Dear Hank & John - 419: A Soup of Letters

Episode Date: August 13, 2025

Can you help my public image as a superhero? How does the International Space Station have different countries all in one station? How does sunscreen work? If I eat at a restaurant by myself, how do I go to the bathroom without the waiter thinking I left? Where have all the NFTs gone? Am I more likely to be struck by lightning because I’m sitting in a metal wheelchair? …Hank and John Green have answers!If you're in need of dubious advice, email us at [e-mail] us for monthly livestreams at patreon.com/dearhankandjohn.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

You're listening to a Complexly podcast. Hello! And welcome to Dear Hank and John. Or as I prefer to think of it, Dear John and Hank. It's a podcast where two brothers answer your questions. They give you dubious advice, and they bring you all the week's news from both Mars and AFC Wimbledon. John. Yeah.

I put two goldfish in a tank. But neither of them knew how to drive it. It's a classic bad joke. It's a classic. I'm not even sure. I bet there's a better format for it somewhere there. But you didn't find it. That's the version I remembered.

Yeah, that's a good one. That's a good one. I knew that there were goldfish in a tank. How are you? How are you? What's it like in there? What's bouncing around in the old John Green Noggin? There's not a shortage of thoughts.

I would say that there's not an insufficient number of thoughts. Too many thoughts. I've got a lot of thoughts right now. I've been writing a lot lately, which is really fun. But then the great thing about, writing a story when you're really into it is that it has nothing. I've realized in my old age that it has nothing to do with what I actually want to do, which is make a gift for people or whatever personal fulfillment I derive from writing stories and getting lost in them.

The thing that I love most about the actual like drafting of a story. I cannot wait to hear what you're about to say. Is that I don't have to think about anything else. All the other thoughts are like kind of pushed to the side because my main thought is, well, what should happen in the story? Or was that a good idea? Did I go down a bad path there? How do you keep all the other thoughts out? How do you keep focused on that? Well, when I'm really into a story, it's kind of the only thing I want to think about. So I'll be like, I'll be thinking of a bad thought or like a, like a recursive thought that I don't like having. And I'll be like, well, let's try to distract myself with the story. And then I'm like, oh, yeah, here. That works. Here we are. We're in

story now. Because he's just like, you're just, there's so many problems and you, you know it really well, too. Yeah. Like, you have this, you have this like sketch of what's going on in the moment that you are solving problems around. And it's really complex. It's a very good puzzle. It's a very good puzzle. And, and as a result, I think about the million words that might be next all the time. And it's very fulfilling to think about because when you find the right word or the right thing to happen, next, that feeling of it clicking together is so good. I mean, it's such a high. There's no high like it. And then very soon after you realize that nothing works and everything is broken. Absolutely. 100%. But then that's also a very compelling problem. Yeah, yeah. There's no shortage of problems. Yeah. I'm really, I'm in that too on my, on my nonfiction project, where I am really waffling back and forth between being like, oh, I know how to fix all these problems and oh there's no way to fix all these problems. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That is the nature of

revision, right? You go back and forth between the polls of, I secretly think I might be a genius who's cracked a great code and I am actually and literally the worst writer who ever attempted to do this. Yeah. It's fun. I mean, half of the time. Right now it's really fun for me to write. And even though it's like frustrating sometimes and like, it's like playing a video. game we're doing a puzzle like it's frustrating and upsetting and I get really mad at myself and everything I feel upset but I still enjoy it you know I still like red dead redemption too even though it's hard to beat even the parts that are hard are like I don't know there's like a safety in them there's control over it at least like it's it's it's a you thing rather than a whole world thing

we're so often asked to do whole world things or to imagine whole world problems it's wild to like go to a party and be like, all right, everybody, enjoy your dip. And now we're going to, like, talk about huge, defunding of U.S.Aid. Huge global issues that we have no power over. Right. But, like, that's what we do. And, like, I don't think it's wrong or bad to do that. No.

Oh, boy. No, it does make me wish sometimes that I had more power, though, which brings us to our first question of the day from Clark, who writes, Dear John and Hank, if I were a famous, he has a lot of power. alien superhero from Kansas. What? Perhaps with a mild manner, journalistic alter ego. I called this.

And I wanted to come on your podcast, dear Hank and John, for advice on my public image as a superhero, a job that shares many similarities with online creators. What advice would you give me pumpkins and penguins? Clark. Now, Hank, I never made this connection before that we also have outsized power and it's very easy to misuse. Now, not as easy as Superman's situation, but it's real. You know what has always struck me as a possibility here? And I don't really know how powerful Superman is. It seems very powerful.

