Good Job, Brain! - 271: Sailing the Seven Seas

Episode Date: April 23, 2024

Let's sail through briny trivia and salty facts about being at sea. Chris reports back from his cruise vacation/research and lets us in on the most exclusive parts of the ship, and .do you .kn ow your .is.la. nds? Hey turn around, bright eyes, Colin learns about Ted Pedas and the weird world of seafaring heliophiles. And oh boy, the announcement of a potential oceanic Moana-land has got Karen diving into the USPTO library for recent Disney patents. For advertising inquiries, please contact [e-mail]! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to an Airwave Media podcast. Welcome, scrappy, scrambling, but scrumptious, scrupulous screwballs. This is Good Job, Brain, your weekly quiz show and offbeat trivia podcast. Today's show is episode 271. And of course, I'm your humble host. Karen, and we are your sparkling, sparkly, sparky, sparring, Spartans, and spare ribs. I'm Colin. And I'm Chris.

Beep, beep, beep, beep, beep. I have some trivia news about trivia. My sister, who lives in the Washington, D.C. area, shared a link in our good job bringing Globetrotters fan group, an article from the Washington Post. about the scandal, a team that cheated at a local bar, cheated pub trivia. And the article dives deeper into trying to find out who did it, why explaining the phenomenon that is a pub trivia. Ah, that's a good lens.

The article is titled, if you want to go check it out, inside the cheating scandal, rocking DC's trivia scene. Oh, what were they doing? Is it like the people that were cheating at chess? Is it a scandal? It's scandalous, but really it's cheating with like an Apple Watch and shazamming music round. Oh, oh, okay. You know, cheating sucks.

It's not new news that people cheat at Pub Trivia. Smartphones just made it easy to do so if you want to. Yeah, you're just cheating yourself, you know. Wow, wow. Thanks, Dad. Yeah, some dad. Dad, some dad wisdom here for you. People who, listeners who play pub trivia, tell us the crazy ways you've seen people cheat.

I've never seen the hold my Apple Watch up to the speaker to Shazam, a music round. I used to play at a local unnamed establishment here in Berkeley. And there was, there was a crew of people who would always hang out by the bar. And there, I'm just going to say this. It was, it was, it was uncanny how good this team was. the music round and I'm just going to leave it at that didn't matter what the theme was one hit wonders I mean esoteric tracks they they would always be pulling out like nine out of ten out of ten I'm like all right somebody over there is shazaming like this is silly but then

bomb like the rest of the round yes yes it didn't it didn't carry over over to any other round I'm like come on but you can't be that that that targeted in your knowledge anyways well speaking of trivia let's jump into our first general trivia segment pop quiz hot shot No cheating allowed Here I have two random I'm gonna try to cheat this round Yeah

Well I think that's why normal trivia It's like fast Well you don't really have time to Right Look it up Yeah yeah But here we go We have today

Randomly drawn Trivial Pursue cards 1990 Okay Just the year 1990 Yeah All right It was alive

Gene is 4 yes We were alive? Yes, we were alive. And Ed paying attention. So let's see how this goes. Here we go. 1-990. You guys have your barnyard buzzers.

Buzzin with the right answer. Pink Wedge. What 15-year-old actress documented her six years of drug and alcohol woes in the autobiography, Little Girl Lost. Ooh, 1990? 15 years old at that time. I read about this. Okay. Colin.

Was that Drew Barrymore? Yes, it is Drew Barrymore. Ah, okay. 15 in 1990. Yeah, I was just, I was just trying to figure who would be, okay, yeah. I was going to say that, but I just thought it was too, uh, she would have been older by then. Older, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Wow, wow, wow, wow.

Yellow Edge, what companies spark the spread of digital photography with its photo CD system? Oh, gosh. Oh. Oh. Colin. I'm going to go maybe on a limb. Is it Phillips? Incorrect.

Okay. You think about CDI. Yeah. Photo CD system. Kodak? It's Kodak. Ah, okay. It's Kodak.

Is just the CDs for photos? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you know, like, you would go and, like, get a, get your film developed or something like that, but oh, it was photo. But you would get it on the CD. You would get it on a CD. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Brown Wedge,

what Saturday Night Live cast member based one of his best-loved characters on his mother-in-law? Oh, Chris. Mike Myers. Yes. Hmm. Which, oh, coffee talk. Linda, Linda Richmond.

Chick-peas, night of chick, norpeas. I'm all, I'm the cleft. God, we're so old. That's such an old. Very older. Yeah, I know. I know. I know.

And it's funny because I watched that as a kid. And, like, I thought it was so funny just because it's like a funny accent. Like, I had no idea. Sure. Of any of the context. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. There are a lot of Linda Richman's in the world.

Yep, yep, yep. We're just boomers doing Jackie Gleason impressions at this point. The moon, Alice. Orange Wedge, what TV characters bejeweled corpse sparked an interest in half-heart necklaces? What TV characters bejeweled corpse sparked an interest in half-heart necklaces? Colin? Laura Palmer? Yes!

Okay. All right, all right. But when you say a bejeweled corpse. Yes. You're imagining, like, you know, coated in rhinestones, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Not be dazzled. It's not a dazzled corpse, yes.

Yeah. Good job. Green Wedge, what nation did the U.S. government attempt to broadcast democratic propaganda to via TV Marti? What is that? That's Big M-A-R-T-I, TV-Marty. Colin. I think that's Cuba, yeah? Yes, it is Cuba.

Nice. What is TV Marti? Is that channel? Basically the U.S. equivalent of like, you know, radio free. Oh, I see. You know, yeah, exactly. What Czech-born Puckster was the, what checkborn Puckster was the last NHL player named League MVP in the 90s.

