Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More - Questions & Answers: Volume 9

Episode Date: August 5, 2023

As I do every month, I went to the Temple of Jupiter Capitolinus to meet with the Augurs. I met an old priest, and I asked him, “Quo die est felicissimum?” He looked at a flock of birds that appeared to be flying in a circle. He saw a cloud float past the sun, and he noticed that the sacred chickens had paused in their eating.  Having read the signs, he turned to me and said, “Primo Saturni in Augusta.” As getting advice from chickens and clouds can’t possibly be wrong, stay tuned for Questions & Answers: Volume 9 on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. Sponsors Noom  Noom is not just another diet or fitness app. It’s a comprehensive lifestyle program designed to empower you to make lasting changes and achieve your health goals. With Noom, you’ll embark on a personalized journey that considers your unique needs, preferences, and challenges. Their innovative approach combines cutting-edge technology with the support of a dedicated team of experts, including registered dietitians, nutritionists, and behavior change specialists. Sign up for your TRIAL today at Noom.com   Rocket Money  Rocket Money is a personal finance app that finds and cancels your unwanted subscriptions, monitors your spending, and helps you lower your bills—all in one place. It will quickly and easily find your subscriptions for you –and for any you don’t want to pay for anymore, just hit “cancel,” and Rocket Money will cancel it for you. It’s that easy. Stop throwing your money away. Cancel unwanted subscriptions – and manage your expenses the easy way – by going to RocketMoney.com/daily Subscribe to the podcast!  https://link.chtbl.com/EverythingEverywhere?sid=ShowNotes -------------------------------- Executive Producer: Charles Daniel Associate Producers: Peter Bennett & Thor Thomsen   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

As I do every month, I went to the temple of Jupiter-Capitalinus to meet with the augurs. I met an old priest, and I asked him, Quodia est felici Seymum. He looked at a flock of birds that appeared to be flying in a circle. He saw a cloud float past the sun, and he noticed that the sacred chickens had paused in their eating. Having read the signs, he turned to me and said, Primo Saturni in Augusta. As getting advice from chickens and clouds can't possibly be wrong, stay tuned for questions and answers, Volume 9, 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 kick things off of the question from the Discord server. And yes, the show does have a Discord server for all of you who want a place to hang out while playing video games. The link is in the show notes. Fat Yankee asks, sometimes your episodes

correlate with the release date. Some are a history of the holiday like Canada Day, but others correlate in a broader sense like the American flag history on July 4th or a father-sum-themed episode aired on Father's Day. How do you decide which special days get an episode? Do you limit these type of episodes so as not to become a daily history podcast? I love these type of episodes and hope you add a Count Chocula episode in time for Halloween. Thanks, Gary. This podcast is my first to listen to every day. Fat Yankee, you basically nailed it. There are only a few days on the calendar that are meaningful to people, and most of them are holidays. There are a few days people remember when something historic happened, but as you get further away from the event,

we tend to just remember the year it happened. In the case of holidays, it would be kind of weird to do a history of St. Patrick's Day in September, for example. It makes a lot more sense to just release the episode on St. Patrick's Day. However, I don't necessarily want to be straight-jacketed by having to have every episode associated with a particular date on the calendar. Many of my episodes have nothing to do with any particular date. Some topics from ancient history have no dates associated with them that we're aware of. There's also a marketing angle to doing that. Some podcast directories like Apple Podcasts will promote podcast episodes around certain holidays,

and people often search for those episodes on those dates. So, yeah, I sometimes do release episodes associated with a specific day, but it only happens a few times a year. If anyone has a suggestion for a particular holiday or national day in your country that you think would make for a good episode, don't hesitate to send me your suggestions. Sylvia and Sharbon now asks if you could change one thing in professional sports, any sport, what would it be? One of the first things I would do is I would put a hard or at least harder salary cap in Major League Baseball. Baseball is the least structured American sport when it comes to salary caps and it results in massive differences in play role between teams. For example, this year, the Philadelphia Phillies have a payroll of $215 million, while the Oakland A's only have a payroll of $33 million. I would institute a cap as well as a floor, because right now teams can make good money by losing and not spending money on players.

I would also take an extended break of at least one week in the middle of the baseball season for a single elimination playoff tournament. This would be taking a page from the single elimination tournaments which are held in Europe, like the F.A. Cup. Like the FA Cup, I would allow minor league teams to take part as well, with Major League teams getting a buy to later rounds. One thing I like about the way European sports are organized is that there are multiple trophies that a team can contend for each year. In North America, there's just one. You win the championship, and that's it.

Another thing I would change is the odd way Major League Soccer signs players. Technically, every MLS player is signed by the league and not by the team, which is kind of bizarre. Every team also has odd rules about the amount that can be spent on which position, so defenders are usually underpaid. Chuck Ferraro asks, how many items are on your list of future episodes? As of the moment I am recording this, I have 919 show ideas on the master list of future shows. Not all these ideas will see the light of day. Some might get rolled into other topics for an episode that covers a bigger subject. Before I started the show, I began with a list of 100 show ideas, and many of those ideas I still haven't done episodes on.

