Dear Hank & John - 465: Weird Trajectory

Episode Date: September 2, 2026

How can I be part of John’s Book tour if tickets are sold out in my area? What is going on with collagen? How long ago is “a million miles ago”? How do I read The Bible? Why do windmills have three arms?  Will John or Hank ever do an event in Northern Europe? …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/dearhankandjohnProduced for Hank and John Green by ComplexlySee 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. Welcome to Dear Hank and John. Doors, I prefer to think of it, Dear John, and Hank. It's a podcast where two brothers answer your questions, give you to me to B's advice and bring you all the week's news from both Mars and AFC Wimbledon. John, it's a tree that you read a lot of your books inside of this, like, a chair. Am I making that up? No, I sometimes write in this chair.

It sounds like a special writing chair that you have. Oh, I do have a special writing chair, yes. Is it a recliner? It is. It's a lazy boy. And you've you've written a lot in this lazy boy? I've written at least some of all of my books in that lazy boy. Is it fair to say that you and that recliner go way back? That's a pretty good joke, actually. You set it up well. You made me feel like I was deeply invested in it as a person.

You know, you really personalized it for me before you delivered. Yeah, I made it about you. It needs to be about you is what I've learned. Oh, I've had one of those days, hang. I've had a long day to day. I did just get the very first review of Hollywood ending. What? From who? How do they even have it?

From Booklist magazine. Do you want to know what it says? They better star it. You're a legacy. I'm an alum, but it has been 25 years, so I don't know that being an alum matters much. But it is a starred review. Can I read a little bit of it to you? I'm so excited about it.

It just came across my desk minutes ago. A YA fiction supernova. Green began writing for adults with his two works of nonfiction, The Anthropocene Reviewed, and everything is tuberculosis. He now presents his first novel for grownups and his first novel since Turtles all the way down, an enthralling tale aglow with all the traits his steadfast fans adore, but deepened by more complex predicaments, inquiries, and insights, yada, yada, yada, yada, yada, yada, yada, Green storytelling.

The booklost reviews always have, like, plot summary, so he's skipping back. I'm trying, I'm trying not to have any spoilers. Green storytelling is astute, empathetic, and magnetizing as Juniper. and Kai take turns narrating, reflections on Warhol's profound grasp and exploitation of the vicissitudes of celebrity and the commodification of art and life shaped the novels provocative

and suspenseful conflicts, yada, yada, yada. This is a spellbinding, tender, incisive, funny, and compassionate story of love and creativity. Ooh. The book list reviews are always about that last sentence. I know.

That's the sentence that you want to quote. That's the one. Because when I was writing booklist reviews, if I really loved a book, I would try to write a last sentence where I would be like, that's going to be on the back of the book. Yeah. Yeah.

I only reviewed a few books that I really, really wanted to succeed. And I would always try to craft just the perfect little, this is good stuff for the back of the book. You feel like somebody was thinking that when they wrote that? I hope so. At any rate, it's a lovely review. And also, thank you to the two or three people who wrote into the Dear Hank and John inbox that because they are booksellers or book talkers, they've already read Hollywood ending and said nice things to me.

Nice. John's had such a day that he is, if you can tell, his audio is not as good as mine because he's filming in his living room. That's actually Sarah's office, but it's very echoy. I'm sorry about that. Look at that. I don't even recognize your art correctly. Well, Sarah's always reinstalling the permanent collection, as we say.

So I think there's a new picture behind me these days. John, congratulations on your first review. I know that that's a scary moment and it's exciting when it goes well. Do you want to look at some questions from dear Hank and John listeners? Let's answer some questions from our listeners, Hank. We got first questions from Cody who asks, hello, brothers green, mostly of the John variety. I just went to Hollywoodendingbook.com to purchase tickets for the book tour in Salt Lake City after listening to the most recent pot episode. I don't know why I assumed that you wouldn't be coming to Utah.

and I don't know why I wouldn't have checked until you set it out on the podcast but unfortunately here we are. The venue is sold out entirely and I can't find, nor do I want to pay someone for scalped tickets. Is there some version of a tailgate viewing party for an event like this that I could part take in?

I want to be a part of it in some way. I would love some debious advice from you, both Cody. You starred this one, John. You told me to you bolded it. John will go through and bold the ones that he wants me to answer. So, yeah. But I feel like the answer is there's nothing you could do, Cody.

I feel so bad, Cody, because that's going to be such a fun show. I don't want to make, I just made it worse, Hank. You did. You did. Cody, you got to go to Brooklyn. Yeah, go to Brooklyn. There's still tickets in Brooklyn and Portland, Maine, and Birmingham, Alabama, and Boise, Idaho. Boise Idaho's pretty far from you.

Pretty far from you. Well, there's a nonstop. I know this because this is my part of the world. Cody, if you want to fly nonstop from Salt Lake City to Boise, Idaho just to see me, that actually isn't going to be a good use of your resources. $369. I'm going to be honest with you, man. I don't think there are watch parties, unfortunately.