Oh, man. What do you mean that was the last? Just not my sport. I've heard of this name before. There's not a lot of vowels. It's alliterative Has a four-letter last name You're giving us so much here to work right

What are the initials? What are the initials? JJ Oh Oh, I know I know After six hints including the number of letters and the first letter of his last name I'm going to go with Yarramir Yager

Yes Oh okay I have heard that name, but I wouldn't have been able to recall. That's cool. Thanks. Appreciate the very long lead of road. All right, next car, new car. Who, shake it off, shaking off. 1990. Kind of tough. All right, here we go. Genus for Blue Wedge People and Places. What was the official language of England from 1,099 until 1399? Oh, interesting. 1099 until 1399. So 300 years. Yes, exactly. Exactly. Okay. All right.

It's not English. Yay. Yeah, right. Chris. French? French. French. French. French. Fonse. That's right. Pink Wedge. What screen high schooler is the assistant and friend of Dr. Emmett Brown? Chris. Marty McFly.

Martie McFly. From back to the future. Yellow Wedge. What European country has? had kings nicknamed the lazy, the fat, and the quarrelsome. There's three different people. It's three. Yeah. So someone, the lazy.

Colin. Well, you're sticking with the theory that not everyone's going to be reading these cards, I mean, reading these questions in order. I'm just going to say England? It is France. Oh, man. It was almost there. Yeah.

Almost there. Brown Wedge, Science in Nature, what does theitis mean in bronchitis? Oh. Chris. Is it like illness? Melody of them?

You can be a little bit more specific. Oh. It's like inflammation. Inflammation. Inflammation. Yes. Oh. Itis.

Okay. Youritis is. Green Wedge for Sports and Leisure. What South American Country observed three days of National mourning when Formula One racer, Ayrton Senna died. Oh, yeah. Chris, go for it. Monaco?

South American country. Oh, South American country. Yes. Missed that part. South American country observed three days of national warning. Okay, okay, okay. All right, I'll guess, I'll guess again, why not? Okay.

Okay, there's only like 10 countries down there. Okay. Um, Argentina. Incorrect. Dang. Brazil. Brazil. Probably a better, it's a much bigger country.

Yeah, just more people. All right, last question on this card. What did Buddha define as the reward obtained by the suppression of desire? Oh. Chris. Nirvana. Smells like teen spirit. Yes.

All right, good job, brains. Well, Colin, you're not the topic picker for this episode. Someone beat you to it. It was me. the other person on the podcast we actually didn't record episodes for the last couple of weeks because I was on vacation and for our family vacation we went on a cruise but not just any cruise we went on a Disney cruise and not just any Disney crew we went on the Disney wish their newest and biggest boat this is the new ship so

but it's got the Star Wars Hyper Space Lounge. Oh, cool. You step through a Star Wars door and you're in. It's like you're on, you're on an actual cruise ship in the middle of the ocean pretending to be on a Star Wars cruise ship, and there's a massive monitor, so you're looking out the window.

Oh, but it's space. Every five minutes you, like, go through hyperspace out the window, and then you're in front of a new Star Wars planet, which of course it's all canonical, which ships are near the, the planets and all the bartenders know and they'll tell you and you know you can spend certain amounts of money on Star Wars drinks and stuff like that but that's like one thing you could do and there's there's shows on board and food and just take care of you all day so I kind

of came back and I was it's like oh what are we going to do for the topic I'm like let's do at sea because that's where I was so like let's talk about like stuff involving the ocean the water out on the ocean. So this week, we're sailing the seven seas. Well, Karen, let me ask you, what is a pirate's favorite letter? Are you? Nay, you think it'd be the R, but tis the C. It's a great dad, Joe.

Yeah, it is because you think you're clever because you're like, oh, I see the part. Yeah, yeah, no, you see, yes, you missed it. What a twist. Anyway, yeah, so on this Disney, this Disney cruise ship that I was on, I actually, Karen, you'd be interested in this. They're not calling.

There's lots to make Karen in particular. There's, well, maybe Colin, too. There's a lot, I mean, as I've been saying, there's just so much to do, there's so much on this ship. There's something, there is something on this ship that I just wanted to mention also that there's um it's called aqua mouse and it's uh disney bills it as the only disney attraction at sea so cruise ships have water slides and water rides and stuff like that on the top deck kind of going around the ship so what aqua mouse is it's effectively it's a water

ride on a tube but it starts out with a disney dark ride type presentation where you slowly get as you're slowly going up the track to get taken up high so you can slide down, they're showing segments of a Mickey Mouse adventure on a series of monitors that are giving you the storyline of what's going on. And you're on a tube? And you're on a tube. You're in your swimsuit on a tube. It's not nearly as like complicated as other Disney dark rides, but they're essentially

trying to do like a dark ride. And then once you get to the end of that. point then it kind of becomes a more standard kind of water slide until the until the end yeah so it's cool so i mean they're just they they put all kinds of things on these on these cruise ships especially the disney ones all these crazy things that you can go and do we asked around because we're nerds and we're very curious and it's it's a big big ship but there's 4,000 passengers and 1500 crew members oh so that's a pretty low ratio of like crew members to passengers, right? It's almost like one to two. Two and a half, yeah, essentially. The Disney

Wish is a bigger ship, but it has the same number of passengers as other Disney ships. So it just it feels like more spacious. You know what I mean? Like you never really feel like there's things are too crowded. The other side of that is that like there's like an entire world on that cruise ship that you're never going to see. Like one of the big things being the fact that there's 1,500 crew members who are living on this ship. Living in the walls. Yeah, yeah, yeah, basically. They live on the ship.