It seems to be able to create energy from nothing. So to sort of violate the laws of thermodynamics a little bit. Though I don't know what the battery inside looks like. He obviously gets charged up by the yellow sun, so he's solar powered. But he can store a lot and they can do like heat revision. He can lift extraordinarily heavy things. I have wondered. And maybe somebody could do the math here or already has,

whether Superman's best use could just be cranking a crank to make it so that we don't have to use fossil fuels anymore. Or like laser-eyeing a boiler to boil water to power a turbine. Yeah. That makes it so we don't have to use fossil fuels anymore. It wouldn't make a great movie or comic book, but it would make a great use of one's life. Like, what do you do? I am essentially a terrible use of one's life. I think it would be so boring.

And I think that this is an important, I think, ethical Superman question. Would it be okay for us to take one Superman and have him simply labor 24 hours a day in order to make it so that we didn't have to do global warming anymore? And would Superman be ethically obliged to do that, even meaning that he would never get to like have a nice dinner with Lois Lane ever again? Well, let me submit that he would still get to have somewhat nice dinners. it would just have to be like while doing the laser eyes into the water turbine. Yeah, well, you certainly, like, couldn't look at Lois during that process. That's a good point. He couldn't make eye contact.

She's nice to look at it, and you don't want to fry her head off. Yeah, it's a Medusa situation, a classic Medusa. Yeah, reverse Medusa. The classic reverse Medusa. Yeah, we're like, we're like, it's a man and also a wants, but Superman can't look at you. I think there's a way to do that and it would listen it would be a sacrifice by Superman but isn't the whole theme of Superman that like one with great great power must make a lot of sacrifices etc yeah but I don't want to think about that too much because I would like to you know go to dinner but then isn't it all I think that you should go to dinner but isn't it also I mean again I don't want to be comparing myself to Superman but isn't it also our responsibility to not hoard wealth or power or any of the other gifts that have been bestowed upon us by the social order? This would be, if possible, the thing that Superman should do.

Superman should distribute the value contained within him. He should not be the only one. Like, if it were possible, the ethical thing for Superman to do would be to take his power and distribute it among all people. And so everybody was a little bit better. Instead of having one Superman, there would be 8 billion slightly better, slightly superer people. that I think is the correct because that that isn't possible for Superman but it is possible for me like it's easy for me to like hoard the attention of like science communicators so it's like

oh Hank he's one of the like top science communicators but like the thing I should be doing with that is saying who are other people who I can yeah you should be lifting up mentor you know shine lights on etc yeah and I I in turn need to do that when it comes to global health and all the attention that's come to everything as tuberculosis, you know? Yeah. Which I try to do, but I probably don't do enough of. And I didn't realize that this question about Superman was going to lead to such a deep consideration of our life's work. But here's the thing, Hank.

It's asking a lot of Superman to just stare all day at water, to heat the water, to provide power to the world. That's asking a lot of Superman. On the other hand, isn't it also asking a lot of Superman to be like, hey, take on all these supervillains and make sure that Earth stays? This is the real thing because, like, the splashy heroics. That's right. Might actually do less good than if Superman was just like infinitely cranking a crank. Batman is just a rich guy with an affinity for bats. I've been saying it for like 20 years and it's never been more true.

You finally just come around to my position. This is the thing. We're talking about as if Superman, as if Superman were a real thing. Whereas, in fact, both Batman and Superman are metaphors for something larger than themselves, for something that is not contained within any single person. Not according to this email from Clark. Well, Clark is a different situation. Clark is a real person who has a real situation that they're dealing with.

Which is that he is a famous alien superhero from Kansas. Yeah, different guy. Oh, that's a different guy. It's a different. Yeah, it's a different guy. Totally different situation. Like, there is like a big Superman thing happening right now, and I am a little bit reading this, like, why didn't, why can't we get whatever his name is on the podcast to pretend

to be Superman? What's his name? The new Superman. The only person who's in that movie whose name I know is Isabella Merced, who's also the star of Turtles all the way down and plays Hawk Girl and is amazing in the movie and is just the best. David? What?

Yeah. David, what? Give me a last name. Give it to me. Corrin's. That's not real. The thing that happens that causes heat waves where the corn evaporates and that causes his name is David Cornswet?

