Dear Hank & John - 310: Ruined Rax Pants

Episode Date: November 8, 2021

Who decided what pen colors were professional? Do you have any advice for stage fright? If you dropped something in a hole drilled all the way through earth, where would it end up? How does one's internal clock work? How long should I wait for someone to call me back? Should I put a plot twist in my book? How long would it take shoeless humans to evolve foot pads like dogs? Hank Green and John Green have answers!If you're in need of dubious advice, email us at [e-mail] us for monthly livestreams and an exclusive weekly podcast at patreon.com/dearhankandjohn.Follow us on Twitter! twitter.com/dearhankandjohn

Hello and welcome to Dear Hank and John. Who is I prefer to think of it dear John and Hank? It's a podcast for a two brothers answer your questions, give you to be a advice and bring you all the way to the news from both Mars and AFC Wimbledon. John, did you know that no matter how hard you try, you cannot put socks on a bear. Why is that? You can make socks that are extra big. You can make it make them socks that like are made for bare feet, but you can't get them on because no matter

what, they always have bare feet. That got me. I don't know why. I love a hominem. I always have. Oh, that got me. But you, you, John, you don't have to always have bare Oh, that got me. Oh, that's a good one. You, John, you don't have to always have bare feet. You can walk around the house in what we like to call awesome socks. And you can go sign up now. We're finally launched at awesome socks.club. Awesome socks.club. I'm wearing some awesome socks right now, Hank. And they are comfortable. Me too. And a hundred percent of the profits, not a portion, not some, a hundred percent of the profits go to supporting stronger healthcare systems in impoverished communities. It's an incredible thing that Hank has built here. And you get great socks.

And you get great, see, the whole idea is that you're going to have to buy socks. Like everyone knows this, you will have to buy socks. And this way, you don't have to think about it that much. You get really good socks. Each one is designed by a different and impenetra artist. And also all the profit goes to charity, which I don't know if you know this, John, is not the case with other socks.

I believe it is literally the only sock company that uses this as their primary raise on the centra if you will. Yeah, there are, there are some that give some money to chair. Yeah, which is pretty, maybe there are others that do 100% but I don't know of them. Awesome socks dot club. 100% of the proceeds go to charity

and you get awesome socks mailed to you every month. Awesome socks dot club. It's only open for 10 days. You got to hurt us. I don't want to create a car sense of urgency, but this is a genuine sense of urgency. I'm not saying like, it will be close over the car right now.

Stop doing the dishes, like put away the jigsaw puzzle. I am. I am saying to do all of those things. Stop the clock. This, this one time. Well, I mean, when you hear, when we come next week, when we have another podcast, it will be close. It will be only possible. It's the only awesome socks dot club episode of the entire year. We won't mention this. Well, unless we reopen the club at some point, but probably it's only going to be open for the next few days.

So awesome socks dot club, go get the socks. I love, I, I, I wouldn't be pushing these so hard because frankly, this is Hank, Hank's idea it, it, it makes my heart happy to see Hank succeed. But not as happy as it makes my heart to see myself succeed. But they are, but they are such good socks. And this is such a good project. It's incredible really what Hank and the folks at DFTBA have achieved with this and all the artists who make wonderful socks for us every month. So thank you to everybody involved awesome socks dot club. That's the end of the promo. Hank. Yes.

I have I have two bits that I've been thinking about. Oh, but I don't know if we should use both of them or just one or neither. Well, I just I just have the sock thing. So you're good. You could do whatever you want. All right. So first off, a listener wrote in to tell us that there is a restaurant. You'll recall Hank that we had a childhood fascination

with a restaurant called Rax. It was sort of an RV's-like restaurant. A listener wrote in recently to inform me that there is a Rax restaurant in rural, wait for it, Finland. Oh, wow, that was not where I thought this was going. It's in, I don't even know there was rural Finland. In my understanding, just from looking at a map is that it's all rural Finland.

Okay. Okay. So this place, I don't actually know if it's rural, but it's in a place called poor view. And that is the correct finished pronunciation. Don't you worry, you're sweet little head about that one. Poor view. Poor view Finland, P-O-R-V-O-O, poor, who, like, for you and French. Okay. Okay.

Are you ready to hear me say it in French? Poor, who? Oh, God, your French is so bad. No, it's like this. I didn't know. No, you got it. I mean, it doesn't, nothing you say matters to me right now, I'm joined because I'm at the Rax website for the Finnish Rax.

And I wish very much I had a Finnish accent, but I don't. So I'm going to read it to you in a German accent. Right. At Rax pizza buffet, at Rax pizza buffet, you feast on delicious food easily and effortlessly. Our pizza buffet includes tasty pizzas, fresh salads. This isn't German at all.

No, it's not even German. It's rather give it one more try. I need a good take. Okay. I'll do it if you won't. No, at racks pizza buffet, you feast on delicious food easily and effortlessly. Our buffet includes tasty pizzas, fresh salads. Well, there's no THs. I can't do it until I get a TH. I'm laughing both at the translation, which was clearly done by Google. And at your accent, at the same time, they're both goals. It's not good enough. It's not good. Okay, I'm going to do it. I'm going to do it. Okay. I don't usually do the accents around here, but I'm feeling it to say.