They live, yeah, it is like Downton Abbey because it's like there's the servants quarters and stuff like that, but it's like the crew living areas on this ship are, and you would never go see that as a passenger, but it's like they will live on this ship for, you know, you know how it kind of works, right, with a cruise ship. people who work on cruise ships, it's like they sign up for like a six month or a four month or whatever it is, contract. Yeah, yeah.

And they're just on the ship for that whole time and they work every day. But they get breaks and they get, you know, they don't get gays off, but they get chunks of the day off. But it's like there's crew, there's crew pools, there's recreation areas. They're not just hanging out at the snack bar and, you know, on the rides with all the paying customers.

No. So really, so the whole point of what I wanted to talk about here is I started looking like, well, what are other things like that are on cruise ships that you might be surprised to know exists on a cruise ship that maybe you don't see? So I did some research into this and I'm here to tell you about maybe two major things basically. So one of them is a place that maybe you think you want to go, but you really don't, which of course is Disney Jail. Oh, is there Disney jail? Yes, there is. So if you mess up badly enough while you're on your Disney cruise, you may find yourself tossed in the brig, which is a like a jail cell, like it's in the bowels of the ship. So people ask, like, is there brig? Like, is there Disney jail on the Disney ship? And yes, it does exist. But what it seems like is that the brig on the cruise ship is like the absolute last resort. solution like if you like killed somebody on the case cannot be dealt with any other manner right now they do sometimes uh if they do have a problem guess who maybe is too inebriated or you know or either way was being too violent or whatever it was what the the first thing that they'll try

to do is they'll confine them to their cabin uh so if you ever see like a security guard hanging out outside of, like, somebody in the streetroom, their prop, they might be confining someone in the cabin. Right. Of course, there's security teams on these cruises, but they try their very best to not really be seen by anybody, right? Yeah, yeah. But if you did see somebody waiting outside it, they could be confining to the cabin. So you'd really, you'd really have to try very, very hard to go to Disney jail.

Like, you, like, like, even more so because before you, even got there, they'd probably, like, confine you to your cabin first. So don't, I don't think it's a fun jail. Like, you shouldn't go, you shouldn't try to go. It's not like the aqua mouse of jails, right? As soon as you dock, the local authorities is going to come in and take you out. They're going to take you right on the case. Yeah. It's not going to be goofy. And yeah. There is, if you do go down there, the key to the cell is hanging off the collar of a dog that's just outside the, just outside the bars. But they've got, like, the cruise that we went on was four nights.

So it's like, you get on the ship and then, like, the next morning you're in the Bahamas, and then you get back on the ship, and the next morning you're at Disney's Island, and then you get back on, and then you're at sea for a day, and then you get off. But it's like, they have transatlantic Disney cruises. And they have cruises that, they have cruises that last for a long time. If you were on a Disney cruise and you were out in the middle of, middle of the Atlantic or something like that and things your day got like considerably worse you could be making a trip to the most exclusive Disney club out there which is the Disney

morgue because yes these ships do in fact have a morgue they have to they have to yes I guess you do I guess you do they're shuddling around millions people every year people are going to die on the cruise like it's Disney's most exclusive club yeah we have to go to the Disney more you don't want to go there but they're legally required to have it in body bags um because I mean because again like if somebody were to die like you would need to do so yeah the thing is while people could potentially die from like a freak accident or something like that like unexpectedly the parent the majority of deaths on cruise shifts oh yeah from old age or association maladies, which makes sense, considering the demographics of people who take a lot of cruises

tend to be older or retired. Some people retire, if you look at this, there's articles about people who retire to cruise ships, like they don't go into an assisted living facility or they don't go buy a house in four or whatever. They just take their money and they just start. They just, they cruise it out. They cruise it out. They cruise to the end.

and it's quite common for elderly people to die on cruise ships sometimes people who like have a terminal illness oh will get on a cruise ship hoping that they die at sea right so they all have to be they all have to be ready for this so that's you know it's so rough for the people working on the ship the people working on it yeah yeah so there's secret so of course when something very bad happens, they really want to avoid upsetting anybody else on the cruise. So it's sort of taking care of very swiftly and as discreetly as possible. But there are secret codes that you might hear get announced on some of these ships, and these are ones that apparently Disney does use. So if you are ever on a Disney cruise and you hear being announced

like Operation Bright Star. Operation Bright Star is like a serious medical emergency. Like we need people to come to Operation Bright Star. This I find hilarious. Operation Rising Star. Can you guess what that is? Someone throwing up.

No, no, no, no. That's a dead body. Oh, Lord. Rising Star. Reservation Rising Star. Oh, Lord. That's, if you hear Operation Rising Star, that is someone.

died on your cruise. May also be like a catastrophic, you know, medical, like, serious thing, but, but generally that that means death. And then also, I find this one very, very funny. If you hear them paging Mr. Mob, and you maybe, can you guess what that is? Yeah, Mr. Mob, M-O-B. Oh. Mr. Mob, paging, Mr. Mob.