It's Corrin Sweat, S-W-E-T. His name is David. And literally, looking at that guy, he looks like Superman, but did not have his name in my head. That's new. I know Rachel Brosnahan, who's well as lame and she was... Sure, she's great. Ms. Maisel. Yeah, but most importantly, Hank, Isabella Merced, from the movie Turtles all the way down,

plays hot girl. Yes, a person you personally know is a Superman. Well, she's a hot girl. That's similar. The whole point of this conversation, Hank, is two parts. One, Isabella Merced is amazing. Two, you and I and everyone else who has a modicum of power in this world need to think carefully about how we deploy it. It's true. It's stressful, but it's true. This next question comes from Parker who asks, hello, how does the International Space Station have different countries all in one station. Don't some of these places not like each other?

I wonder at night if they all share a meal together once in a while. It must like get lonely up there. Oh yeah, you're hanging out all the time, not Peter Parker. They are, there's no option to be alone on the space station.

No, it's not, if you are like me and you really enjoy spending 12 to 14 hours a day by yourself, this international space station is not for you. It's not a good place. You want to smell everybody else's sweat.

That's where you want to be. Up on that ISS. Wait, would you smell everybody's sweat? There's not that much bacteria in space, right? That's one of the few charming things about it. Oh, that's adorable. Is there a lot of bacteria in space? You know what has bacteria on it that you cannot scrub of bacteria?

Human skin, I know, but like can't you sort of minimum? It all goes up there with it. Doesn't it die over time and space? No. No, it's really quite bacteriae up there. In fact, it becomes a problem where they have to. like anything that's wet, like it can get moldy. It's not, it's not a pristine environment up there.

I'm sorry to say. But in addition to that problem, there is. Great for me, actually, because now I have one more reason not to go to space. In addition to that problem, there is the problem of the two big nations that built the space station together, being the United States and Russia, who are not good friends. No. And part of the idea of the space station was if we do this thing, together. Maybe it will be some joint project. It's good to have a joint project for, you know,

like a peace vibe. Ultimately, this is why we created our YouTube channel, vlog brothers in the first place, was to have a shared project. So that we would stop being so adversarial. Yeah. Like no more war, peace through projects. Yeah. And it was good because it really did stop me from annexing several parts of various countries. Yeah, no, I was on a bad path before we started Brotherhood 2.0 for sure. Yeah. I don't know if I was on the annexing country's path, but in general, I wasn't on a good path. Yeah, I was doing a lot of attempted regime change, nation building, that kind of thing.

Hard to resist. Yeah, surrogate wars. Yeah, I mean, talk about using your power smartly. Yeah. But it's really, yeah, things have calmed down between the two of us. Between, I thought you were going to say between the U.S. and Russia. And I was like, yeah, you know, pretty much not. Kind of, you know, up and down.

Yeah, I think that it, I think that in this, that it has probably been a net benefit to international relations. But when things get bad between the U.S. and Russia, which they did, things get worse on the space station. Like, it becomes harder for the astronauts and cosmonaut to work together. They do have lots of things that they can't say to each other. which I think is fascinating. Like, you're living in basically a space trailer with a bunch of people that you, like, have to be very careful what you talk with them about. Do they have rules about that?

Like, you're not allowed to talk about politics? Well, they have rules like you're not allowed to talk about certain science and technology things. Oh, because you can't share that with your buddy because they're state secrets. Wow. And I'm sure that they attempt to not talk about politics. But it has, I think, there is awareness that at certain times it has, perspective politics, and it has made things harder up there. I think it'd be weird to, like, I don't know how the updates work.

I don't know how the news updates work. I don't know if they just get updates every time there's a new cosmonaut, but that would be the best way to get it, right? I don't know that I would want a cosmonaut. I probably would want someone who's a little less connected to the foreign intelligence service of Russia. No, no. All right.

Okay, it's an astronaut. But that astronaut comes to my house, and they're like, hey, you won't believe it. the CEO of this AI company got caught canoodling on a cold play cam. And I'll be like, this is the kind of news I want and the way I want it delivered. I mean, I tell you what, I can't imagine living in a world where I didn't hear about that. Oh, yeah. I mean, I hardly heard about anything else for a couple weeks there. We do love a moment.

We love a moment. We love to see the mighty fall. Yeah, I mean, I simply don't. go to Coldplay concerts. That's certainly one strategy. There's other ways to avoid that fate as well, including canoodling with your spouse. All right, cat has written me to say, Dear John and Hank, I don't understand how sunscreen works, and I'm afraid I never will.