Now, you can maybe host your own watch party with some friends and family because I am going to live stream some of these events whenever I can. I'm going to be live streaming it at John's channel on my YouTube channel. so maybe check it out there, but I do feel really bad that so many of the shows are sold out. That said, many of the shows aren't sold out, and I wish that they were. So I'm kind of torn on which I would prefer.

I feel bad for Cody, but I also feel bad for me for the places that aren't sold out. It's strange that I don't know if this is weird, but it's strange that the varieties of sold out and not sold out you have going on. Is that just a size of the room difference? The space in New York is definitely. a size of the room difference. It's a 3,100 seat theater. It's ridiculous.

So come see me in New York City, everybody. I think it's also prices to some extent. Like when the ticket master gets involved, it gets very expensive. As you may know, call your congresspeople about global health, but then mention ticket master at the end.

Tucson, Arizona, I'm going to be there, and that's not sold out. I think there's still some tickets left in Nashville and Gainesville. Yeah, but yeah, it's starting to sell out. I feel bad about this whole thing, Hank, because it's always, you don't want to be playing a mostly empty room. Yeah, and we've done it. Oh, we've done it.

We've played empty rooms before. Yeah. I've played empty middle school auditoriums. The only thing worse than an empty middle school auditorium is a full middle school auditorium that's full with people who don't know who you are. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Boy, do middle schoolers not know who we are anymore? Maybe they do.

I don't know. I mean, certainly in 2008, they didn't know who I was. I remember, like, one time, like, performing at a middle school, like, reading from paper towns. And there were two kids wearing Nerdfighter T-shirts in the very front row who were extremely excited. And 798 kids who were just getting out of English class, who were, like, talking to each other loudly, absolutely. the classroom was absolutely out of control. Our trajectory is bizarre. Here we are, though.

Here we are, though. I don't know. You can't go back home again. No. No, you can't ever. You can't. I've been thinking about this, actually, because we're releasing a new soap, Hank.

Do you know about this? Oh, what a weird thing to say, but yes, go on. Okay. So at good. Store, our company that donates 100% of its profit to charity, we have a soap company, and we now make shampoo bars and conditioner bars and soap, and it's great, and it's really high-quality soap. I use it every day. I use all those products.

I don't use liquid-based shampoo or conditioner anymore. And they were like, is there anything you'd like to, any kind of soap that you'd like that you don't have? And I was like, yeah, so I'd like a soap that smells like my high school dorm room. which sounds like it smells really bad. But in fact, it smelled really good because I had this amazing roommate Todd who was a very hygienic person.

And always, we had this beautiful, I mean, aside from when we would smoke cigarettes in the dorm, which don't do that, we had this beautiful, beautiful smell. And occasionally I'll catch a glimpse of it and smell is just so powerfully linked to memory. Yeah. And so I asked...

A glimpse of it. That's fascinating. There's no word for that in smell, but... There's no word for glimpse of it. a smell. So I, I do... A whiff. A whiff of it. That's what it is. I asked the people at Botany to design a soap that smelled like my high school dorm room. And because they are so good at turning language into smells and smells into language, because that's basically what they do for a living on some level.

They got pretty close. That's wild. And it's called memory. And we just released it. That's weird. That's how weird our trajectory is, Hank, that I can get a custom soap. Yeah. Yeah, I also have a custom soap. It's based on Catherine and I's favorite British drink, the Pimscup. There you go, man. We could not name it the Pimscup because it turns out that's an actual brand, unfortunately, not just a drink name.

So go to good dot store and get our weird soaps. Yeah. I think ours is called Garden Party. Oh, yeah, I like garden. The garden party's in my top three in my rotation. Oh, nice. Yeah, I love it too. I was doing a citrusy this morning.

I don't know which one it was, but yeah, it's crazy to like always be decked out in my own products. I got a pizza John shirt on. I got awesome socks. I took a shower this morning with sunbasin soap. And it's all all those things for a charity. Weird trajectory indeed. All right. How about you ask me this question from Ella because I'm very interested in it.

Okay. Dear Hank and John, please, what the blazing heck should we actually be doing with collagen? As a woman of a certain age, 25. All right, stop right there. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Panic at the disco. Tannick.

As a literal child, 25. No, sorry. As a newborn baby who emerged from her mother's wish. moon mere minutes ago. As a person who wasn't alive on September 11th. Oh, boy. As, okay, I am, okay, as a woman of, as a woman, I am bombarded with adverts for collagen.

I buy this. Everyone is using it. Apparently, we need more of it. I have a basic scientific understanding of human anatomy and physiology, but I, I have to admit, I don't really understand how we absorb collagen. Are the face serums all a waste of time? Do we need to eat more of it? Also, as men, are you guys dealing with the societal pressures of aging and the looming devaluation of your worth? I doubt it. You guys are hot. Curse word. Curse word. Cheers. F-L-S-Fellas. Cheers, fellas. Great. Good work.