Man overboard. That's right. That is their cutesy way of saying, man-overboard. board somebody fell off a cruise ship um do you know what you do if you fall off a cruise ship no how often does that happen it happens if you fall off a cruise ship uh what you do is uh you die because it's so tall because the ship the ship well first of all yeah assuming you survive your like multi story fall into the water um the ship's moving real fast yeah and it can't just stop it to go up yeah and turn now they can pinpoint where you fell in because if somebody reports that they they fell in

they know where the ship was at that point but they got to like turn around and come back but at that point it's like it's the ocean it's not like you're in a pond it's like the ocean's probably carried you away or down at that point there are stories of person goes overboard on a cruise ship and is rescued, but that's, like, miracle type situation. Wow. Another reason on top of that, like, why do they pretty much die is because they were probably drunk, and they were probably climbing up somewhere they weren't supposed to be or doing something stupid. And if you're that trashed and you fall off a cruise ship, you're probably not going to think of,

like, what are some good survival strategies I can employ to say? in the water. You're probably just going to grab. So don't fall off a cruise ship, but you're probably not going to fall off a cruise ship. Do not do it. And don't get drunk and climb on the outside of the ship, please. Well, it's the same reason that like the deadliest ride at Disney is the people mover, the Disney world. Because it's just that slow moving, or it's that slow moving, but it's a monorail where you're just sitting there going around. But then that's the ride where like you're not buckled in and people think it'd be really funny to like get drunk. Get on the people mover. Stand up. Wave and

you know, and then they fall off. Climb into someone else's car. Right, right, right, exactly. Uh, yes, that's my fun story about how to go to jail and die. How to go in jail and die. I'm your cruise. Don't do it. It's hotter than Club 33,

baby. Can't get in. People are, oh, people are dying to get in. There's room for one more. There's room for one more. I did. I could not verify this. I saw this in one source and you know as a journalist. I don't want to, you know, you got to try to verify with multiple sources, but I did see that on a Disney cruise, if you hear Operation Winnie, that means that it's someone, someone pooed in the pool. Yes. No. I only saw that. I only saw that one place. I would not want to say that it's back. I want it to be true. I want it to be true. I want it to be. true. I'll say that. It's too obvious. A little on the nose. Well, speaking of

at sea travel, let's travel the world and sail around and visit some islands. More specifically, their top-level domains. Here, I have a quiz about top-level domains, country or territory codes,

at the end of links, URLs. So, for example, dot UK is the top level domain for United Kingdom. DotCA is Canada and so forth. But here I have a quiz and they're all islands. All right. Island territories or nations,

areas that have their own top level domain. This will be a write-down quiz. Ooh. Okay, okay. All right. Here we go. For all of these questions, you're either going to write what the two-letter top-level domain is, dot, blank-blank, or the actual territory name. In some cases, you have to give me both.

Here we go. Question number one, thanks to chat GPT fever. This British overseas territory in the Caribbean has generated over $28 million in revenue in 2023. Thanks to this top-level domain. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Please name the island. Here's the question again. Thanks to chat GPT fever.

This British overseas territory in the Caribbean has generated over $28 million in revenue in 2023. Hmm. I feel good about half of it. Yeah, I feel good about half of it. I know. I have the domain. I don't know. Um, I'm just going to, I just got to put something that starts with that letter.

All right. Island, British, overseas territory in the Caribbean. Okay, okay. Maybe I have it. Maybe you can go through the lyrics of Kokomo. All right. Answers up. Oh.

Oh. Colin has written dot AI and scribbles and Chris has written. Dot AI Antigua. So close. Oh. Anguilla. Anguilla. Anguilla.

Anguilla, very, very fortunate to have dot AI as their top level domain and has generated a lot of money, 15% of its GDP by letting all of these now AI companies use it for their website. Fantastic. I have a feeling that that might be a theme of some of these domains, right? It's like, oh, hey, we were just fortunate enough to have this. Right. Here we go. Next question. Job searching services and specifically professional resume services might use this island's domain.

Say it again. Job searching services, specifically professional resume services. Oh, wow. Oh, sure. Might use this island's domain. Okay. This is another island in the, no. We don't know where this island is.

This is in West Africa. How's that? Okay. Yeah. I got it. I got it. You know, we're in the age of a lot of layoffs happening. Let me be really clear.

I'm very confident. That does not mean that I have it. It's just a feeling that's inside me most of the time. Answers up. Here we go. Colin has put dot hr and Chris. I like Chris's answer. Dot CV for Cape Verde.

It is Joss CV for Cape Verde. Nice. All right. Didn't even think about that. A lot of businesses doing like a resume writing, resume, tweaking, optimizing, scanning for keywords, that kind of stuff. All right.

Well, Gigi, good game. A lot of games and gaming companies have been using dot g g in their links in their websites dot gg is the top level domain for what self-governing dependency of the british crown this island is located in the english channel yet is not part of the united kingdom oh gosh okay let me say it all over again gg good game discord uses it a lot of other gaming sites use it dot gg good game dot gg is the top level domain for what self-governing dependency of the british crown located in the english channel the island is thus not part of the united kingdom oh no starts with a g yeah sure

all right answers up calling has put Guernsey and Chris has put Galapagos. I've moved it there. It is Guernsey, the Ballywick of Guernsey. What a great word. Guernsey, Ballywick of Guernsey. Also fortunate to have dot Gigi. Gigi all.

I mean, no one planned this, right? Yeah. You can't really plan it. All right, next question. Washington Post and Australian Post. Washington Post, the newspaper, Australian Post, as in their mailing service, their national mailing service. Use the URL shortcut.st, obviously, like, post, p.0, and then dot st. Dot.st. It comes from what pair of archipelagos off the coast of Central Africa?

They're like an island nation, but they're composed of two collection of islands. dot ST jeez I should you know with my kids studying of geography

and flags like I should know this it has a good flag he would know this so yes

hmm I never thought about that I see those Wapost links all the time never thought about it

yeah all right answers up Colin ST that's it Sautomé and

Princeipe and then Chris put say chef Both places have very awesome flags, but Sao Tomei and Principe is correct. Dot ST. Dot ST. I wonder if Principae feels kind of left out.