Now, Hank, I never had this question until I read this question, but now I also have this question. Yeah. I have no idea how sunscreen works. Why does it only last for two hours? Why do I have to put it on 15 minutes before I go outside? Does it last longer if I'm in the shade? Why doesn't my cat need it on her ears?

when she sunbates, confused, cat. I don't know any of the answers to any of these questions. Well, luckily, I have answers to all of them. Great. Imagine you painted your skin with just like a cream that is like purple. Like you could see how the light wouldn't get to your skin and thus couldn't damage your skin. Like if you're getting ready for a college football game

and it's the northwestern wildcats. Or as big-time fans call their children, wildcat white That's good I remembered that For the people who weren't here last week Don't worry about it

No, it's just a reference But the thing is that purple might not actually do it So different wavelengths of light are absorbed by different molecules and are transparent to others So you've got reflection happening you've got absorbing happening and you've got like transparency happening.

And what sunscreen is, it is something that is either like reflects ultraviolet light or absorbs ultraviolet light, but is mostly transparent to visible light. So you are putting a cream on your skin that if you saw in ultraviolet would look like a color. It would either look like it was reflecting. And so it was, you know, that reflected color would look like it was dark because it was absorbing energy. And the reason why you have to reapply it is because, one, like, there's a thing where you have to, like, wait for a little while while the thing that is, it is dissolved in evaporates away and it sets. So it isn't as good at being a sunscreen before the solvent evaporates and it sets. And then second, over time, it breaks down.

It breaks down specifically because oftentimes it is absorbing a lot of energy and that can actually heat those, or I guess, yeah, it can increase the energy inside of those molecules and they'll break down. And then they'll also just break down over time, generally being exposed to air. It's the same situation that I'm in breaking down over time when exposed to air. Yeah. Well, it's better than not being exposed to air. The cat also probably could get a sunburn on the inside of their ears, but just doesn't because they're probably too clever to let their ear get exposed to sunlight for too long. But there are sunscreens that are for use by pets. Lemon had like a hairless belly. And so you might want to put sunscreen on that hairless belly because they can totally get sunburns.

And same with like a hairless cat. But you've got to be careful about what sunscreen you use because you don't want, you know, there's certain ones that you wouldn't want going inside of a pet. That is super helpful. And now I know how sunscreen works. I have another question for you. It comes from Emily who writes, Dear John and Hank, I really enjoy going to restaurants by myself for a nice meal. However, what do I do I do if I want to get up to go to the bathroom mid meal?

Do I have to tell the waiter I'm going to the bathroom? Like I'm in high school? I don't want them to think I'm running out on the bill. I live in Southern California, so I rarely have a jacket, and I'd rather not leave a bag behind. So far, my solution has been to hurry up and get out, but that's no fun. Dubious advice requested at your earliest convenience, Emily. I mean, they're not the boss of you. Well, but what if they take away your food when you go to the restroom and start to clean up your plate?

And they're like, oh, this person, Emily's done eating. There's got to be like a sign language of forks and knives, you know, like where you put your knife matters. I think there's a very simple solution here. Okay. That's a complicated solution. Okay. I think the simple solution is what I call the Hans Christian Anderson. So every night before Hans Christian Anderson went to bed, Hans Christian Anderson would put a little sign on his bedside table that said, I only appear to be dead because he had a catastrophic fear of being buried alive in his sleep.

Which is a thing that would happen. I mean, not that often. But it was, it actually, it was like a 18th century European. collective delusion, that this was a common phenomenon that people would regularly be buried alive. Yeah, I remember being told that, like, when they were stitching up body bags on ships, they would pass the last thread through the nose of the deceased to ensure, like, if they were still alive, then there would tear up. That probably seems like that would be from the same collective delusion. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And to be fair, like, it would be terrible to be buried alive. Don't get me wrong. but like you don't need, you know, like objectively, you don't need to leave a, I mean, obviously now we have heart monitors and whatnot, but even so, you don't need to leave a note by your bedside table.

However, I think you do need to leave a note on your table that you just keep with you in a little pocket somewhere in your bag where you're just like, hey, I only appear to be gone. Right. And if you forget your note, you can spell it out in noodles on your plate. Ooh. Or if you got that alphabet soup stuff, you can just use the alphabet. Fancy restaurant. Can I get the soup with noodles that are in the shape of little letters, please? I believe it's made by a chef called boyardie. What's the French word for soup, John? Do you know? A soup. A soup d'Alphibet. That reminds me.

of when I was trying to speak French when we were in France and my family was with me and I was trying to ask someone for something, a taxi and my entire family just abandoned me. They just like slowly walked backwards

away as I was trying to speak French because they found my accent so humiliating. They were like, it sounds like you're making fun of French people and I was like, I do not know what you are talking about. Why were you doing that? I go to la Bibliotech.

And they were like, that sounds German? I just don't have the gift of accents, man. But you were trying to speak in French. The words were French. We were you, okay, you weren't speaking in an aggressive French accent in English. No, that would be stupid. That would be so offensive. Now that is offensive.