I know how good I am at it. Yeah. I know. I like to, I like to leave it to the professionals like yourself. Also, when I tried to say for you in French, I pronounced it poor vood, despite having three years of high school French. Like the only thing that you can hear from my high school French is that I went to high school in Alabama and so I have a slight American Southern accent. So that's why I say like poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor,

poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, , poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, , poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, However, about to read you the opening lines of the racks.fi website. So in what I think will be a magnificent, I don't have a finished accent. I've never, I've never met a finished person.

But this is a German accent. Okay. I'm excited. Atrox pizza buffet. You feast on delicious food easily and effortlessly. Our buffet includes tasty pizzas, fresh salads, various options for warm dishes, as well as cold and hot drinks. Top off your meal without delicious Sunday ice cream.

This is very fresh, I think. Yeah, no, it's fresh. Friends with different tastes and requirements can eat at the same table. Our selection of different tastes and requirements can eat at the same table is the lowest webble brag I've ever heard of restaurant. But if friends with different tastes and requirements are not able to eat at the same table, like you don't have a restaurant. Our selection includes dozens of tasty options. So such everyone can choose their own favorites.

Say goodbye to, say goodbye to Longa with your favorites from our selection. Oh my God. I mean, I'm sure that wine was worse than yours, but God yours was bad. Like yours was, yours was so bad I was starting to think at some point like is it problematic? Like is it okay? Do should we cut it? Is it going to be hurtful to people? If yeah, if to anyone then to everyone though it's equal equally offensive. Oh goodness gracious,

but the racks in Finland looks really good and it's close to the water The racks in Finland looks amazing at least from the pictures and I am desperate to visit It also seems to be in a beautiful part of the country. There seems to be a ton of them John No Yes, there's more than one rack of Finland. There's a ton of them. No There is there's many racks is in Finland. Yes Yes. There's more than one rack. There's more than one rack. There's a ton of them. No. There it is. There's many racks in Finland.

Yes. Hold on a second. There's like, there's like, there's like three just in Helsinki. No. Yeah, there's also one in Pippit-san-Sita. I don't have to go to poor. What did you just say?

And there's one in Leparvar Artinon Coupe too. I don't even have to go to Porvoo to enjoy a delicious rax. No, I could just fly into the capital city of Helsinki and make a tour of the city by touring its raxes. Mizzoula to Helsinki. Oh a tour of the city by touring its raksis. Muzua to Helsinki. Oh god, it looks beautiful. Just on the map. And actually there's a raks really, really close to the airport.

I could if I wanted to. I don't think this is a good idea, but I could just fly in to the Helsinki airport, get some raks, get back on the airplane and then, you know, go somewhere warmer, like the South of France or something. Yeah, I can go to Helsinki for the cost of like front row seats to a Harry Styles concert, John. Well, I mean, I don't know which of those. You can do a lot for that. I was going to say, I mean, you could also like buy a fairly nice car. I don't know how much it is. It's a five, it's $550 for me to get to Helsinki.

There's also three days. There's a lot of water in Finland. Like, I don't know that I understood. This is a very porous country. It's water every which way you look. It's a very porous country. It's a lot of brotherhood set of... I stand by it.

I stand by it. I stand by it. John, I have checked. And I can get in the pit, the watermelon pit, in Oregon, five days from now, to see Harry Styles for a mere $2,159. I mean, you could fly to Finland four times. Hey, I'd like to tell you about the northernmost racks on earth. Should I go to see Harry Styles and Morgan?

Yeah, absolutely. But we're focused right now on abandoning the longstanding format of this podcast where we answer listener questions and focusing entirely on how there came to be a series of racks restaurants, but only in Finland. Okay, so there is a town in Northern Finland, Hank. It has an airport, which is encouraging. And the town appears to be called Arcticum.

Okay. And they have a raps. Sure, everyone will love your pronunciation of that. Well, what I've tried to do is I'm just trying to be wrong in lots of different ways instead of trying to be right. That's my current strategy. Okay. The northernmost racks on earth is in Arctiquim.

Now that I'm looking, I think Arctiquim might just be the name of the museum. Yeah, it's like it might be the... I think that might be the finished word for museum. Oh, no. I don't know what this place is called, but there's a rack, the average rating of the northern most racks of the world. It has 446 ratings on Google. The average rating is 3.7, which I think is pretty good, you know.

Can I read you a couple reviews? Sure. Hit me, John. It's right in the middle of town Can I read you a couple reviews? Sure, hit me, John. It's right in the middle of town. It looks like a lovely place. Yeah, so Ardom, right? Not delicious. Seems like the food they hear for a long time.

Broken ice cream machine screwed my plans. Oh, wait, no, it's better. It's better. I'm sorry, I missed red. It says, broken ice cream machine screwed my pants. I thought it could happen only in comedies, but no. What? It screwed your pants?

I mean, how broken was that ice cream machine? And also, like, were you standing on a table? Like, I'm questioning whether it was the ice cream machines fault at this point. I'm inclined to blame Ardom for that mishap. Yeah. Also got a nice Ian writes this is a perfect place for families. Food is good quality and the choice is excellent. Kids can help themselves in buffet and ice cream afterwards. Let me see if I go. I wouldn't. I'd be careful. I'd be careful having your kids

go on an ice cream buffet. It's got. I hear it can screw some pants. I think the town is called Rovein-Yemi. Oh God, that sounds challenging. And they have an arcticum there though. Yeah, they have an arctic light as well. Oh, which is the place where you can sleep. Oh, so you can, so I'll have a hotel room. It's hip lodging.