They're like, oh, you know, we can't help but notice, Sao Tomei that you got both letters there. You know, yeah. Just saying. Next question. If you're a radio or audio-related business, you can get dot AM from Armenia. or you can get dot fm from what collection of islands in oceania i don't see a lot of dot a ms uh but i i remember dot fm last last fm oh yeah right right yeah dot a m armenia okay dot fm from what collection of islands okay dot fm is kind of uh using letters from their full

long name. Okay. All right. All right. You're making me feel better about. You did. You help you help me feel more solid about what I wrote down. All right. Answers up. Colin put Micronesia and Chris put Maldives. It is the federated states of Micronesia. FM. Good job, Colin. It was like federation, federated. Okay. Nice. Nice. Dot FM. All right. Next question. Hey hot stuff. You can slide into what island's domain? Oh. Hey, hot stuff.

You can slide into what island's domain? Yeah. All right, answers up. Hold on, hold on. Okay, okay. I got at least half a point. Allen has put DM. dot DM Dominican Republic. Chris also wrote dot DM. Yes, you can slide into DMs for

Dominica. Oh, not Dominican Republic. Domenica. Also in that region. Dominica got its name from Mr. Christopher Columbus, who's like, we found an island. What day is it today? It's a Sunday. All right, let's call it Sunday, Dominica. It's the origin of the name. All right. Last question. If you operate and own a chicken company, you're in luck because you can get the domainender. dot CO. dot CK from what island?

Wow. If you operate and own a chicken company, you're in luck because you can get the domainender. dot CO for company dot CK. From what island? From what island? Okay. If you need a clue, it is in Polynesia. Okay.

Lots of islands there. I got a guess. I got a guess. I think this is a place. All right. All right. Answers up. Colin has put Cook Island.

Chris has put Cook. Both correct. It is. Cook Island self-goverting while in free association with New Zealand. So Cook Island also known as Kuki Arani in Maori. Ah. Yes, good job. Thank you. Woo. That was good. That was really good. Man, I mean, I'm looking at all of these, right?

We got, yeah, dot a.i.tv.g.m. DM. Yeah, it's like you all just like you're sitting on this little gold mine of opportunity, just, when the technology comes along, right? Everyone's looking at Tuvalu with dot TV. They're like, all right, we're just, we're waiting our turn. We're waiting our term. So dot TV, Colin, you shared that with us on a very early episode, good job, right? It is my favorite fact to share.

Hmm. Because it makes people be like, oh, it's a country. You just, you take it for granted. Yeah, it's a plate that had this, nothing to do with TV. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Let's take a quick break, and we'll be right back. Don't get seasick.

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You're listening to Good Job Brain. Smooth puzzles. Smart trivia. Good job, brain. And we're back at C. back like thematically not like actually at sea yeah currently none of us are at sea i can't deal with motion sickness i will puke my brains out but colin what is your segment well yes i in fact also just returned from a trip uh nice yeah it was nice i was not at sea i was decidedly firmly on

on ground on land away from the sea uh i was in texas in fact the great state of texas i was in the city of Lampas, Texas. In fact, I sent you guys a photo of my time in Lampas, Texas, because I stopped by the world's largest spur. Incredible. It's just the spur. There's no boot or shoe. No boots.

It's just the spur. And just one spur, not a pair of spurs, like, to be clear, right? It is, yeah. I was showing the photo to my wife, and she was a little bit, you know, let's just say unimpressed. It's like, oh, it's one spur. I was like, yeah, it's the world's largest spur singular. But as delightful as that was, I was not in Lampas, Texas, to see the world's largest spur.

That was merely a bonus. I was there to experience in person on the ground a total solar eclipse. Oh, you're one of those people. I am one of those people. Totality now. Oh, totality now. It was my second total eclipse. It was cooler than the first one.

You guys may remember I went to go see in 2017. I went to see a total eclipse in Idaho. I was bitten by the eclipse bug. And on that very day, started looking up, all right, when's the next one? Really? Yeah, we did. My partner who I, you know, I often go on camping trips with, you know, he and I were like, all right, we're going to go to the next one.

Then that seven years in the future in 2024. on April 8th, that if we could get ourselves to Texas, we would be able to catch the Total Solar Eclipse, which happened just four days ago on Monday of this week. So you guys planned it in the books for seven years. We agreed seven years ago, like we're going to be there and we're going to make it happen. It was magical.

It was special. It was cool. It was awesome. It was all of that. You know the darkness is coming, right? I mean, that's kind of the point. It's like it gets really dark. The thing that maybe not everyone is prepared for is the temperature drop.

As soon as totality happens, the temperature drops right away. And it really violates, I think, the expectations or sort of the sense a lot of us have that, you know, like even if it's hot during the day and cold at night, I think some of us imagine, I certainly did, that the day losing heat is kind of like an oven losing heat. Like it's, oh, it's the sun goes away and the heat just kind of takes a while to go away. But no, it loses heat gradually because the sun goes down gradually. that if you take the sun away immediately, it gets cold almost immediately, noticeable. It's really very humbling to experience that in person. So that, you know, in the darkness, birds start kind of freaking out because the birds are trying to scramble to get back to their nest.

They're like, oh, it's nighttime guys. And like birds are just like, rah, blah, flying back to their trees. Colin, I have a dumb question because I wasn't paying attention on the day of the eclipse. What time did it happen? So we, where we were in that part of Texas, it was around 12.30 local time that it all started. It reached, peak eclipse was around 1.30 thereabouts. Lasted over four minutes. Wow.