That is hashtag problematic. Like, I bet in 10 years when the culture shifts a little bit, people go back and listen to that and be like, oh, boy, y, y, y, y, jeez, jeez. Anyway, potage agliff. I think I searched for soup of letters. A soup of letters is called a potage agliif. That's so much better than a soup of letters. Yeah. Oh, that's pretty beautiful.

It's basically what most of Twitter is. I would go. I would have made my whole living on Pataja Gleif. It's been a while since somebody got a TV show from their Potaglif work. Is that like my dad says? You can still occasionally get a book deal from your Potaglif, but it's hard to get a TV show these days. Potagelief genuinely sounds like something I would order at a fancy French restaurant. Like if it was on the menu, I can't speak French.

I'm terrible at it. So I'd read it and I'd be like, that sounds great. Like, I love a soup. I love a noodle. And then they'd be like, here it is from our chef. Blyardie. I believe it's Blyard. Well, we are.

Let's move on. Okay. All right. Fair enough. This next question comes from Maddie who asks, Dear Hank and John, where have all the NFTs gone? Oh, Jesus. They're still there, Maddie.

They're just less valuable. they are yeah theoretically like when is nfti rot begin where like really the computers that store all of the blockchain data like nobody can be bothered to maintain them anymore and every monkey is just a monkey again i don't know i mean the thing about nfts is that like their price goes down but the price of bitcoin and eth whatever that is it goes up so much yeah yeah that like i bet there's some stability to the price just because like the price if the price is in ether keeps going up and up and up i don't I don't closely follow the NFT market, and that's just where I'm at in my life. Good for you. And I'm really glad that all the people who came to Hank and me and said, you should sell NFTs for Crash Course to fund Crash Course that we didn't do that. Yeah. Because I think that...

Man, they went hard. And a lot of people who were, like, were trusted partners. So many smart people that we really like told us to sell NFTs and, you know, told us that we would make a killing. And the nice thing about having... Fiteria as our audience, John, is that it was not like a, should we, shouldn't we? What should we do? I'm not sure. It wasn't like a hard choice for us. We were like, no, no, no, that won't work for us. Thank you. Yeah, it's just like, I mean, we don't always understand our audience. Like there are times when we get it wrong. But like after 20 years. Like potaglif, yeah. They didn't find that as funny as we did. They didn't enjoy that bit nearly as much as we did, but that's okay. Sometimes you make stuff for yourself, Hank.

But after 19 years, I feel like it's not just that we know them very well, it's that they know us very well. So, like, their expectations are set in a certain direction. And, like, that direction is not an NFT direction. And so we just kind of understood that. And so even though there were all these people telling us, this is a great idea, we were like, I'm not quite sold. And I don't mind, like, not being in the first wave if something.

thing does end up catching on and making sense. Like, I never really understood NFTs well enough to have an opinion negative or positive about them. But, like, my overall opinion was like, if I don't understand this, I don't want to participate in it. I really never got it. Like, people kept explaining it to me, and I was like, it sounds like what you're saying to me is that I could sell something purely to make money and it will add no value in

any way to anyone's life except that I will get wealthier. And that, I was just like, that's not how things. work in my head anyway. Yeah. That doesn't remind me. I mean, that's sort of how collectibles work, though. I mean, a lot of collectibles. Yeah, no, yeah, which I also don't like necessarily love.

I don't really, I don't get. Yeah. It's not that I'm opposed to them. It's just I don't, I mean, I love my crash course coin collection, I'll say. But like, it represents something to me, you know? Yeah. Well, that's adding value to a thing. Like, that's like making a gift to a thing so that the thing can do cool work in the world,

which I'm sure some NFT projects were. I just didn't understand them. Every year, do a crash course coin, people are like, oh, it's not an NFT. And I'm like, oh, my God. No, it's a coin. We mint it in Arkansas. Which reminds me, John, that this podcast is actually brought to you by Crash Course NFTs. Crash Course NFTs, I don't know, man. I guess maybe. Just, we'll see. We're not ruin anything out. We're not ruin anything out. We'll take any way to fund Crash Course. Today's podcast is, of course, also brought to you by Space Station Sweat. Space Station

sweat as drenched in bacteria as any other. This podcast is also brought to you by corn sweat. It's a separate kind of sweat that is both a part of Superman and a real thing that corn plants do that increases the humidity and changes the weather of the Midwest. And most importantly, today's podcast is brought to you by soup to alphabet. Oh, God. Did I go Italian? You were all over the place, I think.