The list tends to grow in fits and starts. Sometimes I'll do an episode that will spawn five other episode ideas. Sometimes I'll just be watching TV and come up with an idea. And other times I'll be having a discussion with someone who has a good idea and I'll just take out my phone and put an idea on the list. Alex Kettner asks, what is your Mount Rushmore of Packers players? That is a very difficult question. Would it be the people who've had the biggest impact on the franchise?

Guys? Would it be my favorite players? Would it be the best players? I'm going to go with a mix of those and say Reggie White, Ray Nitchke, Vince Lombardi, and Aaron Rogers. Honorable mention goes to Sterling Sharp, Don Hudson, Curly Lambo, Bart Starr, Brett Favre, Tony Canadao, Jim Taylor, Dave Robinson, Forrest Gregg, and James Lofton. David Kessler asked what inspired you to start making podcasts. I was a very early internet user. I can remember listening to very early internet all. I can remember listening to very early internet audio on software like real audio. I took part in a live video game streaming program back in 2000 before podcasting was even a thing, and I would often stream music to my EverQuest Guild around the same time using Shoutcast on Win App. I co-hosted a podcast

called This Week in Travel starting back in 2009, and I was appearing as a guest on podcast as early as 2007. And I've always been comfortable speaking. I was a very successful competitor in speech and debate in both high school and college. So podcasting, I guess was just a natural thing for me to do. I'm also just a big believer in podcasting. Hearing someone voice is far more impactful than just reading an article from someone who is nothing more than a name. Amanda Carlin asks, what are some of your favorite sites in the U.S. that you think are underappreciated, recommended, visited? I will have to start with Alaska. Most Americans, and in fact most Alaskans, haven't explored much of the state because

most of the state is difficult to reach. When people visit Alaska, they'll usually take some of cruise along the inside passage and then maybe go up to Denali National Park. These are all wonderful things, but there is a whole lot more to the state than that. One of my big recommendations is Rangel St. Elias National Park. It's one of the parks that can be reached by car, and it's also the largest national park in the United States. It's larger than Switzerland. I had a great time there, glacier hiking, and I think it should be part of any Alaska visit. In the lower 48, I would recommend places in the middle of the country that are often over

looked. My first would be Theodore Roosevelt National Park in Western North Dakota. This is a highly overlooked national park in the grasslands that has some of the most accessible bison, mule deer, and wild horses that you'll see in any national park. It's also located right off Interstate 94, so it's easy to reach if you're willing to make the drive. I'd also recommend Isle Royal National Park in Lake Superior. The island is technically part of Michigan, but it's actually easiest to reach from northern Minnesota. The park is mostly wilderness, and it's one of the best places for backwoods camping in the United States. It's actually the least visited national park in the continental United States, because one,

it's an island, and two, it's closed in the winter. Another great spot I'd have to recommend is Anelope Canyon in Arizona. It's on Navajo land, and you have to be on a guided tour, but it's well worth it if you're in the Four Corners region. Benjamin Arndt, no relation, asks, what's the best travel experience you've had after making a wrong turn? It wasn't a literal wrong turn, more of a metaphorical one, but I had a flight scheduled from Samoa to Tonga. At the time, the countries were on opposite sides of the international dateline. The flight was a weekly Air New Zealand flight that started in Los Angeles and then stopped in Samoa and Tonga on the way to Auckland. Because of the date line and time

zone difference, I accidentally read my ticket wrong and thought that the landing time was the takeoff time. When I arrived at the airport in Apia, I literally saw the plane taking off and I realized what had happened. I went back to the guest house I was staying at, and I had to get my ticket change to the next flight in a week. I ended up spending the next week on the island of Savai, which I otherwise wouldn't have visited. I had a great time. Air New Zealand was sympathetic and changed my ticket, and it was an experience I wouldn't have otherwise had if I had made the flight. Sam Robinson asks, what's the most interesting topic that you don't think you'll ever do an episode on? Last month, I said I'd probably never do an episode on the Kennedy assassination. That simply

has to do with the fact that no matter what I say, I'd have to deal with very passionate of people who will find fault in anything I say. However, there are a host of topics I haven't done episodes on yet that I would like to do at some point in the future. At some point, I'll do an episode on quantum physics and one on the standard model. I have an episode covering the various Chinese dynasties that has been staring me in the face forever, and I have several covering various South and Southeast Asian empires. Ultimately, whatever topic I do an episode on is something that I have to find interesting, I have to have some knowledge about it,

and I have to be able to explain it in such a way that it can be understood by a wide variety of people. That's it for this month. If you want to ask a question for next month's Q&A, just join the Everything Everywhere Facebook group or Discord server. There you can get a sneak peek of whatever the next day's episode is going to be, and you can talk with other listeners. You can find links for both the Facebook group and the Discord server in the show notes.

The executive producer of Everything Everywhere Daily is Charles Daniel. The associate producers are Thor Thompson and Peter Bennett. I just want to thank everyone, including the show's producers, who support the show over on Patreon. If you'd like to support the show, just head over to patreon.com, which is currently the only place where you can get show merchandise. Also, if you want to talk to other listeners about the show, head over to our Facebook group or Discord server, both of which have links in the show notes.