So you did feel cold. Yes. In the middle of the day, like at noon. I mean, the streetlights went on, you know, like it's that enough of a change. Wow. several degrees, several degree temperature drop. Absolutely. Weird. Okay. It is. It is. And it's unlike anything else. And it was cool, a very communal experience. The crowd was cheering and not far away from us was a group of some college kids. And they were, they were skipping school. They had

traveled all the way from California to see this. I won't, I won't out them or what school they go to. You don't have to go to class in college, though. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think, I think they're probably, they're probably freshmen, you know, still hadn't figured that out yet. all right so this is an eclipse on land in texas i promise i would get us back to the sea here our topic here so in the run up to this trip i was doing a lot of preparation you know i mean it did start nominally seven seven years ago like a round piece of black car you know construction paper outside i held it up to the sun just got a feel for it you know i had a google map like that that had uh i had overlaid the line of the path of totality right so so so listen

Let's just recap very quickly. So this eclipse that we saw, as far as the United States is concerned, it entered U.S. territory on the southern Texas border up over Texas and kind of moved east out, covered 13 states in total. As I was getting closer to the eclipse, you know, there were a lot of articles from the scientific angle of like best places to, you know, avoid cloud cover and, you know, what's the weather going to be like? And then I also started reading a lot of articles covering the eclipse not from a scientific perspective. But from a travel, tourism, lifestyle angle, I saw articles about you could chart the rapid increase in Airbnb and rentals overlaid across the path of totality moving across the states, right? A lot of people booking very expensive luxe destination trips, a lot of people getting out in the wilderness, finding a path and kind of roughing it and camping, a lot of ways to approach it. I came across the story of a truly inspiring man. I think someone right at home among the Good Job Brain Greats here in doing my Hall of Famer. A Hall of Famer. I'm going to nominate this person for the Good Job Brain Hall of Fame.

This is a man named Ted Padas, P-E-D-A-S. And he passed away a few years ago, but he lived a very long, rich life as a well-known and beloved astronomy educator, mentor, philanthropist, somebody who was really all about just wonder, the joy of discovery, a real to the bone teacher and lover of knowledge. And more specifically, he was a pioneer in eclipse parties and eclipse appreciation and eclipse enthusiasm. His love of eclipses started when he, you know, saw the first one in 1960s. Okay. And kind of got smitten with eclipse bug. And in 1970, he, he.

and his sister and his wife at the time and his brother-in-law got it in their heads. They were going to stage Eclipse 70 festival, all right? So there was an eclipse coming in 1970. They discovered that the very small town, population 150, the small town of Eclipse, Virginia was in the path of the Eclipse path, right, 80-mile-wide path. So like, oh, this is great. We're going to set up, I know. It's like, it's awesome. It's perfect. Like, right? I mean, how could you say no to this?

Except the town of Eclipse, Virginia very much said hard no to this. They were not, they were not, not interested in what they perceived to be some sort of maybe hippie festival that was coming together. They were going to, you know, put this together on the banks of the river. It's going to be really cool. the locals first started demanding a security check at the drawbridge of the so-called heliophiles coming to see the eclipse. Yes. They demanded that he not allowed anybody in who advocated the overthrow of the federal government or were disrespectful to the flag or had long hair. So it's very clear what the town was. So this this failed. All right.

And so now the path of this eclipse, it starts. in Mexico, moved north across the U.S. And around Norfolk, Virginia, it jutted out to sea, okay? And it passed over Nantucket. Oh, okay. They thought, you know, okay, maybe we could stage the clip festival on Nantucket also did not, did not come together. He was, they just couldn't get it happen.

As they were taking the ferry back from Nantucket, they had an idea. Do what if we had our eclipse party on a ship? On a boat! Yes, on a boat. And that is where Ted Padas took his legacy into the next level, because he became the father of ocean-going astronomy parties and ocean-going science parties. Over his life, he put together dozens of cruises to go out and look at not just eclipses,

but Haley's Comet, Meteor, Shoeuvres. showers. That's right. I mean, the Hailbop comet. And what he would do is he would plot the course, find out where in the ocean you needed to be, and basically wrangle together people out on a boat and get them out there. Now, the very

first sort of sea bound expedition, it was hard coming together. So they, yeah, so they started planning for a 1972 eclipse in Nova Scotia. And they,

they went to eight shipping lines, cruise lines. You know, apparently at this time in the early 70s, this was a real down period for the cruise industry. You know, oil crisis, a lot of other things going on. And so they were kind of coming to this cruise lines, like, hey, we can bring interested paying customers on you. Let's go do the specialty thing. And none of them were interested in chartering these special, you know,

going out hundreds of miles out into the North Atlantic. Finally, after several efforts, they were able to book the Eclipse, 72 trip on the Olympia and it took all of their money like it's they they're life savings they advertised yes they were so they were so down on this mission they put ads in sky and telescope magazine they put ads in natural history they bought ads in scientific American I mean this is 1972 they're not on the internet right you got to just go like where are the nerds where are we going to find the science minded nerds who might pay their money to come on an eclipse cruise with us.

It did pay off. And apparently the ocean line company said that they had record-setting revenues for this trip. Wow. So that allowed them to sort of, you know, build on this for future ones. Yeah. So it sounded like just a real hodgepodge of people aboard this first cruise. I mean, they got 850 passengers. That's a lot.

Yeah, that is a lot. I mean, this inaugural cruise. Yeah, in 1972. where they did not have the, you know, Disney wish that can carry, you know, 4,000 passengers. They ran another one the very next year called the Voyage to Darkness. On that ship, Isaac Asimov himself attended, lectured, yes. And that was kind of the mission that Phaedos was on. And he was not just sailing people out to look at something cool, but exactly, like very sort of proto Ted Talk.