I have to say I get very few ads for collagen. Yeah, no, I don't. I will sometimes look at my hair line and I will think about it. Yeah. You could stand to go to Turkey, as they say. A trip to Istanbul would be nice. I've always wanted to go. I have, actually, always wanted to go.

Me too. It's definitely on my list. Yeah. I don't think that I'm going to get a hair transplant anytime soon. I don't think you need one, Hank. Yeah, I want to. look distinguished. Well, I've thought about dying my hair because it's so gray now, but everyone would know.

Everyone certainly would know. I've thought it just about dying. So collagen is a protein that your body has, and it makes it's, there's a bunch of different kinds, but it's in the skin and it's also in the joints. it does a lot of different stuff. And the idea is that the more collagen you have in your skin, the more elastic your skin is, and that is more youthful.

And collagen on its own is going to be too big to absorb through the skin. It's a very big protein. It's not going anywhere. It will sit on the surface of your skin, I'm pretty sure. There have been some meta-analyses that have looked at this, and what is more and not vary, but more backed up by science is that there may be some effects, and these are more for like the joints than the skin, it seems.

Some effects of eating little broken up pieces of collagen, which can then be sort of immediately, the idea is they can be immediately repurposed by the body to more efficiently build collagen because they are, can actually be absorbed, unlike collagen, which is too big. And then they sort of like already have the right sequence to be put to, to be put to use by the body. And that's the idea of collagen peptides. So when you see collagen peptides at the store, that's what that is.

But the effects appear to be small, and there are probably other things that can go into skin creams that are better for your skin. Okay. So skin creams are not completely a scam, but collagen is probably not the best thing. No, skin creams are not completely a scam. But it doesn't seem like having like a big, hunky protein in there is going to do much but sit on the top of your skin. Okay. Well, good to know. I mean, like I said, I haven't gotten a lot of ads for collagen, but then I got Ella's ad and I was like, well, maybe I should

be using it. I do, I would like to look a little younger. It comes for us all, John. I had a birthday since the last time we recorded it. And there's something about this particular birthday where I'm like, well, I mean, am I middle-aged? Not really. Turning 56. It's old. I'm not 56, Hank. No, I made that up. But I will be. That's the thing, man. We'll probably still be making this podcast. It'll be called Dear John and Hank,

but we'll probably still be making it when I'm 56. I cannot believe that we're still doing the podcast. And then I thought there was any chance. Does people know about the wager that we made? Are they aware? We should tell them. We should tell them. Okay.

Update a whole long time ago when we were making this podcast, I don't know, 10 years ago. I thought that there was a chance that we might have humans on Mars by 2028. And John was like, that's a ridiculous proposition. And this is important for me to remember because I have all kinds of insane thoughts. Like I recently hit John with this one. I don't think humans will get sick in the future.

Yeah. It's wrong. Incorrect. I have a bunch of qualifications for this take, which is like, I mean infectious disease. I mean, not all humans, but like there will be ways to avoid getting like your normal rhinovirus types things. But anyway, I also think that I'm wrong. But I also think maybe 100 years from now, who knows? But I thought that there might be a chance that we could get to Mars by 2028. And John's so ridiculous. It's like, I will bet you. And I don't know what his,

I don't know what I was going to get from him. But what I offered to him was renaming the podcast dear John and Hank. I think what you were going to get from me is the satisfaction of humans on Mars, which, I mean, I don't even think you're going to live to see it. And I think you're going to live a long and happy life. Well, I think I want to live for hundreds of years. Oh, God. Let's not do that. Let's not go there, Brian Johnson. Let's stop it. The collagen was far enough. Yeah. Humans won't get sick in the future. Look, do we already, here's a thing. There's like whole classes of illness that our society is mostly free of now. I agree. I don't never think about mumps.

Never think about mumps. You never think about rickets. You don't even know what rickets is. Never think about rickets. Yeah. Don't think very much these days about cholera personally. Yeah. Certainly there's lots of people who...

You do have to think about cholera. Thankfully think about cholera. Yeah, I don't. Yeah. But yeah, I was just thinking about the nutritional deficiencies, you know, scurvy, rickets, berry, berry, like these things that are, like, still problems in the world.

But if you live in a society with... fortified cereals and, you know, iodized salt. And, you know, we're getting, we're getting these things in a lot of different ways. Yeah. That's great. Raisin brand has both. It has berry berry and, and goiters? No, it has its fun.

It's both fortified with vitamins and with salt. Oh, okay. All right. Let's answer this question from Kate, who writes, Dear John and Hank, but mostly Hank, I was having dinner with a few friends this evening. When Friend A referenced something that they said earlier saying, That was a million miles ago when I said that. And friend B said, miles, not seconds or minutes to which friend A vaguely gestured saying, you know, with Earth's rotation and everything.

