Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More - Questions and Answers: Volume 38

Starting point is 00:00:00 January is upon us, the month that honors the Roman god Janus, the god of two faces. One face looked forward and the other looked back. Janice was the god of beginning and ending wars, and he was also the god of doors and bridges. And while I have absolutely no proof of this whatsoever, I also think that his two faces would have probably provided both questions and answers. Stay tuned for Questions and Answers Volume 38 on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. Fear is the virus is trending on TikTok. Vaccines are poison.

Starting point is 00:00:47 Then your yoga teacher says that sex traffic children are being sacrificed by satanic liberals. But it's all okay. The Great Awakening is coming. What is happening? Every week on Conspirality Podcast, we explore the fever dreams that suck friends, family, and wellness gurus down the right-wing cult spiral in a search for salvation. Before I start, let me give a big shout out to listener Jenna Hayes, who appeared on the December 31st edition of Jeopardy and gave this podcast a shout out. Well done, Jenna, and congratulations on your appearance. And of course, a big thank you for mentioning the podcast as part of your preparations for the show.

Starting point is 00:01:36 The first question comes from Diana Mead over on Patreon. She asks, I have loved your lookbacks on past centuries, and these will end after episode 2025. Will there be anything like this in the future? Well, I have received many questions this month that are basically along the same line. And I'll use Diana's question because she's a Patreon supporter. Membership has its privileges. And the answer is, yes, I am planning something. However, the current series is going to end in 2025 because that is, for all practical purposes, the present.

Starting point is 00:02:12 I'm not going to predict what the world will be like in 2050 because, that would just be making stuff up, and I have no clue how to predict the future. That being said, I started the current series on episode 1500, and there's a lot of history that happened before that, so there will be episodes covering earlier eras. You'll just have to stay tuned to find out what it's going to be. Max S from the Discord server S is Spain the only country to have reached out about ads. I always appreciate those episodes as they help build my knowledge about a specific topic. How did that relationship come to be? Is there a country that you're surprised to have listeners from? Every advertiser whose ad I read on the show has reached

Starting point is 00:02:55 out in some way. However, the relationship with Spain is special. They were the very first advertiser for the show. In fact, they reached out to me very early on in the show's history to ask how we could work together. My relationship with the nation of Spain actually goes back to 2010. I had been traveling around the world for about three years and had grown my travel blog to a pretty good size at that time. A representative from the Valencia Tourism Board, shout out to Wancho if you're listening, reached out to me and asked if I would speak at a conference they were holding on tourism in the internet. It was the very first time anyone in the tourism industry, anywhere in the world, actually reached out to me. Since then, I've returned to Spain many, many

Starting point is 00:03:38 times. Despite all my contacts in the travel and tourism industry, Spain has been the only destination that has truly grasped the power of podcasting. And as far as a country I'm surprised to have listeners from, that would have to be Eritrea. Kelly Kearns-Brockington from the Facebook group asks, how do you keep your voice and throat healthy while talking up to 20 to 25 minutes per episode? Well, Kelly, that is very easy. I don't talk for most of the day. It isn't that I'm trying to protect my voice, it's just that I live alone and I'm not talking to anybody most of the time. I will literally go some days without seeing another human being just working on the next show. Someone like a teacher who was in front of people all day would have a far greater issue with

Starting point is 00:04:21 their voice than I ever would. Barb Grass Miller from the Facebook group asks, is there a destination in the U.S. that you haven't visited but always wanted to go to? Well, there are many places I haven't been, but at the top of my list are the remains. remaining national parks that I've yet to visit. I visited the vast majority of U.S. national parks and was set to finish visiting them back in 2020, but the pandemic changed that. The parks I have yet to visit in the United States are the U.S. Virgin Islands National Park, Big Bend National Park in Texas, Sequoia Kings Canyon and Channel Islands in California,