That's right. So he would have educators, thinkers, interesting people from all sorts. sort of associated stripes or anyway, you know, adjacent to astronomy to also, you know, emphasize maybe it's not so obvious. In addition to not having to deal with, you know, some local township not wanting, you know, hippies or free thinkers on their property, if you're on a boat, it gives you a lot of maneuverability too, you know, like a problem, you know, for a clip watchers. And indeed, this was true on the one that I was just in, you know, people a little bit further south of me were clouded out. They couldn't see it. But if you're on a ship and you see

cloudy conditions, you can adjust your position half a day, a few hours ahead. You can kind of look with the satellite imagery. That's right. You're not kind of locked in and committed. I was just blown away. Just what a great idea this is. And he was running and organizing these science cruises and eclipse cruises all the way up to the end of his life. And every, every person who had something to say about this guy just talked about how committed he was to teaching, learning, enjoying the stars. And the travel leisure lifestyle sort of approach to eclipse can really be traced back to these first 1970, 1972, 1973 eclipse things.

They got a lot of media coverage. The New York Times wrote them up, the fact that it was success for the cruise. It really placed a spark in sort of the popular imagination that it maybe wasn't just some nerdy, you know, astronomy club kind of thing to get into, but that it was this cool sort of thing that you could check out. Are they still doing it? Well, so the spirit of these crews is still, yeah, runs on as I say. Wow, let's go on one. Ted paid us. He died at age 82 in 2021. I found a very, very sweet obituary to him. And the obituary ended with this line. It's very moving. In Ted's memory, please share a poem or a song with the children in your life. Point them to the stars.

and begin the countdown to witness a spectacular celestial event. A total eclipse of the sun scheduled for April 8th, 2024. And that was, of course, where I was just four days ago and felt, you know, very honored that I could contribute to Ted Pados' legacy of loving eclipses. I will close with a nugget of trivia, too good to leave out here. In reading on the Pato's family website talking about sort of eclipse mania, they mentioned something that I had never noticed before. There is a line in one of the truly great pop songs,

one of the truly great disc tracks of all time, the song You're So Vane by Carly Simon. Yeah. There is a line in that song specifically talking about the Nova Scotia eclipse and how it would be coming a lifestyle event. I never, ever, ever processed this in my entire life. But what's the line? I can recite it to you.

Go ahead, Chris, please. Go ahead. The line is then you flew your Learjet up to Nova Scotia to see the total eclipse of the sun. Exactly. That's right. And that is the Nova Scotia eclipse that had paid us at all. We're trying to get people out to appreciate. Well, question, Colin.

Yeah. When's the next visible U.S. eclipse? Yeah, that's a good question. Not for a very long while, I'm afraid to say. Yeah, we're looking at, you know, 20 years or so before the next one over the United States. Yeah. However, in two years, if you can get yourself out to Spain or Iceland, you can experience a total solar eclipse in August, 2026. Get to Toronto's main venues like Budweiser Stage and the new Roger Stadium with Go Transit.

Thanks to Go Transit's special online e-ticket fairs, a $10 one-day weekend pass offers unlimited travel on any weekend day or holiday anywhere along the Go Network. And the weekday group passes offer the same weekday travel flexibility across the network, starting at $30 for two people and up to $60 for a group of five. Buy your online go pass ahead of the show at go-transit.com slash tickets. Right. I have one last segment. I have watched Moana now every day. I counted for the last 45 days. The last 45 days, I've watched Moana every day. And this is because my four-year-old has graduated from frozen, from frozen water to now ocean water with her Moana obsession. The Disney animation film about a, girl whose love for the ocean it calls out to her and she also meets the demi god who is played by duane the rock johnson um they go on adventures at sea all right so as i'm watching this you know for the 41st time 42nd time i'm like oh didn't they just open some sort of moana attraction in disney world oh maybe i should take my daughter there she'd love it but yes so in disney world at

Epcot. They actually have a, it's like a walkthrough. Yeah, we did it. It's jumping water, you know, waterfalls and jungly paradise topiaries and landscapes. It teaches you about the water cycle as you walk through it. Yes. But did you know that Disney announced that they are building a Moana land. No. A Moana land and Zootopia land. Oh. Really? They just debuted. Zootopia Land in Shanghai, Disney. There's not a lot of information, but I was like, man, I wonder what they might do there. So, of course, when I wonder about what Disney will do, I dive into one of my favorite activities late at night, is reading the USPTO patent library.

Yeah, hot Thursday night activity, a lot of stuff going on. So really, I'm just going through what are some of the recent patents that Disney has a little window into what they're rolling out what they're working on so for the segment i'm going to share some cool things i will say this disney files a lot of patents they got a lot of fingers and a lot of pies and a lot of fingers in the pies a lot of the more recent patents are all around what i'm guessing disney plus and streaming a lot of like network stuff yeah yeah a lot of like machine learning security stuff but you know i i want to find the cool patents for park stuff for rides or for you know for entertainment animatronics animatronics or robot stuff i will share

some and of course i did find a moana patent thank you very much this patent is called the boat motion simulator flavor text here a boat motion simulator or system configured especially to impart boat type motions such as roll sway pitch surge he to a passenger boat there's a passenger boat you're sitting in the boat but instead of traversing through a course you're kind of just there but everything is controlled and you're in water the bottom boat is in water and you're in a dome like you're in your little MSG sphere and so you can imagine right like you have a lot of riots now that's like free projected so you're in this boat they have like water effects splashing to like simulate turns and waves and stuff how do i know that this is a moana

attraction i mean i could have guessed they'll never say what's it for in these patents and that's the thing when you're reading patents the verbiage is so generic dry and technical but there are always pictures a lot of these patents have to have technical drawings and figures most of them are very very rudimentary drawings but this one had the dome and what's projecting is a computer drawn like stick figure of Moana now we uh on her boat um can't miss it i was like this is moana for sure even though it's made with ms paint lines karen's karen's zooming in looking for hey hey hey the chicken yeah i see him there you wait till you i get to some other patents that sleuth out. And here's some other ones. Similarly, Disney is also filed a patent for a vehicle

