Hello Internet - H.I. #114: Stunt Peanut

Episode Date: November 29, 2018

Grey and Brady discuss: a new, lightning-fast corner, overtourism, a conspiracy theory confirmed, NPCC, CCC, peanuts, and a call for your Christmas Questions. Sponsors: Hover: the best way to buy and manage domain names - go to hover.com/hi and get 10% off your first purchase from Hover HelloFresh: tasty recipes & fresh ingredients delivered to your door - for a total of $60 off ($20 off your first 3 boxes) go to hellofresh.com/hellointernet60 and use promo code hellointernet60 Fracture: photos printed in vivid color directly on glass - get a special discount off your first order at fractureme.com/hi and don't forget to pick Hello Internet in their one question survey Listeners like YOU on Patreon Show Notes: Discuss this episode on the reddit Airline Seat Algorithm Send Hello Internet a Christmas Question!

I am in North Carolina, and I don't know if the microphone can pick it up, but if there is, throughout the duration of this podcast, the sound of a dog softly snoring, there's nothing that I can do about that, because I'm here, and as we record, Lucy is sleeping on my lap, and I cannot go anywhere. I have to just leave her here. So, I apologize if there's continuous dog snores throughout the podcast, but there's nothing that can be done about that. Well, let he who is without snores cast the first stone. I obviously can't call you out on that. I have a long history of it. Little Audrey's not in the room at the moment, but she'll be here soon.

And she'll be going toe to toe with Lucy. Snore for snore. Audrey is less frequent, but suddenly loud. And Lucy may be more constant, but much softer. So, Grey, I'm going to chuck a new corner in here. You know how we always do like feedback at the start, you know, based on what's happened before. And usually that's more elaborate. I want to have a new one that's just really, really short, short points of order called Clarification Corner.

Okay. All right. I never want to hold you back. I like where you're going with this. I like Clarification Corner. Alliteration, always good. Always works. I like your mission of it's going to be very short, but somehow I don't think we'll necessarily be able to stick with it. But Clarification Corner corner love it okay i thought you'd like this like it's because you're a person who likes putting like corrections on the record you know well yeah it's it's the nature of doing podcasts you say a thing and then you hear yourself say it and you go why did i say it that way i wish i could clarify this so yes yeah i am totally going to take advantage of clarification corner in the future i can already i can future. I can already see a bright future for Clarification Corner.

In fact, this may be one that you utilize more than me, I suspect. I don't know what you're talking about, Brady. Going back over hundreds of episodes. Just in episode 38, there's just something that's been on my mind. I want to chuck it into Clarification Corner. I enjoy there. You went into half nerd voice for me. You didn't go full on nerd voice. No, I pulled it back. I started and then I pulled it back. So, what's your clarification for Clarification Corner? Okay. The first thing I want to clarify, there seems to be some confusion over my use of a clock to rate movies you know where the hand is pointing on the clock to how much i like it right just let me say this because i think it will

clarify it in a lot of people's minds three o'clock is the same as nine o'clock yeah yeah so so if i'm pointing at 10 o'clock i may as well be pointing at two o'clock. Yeah, yeah. So, if I'm pointing at 10 o'clock, I may as well be pointing at two o'clock. There's no difference. There's no difference on if you're on the left or the right-hand side of the clock. Because I saw a couple of people arguing, and they were arguing over whether or not because I chose to point at like about 10 o'clock, that was different than if I had chosen over the other side of the clock. There is no difference.

This is a symmetrical scale. All that matters is how close to 12 it's pointing as opposed to six. I'm surprised people would need a clarification of that because to me, that's the beauty of your scale that has more, it is more from this- What, that it doesn't matter which side you're looking at it from? Yeah, that it's more from this binary thumbs up and thumbs down into, I mean, you're saying how close it is to 12 o'clock. I always think of your scale as degrees up from the horizontal, that that's what the

measurement is. Yes. Like the greater the strength of a movie, the more it can lift your thumb from resting on the horizontal, you know, upward towards the sky. Yeah. Yeah. And- But because I chose one side of the clock though, when last time I gave a rating and I chose the