Starting point is 00:05:01 and New River Gorge National Park in West Virginia. None of these parks are particularly challenging to visit. I just haven't gotten around to visiting them yet. Thankfully, I've already been to the most difficult to visit parks in Alaska and American Samoa. Deborah Wales on Patreon asks, which city do you prefer and why? Amsterdam, Paris, or Munich. Well, I have to take Munich off the list because I haven't really spent any time there. I drove through it while I was on a trip visiting UNESCO World Heritage sites in Bavaria, but I didn't spend any time. Amsterdam is a much more comfortable place to visit as an English speaker. You can get around Amsterdam and for that matter most of the Netherlands just fine using English. Paris requires a bit more work. Not a lot,

Starting point is 00:05:48 but there's also more to see and explore, I think. If I were to create a list of things I haven't seen in both cities, my Paris list is probably longer, even though I've been to Paris more times than I've been to Amsterdam. Henry Soski from Patreon asks, how much time did you spend with expats or Western tourists from Australia, New Zealand, Europe, North America, etc. while traveling. Well, Henry, the dirty secret of traveling is that you're going to meet more travelers than locals. And if you think about it, this is actually to be expected.

Starting point is 00:06:21 If you're staying at a hotel, a guest house, or a hostel, you're going to be interacting with other tourists. When you go visit tourist sites, it's going to be other tourists who are there. Depending on where you're traveling, there might be a language issue as well. locals who work in tourists-facing businesses will just be seeing an endless stream of visitors coming and going, and they don't really make any connections with anyone. I actually stayed at a hostel once in Minneapolis, where I actually lived for years before I started traveling, and when I was there I mostly interacted with foreign tourists who were staying there,

Starting point is 00:06:55 just because that is where they happen to be. Ellen Massaro on Facebook asks, What is your favorite historically-based film and one you wish they would make? Well, Alan, that's an easy question. The greatest historical movie, and my favorite movie of all time, is Lawrence of Arabia. Oddly enough, despite my love of the movie and my several visits to Wadi Rum and Jordan, I've yet to do an episode on either T.E. Lawrence or the Great Arab Revolt. A great historical movie doesn't necessarily mean it was accurate. There's always dramatic license taken when adapting history for the screen. Other favorites of mine include, Patent, A Man for All Seasons, Cleopatra, A Bridge Too Far, The Passion of Joan of Arc, Mishima A Life in Four Chapters, The Last Valley, and Kingdom of Heaven, The Directors Cut. And it has to be the director's cut because they're two completely different films. As far as what I would like to see, I think a film based on the Battle of Elysia would be really, really interesting. Matt Morang from the Facebook group asks, was there any legal wrangling when the movie Everything

Starting point is 00:08:05 Everywhere all at once was released. Well, no. I've been using Everything Everywhere since 2006, the year I registered the everything-everywhere. Domain name. Back in 2010, T-Mobile and Orange Mobile in the UK merged, and their new name was Everything Everywhere, now just known as E. They actually reached out to me because I think they were more worried about me than I was about then.

Starting point is 00:08:32 In the end, they were in a different business, in a different country. and had far more money than I ever did, so there was no real issues with the name. And the same is true in the movie. If anything, more people have discovered the website and the podcast accidentally in the process of searching for these other brands, so I'd say if anything, it was a very small net positive for me. Chris Deloio Kono on Facebook asks, what's the most extreme or daring adventure or stunt you did during your travels?

Starting point is 00:09:01 I wouldn't call it a stunt per se, but I did go bungee jumping twice. in New Zealand. I did a jump in Queenstown and then another one off the Auckland Harbor Bridge. I have not been skydiving and I have absolutely no desire to do so. I have been in the water with Great White Sharks in South Africa, but it was in a cage and it sounds far more dangerous than it actually was. I'm not really sure I can say I've done anything else I'd call extreme. I've done a lot of fun things, but I'm not really an adrenaline junkie. Tracy Swanson Romag on Facebook asks, You have traveled so much, but now you stay home to work on this wonderful podcast.