So my question is, how much long ago would a million miles ago be awaiting astrophysical answers, Kate? Well, Kate, I have amazing news, which is that I did a lot of math. No way. Did you really? I really did. Oh, my God. Well, because correct me if I'm wrong, but we're going a million miles. we're going X number of miles per hour around the sun. And so that's one speed that Earth is going.

But Earth is also rotating with the sun around the center of the Milky Way. So that's another speed. So Earth is basically going two speeds at the same time. Oh, more than that, John. Oh, it's not even too fast, too furious. It's like three fast, three furious. It's like four fast, four furious is the math I did. Four Furious.

Yes. So first of all, the, you. you got to think about how fast we're spinning around our own axis. And this is complicated, it turns out, because the equator moves much more quickly than halfway up the planet, much more quickly than the pole, which, you know, at the pole, if you're right there at the top, you don't actually move at all. So if you are looking at the Earth's rotation at the equator,

that's going to be like a thousand miles per hour, that's going to be like 40 days to go a million miles. But if you're at 60 degrees latitude, that's like twice as long to go a million miles because you're up on this part of the Earth that's, you know, that's going around the same number of times per day. But it's less land. Less travel. Yeah.

So you're traveling less. And so that's going to be like 80 days to go 100,000 miles. If you're at the pole, never, because you just are standing there. Sure. And you're not spending at all. Okay. But we are also orbiting the sun, which you correctly referenced. And that's going 66,600 miles per hour.

And so you're going to go a million miles and just. 15 hours. Wow. So a million miles ago, not that long. I'm on the move. You're on the move. Correct. Also, the solar system is orbiting the center of the Milky Way. So we are out there pretty far, and the whole thing is spinning.

That's going 515,000 miles per hour, so substantially faster. So a million miles ago, in terms of that reference frame, that's going to be about two hours. Like an hour and 52 minutes. Like what I think is the correct length for a movie. It is absolutely, God, I got to say, when I want to pick a movie for just like watching with Orrin, I'm really looking for that 90 minute mark. But if it's for me, hour 52 is perfect. You're right.

Hour 52. I'll tell you what, Christopher Nolan. You might be able to make a great spectacle, but call me when you can do it in an hour and 52 minutes. Do you know the other way in which we are moving? moving. No. No. So there's a there's a like a reference frame of the cosmic microwave background. So the big bang and then we are like moving away from that reference frame. So our local group of galaxies is like has a movement relative to the cosmic microwave background. And that's 1,390,000 miles per hour. So that is about 43 minutes to go a million miles. And this of course, all takes you back to relativity, John. You can also be going zero. It's inertial reference frames all the way down, and so we don't really know. But I did try to figure out what the fastest you could be going was, and a million miles

be like three minutes, maybe, four. Four minutes. Yeah. If like a reference frame of like 99.999% the speed of light. Oh, okay. So the fastest I could be going would be the speed of light, and that would be about four minutes per million miles. Yeah.

Wow. Okay. I mean, it really makes the proclaimers look less impressive. Yeah, I mean. They only walked 500 miles. They could have just waited a minute. Oh. Depoqui put, when she was doing the research for this, she's traveling right now,

and she was like, I just left this here for you. She worked on the college in question, but this one, she was like, ah, you know what you're doing. Which actually reminds me, John, this podcast is brought to you by Deboki Chark Rivardi. Devoke Chavarravardi, unsung hero of Dear Hank and John, digging into your questions, sending me weird emails since 2014 or something. Really bringing you every episode of Dear Hank and John. Today's podcast is also brought to you by Four Fast, Four Furious, the exciting news. cosmic travel game. Oh, I thought it was going to be a movie.

That's much more exciting. This podcast is also brought to you by Booklist Magazine, but not Booklist Magazine now. Booklist Magazine 25 years ago, specifically the ones that had John Green reviews in them. God, I started working there 26 years ago. I am old. And today's podcast is brought to you by Collagen. Collagen. Yeah.

This episode of Dear Hank and John is brought to you by Wayfair. Here's something that I've never told anybody about before. I'm a real kicker in the bed. And for whatever reason, I will kick my way through a set of sheets. I will wake up one morning and my foot will be through the fitted sheet on the other side. And I'm like, how did this happen? How did I destroy another set of sheets? It's not great to live with me.

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This episode of Dear Hank of John is brought to you by Factor. He knows something crazy about Factor is sometimes I need a Factor meal, and sometimes the child needs a Factor meal. This isn't in the marketing copy that they sent me, but I do feel like fine about giving my child some factor sometimes. When it's like, I don't have time and I'd like him to have a good meal. And also, I can have one too, and then problem solved. Factor makes chef-crafted, dietitian designed, ready to eat meals so you don't have to choose between real food and convenience when you're feeding yourself or someone else. Factor meals are ready in two minutes and require no prep and no cleanup. So even on the days when your schedule is completely out of control, eating well is still achievable.

