Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More - Questions and Answers: Volume 12

Episode Date: November 4, 2023

You have questions, and I have answers.... Sponsors BetterHelp Visit BetterHelp.com/everywhere today to get 10% off your first month   ButcherBox ButcherBox is offering our listeners turkey FREE in your first box plus $20 off your first order. Sign up at butcherbox.com/daily and use code DAILY Subscribe to the podcast!  https://link.chtbl.com/EverythingEverywhere?sid=ShowNotes -------------------------------- Executive Producer: Charles Daniel Associate Producers: Peter Bennett & Cameron Kieffer   Become a supporter on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/everythingeverywhere Update your podcast app at newpodcastapps.com Discord Server: https://discord.gg/UkRUJFh Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/everythingeverywhere/ Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/everythingeverywheredaily Twitter: https://twitter.com/everywheretrip Website: https://everything-everywhere.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

So I'm at the store buying something at the checkout counter and I'm talking to the cashier. A guy overhears my voice and says, are you that guy from the podcast? I reply, yeah, I have a podcast. He says, well, I love your podcast and I want to sponsor it for a million dollars. I said, that's great. But then he said, there's a catch. You have to come with me right now to sign the contract. And I told him sorry, but I can't.

He asked why, and I said, it's because I have to go and record installment number 12 of questions and answers on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. What if your perceptions about the past were wrong? ThruLine is a podcast that takes you back in time to uncover the parts of the story that may have gone unnoticed. It effectively turned day into night and how it shaped the world now. Time travel with us every week on the ThruLine podcast from NPR. Let's get started with the first question. Andrew Wreck asked, when you were doing tremble photography, what did your kit include?

What was your go-to lens for urban or streetscape photos? Nikon, Canon, Sony, etc. When I began traveling, I purchased a Nikon D-200. It was a crop sensor camera, which was fine, but I always had issues with how it performed in low light. I eventually upgraded to a Nikon D-300S and waited for years for Nikon to upgrade their crop sensor line. After years of waiting, I finally gave up and decided to just switch platforms completely.

I eventually purchased a Sony A7R2. It was a big, big switch, not only going from Nikon to Sony, but also from a crop sensor to a full-frame camera. I never carried very many lenses with me. It isn't practical for doing travel photography. Lugging everything around gets in the way of getting shots and having to change lenses in the fields causes all sorts of problems as well, especially with dirt in your camera. I only used three lenses on a regular basis. A 50-millimeter F-1.2 prime lens, which I have to admit I seldom used.

A 16 to 35 millimeter wide angle lens. And finally a 24 to 240 millimeter super zoom lens. With those lenses, I was pretty much able to do everything, save for wildlife photography. I have a 600 millimeter lens that I use for wildlife, but I don't usually travel with that. That being said, since I started the podcast, I haven't taken my camera out of my bag at all.

Matt Goulet Top asks, Do you think if the Allies were successful in assassinating Hitler, it could have turned the war in Germany's favor, given a more competent military leader could fill his place? Well, Matt, it totally depends on when the assassination happened. The most serious attempt to kill Hitler was Operation Valkyrie, which took place in July 1944. I previously did an episode on that. The plotters behind the assassination didn't plan to fight the war better.

They just wanted to come to peace terms with the Allies. Honestly, I don't think there's anything the Germans could have done once they invaded the Soviet Union. In the big picture, the resolution of the Second World War wasn't a matter of decisions on the battlefield. A more competent ruler might have made the war go on for Germany longer, but I don't think it would have changed the outcome. And once the United States was in the war, the industrial advantage coupled with the Soviet's manpower and the British Navy, put the Germans in a position that they could never possibly hope to win. Craig Oliver asks, outside of the Packers, what sports teams do you follow? I tend to support all of the Wisconsin teams. This is definitely a down year for football in the state, both with the Packers and the Badgers.