Starting point is 00:09:40 Have you ever thought about a pet? If so, what kind would you want? Unfortunately, the building I currently live in does not allow cats or dogs. The closest I've ever come to pets was a huge 175-gallon saltwater coral reef aquarium I had before I started traveling. It was beautiful, and it really stood out, but it was also a lot of work. I've considered getting a nanoref aquarium, something around 20 gallons or smaller, but I just haven't made it a priority yet. Currently, the only thing I have are houseplants. Daniel Tomashek asks, Do you have a favorite metal band to listen to? I would not say that I am a heavy metal fan per se.

Starting point is 00:10:22 I listen to Metallica and Black Sabbath in high school, but I actually listen to Black Sabbath coming from a blues direction, not a metal direction, which there are early stuff for was actually more blues influence. There are two bands I have a soft spot for, and again, I wouldn't say that I'm a fan of them per se. The first is Rhapsody of Fire. Wikipedia calls them an Italian symphonic power metal band. I discovered them by accident in the weirdest way possible. Sometime about 20 years ago, I fell asleep on the couch watching TV.

Starting point is 00:10:55 When I woke up and I don't even remember what channel it was on, I remembered seeing a flaming skull on the screen. It was a music video that also had Christopher Leonid who played Saraman from the Lord of the Rings movies. The song was Unholy War Cry and the band was Rhapsody, now known as Rhapsody of Fire due to a trademark conflict. The other band I have a soft spot for is the Japanese band Baby Metal. It's a cross between a cutesy Japanese kawai band and heavy metal, which sounds absolutely ridiculous at first, but it actually works. Makos Bruch asks, Gary, when you set out to travel the world, like a high-class bum,

Starting point is 00:11:39 what logic did you use for your destination countries and places? Alphabetical, bucket list, ranking world heritage sites, throw over dice, thank you for your good work. When I first started, my plan is pretty simple. I went west. I crossed the Pacific Ocean and jump from island to island as best I could. I never really planned more than a week or two ahead of time. It took me most of 2007 across the Pacific, and when I got to South Korea, then I began going

Starting point is 00:12:05 south until I got to Australia. After a few years, my travels became more opportunistic. I'd go to places where I was invited, or I'd manage to go somewhere for a conference and then take side trips around the region. The final question comes from Richard Short, who asks, when did North American people begin to speak in a distinctly North American accent? In other words, Gary, when did your voice that we all know and love historically evolved into how we hear you now. Basically, the evolution of the North American English accent began almost immediately once people arrived and were separated from England. And I should note, there isn't one single North American accent. There are multiple accents that could be found across the United States, Canada, and the Caribbean.

Starting point is 00:12:48 That being said, for the most part, there has been less diversity in accents in North America than there has been in the U.K., where towns just 20 miles apart, may speak with very different accents. Many of the North American accent features are actually elements of 17th and 18th century accents from England, which died out over there, but remained here. In particular, the pronunciation of the letter R. This is probably a subject for a full episode, but there are some places like Smith Island Maryland which speak an accent that is considered to be the closest accent to what might have been

Starting point is 00:13:25 spoken in Elizabethan England. And it's not in England, it's in the United States. And I should also note, this isn't just an English thing. Once populations are separated, changes start to occur. That is why the French spoken in Quebec is spoken of the very different accent than the French spoken in France. And why there are so many different Spanish accents all across the Americas. And that concludes this month's question and answer episode. If you want to leave a question for next month's show, you have to join the Facebook group

Starting point is 00:13:57 or the Discord server, or become a supporter of the show on Patreon, because those are the places where I will announce it. The executive producer of Everything Everywhere Daily is Charles Daniel. The associate producers are Austin Otkin and Cameron Kiefer. My big thanks go to everyone who supports the show over on Patreon. Your support helps make this podcast possible. And I also want to remind everyone about the community groups on Facebook and Discord. That's where everything happens that's outside the podcast. And links to those are available in the show notes. As always, if you leave a review on any major podcast app or in the above community groups, you two can have it read in the show.

Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More - Questions and Answers: Volume 38

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