This is the problem. Yeah. Sarah always makes fun of me for the time I ordered I'm sure I've told this store in the pod before but for the time I ordered a Sprite at a convenience store in Berlin and I said, I'm Sprite, Bitter! And Sarah's like, oh my God. Oh, God.

Just say a Sprite, please. Spright. It's so bad. Ein sprites. This episode of Dear Hank and John is brought to you by Smalls. Cats. Oh my God, cats. They're so great. I love them. There's two of them in my house and sometimes they cuddle with my son.

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That's code Deerhank 50 off at factormeals.com slash dearhank 50 off. That's 5.0 off. For 50% off plus free shipping, get delicious, ready to eat meals delivered with Factor. I have a thing that I want to tell you about. Great. Have I told you about? I think I've told you something about this. So you know how the phone is a little much?

Oh, it's way too much. It's always saying like, hey, what's up? I'm right here. Yeah. Hey, hey, hey. Hey, have you checked me? Yeah. And also, like, I, many times in my life, I would like to sort of like carve off a moment of time, whether it's five minutes or 45 minutes to just like not be so connected and maybe be working on my book or maybe be, you know, reading a magazine.

Something. Sure. Just something. little bit less spiky in the sensation department. Yep. So my friend Brea is an app developer, and I was talking to her about her work, and we decided to work together, and this is like kind of a soft launch announcement. Are you serious?

I started to work together, yeah, on a thing. It's called Focus Friend. And here's, do you want to hear how Focus Friend works? Yeah, I can't believe you didn't tell me about this. Do you not know anything about this? No, you've been working on a whole project not only without me, but without informing me. You know, I think I told you about this a little bit. I think you approved your bean.

Oh, well, I don't know what a bean is yet. Oh, maybe you didn't approve your bean. Well, anyway, you're going to approve your bean shortly. Well, that's a sentence I've never heard before. The focus friend is a bean who lives in your phone. Okay. And the bean gets distracted when you get distracted by your phone. So if you're using your phone, then the bean is distracted.

But if you would like to set up the bean to be able to focus, and the bean knits. And so the bean wants to focus on knitting socks and scarves. And if you let your bean sit in your phone and just focus and do not distract your bean, and you can also use the app to specifically block apps on your phone so that you can't open them, then, of course, turn it off if you need to. Though the bean will then be disappointed. The bean can knit some socks or scarves, and then you can trade the socks and scarves

for things to decorate the bean's room with. And that's focus friend. Wow. It's just like a tool to help me not use my phone for a little while. And I've also found that it has been helpful for Oren when he's working on his homework. I'm like, hey, I'm going to set the bean for 20 minutes. And during that time, we're going to do your math homework. Wait, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

So you set the bean for a certain amount of time? Yeah, you can choose the amount of time. And the longer, the more socks and scarves you get. Okay. That's what that was, but I don't get rewarded just for not looking at my phone. I have to set the timer. You have to set the timer, yeah. Okay.

I like it. I like it a lot. I think it's a great idea. Is it free? It's free. It's free. There are like things you can buy inside of it to help fund the existence of the app. How do you make money?

How is it a million dollar idea? In order to do the app blocking, which was complicated, you have to pay a subscription or a one-time thing. And then also you can buy skins. So you can buy a little Hank Bean or a little John Bean. Oh, nice. can look like us. Yeah, I mean, I approve it.

You don't have to ask me again. You're good. Thanks for checking in with me. It's a great idea. Focus, friend. So can you download it in the app store now? Yeah, it's in both the Apple and the Android app stores. It is available now.

In fact, Brea just texted me that we're being featured. John didn't have his phone. He walked away. I didn't have my phone. I always put it away before I make the pod because I have such a problem with my phone. But now I have a focus friend to keep me happy and healthy. Focus Friend by Hank Green. That's right.

Get. Oh, it's very cute. The art is adorable. It's very cute. That was part of the goal. Yeah, I like it. Okay, great. I'm going to give it a try.

Thank you for creating a free app that I can use called Focus Friend by Hank Green. Hank. Yes. We have a question from Sophie who writes, Dear John and Hank, Today I got caught in heavy rain. I live in Britain, so that's not surprising. But what did surprise me was the concerned stranger who upon hearing thunder asked me if I would be okay in a storm

because my wheelchair is made of metal. This isn't something I had ever considered before, but now I can't stop thinking about it. Am I more likely to be hit by lightning because I'm sat in a metal wheelchair? Is there anything I can do about this? Sogy, Sophie. I love the Britishness of I'm sat in a metal wheelchair. I mean, yes, here's the thing, Sophie. I don't know the science behind this.