later side of the clock over the 10 o'clock side, people read something into that as opposed to if I'd chosen the early side of the clock, you know, the ones and the twos. There's no difference. No. Just put a mirror, put a mirror down the middle, people. It doesn't matter. Yeah, that's why this rating scale is so beautiful, because it is symmetrical on both sides. And we all know that symmetry is an intrinsic property of beauty. Thank you. Another thing, and look, I don't want to get bogged down in this people saying what state

they're from in America thing, which has become such a thing but when we were at thinker con and i was meeting people in the queue i don't know i don't know how many people i met how many hello internet listeners i met i reckon my guess would be 100 to 200 and i reckon at least half of them told me as a joke that they were from the united States. Right. Like, when I'd say, hey, where have you come from? You know, where are you from? I reckon at least half said the United States. Now, I appreciated the joke and we all had a laugh, but just for the sake of total clarification,

I do not expect Americans to say they're from America when they're in America. That is when it's okay to say what state you're from. On home soil, you're absolved of this thing. Just to be clear, and I've already- I've said this multiple times, but I just want it to be 100% clear. I will throw another little grievance out there, though. Okay. About American assumption. All right.

And that is the assumption that everyone knows what state you are from by the abbreviation from the state. You mean the two-letter abbreviation? The two-letter abbreviation. Sometimes I think I've seen people include that in communication. You included it in a communication with me today, but I'm not criticising you for it because that was a completely different context, but it just did remind me, because you're obviously in an American state at the moment. I said, where were you? And you just sent me the abbreviation. I'm not pegging it on you, but it did remind me that people quite often do that. They'll just include the two letters and assume that outsiders know the state. Most of the time, basically, unless it's TX or NY, then you're

probably not going to know, you know, CA, I guess, but this is something you should not use to people from outside America. Okay. I can get behind you on this one because, yeah, it's not always so obvious. Many of them, yeah, yeah i mean anything with an x stands out like texas that is great uh but as soon as you get away from the first two letters or like i'm in north carolina right now and i sent you back in nc yeah okay it's two it's two words the first letter for each word i think you can get away with that but yeah i'll well no that's also okay the reason i'm giving you a leave pass as well is you know i know that you have family in north carolina right so that's it's already become the shorthand of the three or four places you could be that's one

of them so but but still it just reminded me i have seen people do it and again i'm you know yeah it's a big assumption look i've seen you take an enormous amount of grief on this topic. And I just, on this, and we disagree fundamentally on some parts, but I want to give you this, Brady. I will back you on the state abbreviation one. That's for postal workers and shorthand where you already have a pretty good idea where the person is, and is not good for general communication abroad. All right. I think that's pretty short for Clarification Corner.

We can move on to more elaborate feedback. So, since we've been traveling a bunch, I have a little bit of feedback that's been on my mind for a while. And I wanted to ask you about your recent trip to Machu Picchu. When you were there, how many other people do you think were at Machu Picchu with you? Like, how many other tourists were there? Oh, that's a good question. There is like a daily limit.

So, I should be able to tell you exactly, but I can't remember what it is. They have a daily limit of the number of people that get ferried up on the buses and actually get tickets to go on the site. And they also limit the number of people that can go up each peak because there were these two peaks either side of the ruins, sort of the shorter one that's kind of more famous because it's in lots of the photos, or the really big tall one that actually is Machu Picchu mountain itself. Oh, interesting. And they limit the number of people that are allowed to climb up each one.

And you can only go up in the morning or the afternoon. So, they do have number controls. Let me have a look for you. Machu Picchu limit. I mean, if you had to guesstimate. Like a few thousand, 5,000 would be my guess for the day. Okay. So, you would guess something like 5,000 for the day.

Okay. That's interesting. Because I happened, while I'm in North Carolina, to be talking to my parents who listen to the podcast avidly. They're big Tims. And they were discussing about how they had been to Machu Picchu many years ago, maybe something like 30 years ago. Two and a half thousand per day.

Oh, okay. So, two and a half thousand per day. Oh, okay. So, two and a half thousand per day. That's interesting. Yeah. When they went, they were there on a day with six people. And they know that it was six people because at the point when they went to Machu Picchu, there was apparently just a single little building that you could go up to on the mountain that had five or so rooms. Maybe they hadn't finished building Machu Picchu when your parents went.