I have lodging with nature themed rooms. That sounds great. Let's go. I think most people probably go there for the Northern Lights, but we will be going for the Racks. That's what the Arctic light is. Yeah, everybody else goes up there for the Northern Lights.

It's a great place, but for us, it's all about the Racks And then I also let the idea of checking into the hotel after we have our first meal at racks. And we were checking the hotel in there. Like, well, would you like to be woken up at three o'clock in the morning for the Northern Lights? And we'll be like, absolutely not. I'd like to be woken feel at the feel Vegas Roe on Yemi and give my pants ruined it or racks. And I've already played casino war, so it's time to move on. Okay, all right. Okay, I'm gonna put, I gotta put a lid on this, John.

We wanna answer some questions from our listeners. I do, but I have another bit. Oh, God. I'm sorry, but the other, well, you can't save it because you're not gonna be here next week. I can't save it. I'm not gonna be here for a whole month.

Can I tell you my other bit? So I was reading good reads reviews of the Anthropocene Reviewed book, which I know I shouldn't do, but, you know, I can't help myself. I mean, I do a lot of things on the Internet. I shouldn't do like tweet. Anyway, there's this wonderful five-star review of the Anthropocene Reviewed book that I read Sarah and I read it to her and I felt like she laughed a little too hard. So I wanted to read it to you and I wanted to kind of see what level of laugh you bring to it. Okay.

I think I love John Green. That's nice. I've always loved his YA novels and enjoyed the vlogs he did with his brother Hank, situating that in the past tense as a little bit of a bummer, but I'm good with it. I admired the way he presented calm analysis of politics and foreign affairs, among a host of other things, that must have helped many young fans, but this collection just made me want to hug him. He comes across as so nice and well-meaning and I love and respect the painfully honest way he represents his own struggles.

I bet he's terribly difficult to live with. Wouldn't want to be that guy's brother. Gotta say. I also felt like you laughed a little too hard. I was thought of maybe more of a little chuckle, maybe more of a, ha ha ha. Then I like a full blown. No, it's not, it's not, I'm not agreeing. I've just said that's, that's quite a thing.

I mean, it's, it's like, I don't know. It's very presumptuous. Sarah was agreeing. I think like Sarah's, Sarah's it's like, I don't know, it's very presumptuous. Sarah was agreeing. Sarah's laughter wasn't like, he is terribly difficult to live with a lot of upsides. For understanding my life. There's some downsides. But so is everyone in their own ways. It's true.

Nobody is terribly easy to live with. Yeah. Certainly not me. Awesomesocks.club. Let's answer some questions from our listeners. Have you gone yet? Have you gone and signed up? Look, I can guarantee you one thing. When this episode goes live, I'm going to be at the back end of the awesome socks club website looking to see if people are signing up in real time. I'm going to be staring at that.

And when you sign up, you can leave a little note. And I'm going to be reading those little notes. So if you want to say something to me, that's where you could now as well. Yeah. I'm in the same boat. I will be doing the same thing. And I will also I'm a little I'm a little nervous. I'm very excited. Like it's just it's such a it's become such a big deal. It's a huge deal for being able to fund the maternal and child care work that we're trying to support. So yeah, it makes a big difference. I will also be on the back end, but I'll mostly be trying to figure out like, did this person

come from Dear Hank and John or did they come from Hank's freaking TikTok? Yeah, well, it will be very difficult to tell. I know, but I will try anyway because there's nothing my brain loves more than jumping to conclusions based on limited information. Well, if you sign up, at least leave us a little note that says, came from the From Dear Hankajan. I think you should just leave a note that just says, Rax. Yeah.

Wait, I'm going to do a little bit of translation here. I want to ruin my pants. That's a Halloween Pil Pilata, Hoi Suni, and finish. So that doesn't the only words that you need to know when you're walking into a rack. I've got 20 euros and an urgent need to ruin these pants. Where's your ice cream machine? Oh god. I feel like a real dummy right now, John.

Where's your ice cream machine? I want to go. I feel like a real dummy right now, John. Where'd you ask? Scans you. I want to go. I want to go so bad. I know that I can't commit to a bit. I know that's always been my great weakness as a person. I really want to commit to this bit. I know that we don't have three spare days to fly to Finland

to go to a racks and not see the Northern Lights, but I really want to. John, this first question comes from Tim who asks, dear Hank and John, who decided that pen colors or what, what pen colors would be professional? Yes. Yeah. What a fantastic question. Black, I get it.

Black, sure. Black is, it's the color of all ink. This is the newspaper color, but then blue is blue is professional, but anything else is like, no. Yeah, that's actually time. I actually think that black is the worst because I black the worst. It's the one where it's hardest to tell by scanning a page that it's been signed, and it's the one where it's easiest to fake by photocopying. So I don't understand why black ink somehow just became the de facto. This is definitely a real signature ink when it should be like blue or red or green,

but the truth is I looked, I researched the tank. So for a long time, the concern with red and green ink was that they didn't photocopy as well. And so maybe sometimes if it was a bad photocopy, you couldn't tell that the signature was a real signature that it had been signed or it was faint or whatever, whatever, whatever. First off, we're talking about photo copies, right?