That's why we have YouTube science educator Hank Green here. But I'm going to tell you my guess. Yeah. My guess is you've got two things going for you. One, no metal as far as I know is touching the ground, right? What's touching the ground is actually rubber, which is great news for you from a nearby lightning strike perspective, because rubber does not conduct electricity. Number two, I would guess that you're actually less likely to be struck directly by lightning

because you're statistically speaking, probably, I would imagine lower to the ground sitting than people who are standing. Yes. So I actually think this concerned stranger was way out of whack. Well, John, I will tell you that you're probably right, but also you should, everybody, including people in wheelchair, should go inside when there is a thunderstorm. I think that you're probably right,

that there would be a little bit of protection from the small amount of plastic slash rubber. Because I think the front caster wheels are usually like a polymer, which is going to be a little more conductive than the rubber of the back wheels. But in both of those cases, the metal is quite close to the ground. That's not a huge gap for it to jump. So you could still be at risk.

In fact, we found an example of a person being struck by a lightning in a wheelchair. They were under a tree reading the Bible and were struck by lightning and were dead for four minutes before being revived by paramedals. Oh, but then they were fine. I mean, no. It sucks to be struck by lightning generally. They were alive. I'm saying it was a good Wednesday. They were still alive, but they spent a hunk of time in the hospital after.

So just like all lightning strikes. Not great. I mean, you know, the shock of that is that my understanding of the Bible was that the one thing that couldn't happen to you while reading it was getting struck by lightning. I thought that was sort of a guarantee against getting shot out of a lightning barrel. That's why they got all those guys on the golf course that are golfing while reading the Bible. Yeah. Yeah, that's why you read the Bible while you're gone. Don't. Obviously, if you can be inside during a lightning storm, you should be inside.

Yes. And that is what we discovered. It is certainly possible to be struck by lightning while you are on a wheelchair. Though it may, you may have a lower risk, but still, not none. I'm just saying that stranger was also out in the rain. Yeah, no, they also, there's no way in which these two people were not basically in the same circumstance. You are a conductor. Like, you're made out of salty water. Yeah. So, like, you are just as bad, like, you're also a bit of a lightning rod standing there. I cannot get past the idea that I am the ocean, that I, I dragged the ocean out of the ocean and made the ocean just come with me.

Since publishing this video, there is, and I think that I'm going to make this update in a video that I upload soon, but I think, well, I know that we are actually descended from a freshwater fish. So, like, the first landfish was a freshwater fish. So really what we pulled out with to come with us onto land was, like, swampy lake, like, stagnant lake water. Nasty, swamp water. Yeah, swampy, like, low, shallow. Yeah. So that's what we brought out with us, which is a little less beautiful, but also, I think, just still beautiful wet ones, you know? there's nothing wrong with the wetland.

But yeah, that's what we brought out. Otherwise, we'd be a lot saltier. And it turns out that there's a bunch of reasons why it was easier for fish that were adapted to living in like the variable environment of shallow water, had an easier time getting onto land than fish adapted for the ocean. Because ocean, very consistent temperatures comparatively compared to a shallow freshwater situation. Also, freshwater can have very different. salinities, very different oxygen concentration. So handling that variation was like a step toward

being able to handle the variation of moving onto land. Fascinating. Well, I could, I don't know, man. I'm obsessed with this now. You know what else is fascinating? What? AFC Wimbledon, America's favorite third-tier English soccer team. Yes, I'm sure. We don't have enough players. I mean, there's a lot of concerns at the moment in the AFC Wimbledon fandom community about two things. One is that we just don't have enough players presumably we're going to sign some but the season does start in one week it it starts uh five days from the upload of this podcast so that's a little bit of a concern who do we who there's got to be some folks out there who are just kind of like resting right there's a bunch of soccer players who just are like i don't know there's a bunch of soccer players who are just resting shake them free agents

yeah who just need to just need to get hired somewhere there's a bunch of soccer players who need to go on loan from bigger clubs need to go on loan. Does that tend to be like a last minute thing? Like, is it like a last five-day rush to build the whole team? I don't remember this in past years, but I'm going to not worry about it because I trust our director of football Craig Cope more than I trust my own family, including you. All right. So I'm certainly to run a football team. But, yes, no offense. I hope you won't take this the wrong way, but I think that you would be a terrible football team owner.

The other thing about AFC Wimbledon right now is that we're losing all of our games in preseason, but I'll remind you, we lost all our games in preseason last year and got promoted. So maybe this is a good sign. But yeah, we just got absolutely swalloped by Millwall. And

we also lost to Sutton United, who are currently, I think, in the fifth tier. So it's not great, but it's just preseason. It doesn't count. But the games that do count start August 1st. So very, very soon. Well, I have faith in clay called swell that he will get you straightened out.