But the Bucks are doing okay in basketball and recently won a championship, and the Brewers are perpetually disappointing. There are several sports that don't have teams in Wisconsin. In those cases, most people around me either support teams in Chicago or the Twin Cities. And given that I used to live in the Twin Cities for years, I tend to be in. to support the Wild and hockey and the Minnesota United in soccer. Outside of the state, I've adopted Liverpool as my English Premier League team and Bilbao as my La Liga team in Spain. In International Rugby Union, I tend to support the All Blacks, which I saw win the World Cup live back in 2011. Michael Miller asks, during your travels, have you ever encountered paranormal

activity, voodoo, or something akin to that? If so, what happened, and do you believe in the paranormal? The short answer is, No, I have never experienced anything like that, and I don't really believe in it. There's been an explosion in cameras over the last 10 years. Literally, billions of people around the world now carry a camera in their pockets every single day, yet there hasn't been an increase in photographic evidence of the paranormal. What little exists is still just blurry photos. It's still just a lot of unverifiable firsthand accounts.

Sevi over on the Discord server asks, What are the most and least popular episodes by listens? Usually you do encore episodes that are statistically less listened to. Do you incorporate the data back in to see what the new popularity is? The honest answer is that I don't know. There aren't wild swings and downloads per episode. They're all pretty much the same, and this is held true over the last few years. The least downloaded episodes are the earlier ones,

and the most downloaded episodes are the more recent ones. So when I say before an encore episode that statistically I know most of you haven't listened to it, I'm really just referring to the fact that, they're older episodes and fewer people used to listen to the show than are listening to it now. That being said, when people tell me what their favorite episode is, I never get a consistent answer. Different people like completely different episodes. One of the fundamental premises of this show is that the topics are somewhat random every day. I don't want to let individual episode popularity determine what episodes I do in the future. So I'll just keep on doing

whatever topics that I find interesting. Nani Ramirez asks, have you been to the Philippines? is unique that you can have a podcast about it. Yes, I've been to the Philippines on two different occasions. I've explored Luzon going up to Baggio, Benawi, and Vegan, and I also went to Porta Princessa to visit the Underground River. I haven't done many episodes on the Philippines, but I do have several on my list. Topics I have in mind include Jose Rizal, the siege of Manila, the history of Manila, and the Philippine-American War, which is a war that most Americans don't even know existed. Nani Ramirez also asks, what is the most dangerous travel adventure experience you've had. Risky travel due to weather or extreme sport or natural

disasters or crime. The most extreme thing was probably a hike I made to the Erda Ali volcano in Ethiopia. The people organizing it told us nothing about what it entailed. In fact, we didn't even know we were going to be hiking. Urda Ali is basically an open lava pit, one of the few in the world like it. It's also located in the Danakil Depression, one of the lowest and hottest places on Earth. On the day we were driving there, the temperatures in the Danakil Depression reached 50 degrees Celsius or 122 degrees Fahrenheit, probably the hottest temperature I've ever experienced. Before we got started, they gave us some beers, which it turned out was a horrible thing to do because alcohol gets you dehydrated. And we still had no idea what was in store.

It turned out that we began the hike after sunset because of the temperatures. We walked for hours in the extremely hot night desert, and we had no one. Our guides were walking so far ahead of us that they had no idea we were getting dehydrated. Were it not for a fact that a guy with a camel was following behind us with water, I'm not sure what would have happened in the pitch dark in the Ethiopian desert. When we finally got to the volcano, there were noxious fumes coming out. Other groups that were there had gas masks because they knew what they were getting themselves into. We did not.

We had to put ourselves upwind from the volcano to avoid the fumes that we had no idea we'd be encountering. In the middle of the night, with no sleep, we began walking to get back before sunrise. What made the entire episode so bad was that I had no idea what we would be doing. None of us were prepared. So I would actually do it again, but only because this time I know what I would be getting myself into. Tim DeLong asks, have you ever been recognized by a listener because of your voice, like in a checkout line or while ordering at a restaurant? The answer is, nope, it has never happened. and to be honest, I will be shocked if it ever does.

Fabio Fidnazah asks, how did you come up with the title music? I selected the music from a stock music website. It's actually only a small snippet of a much larger piece. I actually played the entire piece on episode 100 of the podcast if you want to go back and listen to the whole thing. Jerry Gardner asks, did you dress up for Halloween? If so, who or what?