Like, that is, that is not a good argument in the 20%. Can we be done? I mean, there are so, there are so many different things where I'm like, why are we still doing that? Yeah, yeah, drinking milk that came from a cow. Why are we, like, we got oat milk now. Why are we doing that? Using gasoline powered cars.

Every time I see one, including the times when I get into my own, I, now, why are we doing that? Using gasoline powered cars every time I see one including the times when I get into my own I'm like it's the year 2021. Why are we using any color of ink that is not fun? Also, why are we still doing that? Yeah, no, we should only use fun ink We should it should all be reds and greens and purples and legal documents should be signed with curly cues and smiley faces and hearts because they're... Sparkling cell pen. Yeah. ...it is no reason not to.

And we need to free ourselves from the shackles of this way of thinking. That is the end of the answer. Also we need to get rid of our front lawns, which exist for a very similar reason as black and blue pens. There was also a study done that if students disagreed with their teacher, they seem to think the teachers were being more negative if they wrote in red ink. So red ink actually, like psychologically affects people. So sparkly purple gel pen, teachers. Yeah. Be welcoming.

Yeah. And then you write in the margins of the paper, I hated every second of reading this. And people are like, oh, that's so sweet. Yeah, but put a little heart over the eye in this. It would be very hard to be a teacher and read paper after paper after paper and try to like find ongoing constructive things to say about each of them. Yeah. I feel like that would be challenging. The first things were made from charcoal and soot, which is why black was the standard. I totally understand why it was the standard.

I don't know if like blue came around second. No, well, blue, the idea was that blue also photocopies relatively well or at least did back in the day, but that this is all the relevant now. We should use whatever color ink we want. All ink colors should be treated as wonderful instruments for mark-making. making. Every time yeah like what marks parents every time a. I'm sorry I I'm sorry I don't I don't know if I can go on with the podcast. I was having a lovely time and then you had to go and say that. This next question comes from Ryan who writes, whatever someone named Ryan has been to question,

even all these years later, Rosiana has to write in parentheses, seems real. This next question comes from Ryan who writes, Dear John and Hank, do you have any advice for stage fright? You two seem to be pretty put together whenever being in front of a group of people, sorry Ryan, it's real hard for me to read that sentence. Speech is performances, auditions,

and other events have always been terrifying to me and I can't seem to get over it. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. I get stage fright and often spend like the hour before we go on stage feeling very anxious and sometimes throwing up and other times just getting panicky and it can be very challenging for me. So I'm not sure I'm the best person to answer this question.

It has gotten easier for me over the years. Like a lot of things, I mean, the basic thing that I did was a form of exposure therapy, which I worked on with my therapist. And if you feel like it's going to be enough of a part of your life, Ryan, where it's going to be an ongoing problem for you, I really recommend doing some kind of therapy with a, you know, somebody who has a lot of experience with that particular kind of problem

because for me, it really, really helped. But I still get really nervous before I go on stage. I just have better tools for dealing with it now. And like, if I throw up, I don't freak out and think like, oh God, I'm going to bar fun stage. And if I do have to throw up on stage, I'll just try to leave the stage before I throw up. Like, that's what I always tell myself.

So yeah, it's not easy for me. And it's not something that I'm natural at. But I have gotten to a place after all these years where I'm able to enjoy it, which is also to say that I miss it. Did you see Ryan's name specific sign off? No, I did not. What is it? It is a Ryan Terayan. No, that's really good.

That is really good. Ryan. Really good. That's pretty good. That is really good. Ryan. Really good. Oh, that's pretty good. So I find, so I am this, like I like going on stage,

but I still, like I hate waiting to go on stage. Yeah. Even after like the eighth night, you know, like the first night's always the hardest and seconds of little ease, as when you're on tour and you're doing it every day. But like it never gets to the point where it's not scary. And the worst for me is hosting.

So I have done several times gigs where my job is to MC, and so I go out and I talk. And for 30 seconds and introduce the next person, and try and keep people's energy level up and make a joke. And for like, you know, 30 seconds and introduce the next person and like, like, like, you know, try and keep people's energy level up and make a joke. And the, that, like, you're always about to go on stage and never on stage. It's so like finding things to distract myself with, like, just trying to talk to other people

or listen to music so that I'm not constantly just sort of like in my body's rebellion, which is what it feels like. It is good, but like, yeah, I mean, I've never gotten over that and people are always like, so is this, you don't get staged right anymore, right? And I'm like, no, I definitely do. And the fact that there are some people who don't is like a foreign thought to me. I cannot understand

them. Yeah. I mean, I, I know people who don't. And I think it's great. And I think it's awesome. But I, I always have, I mean, I, you know, Hank and I have both built up structures over the years, I think to make it easier. So like, it's easy to make fun of me for this, but the first thing that I do when I get to a new space, like when we're going to be performing or if it's space I don't know well, I ask where the nearest bathroom to the stage is because I need to know that because I throw up a lot. So like, I want to know where that is. And I also like, sometimes I go into the bathroom to like gather myself because I'm feeling panicky and I just don't want to be around people.