Yeah, Craig Cope. Yes. Go ahead. Give me your Mars news. Okay. And news from Mars. We think that Mars may have been even wetter than we previously thought. So we've been looking at ancient river channels in an area of Mars.

It's called Noakus Terra, I think is how it's pronounced. So they look at these areas and they can see the sort of thickness of sedimentary layers that were laid down because what happened is these sedimentary layers got laid down. And they actually ended up being tougher than surrounding areas. So they end up instead of being like these what you would imagine a river bed, like kind of a depression in the ground, they end up being these big things that stick up out of the ground because it's been eroded around it. And the sedimentary layers is like there on top, which is really cool. that's kind of beautiful to imagine it is and yeah i mean hopefully one day people will see it with their own eyes john in the year 2027 yeah or later and they uh so they they did a bunch of like analysis of how this would have had to have happened and what this indicates is that there was a lot

a lot of precipitation over a long period of time so obviously mars looks a very specific way now and has looked that way for, you know, billions of years. But there was a period of time where Mars appears to have been quite wet for a, like with a full-on hydrological cycle for a lot of time. Now, I was not able to ascertain from this recent research how long that was, like it's a long time, 5 million years or 500 million years. Pretty big difference between those two things. Yeah, that's not quite the range I was hoping for. Yeah. I'm sure that I would I would wager that if I was better at reading this kind of paper that I would be able to figure that up, but I was not able to. We keep like having discovered that Mars was lifeless. Like that was our first like in the 60s and 70s. We're like, oh, turns out big desert ball. Nothing going on there. But ever since then, like step by step, it continues to be like, oh, like more hints that Mars was quite earthlike at one point in its history.

And thus it would not be too surprising if we one day found that life had independently evolved there or had arrived from Earth or vice versa. And was at one point there was sort of like some living systems on Mars. Is it possible that the life on Earth came from Mars or does that not work out with the timing? No, it's totally possible. Wow. So we could be sort of like one continuous living source. system that's interplanetary. Across multiple planets, yeah. Yeah, could even be ceded from like a Jupiter moon, you know.

In which case I would submit, and I think you'll agree with me, that all this talk about humanity becoming a multi-planet species would actually sort of be old news. Yeah, I mean, there is, I think, a case to be made that humans are, you know, not separate from but distinct from just life what sorry i don't i say that again i think that that that you could say that there is a category that includes all life and humans and then there's a category that just includes humans in which case we have never been like the category that just you're saying that all life that humans are so different from all other forms of life that that there's a category that just includes humans that includes no other life forms i can't believe you're saying this at the end of the

pod. You're throwing an absolute bomb. It's like when you told me that you developed an app without consulting me and made a version of me in the app. That is a bean. Yeah. That is a bean. Well, look, I know, I know that there is a category that just includes humans, you know, it's Homo sapiens. Like, there is, there is a category. And then there is probably a broader category that includes people, and that's going to include Neanderthals and Florescens and maybe. Maybe it could also include dolphins. maybe it could include, you know, some other, like, persons, Chewbacca, you know. But, but, yeah, I mean, I would love to have a long chat with you about the things that make humans different and whether they're worthy of, like, a significant distinction or not.

But maybe not right now. Yeah, we can't do it right now because I'm super into focus, friends, your new app. I got distracted looking at it. Ironically, I wasn't listening to what you were saying. You were like, I got to see my bean. Because I was focusing on your new app, which is about being able to focus. Yeah. Well, yeah, you got to do a bunch of stuff.

You got to set it up. But once you set it up, now I just, now I can't touch my phone for 30 minutes. And if I don't touch my phone for 30 minutes, I get a bunch of scarves or socks or something. Yeah, and then you can spend those on decorations. I'm excited. Your cute old beans room. Can't wait. All right.

Thank you, Hank. Thank you for potting with me. Thank you for making apps. Thank you for never not working. I'm always up to something. Everybody, thank you for sending us your questions at Hankandjohn at gmail.com. Without your questions, we would not have a podcast, and it's a lot of fun to read through them.

This episode was edited by Ben Sourd Out. It was mixed by Joseph Tuna Mettish. Our marketing specialist is Brooke Shotwell. It's produced by Rosiana Hals, Rojas, and Hannah West. Our executive producer is Seth Radley. Our editorial assistant is Deboki Truck Rivardi. The music you're hearing now, and at the beginning of the podcast is by the great Gunnarola.

And as they say in our hometown, Don't forget to be awesome.