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off and one free breakfast item per box for one year. While supplies last until October 31st, 2026. That's code Dear Hank 50 off at factormeals.com. Dear Hank 50 off at factormeals.com, see the website for more details. All right. We have a question from Stevie who writes, Dear John and Hank, how do I read the Bible? I'm essentially an atheist, but I want to read specifically my late grandma's personal Bible, both to connect with her, but also because I'm curious from an academic standpoint as a writer and sociologist. But growing up in church, it always sounded really complicated and dense, and there's

all those Bible companion books that give you specific passages and explain as you go or whatever. So is this the way I'm supposed to read this thing or can I just go through in any order that I like? Also, John, what's the best chapter? Pumpkins and Penguin Stevie. Do they come in chapters? What's the sort of unit of a Bible? There's books. So the book of Job, the book of Genesis, and so on. It's a book of books. It's a book of books. And then there are chapters and verses within the books. And part of what makes it difficult to read, actually, is the constant presence of numbers,

because numbers show up every few words because the verse changes. and then the chapter changes. That makes it easy to look up stuff. Exactly. So that makes it easy to reference, but it also makes it kind of hard to read narratively. Right. Like I imagine you get used to that after a while.

You do. You do. And the Bible is more narrative than many sacred texts. I would say it's more story-based than, say, the Quran. but it is also hard to get yourself into the mindset of reading a text that's 5,000 years old, or however old it is, 3,000 years old, 2,000 years old, depends on which chapter and which Testament we're talking about. And I think the way to do it, the best book of the Bible, by the way, Stevie, is Job by a wide

margin. It's a proper good narrative, and it features a really complicated God who won't stop torturing a good man. So Job is, that's the, that's an Old Testament one? Yeah, that's Old Testament and it's a banger. I mean, if you're going to go New Testament, I think the gospel, according to Matthew, is probably the best of the New Testament books, but they're all, Luke's not bad. It's weird that we have four different attestations to the life of Jesus, and they have

different takes. But we do. Yeah. I also think, and I got, this is a strange thing to say. But like, Job, I'm like, yeah, that's a guy who belongs in the Bible. But Luke and Matthew Those just seem like regular dude names. Those are guys who are like currently

famous actors, you know? Right, right. Yeah, Job, not a widely used name and you'll realize why when you read the book of Job. You're like, oh, I actually don't want to identify with that guy at all. No, I wouldn't want my kid to end up like that fella losing his wife and his children

and being tortured with boils on the balls of his feet and whatnot. Oh, it's a bad place for a boil. Also, it's a complicated place to get a boil. I'm not sure how that would happen physiologically. Well, Hank, you know, if God is all powerful and feels like testing you, you're going to get boils on the bottom of your feet. Yeah. I think you absolutely can read it without a kind of guide to the Bible.

It's nice, I find it's nice to have one just so that you can be like, what the heck did I just read? that didn't make any sense. Right. The one that I had in my religious studies class was like page of the Bible. And then like, if you're confused, you can look on the other side of the Bible. Right. And it's like here's what that's referencing. And here's like what that word means in this context.

Yeah. Right. So that's what I would recommend is one of those Bibles that has that sort of where you can do it within the text. I guess you're reading your grandma's Bible, which probably doesn't have that. So you might need a separate text. But it is an interesting read from a second. perspective. I've thought over the years that it would be fun someday to do a secular reading of the Bible or secular series of sermons or something because I think a lot of what's useful about

sermonizing and reading sacred texts is still useful even if you don't believe in God. I think it's still interesting. Do you think everybody would be sort of real receptive to the idea of me kind of just rewriting it a little bit, just sort of like doing a Hank's version? Yeah, no, I would, that seems like it would be something that would get you right back in the discourse, Hank, where you love being. Yeah, that's probably not for me. John, I appreciate your answer there, and I would actually be very interested in your secular sermons if you ever have a time. Well, I guess I did write a book of them called The Anthropocene Review. All right, John, this next question comes from Ben, who asks, dear Hank and John, we're

driving through Iowa on a family road trip and my eight-year-old son, Ben, is wondering while the windmills have three arms. Is that a random decision or is it a science thing? It can't be a random decision, right? So it has to be a science thing. But I have to say, Ben, that this is an example of childhood curiosity being much more interesting than adult curiosity, because I have never thought about this and it is very interesting now that you've brought it up. Right. And the thing to know, Ben, is number one, like, if you're going to build something as expensive and complex as a windmill, you are going to do this or a wind turbine, as we say, because it's not actually milling anything. Windmills, mill. They actually, the idea is that they like put grain in there and then turn

it into flour inside of the windmill, and that power for the milling would come from the wind. But the wind turbines, the thing that they're doing is they're turning wind into electricity, and we want to do that as efficiently as possible without spending more money. So you really would want, ideally one, you know? You'd only want to have one up there. Why would we, why would we have three? Would we could have one? We certainly wouldn't want to have four if we could have three.