Instead of handing out candy, did you give trick-or-treaters cards with fun facts on them? No, I haven't dressed up. for Halloween in probably 25 years. That isn't to say I never will, but I've spent a lot of the last couple years in places that just didn't celebrate Halloween. Also, I didn't give it any candy because I live in an apartment building that doesn't have very many kids. That being said, if I was giving out something, I wouldn't do something so lame as to give out cards with facts on them. If I did that, kids would rightfully toilet paper me or throw eggs at my door. This is my tip for everyone. If you're going to

give something out for Halloween, do it right. Don't be the person that gives out fruit or popcorn balls. Fun-sized candy is the baseline. If you do that, kids won't hate you, but they also won't love you. They will just forget you. What you really want to do is give out full-sized candy bars. Yes, this will cost a bit more, but you will be remembered forever. I can still remember the houses that gave about full-size candy bars decades after I got them. Brian Ross asks, What is the most memorable food you ate on each continent? Okay, in no particular order.

In Africa, it would be fool, a bean dish I had with shaved, dried beef that I had in Cairo. I have never had it before or since, but it's the one dish that really stuck out in my mind. In Europe, I'm going to go with calcats. These are usually only found in Catalonia. They're large green onions that are roasted over a fire and served on a terracotta roof tile. And they're only served at the beginning of the year.

And they're actually much better than they sound. In Asia, I'm going to go with a Japanese dinner that was served to me on the island of Yakushima. To this day, I'm not really sure what I was served, but it was amazing. And I think I've talked about this meal before in a previous Q&A episode. In Oceania, I'm going to go with Pusan Crew. This is the national dish of Tahiti. It's raw fish in lemon juice and coconut milk. I had it from one of the food truck.

that go around the island known as La Roulette. In South America, I have to go with an Argentine asado, which is their version of barbecue. Argentina has the best beef in the world, and an assato is truly one of the best culinary experiences you can have. In North America, I probably have to go with a busherie that I had in Lafayette, Louisiana. It's occasion tradition where they use all the parts of a hog in a community celebration. And I actually have an answer for the best thing I had in Antarctica. And the answer is, ice. And no, that's not a joke. When we would go out from our ship in a zodiac, those inflatable boats,

we would look for bits of glacier ice that were floating in the water. However, we had to find pieces that were crystal clear and didn't have any bubbles inside to cloud it up. We would then bring the ice back on the ship, and it would be used in the evening in the bar for drinks. So we would literally be drinking part of the Antarctica ice sheet. Finally, the last question comes from Janelle Alvastad Mattson, who asks, You've made so many episodes at this point that it made me curious if there are any topics you've told us about that you've already forgotten the details of. Well, the answer is yes and no. For a long time, I figured that there would come a day when I've done so many episodes that I would

accidentally do one that I've done before. It doesn't happen often, but sometimes I'll come up with an idea for a show and then remember that I've already done it. It isn't an issue of forgetting things so much as a matter of recall. Once I see the episode artwork or maybe even read a little bit of the introduction, everything tends to come back immediately. I would say that I could extemporaneously talk about the vast majority of the episodes that I've already done without any preparation. And for some episodes, I could probably talk ad nauseum about them. For the remainder of the episodes, I think I'd probably just need a few minutes to review what I've already done before everything came back to me. So it isn't a case of completely forgetting, but just needing a

refresher. Well, that's it for this month. If you want to ask a question for next month's question and answer, just join the Everything Everywhere Daily Facebook group or the Discord server. There, you can get a sneak peek of what the next day's episode is going to be, and you can also talk to other listeners. You can find links for both destinations in the show notes. The executive producer of Everything Everywhere Daily is Charles Daniel. The associate producers are Peter Bennett and Cameron Kiefer. I wanted to give a big thanks to everyone who supports the show on Patreon. Your Your support helps me put out a new show every day. And if you're interested in everything everywhere daily merchandise,

Patreon is currently the only place where it's available. And if you'd like to talk to other listeners of the show and get notified of future episodes and projects, please join my Facebook group or Discord server. Links to everything are in the show notes.