And so I need to know, like, where is there a door that locks? And then I also ask a few questions to try to understand the layout of it so that I can start to imagine into my head because part of what I do to keep myself calm is I imagine how it's going to go. And I tell myself that it's going to go. And I tell myself that it's that it's going to be okay. I will say I have had a few modifications on stage that have made the stage fright worse, not better. And I like you Hank, those times when we like MC Vidcon, when we would have to go and talk for 30 seconds between each featured speaker for like six hours. That was very challenging. And honestly, of all the times that we've performed together, it was also the most stressful

and it was the time when we kept away from each other the most. Yeah, like we'd come off stage and we go in different directions. Yeah, we don't need to chat We don't need to like work each other up Yeah, and And and like being okay with that and being good with that and knowing that that doesn't mean your brother doesn't love you is An important part to Making making room for it. I think yeah, well, I think just like being on, like, especially, talking, doing anything serious before I'm going on stage is very bad because I'm not

in a place where I can make good decisions. Yeah, no, yeah, I got. I don't know. We really answered your question, Ryan, but maybe it's a little bit of solidarity. Yeah. This next question comes from Megan who writes, Dear John and Hank, if you drop something down a hole that was drilled completely through the earth, where would it go? Thanks.

Just a flesh straw wondering about earth straws make. That's true. We're just flesh straws. It's true. Well, it's from one hole to the other and then all the flesh gets built up around it. So, so if we were, uh, so if we're just talking, like, just pure thought experiment, yeah, you know, it would, it would, I think because of the way that the earth spins, it would hit the side of the hole. side of the hole, but absent that, if it's a very strong thing that continues going down even though it's going to hit the side, you're not going to be able to get it dropping straight down because the earth is spinning. You, it would normalize in the center of the earth.

Yeah, it would just end up in the middle, right? Now, it's very hot down there, and so it would probably vaporize. But if we're neutralizing the temperature somehow, yeah, it would hot down there and so it probably vaporize. But if we're neutralized in the temperature somehow, uh, yeah, it would go down and then it would go a long way the other way and then it would come back and then it would sort of yo-yo back and forth until finally centering in the middle of the planet. I enjoyed the thought experiment of this because I enjoyed thinking that it was almost like a pendulum, but just going up and down, up and down, up and down, up and down until eventually it gets to the place in the middle where their gravity is kind of pushing and pulling on it in such a way that it's just being held

there in the middle. And if you really got it in the very middle, it could just hover there in the middle. It would be being pulled on in all sides. Now, the earth is not uniform. So locating exactly where that point is, and also that point would move over time. But still, the thought experiment is there. It is possible to make a ball hover in the center of a gravitational object. Neat. That is cool. I mean, I don't think we can do it. But it's cool. Definitely can't. No. We can't even can we can barely scrape the surface of this planet John. I know a lot down there.

We think that we're such a big deal, man. You know, and then it's like how it's like how everybody in their little pond thinks that their pond is a big deal. You know, like you talk to people in the world of car sales in their life, I wanna talk to you, I think car sales are super important. Talk to people in the world of podcasts. They're like fascinated by podcasts. I wanna talk all day about podcasts. Earthlings. That's good, that's good.

I agree. I'm not criticizing it. I'm just saying that earthlings are like, you know, like we think that earth is a big deal. Really? Like we think about almost all of our thoughts are shaped by earthness. Maybe all of them. Yeah, I think that we have actually we actually have a question from Agnes that talks about how shaped we are by Earthness. Agnes asks, Steer, Hank, and John, how does your internal clock even work? Are you born with it? Hypothetically, would someone born on Mars have a 24-hour

clock? Or would it feel weird to live somewhere with longer or shorter days? Would it all get messed up? I have so many questions, Agnes. Now we don't. So obviously you don't know all the answers to these questions because no one's ever been born on Mars. But when we have put like scientists have intentionally put people, sometimes people in space, sometimes people in, you know, sort of artificially lit situations, in a situation where their day is 23.5 or 24.5 hours long. So not much longer, and they're getting the, you know, sort of daylight cycles. They get messed up.

Their melatonin levels get all weird. They're like, their sleep cycles mess up. They can't sleep as well. We are very, we are earthlings, and we are, we are defined by the way that the cycles of this planet for sure. And I don't know, like Mars' day is a little bit longer than Earth's, like not a lot, and but I still think that it would probably be a really long, like kind of jet lag. And astronauts have to deal with this because they sometimes operate on like 23 and a half hour days

and people who are on earth working on Mars missions have to deal with it because they're sleeping during the Martian night, which can be very difficult. Yeah. In fact, one of the people working on Curiosity had just had a baby right before Curiosity landed. So it was on like baby time and Mars time at the same time, which

sounds super miserable. Yeah. But people making it happen out here. But yeah, our bodies do not handle it well because we are earthlings. And so if we imagine a future where humans are basically the same, but we're able to travel to distant planets that have vastly different days, you know, orbiting vastly different stars or whatever. We will continue to have a 24 hour sleep cycle. Like we will continue to have that forever. You know, my guess is that after like years of living on Mars, or especially if you're born on Mars, that probably your sleep

cycle will adjust. But Mars is, but that's very different from a 30-hour day, or a 35-hour day, or a 10-hour day. And in those situations, you're not going to be able to adapt as a human being and live on that daylight schedule. Yeah. Which is wild. Yeah. So we are, I mean, just to state the obvious, we are creatures of earth, which we often forget about because we are very weird and we spend a lot of time inside buildings that we made that are fairly well insulated from what we consider earth.