And we'd like to have two if we could not have three. And we'd like to have one. But you can't have one. So there's a very good reason, which is you want balance. You don't want like a weird amount of weight being put on to the whole structure and the sort of wobble that would be. be introduced by the one. So it would need some kind of counterweight to make that, to make that happen. So two blades would be cheaper, but it would also be shakier and noisier. So there is like

some idea that having two would actually be like you could make a two bladed wind turbine that would be like cheaper to produce electricity with. But three blades gives you smooth and it gives you stable and it gives you reasonably inexpensive. And then with more blades, you're going to get heavier, you're going to get slower, and you're going to get more costly. Okay. So that's it. I mean, it really comes down to, it's not about aesthetics.

Yeah. It's not about aesthetics, but it is a little bit about like the kind of two-bladed might be kind of like kind of fine, but it introduces more shake. It's less balanced. And it might decrease the life of the wind turbine. And it might also make them louder, which is not something that you want. So you want that to be, apparently, from what I can tell, having three blades smooths it out. Okay.

All right, Hank, we got another question from Meru, who asks, hey, John and Hank. I'm a huge fan, but I live in Estonia. And as you know, Estonia is very far away from the USA. I just want to say, Mayer, thank you so much for assuming that Hank and I have the geographic knowledge to know that Estonia is far away from the USA. because I know that in the European imagination, many Americans don't. Could be Caribbean Island. I don't know. This is that off the coast of Cuba?

Also, I really don't want to travel to USA, even if it was cheap. I do not like USA. Sorry. Don't pull any punches. We appreciate you, like no one where we stand, you know? Who does like USA these days? Let's face it, Meru. We're all on the same page here. Will you ever come to Northern Europe to some event so I could finally achieve my dream of seeing you in person? The Ars are shy in my name. Mayru? May you? May you? Mays are shy in my name. I love that. That's beautiful. John, question. Does Estonia have Raxes? No, but Finland does, and that's in Northern Europe. I bet May you could make.

their way to Northern Europe. If maybe he's interested in Northern Europe and considers Finland Northern Europe, and maybe we can all meet it to racks. I mean, literally, Estonia is closer to Finland than, like, Seattle is to me. And I've driven to Seattle. Yeah. No, you could make it from Estonia, easy. Yeah.

Light work. Light work. Estonia to racks. How far from Estonia to racks in Finland? Hmm. Hmm. Hmm. That didn't work.

Yeah, that didn't work. That didn't work. There's a ferry, but it doesn't, the ferry is two and a half hours, but it doesn't go directly to racks. That's pretty cool, though. You had just from Estonia straight over the Gulf of Finland into Helsinki. Yeah. I would love to do a show in Helsinki, Hank. And Mary's kind of talking me into it right now.

Like, I'm starting to think maybe I could make my way to. I've never been to Helsinki. No. No, I know nothing about it. But also, we could just do a show in Tallinn. Yeah, we could just do a show in Estonia. That's a good shout. I hadn't thought of that.

Yeah. Or Tar-to? Never been to Estonia either. Look, what we're learning, Maru, is that what we really want is for you to tell us where to go in Estonia. Yeah, tell us all the cool spots. We're American, so we know nothing. We know. You can just lie to us.

Let me tell you everything I know about Estonia. I'm going to level with you. It's not a lot. Estonia has a female prime minister. Okay, great. That's information. Hold on. Let me Google that and make sure that's right.

Yep. Yep. His name is Kristen. I got it confused. To be fair, his name is Kristen. And that is in America. In America, which is the only place that matters. That's primarily, that's kind of a female presenting name.

Now, the previous president of Estonia, one's a woman, but she's out of office since 2024. All right, well, I failed at my first hurdle. Here's the question. How hard is it to get Estonian residency and get an EU passport? Oh, my kingdom for an Estonian residency. Mary, can you get us Estonian citizenship as like an honor if we visit? We don't even need to be paid.

We just need the honor of your citizens. Listen ship. Yeah. That's, I think I know one single fact about Estonia. Yeah. Which is where Skype came from. Is it really? I think Skype was originally an Estonian company.

That's a great fact. I don't know why that information is in my head. That's a great fact. Okay. I want to tell you something else I know about Estonia. Okay. So, I mean, I know all the basics. It was a former Soviet Republic.

It's the top of the three of Estonia. Like it's all like geographically on top. Or you're saying it's the best. No, no, it's on top. It's above the others. Right. Physically. The others being?

Lithuania. Okay. There's one in the middle. Latvia. Well, I did look at a map. So I... Is it Latvia? Did I get it right?

It's correct. Yes, it is. Oh, thank God. Thank God. We're not doing much to bolster the Europeans' beliefs of that. Americans in geography. Look, here's like two pretty well-educated Americans. We can name some countries in Europe.