Sorry, Mr. and Mrs. Gray. I mean, it does sound like a tale from a long, long ago, because then their experience of Machu Picchu was they, the next morning, were in the ruins and were so far separated from anybody else that they felt like they had the ruins to themselves. I've seen videos from Machu Pichu and like our friend Destin who put on the conference that we were just at, like he's done a video, like one of those stereoscopic videos at Machu Picchu. And it seems like there's just people everywhere. Like the tourists have overrun this spot. And I don't know, like,

how do you feel about being at a place like Machu Picchu where it's supposed to be like this remote place, but then suddenly there's two and a half thousand people at this ruins at the top of a mountain. I mean, that's the reason why Machu Picchu wasn't really the highlight for me because it didn't feel like special in that respect. But I felt like the site soaked up the people fairly well most of the time in most of the places. When you first go in, it's like a madhouse there's a few brilliant photo spots and you cannot take a photo at those spots that hasn't got like 19 other people in it

and it's really frustrating but like two or three hours later after we'd climbed up the mountain and come back down we went back to those same spots and said let's have another crack at that photo and there was no one there so it's kind of a bit like everyone goes in and goes like gets goes crazy photo crazy because they're looking at this amazing thing and they think this is my one chance to get a photo of me at machu picchu and they go like so everyone goes ballistic and it's a bit of a madhouse and then it just calms down and after an hour or two it's okay you're still there's still a lot of people and when you're actually down in the ruins and walking through the little laneways and that you know there's almost always going to be people

around you but it's not like shoulder to shoulder craziness it was it was acceptable to me i'd rather have it to myself and i enjoyed trekking the mountains, you know, on the rocky paths on my own far more. But it was okay. It didn't ruin it for me. It's interesting because this, I've had this idea bouncing around in my head a lot lately about what seems to be becoming a topic is the concept of over-tourism. And like, here's one of these examples where you know never have there not been people saying oh you visited the place but when i went there there were there were fewer people there and you didn't get to have the same experience that i had like i'm sure that's what

your parents gave you that do yeah as like well it's an interesting thing like growing up you know my parents did a lot of traveling because of my mom being a flight attendant. And even when I was a kid, I remember my parents telling me about how, oh, you know, before I was around when they traveled, like these places were very different. And of course, here I am as an adult, and you hear people say this kind of thing all the time. I'm sure Greeks and Romans said it about like, oh, this place, like it's too popular now, nobody goes. And all of this can be true, but I have a suspicion that it really has become a thing in the last 10 years, right? Where it can be true that you always turn up the volume on

some problem and people can then dismiss it because like oh it's always been getting worse and the answer is like well yes but at some point it becomes such a thing that it that it really is a problem and i have just found it very interesting a couple of experiences that i've had in the last two years where it feels like i've gone to some place, and there's just so many people at the place. It feels like it, like the problem here is you're basically having a conversation about limiting access or making things more expensive. And I was trying to find some numbers to back this up about like, is it just my imagination? Or are there more people here? And the answer is, it isn't. And like the number of people who've entered the middle class over the past 10 years is just enormous. And I found

this statistic from the OECD, which says like the global middle class is sort of estimated at about 1.8 billion 10 years ago, and it's about 3.2 billion now. And the global middle class is this idea of how many people can travel, can do something like go on a vacation. And so, I was like, oh, yes, in the last 10 years, something like 1.2 billion people have become people who are now wealthy enough that they can actually travel to places. Is that the definition of middle class? Wealthy enough to travel places? That's what I was looking at with the way like the OECD talks about it. It's just like, they're people who have the means to be able to move around, like they can take a vacation once

every few years, that this is like the idea of a normal standard of living. And I don't know, like, to me, it's just an interesting question about the demands of resources for limited things. What are places you've been to where you felt it was a bit ruined by the crowd? Last summer, after I had been doing a bunch of conferences, I found myself on the West Coast, and I thought, oh, I've had too many people. I need to take a break for a while. And I thought, I know what I'll do. I'll drive down the beautiful California coast and I'll go into Big Sur country, which is gorgeous area in California, full of forests and trails and everything.