But actually, all the materials that the buildings are made out of are also from earth. I guess what the whole end of the Anthropocene reviewed book is about is me having the revelation that it's all earth. All the chemicals inside my brain making me feel the way that I feel, the love that I feel, the hope that I feel, the hope that I feel, the despair that I feel, the, the, the carrots that I just pulled out of the ground over the weekend with my mom. It's all earth. It's all earth, John. Oh, man. All right, I agree with another question from Kayla who writes, dear John and Hank, if you call someone and they tell you that they are too busy and we'll call you back in five minutes, how long after five minutes am I required to wait by the phone?

Kayla, I'm so glad that you asked because believe it or not, this is an issue that comes up for me all the time. But only when I'm calling one person, Hank Green. I made the mistake of calling a customer at work before my lunch hour and he said he would call me back in five minutes It's been 20 minutes and I haven't heard back from him hungry in Kayla forn. Yeah. Oh, no. That's very good Well, I it's different when it's a customer than when it's your brother, right? Uh-huh The other day I texted Hank and said can you give me a call and he said is it good or bad?

And I said it's? And he said, is it good or bad? And I said, it's good. And he said, yes, I'll call you in five minutes. And then he didn't call me. But if I had said it's bad, he would have called me in five minutes. And so I learned an important lesson, which is no matter what, always tell Hank that it's bad. Well, I don't care about good news.

He's like me. I don't need to, I don't need to know news. He's like me. I don't need to, I don't need to know a good thing that happened. I'm too busy to feel happy. I only need to know what I should feel worried about. Yeah. I mean, isn't that where a lot of us are though? Yeah, but if you're too, I mean, just to state the obvious, like, that's a call to do some internal work to get to a place

where you're not too busy to be happy. But Kayla's issue is something else. And I think... I know the exact answer to this question. Great. What is it? Can we say it at the same time? How many minutes exactly do you think you have to wait by the phone if you have a customer

who told you they'd call you back in five minutes? Yes. Okay. Three, two, one, 12 minutes. Five minutes. Ooh. I mean, listen, if you're not gonna be punctual, you're not gonna be punctual, then you get the voice mail

and you call them back and you're like, sorry, you said you'd call you back in five minutes, call came in six minutes later, it was my lunch break. Yeah. Then you're just establishing some boundaries. Like call in five minutes. I like that. I like that.

12 minutes is not a bad answer though. 12 minutes is like, you don't have to wait 15 minutes. Yeah. Well, whatever Hank and I are like on a conference call and the important person who's gonna be joining the call has a joined after 12 minutes. Hank and I are both like, that's it. That's it.

Forget that. Yeah, they're not coming. Yeah. And even if they are coming, I'm not gonna be in the mood to That's it. Forget that. They're not coming. They're not. And even if they are coming, I'm not going to be in the mood to like do it. Yeah. I'm not going to be in the mood to conference call after this. Yeah.

So at 12 minutes, the person is seven minutes late. Yeah. And at seven minutes late, it's okay to be like, oh, but like I had a different thing that I had to do. It's especially if you're seven minutes late for a five minute engagement. You can never be later to the engagement than the engagement will last. Yeah.

Yeah. That's a great point, John. Yeah. But also, that, why ever be late? Just don't be late. Just don't be late. Brrr. This sounds like a personal attack.

Are you sub-tweeting me right now? No, I have learned that my sort of worship of punctuality, in the same way that any character asset can become a character defect if you carry it forward in the wrong way, my worship of punctuality became a character defect. And I've had to kind of walk it back and learn that different people respond to time differently, and that like my way, my way of looking at the world is in everyone's way and just kind of get better at that. Yeah, which is his created not, you know, moments of not insignificant argument among the brotherhood. I feel like that's been much better, though, in the last

yeah, a couple of years because we haven't needed to do things together because the argument among the brotherhood. I feel like that's been much better, though, in the last couple years because we haven't needed to do things together because the main time it is created striped is when we're on tour. That's true. No, I don't have to be awake right now. That's true. But even recently, when it would have otherwise caused strafe, like today, for instance, you were late to the Patreon livestream over at patreon.com slash to your handkern john. And it was fine because I have changed my perspective on punctuality, which reminds me that today's podcast is brought to you by punctuality. It's a virtue, but not like a virtue that you have to worship. This podcast is also brought to you by mark makers. They're how you make a mark.

How marks get made. That's better. If you're looking to turn this into a commercial product, and I'm sure you are, I think it's how marks get made are better. It's better. And of course, today's podcast is brought to you by the Finnish racks. The Finnish racks come ruin your pants. Bleh! You won't believe our ice cream machine. It's a pants ruiner. Really, really. Oh, my goodness. So confused.

And also this podcast is brought to you by Purple Sparkle Gel Pens. Purple Sparkle gel pens. That's how you let your students know that they have not lived up to your expectations and Marin. We have a few words of advice for Finley and Marin. You should keep practicing your Mario Kart skills, but it will be years before you can compete with your dad. The only real chance you have is to wait at the back of the pack until the last lap and hope to get a lightning bolt or bullet bill. Good luck and don't give up. Comment. The truth is, after three months into a pandemic, they quickly surpassed my abilities and I'm reduced to mudslinging on the internet to lift my ego. That's great.