entertainment system and method field. And that sounds fine and Danny. What is it? It is basically you're in your car and you drive through a tunnel experience. You're in your own car and they project stuff. You're in like one of those, you know, those automatic car washes where like advances your car. Yeah, you're on the track. But this is like high tech. We don't. We don't don't know if they're ever going to use these patents. They're finally, as they're developing, right, just to kind of stick their flag on the ground. And there was another car patent, too. You're in your car. You drive into your own MSG sphere and it can project things. And all of a sudden, it feels like you're driving through an African safari. This is pretty cool. Disney has filed a patent

for Robotics Sherpa. It is essentially a locker bot on wheels. or when you're in the park you got to bring your stroller and just follows you around well no no you put your stuff in one area say you bought a bunch of stuff in Main Street USA and you're like I got like a baby stroll

I got all these diapers I don't want to carry this stuff around with me I'm going to put in a locker put in your locker then you're like I'm going to go to create a country or some other part of the park and you're like I need those diapers boop boop on your phone

and then this locker robot with your stuff in it will will wheel to you. Here you go, ma'am. Here's your, here your diapers, open your stuff. Put in your code. Beepoo, beep, bo, beep.

Robotic strip up. That is pretty cool. That is pretty cool. Some stuff that's like not a surprise. Very cool, but not a surprise. This patent for an aerial show system with dynamic participation of unmanned aerial vehicles. And the picture is Captain Hook's flying ship carried by a drone.

Right. I was going to say, yeah, drones doing something carrying something okay 10 years ago 20 years ago I'd be like wow that's magic now it's like oh of course you'd have this patent um there are are their water slide patents there are pats or sippy cups or sipper cups or beverage drink wear man like just their footprint is so large as i mean everything from from sippy cups to projection to right right after lockdown they patented they filed for transparent and multifaceted face mask, which is a specific clear face mask, which I'm guessing is for the cast members and the staff to wear like every part.

This is right. This is like months after a shutdown that they, they've already put in a patent in. There's one, let's say you're on a ride, you're in your little vehicle. Basically, they can plop your vehicle unit onto a different track. So this is a patent for you like, oh, you're on this one track. all of a sudden, instead of like changing tracks, they plop your vehicle onto a different track for maybe a different attraction. Who knows?

The claw. And I'll end it with this one, Colin. I hope you appreciate my detective work. This patent is for an interactive autonomous robot configured within character safety response protocols. Here's the brief. Here's the summary. Conventional autonomous robots.

often fail to operate in character and therefore fail to faithfully reproduce the expected behavior of the characters, those robots are meant to portray. There is a robot. And as it's trying to communicate safety response or alerts to people, that it's doing it in character. Yeah. You know, it's not like, oh, you know, hi, I'm a fun robot. Emergency detected.

It's like they want these like messages. to be in character. And I was like, that's weird. Why did they need that? Looking at the figures, again, this is very simple shapes, MSP, and I'm looking at go, oh, those are droids. Deroids. I knew it.

Star Wars droids. There's like, there's two. There's one that kind of looks like a trash can. Not even, it's like not even legible as R2D2 should, but it's like a cylinder. And the one that's like a circle with a little hat. And I was like, oh, that's like a BBA or, that's like some sort of droid. I was like, this is for sure for Star Warsland, uh, Galaxy's

Edge. I love your slew thing. That's so incredible. So those are some of the, the up and coming just tip of the iceberg. Independent research. Tip of the iceberg. I love independent research being done for you here, dear listener. This is fantastic. Great job, Karen. I know. I mean, I had a existential moment. It was like 1 a.m. And I'm like, drinking a Coke I'm it's all dark I'm lit at the monitor screen

I'm like zooming in oh let's go to this patent they're all numbers Yeah yeah Download download download download download download It's like some 70s right Like espionage thriller Where you're uncovering this secret

Yeah worldwide government conspiracy But oh no it's really just Disney How to make it feel like you're on a boat Yeah, yeah. The fun activity would be go back to older patents and to see what made it through, you know, what are the things we see today that like. Oh, yeah, yeah. And hopefully Moana Land will be built. But by that time, I bet my daughter would be totally over it because that's how it goes. Those are, so you said Moana Land and Zootopia land. Those are two of my daughter's favorites. Really? Oh, yeah. She loves Zootopia. It makes sense because even in the movie, right, like it's got the different zones. town, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like the rodent town and like, oh, yeah, it just, it maps on perfectly for a theme park experience. And quick shout out to listener, Kevin, who actually worked on Zootopia Land in Shanghai. And he did a lot of, like, the funny posters and the details and the writing that you see in the park.

That's what he contributed to as Utopia Land. And if you've been to the new Toontown, he's worked on that as well. So quick shout, Kevin. That's our supposed to be as. but turns out it was kind of cruisy and Disney-ish show. Thank you guys for joining me and thank you listeners for listening

in. Hope you learn stuff about patents, about eclipse cruises, about the morgue on a cruise ship and island territories. You can find us on all podcast apps and on our

website, good job, brain.com. This podcast is part of Airwave Media podcast network. Visit airwavemedia.com to listen and subscribe to other shows like Triviality, Tumble, Science Podcast for Kids, and Queens Podcast. And we'll see you next week. Bye. can we recommend another one? It's called Big Picture Science. You can hear it wherever you get your podcast and its name tells part of the story. The big picture questions and the most interesting research in science. Seth and I are the host. Seth is a scientist. I am Molly and I'm a science

journalist and we talk to people smarter than us and we have fun along the way. The show is called Big Picture Science and as Seth said, you can hear it wherever you get your podcast.