And I went to Big Sur and there were so many people walking on the trails in the forest that it made the forest not able to be walked upon. Like it was just impossible to manage this situation. Like there were just so many people that I thought I have to get out of here and just leave. And another case is two years ago, my wife and I went to Yellowstone, and we'd been there 10 years ago. And now the place was just packed with people. And the thing that I really noticed is in Yellowstone, they have these geysers,

these boiling hot water geysers, and it's a windy area. And so what happens? People lose their hats. And it's hilarious, right? Because somebody has the hat blow off their head, and then it falls into the geyser, and there's nothing you can do about it because it's boiling sulfurous water, right? Like you're just tough noogies for you. Yeah. But when we went last time, there weren't a couple of hats in the geysers. The geysers were literally filled with hats and umbrellas. You could walk across them just stepping on the hats.

Yeah. And like, I've read some interesting things about even the national parks thinking that they might need to do like what Machu Picchu does, which is limit how many people can come at particular times, which is a delicate question when you're talking about federal land. Or I've seen lots of articles where cities are talking about the mere presence of Airbnb has taken the cities from full of tourists to over full of tourists. And again, I don't know if there's any solution to this. I just find it interesting. And it's a weird interesting trade-off of, oh, a long time ago, a few people might have been able to have a good experience, and now everybody can have a pretty bad experience. I don't know.

I just, I find it an interesting, possibly unsolvable problem. I mean, and you see people like me who seeks out different locations for this very reason, like, you know, Bhutan, where they charge a tax to stop people getting in the country for that whole reason. Or Antarctica. I would say Mount Everest, although everyone knows the way that's going. But, you know, yeah, I feel it. The worst two places in the world that I've been for this, and these are not fair examples because they're almost, by definition, incredibly confined spaces anyway.

But these are special places of the world that are ruined by the crowd. And that is looking at the Mona Lisa and standing in the Sistine Chapel. I mean, the Sistine Chapel is crazy because you're not supposed to take photos of it and you're supposed to be quiet. And I reckon every 10 seconds, the security guards go, and tell everyone to shut up in the Sistine Chapel like to the point where that's annoying so and everyone is taking photos and it's just like a it's a zoo that the Sistine Chapel. And one thing that happens very quickly is people get annoyed about

the idea of raising the prices to get into places or limiting the amount of people who can see a thing to say like it's you know it's exclusionary in this way. And it's like, of course, by definition, it's exclusionary. I think the unfair thing is using money as the excluding factor though. That's what the thing I think that seems unfair. Like you could just say, we'll have a lottery for who gets to get into Yellowstone every day and therefore money would no longer be a factor. But why use money as the excluding criterion? I mean, you know me, I don't have any problem with the idea of doing an auction.

Again, though, that's like the rich, only the rich get in. I mean, I know that National Park wants money, but can't they just decide, look, if we sell 10,000 tickets a day for $15 each, that's enough. Now, let's have a lottery to decide who gets them rather than saying let's just keep pushing the ticket price up until only you know x thousand people can afford the tickets you have to have some mechanism to exclude exclude and i'm i'm personally fine with either one like depending on what the needs of the institution are right but i've definitely come across people who i think particularly in a place like a park, think the whole idea of having

to limit it is unreasonable. But it really did start entering my brain at Yellowstone and looking at just like this geyser full of people's hats. You just can't continue to have people come here all the time without ruining it. It. Like it's a real problem. And the other thing I noted that's along this topic is I have seen a few parks now specifically have requests for people to not post photos of themselves on Instagram and have those things geotagged because what ends up happening is sort of like what you were talking about at Machu Picchu, that a couple of places, like a particular spot in the park becomes the spot that everyone wants to go to just to get the Instagram photo

and then to leave. Yeah. And- Yeah, like everyone wants to go to Pisa and do that photo of themselves holding up the Leaning Tower of Pisa, like on the lawn. Yeah, exactly like that. But apparently enough people, when they go to a place like a park, are apparently like looking for where's the best place for me to take a picture of myself in this place.