Thank you, Wayne, and also Finley and Marin for being part of the project for Awesome. All right, I give another question from Samantha who writes, dear John and Hank Samantha here, should I write a plot twist in my book? I'm writing fan fiction. I want to add one plot twist, but I don't want the plot twist to distract from my characters and her new environment. And I think

the plot twist might mess it up. Always thinking and writing Samantha, age nine. I think that having, having surprises can be really, can be really valuable as long, but they, they can't. You were right in that they can't be something that your character wouldn't do. You have to know them well enough to not make a surprise happen just because you want a surprise instead because maybe you know a little bit more about the character than the reader does.

Yeah, I think that's exactly right. Plot twists for them to work, they have to the moment after they happen. That's when the reader is like, oh, that makes sense. I hadn't thought of it that way. The plot twists that don't work are the moment after they happen. The reader thinks like, oh, that's ridiculous. That's not a good, that plot twist doesn't make any sense because the author hasn't, the writer of the story hasn't built toward it. Yeah, and that's one of the wonderful things

I learned in writing fiction for the first time, is that plot twists are possible because it always seemed like such a magic trick when I was reading. But they are possible for the writer because when you are writing the story, you know more about the situation and characters and their world and their environment, then anyone else. And so you, as long as you're including that in all of the rest of the writing, then you can have a surprise that makes sense to your world. Yeah, so Samantha, there's this word that you may have heard called foreshadowing,

where a writer will hint at something that's about to happen, but hints at it in a way that only make sense after it happens. Then once it happens, the reader is like, oh, I see how this was foreshadowed by this happening. And that happening. My inclination, Samantha, when I am writing a story is always to have a huge plot twist that is very rarely the right one. I always wanna write a story, just like you, I wanna write a story that has a big, massive, like whoa, everything just changed moment.

And then I always have to end up cutting them because they don't make any sense. Like recently, I've been working on a story with that I'm working on with my wife, Sarah. And I woke up at three o'clock in the morning and I was like, I got it. I got an amazing plot twist. Sarah's like, what is it? I was like, she's a fictional character.

She knows that she's a fictional character. And Sarah was like, okay, two things. First off, you've used versions of that plot twist many times before. You were obsessed with this idea of fictional characters realizing that they're fictional characters. And also, it doesn't make any sense for the story. And I was like, ah, guys are all good arguments. So sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. You just don't do it. In general, Samantha, especially at your age, I would try to focus on writing

that follows characters and environments and try to get to know those characters and environments and see how you can communicate knowing them through language. Because that for me is kind of the magic of reading and writing. Yeah. What a wonderful little trick we all have to pull to have any of this work at all. Writing is such an illusion act, you know? Yeah.

Amazing. It is. Reading is too. I mean, the reader has to do a lot of work to allow themselves to become immersed in a universe that they know on some level isn't real. For sure. John, we got another question. It comes from Kay who asks, dear Hank and John, but mostly Hank, if all humans were to collectively

decide to stop wearing socks and shoes indefinitely, how long would it take for the species to evolve pop hats, like dogs, spring constant K? I mean, potentially a really long time. Yeah, well, I mean, that's the thing. Because I don't know that we'd need them. Yeah, well, I mean, that's the thing. We, we, we, Cause I don't know that we need them. Yeah, we did, we, we, before we had shoes and socks, we had feet like our feet.

Yeah, I mean, they got cow, they weren't exactly like our feet, but they were anatomically like our feet. Yeah. And we did okay. Yeah, and, and like chimpanzees, their feet look, they don't, they don't have big paw pads on them, like

a like docks. Right. They look a lot like human hands, just a different shape. Yeah. So, I think it would take a good amount of time, but I've got some amazing news. You don't have to have bare feet. You can have warm feet with socks designed by independent artists by going to awesomesocks.club that's awesomesocks.club right now. Sorry, I had to squeeze in one more.

You have to worry about it. That's right. And the socks are going to be a delightful little surprise that you can give to yourself or someone else. And if you hadn't already do it, I am literally sitting at my computer right now looking at the back end of the website, like looking to see if you're telling me that you've ruined your pants and finish. I also, I also just want to say for the record that they do genuinely make a great gift. I got subscriptions for several friends and also for a couple of kids in my life. And they are a constant source of joy for my friends as well.

Check it out. You can cancel that at any time, free shipping everywhere, and here's something that somebody a clever person did. They got, they have a subscription for themselves, but they also, when they need a gift for someone, they just take that month's awesome sock and give it to their friend. Brilliant.

Brilliant. So smart. So smart. All right, Hank, it's time for the all-important news from Mars and the AFC Wimble. Then I'll go first because my news isn't great. AFC Wimbledon lost a football game. You're doing that a lot. Certainly not the first time that aFC Wimbledon is lost a football game, but it's starting to get to the point where we're looking over our shoulders a bit and saying, oh gosh, all the bad teams in League 1 are not that bad this year.

There is one properly bad team in League 1 this year, crew Alexandra. They they look like pretty likely candidates to go down, but then the other three bad teams, they're just not that bad. I like them to be a little bit worse. We're down to 17th. What's behind it? I mean, injuries and central defense has really affected us because we were already having a little bit of a difficult time defensively and with our two of our three best central defenders injured for months, that is not great. And then the other thing is that we just haven't been scoring as many goals. And I think some of that is because our tactics have been figured out.