Yeah. No, I think I can name all of the countries in the world. It's just Latvia. Latvia is a hard one for me. But I got there. I definitely can't name all the countries in the world. Yeah. I can, I think.

Really? Well, ask me one. How do I ask, okay. Just say like what's north of X. Okay. Well, let me reopen my map of, I'm just going to, I'm going to stick you. What west of Lithuania? And that's left or right?

It's to the left. Okay. Because I mean, that's the hardest part for me, actually, is, because I know it's to the right of Lithuania. And I don't want to mention it. It's Russia. No, in fact, that's wrong, everybody. No, Russia is to the right of Lithuania. I mean eventually.

Belarus. Belarus. Now, what's west of Lithuania? Is that what you ask me? Yeah. West of Lithuania is an ocean. Weirdly, John, west of Lithuania is Russia. No?

There's an enclave. Collingrad, there's a Russian enclave that is not, am I wrong about this, but I'm looking at a map. And there's a, there is a, there's no, talking about. What? Okay. You think there's a little Russia inside of Lithuania?

No. Like the Vatican? I'm right. I'm looking and I think I'm right. Where is this, where is this place? No, I got, I got, I think I got confused. Yeah. Hold on.

No, no, no, I'm not. Okay. You're telling me that Lithuania does not border the ocean. It borders a tiny slice of Russia that borders the ocean. Yeah, it also borders the ocean. But there is a fairly large hunk of land. And I also can't believe I don't know this. And that it's not like a problem.

But that a piece of Russia that is not connected to Russia that is just to the southwest, They're just to the southeast of Lithuania. South East. Southeast. Southwest is what I meant to say. Okay, north of Poland. Yeah. Okay, I can picture where Poland is.

I can picture where Lithuania is. Why should you open up a map and look at what I'm looking at? What is this? Kalininrad. Kaliningrad. Kaliningrad. Did I say Kolingrad? Yeah, Kaliningrad.

Now, let me look this up, bro. quick. It's Russia. Russian territory. Colombia and Russia located on the Baltic Sea between Poland and Lithuania. I never, okay. So now I've embarrassed myself. Not only do I not know all the countries, I don't even know, I don't even know all of Europe. I mean, I feel like this is a pretty big deal.

I'm sure that people in Estonia are like, yeah. And it is. I know. Poor Mary is listening just like head in hands. Just like, I can't believe this is happening right now. This is not making. Mary like USA. It was weird.

I'm like, looking at the map and there's a country that doesn't have a name. Wow. Because it's Russia. All right, Hank, before we get to the all-important news from Mars and AFC Wimbledon,

we need to deal with something, which is that 4,000 people wrote in to the dear Hank and John email inbox, and we appreciate every single one of those emails at Hank and John and gmail.com, specifically to talk to Ali, who we talked to in episode 463

about their social media conundrum. Ollie was like, I've never had social media. Now I'm going to college. I don't know if I should get it. And we were like, maybe you should get Snapchat. And at least 3,000 people wrote in and said, that's a terrible idea. Okay.

Hopefully, Ali has not in the meantime gotten Snapchat. I'll just read this one from Maddie, who writes, I urgently and aggressively cannot emphasize enough how much Snapchat is the wrong answer to Ali's question about social media. My qualification being that I graduated from, from college recently, do not make yourselves responsible for Ollie being a man who has to say that the only social media he has is Snapchat. That is a very bad look, lull.

I don't know why it's a very bad look, but the fact that it ended with wall makes me think that it's a very, very bad look. Yeah, I don't like, is that for high schoolers? I don't know. Who knows? Who knows? We don't know why it's a bad look. We're too old to know.

But it is a bad look. You know what there should be? and I wish there was is a way to have Instagram that is only DMs. You mean texting? Yeah. But like, I don't know. I get a lot of DMs on Instagram. I do too.

And I don't want to get rid of that part of it. I talk to people on Instagram. I do too. But like, and also what I want is for if somebody sends me an Instagram real, I want to be able to watch that reel and know others. Right, right, right. I want it to show. I want the app to like flame up the moment that the reel ends. I try to like scroll to the next one because it's like, of course I do.

Because now I'm watching Instagram Reels. And instead of actually showing me an Instagram reel, it just shows me like a picture of myself being like, you said you wouldn't do this. This is like, or I record the video, you know, like when I load this version of Instagram, it's the new version of Instagram. And it's like, record a video telling yourself that you're not there to watch Reels. And the moment you open reels, it's you. And you're like, I told you, you're not here to watch reels. All right, Maddie also writes, also I think it's fine to have no social media, TBH.