And then it leads to this very uneven wearing of the natural resources of the park. And I don't know, I just, I find it interesting. And I think it's a problem that's only going to get worse and unsolvable as, again, like the average level of wealth increases over time and people can travel more. I think you're going to start seeing more places having to decide that like, look, we just need to put a limit in the way that Machu Picchu did, which I think that's going to happen. And I just don't know how I feel about that on either way. This episode of Hello Internet is brought to you in part by Hover. Hover is the best way to buy and manage domain names. Having a domain name is the centerpiece of your online

identity. So whether it's for you personally, or whether it's for a business you run or an organization that you're a part of, you want to make sure that you have the domain name that best represents that online identity. And Hover is the place to go get them. I registered cgpgray.com with Hover. And the reason I did so is that Hover is just the best in class when it comes to domain name registrations. And I've worked with some other companies in the past. They are not good. And the reason that I went with Hover is they're just the best and most

simple way to get your domain name registered quickly and easily without hassle and without any of the upsells that other domain name registrars try to hook you with. No, you want a domain, you should be able to just register it quickly and easily and have it as yours and start doing with it as you please. And Hover is also great at letting you do that. With Hover Connect, you can quickly plug your domain name into many of the website builders or other services that you would want to use. And you can very quickly set up your own personalized email so that you are getting email at your new domain name, which can look a lot more professional than just having a Gmail address for your contact.

So if you want to start building your online identity, the place where that begins is with a domain name. And the place to get your domain name is Hover. Go to hover.com slash hi and get 10% off your first purchase. That's hover.com slash hi to get 10% off your first purchase. Thanks to Hover for supporting the show. And thanks to Hover for helping you get your domain name. Now, Gray, do you remember not that many episodes ago, I spoke about how I was convinced that airlines were splitting couples and families apart so that they could force you to buy tickets next to each other after my wife and I got split apart on a flight to South America. I do remember you peddling this conspiracy theory, yes.

Conspiracy theory not. Have a look at this article in The Independent. It was doing the rounds a couple of days ago. Okay, what am I looking for here? Airways face crackdown on use of exploitative algorithm that splits up families on flights. Government ministers in the UK have condemned the practice. Okay. Digital minister Margot James described the software as a very cynical,

exploitative means to hoodwink the general public. And do not think for a second that exploitative is an easy word to say for me. She added, some airlines have set an algorithm to identify passengers of the same surname traveling together. They've had the temerity to split the passengers up, and when the family want to travel together, they are charged more. Outrage, I say. Outrage. I mean, I'm outraged that I can't read this article without their little video floating over the top.

That too is outrageous. That's incredibly annoying. Oh, there's the close button. Jesus, could they hide it anymore? Okay, so is this... I'm a little bit confused and you'll have to forgive me for not remembering. Don't look for detail, Greg. Just join me in the outrage.

You'll have to forgive me for not remembering the details of your story. Like, can't people, unless you're flying Ryanair, can't you book the seats? I don't understand. How- No, I was on British Airways and I was on British Airways business class. Right. And they split me and my wife apart unless we paid an extra, I don't remember how much, but it was more than I was willing to pay. Okay. But you had booked seats together? This is just what I'm, the details matter, Brady. You had booked seats together? No, we just booked tickets and assumed that when it came time to check in, we would get a pair together.

But we were split apart. But so were like three or four other couples. And we did that musical chairs, you know, can I swap with your wife and you swap with my husband? And if that guy, a single guy over there doesn't mind swapping with that. And we managed to get all our couples back together in the end through a series of complicated trade deals. Right. But I was like, oh, I can't go through that again.