Some of that is because of injuries. And so it's just going to require a certain amount of flexibility. It's hard though, because when you have really young players and Wimbledon is the youngest professional team in England right now, you also have players who don't have a ton of tactical experience. They haven't played a lot of different styles professionally by definition. So that comes with its own challenge. I still have a lot of faith in Mark Robinson. I think he's such an inspirational figure.

He's been at the club for a long time. He understands it very deeply. I still have faith that this is gonna get turned around, and we're gonna be okay this season, but it's nervous making. You just have to win more soccer games. That's basically what it comes down to. It's just like how you just gotta get humans to Mars.

I feel like your goal is more achievable, especially at a lower budget. Yeah, yeah. I feel like if we gave AFC Wimbledon like a sort of Mars mission type budget, you guys could probably win some football games. We would be so good. I'm not here to tell Elon Musk what to prioritize. And if I were, of course, I would ask Elon Musk to prioritize the health and welfare of mothers and children and whatnot.

But if he wants to have a... Just splash down a little fun. If he wants to have a glory project, have I got a glory project for you, or for any billionaires who might be listening. Now the deal is, one of the reasons AFC, like AFC Wimbledon has had interest from billionaires, this is a really interesting thing, Hank.

Oh, interesting. But they want power. Like they want to, they want to have a say in how the club's doing. They don't want it to be a donation. They want it to be like, you know know buying into the future success of a club and that's just not how it works at Wimbledon like you know I Pay a fair amount of money every year to support the club, but I get the same one vote in the Don's trust board elections as anybody else does and game one vote in the Don's trust board elections, is anybody else does? And at least so far, we haven't found any billionaire super enthusiastic about that model, but we'll see. Life is long.

It only takes one. Well, this week at Mars News, John, first of all, Mars is back out from behind the sun. So we can talk to it again. We can get pictures from everybody. Everybody's doing fine. Oh, thank goodness. I've been nervous. We're back out from the sun. Everybody's good. We got some new great pictures from perseverance.

But also, look, we need to make fuel on other planets because carrying all the fuel from Earth to the other planets, just colossally expensive, not gonna happen. There are some ways you could think about doing that. You can use like big solar panels to break water into hydrogen and oxygen, and that would be, that would be a good fuel.

Also you get oxygen, and then the hydrogen, you could maybe do something else with it. But that's sort of the chemical way. We are aware in the scientific world that like we're currently in the edge, like the edge end of the chemistry age and the edge beginning of the biology age, where we are going to be able to control biology the way that we have controlled chemistry. And so there is a lot of research being done now on how to use microbes to make fuel.

So researchers have just proposed a potential approach for doing this in nature communications, which is a journal, where instead of sending up a bunch of fuel, you send up cyanobacteria and engineered E. coli that will work together. So the cyanobacteria would use sun and carbon dioxide to make sugar while the E. coli would then ferment that sugar

into rocket fuel, basically. So two, three, well, butane diol, which is something that you could burn in a rocket. Now that's going to require less power than shipping the methane, but it would be still pretty risky because biology is complicated and you don't want it to mess up when people's lives are relying on it. But a good byproduct of this, so not the fuel, but an actual byproduct is oxygen. So that's nice because we're going to need that. But there are a lot of problems to solve there.

And you really don't want something to go wrong. If you have a biological reactor that's producing both the way to get home and also the air that the astronauts will breathe. So there's a lot of work yet to be done, but I, you know, that's where, if you're wondering where the future is, it's in getting microbes to do the work for us. That does feel like glimpsing a distant future.

That's cool. Yeah, that's sort of what I want to write about. It's like the microb punk. Well, and then those cyanobacteria, and this is something that's like reflective of current, like the current situation on earth, we just don't think about it. But the survival of that cyanobacteria is as important to our survival as our survival. Yeah. Yeah.

Like the back, the health of the bacteria is as important as the health of ourselves. If ourselves are going to continue to be a going concern. And that's like always the case. It's just that it brings that into stark relief. Yeah. It's always the case. I like that stark relief. It's always the case. I like that a lot. It's always the case, John. I know, but I love the idea of a new emerging kind of literature called Micropunk.

That's very exciting. I think that could be very cool. And you could, I mean, you could write the like neuro-mancer of the biology age. Yeah, except that like it wouldn't be dark and interesting. It would be fun and goofy. But that's okay with me. Oh, I'll follow it up with a dark one. Don't worry. Okay.

You can count on me. Well Hank, thank you for bonding with me. We're off to record our Patreon Only podcast this week and stuff now over at patreon.com slash dear Hank and John. Again, don't forget about the awesome socks love awesome socks dot club. Thanks to everybody for listening and for all your amazing questions. You can send us questions at Hank and John at gmail.com. This podcast doesn't exist without them. Thank you for all of your lovely questions. You can send us questions at Hank and John at gmail.com. This podcast doesn't exist without them.

Thank you for all of your lovely questions this week. And I mean, what a great episode of the podcast, John. I had so much fun. This podcast is... Wow, no, no, Brad. No, no, Brad. I'm not saying it's good. I'm saying I had a good time.

Okay. This podcast is edited by Joseph Tune of Meticch. It's produced by Rosiana Halls-Rohas. Our communications coordinator is Julia Bloom, our editorial assistant, Gisdeboki Chakravarti. The music you're hearing now, and at the beginning of the podcast,

it's by the great gunoroma. And as they say in our hometown, don't forget to be awesome. [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ you