunction, which is a period of time during which the sun is between us and Mars and we can't talk to anything over there. The helicopter will fly again.

So it will not fly before the solar conjunction is over though. Yeah, but the conjunction is only like two weeks. Okay, it's not that big of a deal. I just, I always feel worried having a, like, a little helicopter on Mars for two weeks without being able to talk to it. It is, that is the worrying period of, it's very strange. It's like, all right, goodbye. And then everybody just takes, takes a break, which they all need desperately. Yeah, I'm sure.

It's a, it's a lot of work to run. And of course, they're not, they're going to be catching up on other things. Right. But, but, you know, potentially they get to start living. I think a lot of people, most people are already living on earth time rather than Mars time, but, you know, you get a chance to take a little bit less pressure while you can't talk to your robots on Mars. Well, hopefully that helicopter will... I don't know why I imagine it this way, but I hope that that helicopter just kind of like takes that two-week vacation. Like, we should all take two week vacations and then comes back at the end of it and is like, oh, it turns out that my

motors were fine, but like my mind was the problem. And now I'm good again. Yeah, I just had to get myself straight. Yeah, I just, I just needed a little time away just to like, oh, God, get a breath. I was just, I was just thinking about how the universe is both changing size and infinite. Yeah, there's still a lot, you know? Yeah, and then I was thinking about the fact that like, in some ways time is just everything getting further apart from everything else. And that was heavy for me. That's a lot.

And yeah, and I was like, I don't feel like I can fly today. I mean, not with that weight. Yeah, on a on a on a Martian time scale, I barely exist. I've existed for basically no time at all. And we'll exist for basically no time at all. Well, anyway, they should come and do your favorite comedy podcast. I realize that there are a lot of people

back on earth rooting for me. It's not kept me going. Because where does meaning come from? From each other. This podcast is edited by Joseph Tunevethish. It's produced by Rosie on a Hallsroom Hoss and our communications coordinator is Julia Bloom, our editorial assistant,

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