So, then I paid the whatever amount for the flight home just to make sure we could sit next to each other. The irony is you then just put your head in the tablet or go to sleep for the whole flight anyway, but that's by the by. Yeah, but you don't want a stranger in the bubble you know, in the bubble of air that's around you. That's no good. So, yeah, it's more comfortable. Even if your wife ignores you the entire flight, it's much more comfortable to be sitting next to your wife. It's not some stinky stranger. Exactly. Anyway, I felt like I was, you know, I felt a bit like I was peddling a conspiracy

theory last time, but now I'm feeling more and more confident. Now I'm seeing computer algorithms are doing it for them. If it ends up this has been happening, I think there is a massive class action looming because anyone who's ever paid extra for a ticket that they say was just to make sure they got to sit next to their partner, I think could have a case if they've been deliberately separated to leverage the money from them. I mean, okay, yeah. I'll agree with you there. I'm still a little bit confused about the details because I don't understand, like, I don't think I pay extra to reserve a seat.

I don't think my wife and I have ever done that. Not all airlines do it. Okay. Not all airlines do it. Some airlines will just let you choose your seats for free. But a lot of them do say, if you want to choose your seats, you know, weeks in advance, you've got to pay. Otherwise, come check in time, you can pick from what's left. I mean, I think that is terrible then if they're deliberately separating the couples.

And you're not peddling a conspiracy theory here, Brady. You now have the digital minister on your side which is a position i did not know existed but sounds like if you're gonna have a government job pretty cool government job to have yeah oh my god i almost forgot brady i have i'm gonna call it npcc follow-up for the show near plane crash corner oh i can't believe i almost forgot so interesting well i've got a lot of plane stuff in the show notes today so if you're on a plane you're not gonna you're either gonna love or hate this episode what have you got i'm very excited about this okay so let me paint

the let me let me paint the picture yeah you and i we had completed our road trip yeah and then the next morning i had to fly into what is rapidly dropping to the bottom of the list of airports for me, Newark Airport. The place of a thousand screens. The place of a thousand screens. The place that is so terrible that even if you can wrangle your way into the airport lounge, the airport lounge is only as good as a regular airport would be, and so is barely an improvement. It's terrible. At least it doesn't have climate control problems

like DC does. But anyway, I'm flying into this terrible airport. Everything's fine. We're on one of these little planes. We're coming down for a landing, approaching, approaching, and we're at that point where suddenly the houses are big and you can see the details in all the houses. I know, it's like a sudden transition I always find. Like, you're looking at a map of the world and then suddenly you have that, you lose the feeling of I'm looking at a map and you just realize, oh, you're close to the runway, but still very high.

That if you fell, like you'd viscerally understand the height as opposed to something like diving out of an airplane. There needs to be a name for that point, that threshold. Yeah. I'll leave that in your capable hands. We'll come back to that. I'm sure we will. So we're at this point, we're coming down.

I can just start to make out all the tiles on the roof of the houses. Yeah. down i can just start to make out all the tiles on the on the roof of the houses yeah and then the plane pulls straight up yeah in a in the most abort abort yeah in the most uncomfortable acceleration i have yet experienced in my life yeah it's like we're coming in we're coming in we're coming in and then bam like straight back we're coming in, and then bam, like straight back up in the air. For a go round. For a go round.

Yeah. And we go way back up, we go way back up over the cloud cover again, in just this trajectory right up. Oh, yeah. And you know what I was thinking of, Brady? Me. I was thinking of you and goddamn plane crash corner in this moment and i felt like here it is here it is the last few seconds of my life may be well approaching and all i'm thinking

of is brady's gonna have some memorial episode of hello internet like the final plane crash corner of yeah we're sorry to tell you folks yeah but not only do I have a plane crash corner to report, but Gray died in that plane crash corner. And it's like, I, it was such a strange- But first, a message from Squarespace. Yeah, exactly. Like, I was so annoyed in this moment because it's like, I legitimately thought, oh, I might be in a plane crash. Like, I don't know what's happening. Things are really bad all of a sudden. And what am I thinking of? Not my wife, not my family. I'm thinking of goddamn plane crash corner and just what feels like this inevitable thing. Like I had joked about that before on the show that, oh, surely this is what's going to happen if I'm ever in a plane crash. But there

I was faced with the reality of it that, oh no, it is true. I'm ever in a plane crash. But there I was faced with the reality of it that, oh, no, it is true. I will be thinking of plane crash corner in my final moments. So, I wanted to tell you this, but I also have a question for you, which is when we got back up to cruising altitude, the pilot comes on as they do in their little pilot voice. And he says, hello, ladies and gentlemen, just wanted to let you know that we've been re-vectored for an approach to the airport. Right? Which is like, thanks for this technical term to obfuscate what has just happened, that there was some dramatic reason you had to wildly abort at the last possible second.