It's kind of cool. Much more important, really, to have an iPhone so he can be added to group I messages and keep the bubbles blue. Pinterest and PayPal, Maddie. Well, boy, they really did lock that one in. Good job, Apple. So I do think that everyone seemed to agree, Ollie, that you will be fine without social media

and that if anything, it might make you somewhat cool. Yeah, yeah. Be like, no, I never done that. I have no internet footprint, which is just not the lifestyle I'm living, but I think that it is like a cool thing now. It's like the kids in the 90s who didn't smoke. Yeah, or like in the early 2000s

who'd be like, I don't watch TV. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. I don't have time for it. I'm too busy smelling nature. or whatever they were doing. Yeah, I read literature. Right, right, right. I also want to send a shout out to Carol Prince

who posted on the Nerdfighter subreddit a version of the Brokeback Mountain movie poster that says back country pass on it. Instead of Brokeback Mountain. It is genuinely a better movie title than Brokeback Mountain. No, no, I think they're both good, you know. No, it's good. I mean, don't get me wrong.

Brokeback Mountain is a great story, a great film. The only way it could have been improved if it was called Backcountry Pass. Oh, man. That might be one of the greatest accidental jokes that it's ever happened on this podcast. We're getting to that age, John, where we're just going to start, like, mom calling Uma Thurman, Erna Thulman. You know, Erna Fulman. It's like, yeah, no, I know what exactly, it might as well be.

Yeah. You know, you say back country passer, but he's like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I know what you're talking about. I know what you're talking about. Yeah. Yeah. I wish I knew what to quit you.

Okay. That's actually, that's what should come up every time I go to Twitter or Reddit or Facebook. It should just be the I wish I knew how to quit you meme. That's the only thing I've seen, no matter how far I scroll. Yeah. Over and over again. I mean, in a real world, you'd be able to mod these things. You'd be able to create a version of Instagram that's just for DMing because that's all I want.

You'd be able to create a version of Twitter that's just, I wish I could quit you over and over again. That's the utopia we could have had. That's right. Instead, we have six rich men. All right, Hank, it's time for the all-important news from Mars. AFC Wimbledon. I'll go first. AFC Wimbledon played their second league one game of the season and scored their first. Just kidding. They still haven't scored a goal in two games. Great. Well, you're not going to score a lot of goals without those strong right feet that you just don't

have anymore. We don't seem to have strikers at the moment. We're currently in 23rd place with a negative three goal difference. We did get a point in that game because we tied zero zero, but I'm going to AFC Wimbledon this weekend, and I trust that my presence, along with mom and dad's presence, will change their fortunes. And then that's what we need. We need changed fortunes.

Get out there on the pitch, John. I've thought about it, Hank. I've thought, man, maybe they're looking to recruit a 49-year-old guy who wasn't very good in his prime. God, I can't believe in 49. If it gets people to show up to the games, maybe. Yeah. Well, no, the games sell out.

I mean, the AFC Wimbledon fans. are incredibly loyal considering what they've been through. And I'm very excited overall about the AFC Wimbledon season. I just would like us to be able to score a goal, which we haven't done so far, which is a bit of a concern. Anytime you're looking two games in, you've watched 180 minutes of football, and you haven't seen a goal.

And you haven't, to be fair, I think our two best chances were created by our centerback, Ryan Johnson. And he's not supposed to be the chance creator. So, yeah, it's, it's all going to come together, Hank. It's all got to congeal. It's all going to work out. But right now, it looks a little bit terrifying.

Well, in News from Mars, John, I'm rereading the Mars trilogy. Kim Stanley Robinson's classic series that I loved so much as a teenager. And I have to say, I don't encourage people to reread the Mars trilogy specifically, but I absolutely do encourage people to reread books that they loved when they were younger. Yeah. To have, like, I remember so much of this series because it was, they were probably like the third, fourth, and fifth novel I ever read. So it was very impactful, you know, those first novels you read. And the other ones were Jurassic Park and Jurassic World, which were not super complex stories.

And these ones really are. And so reading it, I can feel and remember the way I reacted to things. And I'm like, that's so different from how I understand this part of the story now. And so like to see my own self through the lens of this book and to see how I've changed and to see which characters I resonate with now. And the characters, I hate it. Hate it. I still hate some of the same characters. them, I'm like, no, I totally understand this person's bitterness. And I was like, they're so whiny all the time. And now I'm like, no, they got absolutely. Like the vision, their vision of the world got destroyed. And so I'm just really, I'm enjoying it in like several different ways at the same time. And it's, it's also very chill. It's like nice to be in a story that I just know. And yeah, spend that time there.

That's great. I love rereading books because the words are the same, but I'm so different. Yeah, it's very interesting to see a story, like a different story. I love it. I love it. All right, Hank, thank you for potting with me. Thanks to everybody for listening. You can email us your questions at Hank and John at gmail.com. This podcast is edited by Linus Obenhouse. It's mixed by Joseph Tuna Meddish. Our marketing specialist is Brooke Shotwell. It's produced by Rosiana Halse Rojas and Hannah West. Our executive producer is Seth Rattel. our editorial assistant is to Boki Troc 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.