And- There was some guy with a broom on the runway sweeping up a puddle or something. Yeah. No information was given about why. I have no idea why. I wanted to know from you, because you like to listen to these reports from the airport, like the recordings, the cockpit recordings. Yeah. And I was thinking, you told me that there's like a channel on the plane where you can

listen to these things while they're doing it, is there any way that I can get access to the chatter on the plane to find out what the actual deal was that caused this NPCC to occur? What? Retrospectively? Go on. Yeah, retrospectively. I don't know. Is that information subject to like freedom of information requests?

Maybe? If you're really keen, maybe. I guess you could request the recording just to sate your curiosity. Okay. But so I don't know whether, I don't know whether or not there are nerds, maybe for like airports as famous as Newark, there are like nerds who are recording it and you could get the word out and some nerd will have, maybe they're, you know, they keep recordings for months at a time just for their own personal pleasure.

Maybe, maybe someone's recorded it straight off the, off the frequency. of maybe they keep recordings for months at a time just for their own personal pleasure. Maybe someone's recorded it straight off the frequency, but I don't know. Yeah, I would like to know. I want to know what it is because re-vectoring, not a satisfactory answer. That's not good enough. I want to know what was on that runway and I want to see if I can find out what was on that runway. It was probably just a plane taxiing or something, wasn't it? They just hadn't, it wasn't as clear as they'd hoped or.

Yeah. I mean, that's my guess. That's my guess is that, is that like someone just pulled into the runway or, you know, like a chicken was crossing the runway and we have to stop or whatever, but I would still like to know. I want to know. And so I want to know if there's any way I can try to find out and get the actual recordings of what happened in the most terrifying plane experience of my life would you be willing to put in a freedom

of information request to find out uh i mean i had to go through the process i would definitely be willing to have my assistant put in a freedom of information request yeah for sure i would do that and if anyone out there knows whether or not there are like plane enthusiasts who keep recordings of the day's traffic for weeks or months, have them get in touch. Yeah. I'll tell you the flight number, right? So, if any nerd happens to know. It was November 19th, United Airlines flight 2408, Knoxville, Tennessee to New Jersey Liberty International. I want to know.

I want to know. I'm going to get these recordings, International. I want to know. I want to know. I'm going to get these recordings, Brady. I have to know what happened. If you can't compete with Plane Crash Corner or NP near Plane Crash Corner time, do you have perhaps another corner? Is there another corner on the lineup here? Nice setup there. You've just given me a nice juicy pitch over

the plate. And let me introduce today's comeback of, by popular demand, Corporate Compensation Corner. The most exciting of corners. It is the worst named and yet it's the one people always want back. I don't know why, because of the terrible name, I guess. I also think it's the one that is a little bit like the Maryland point, right? It goes so far beyond that it's great again. And it's all about my plane trip. Okay. Tell me, tell me. All right. So, strap yourself in, Gray. This is going to take a while. Okay. All right. I'm comfortable.

Because I want you to have the context. Okay. Because the context does affect the lens through which I was seeing this incident. Okay. Yeah. No, I want all the details. This story is going to be about Virgin Atlantic. Okay. The airline. Now, I'm going to say from the start, I like this airline. I fly with them more than anyone else. They're my second favourite airline to fly on after Emirates, because Emirates are pretty cool to fly on as well. So, I don't, you know, you're okay, Virgin Atlantic. But here comes my-

But now I'm going to give you a kicking. Okay. Because here's my story. Well, actually, maybe I'm not going to give you a kicking. I'm just going to give the facts, Gray, and I want you to tell me at various points whether or not you're cool with it, you think there are grievances to be had, you know. Okay.

Call it as you see it. I don't want to bias you in any way. I think you do, though. But okay, keep going. I couldn't keep a straight face, I'm sorry. All right. So, I've just been in America for a couple of weeks, and I booked this a while in advance, and I didn't know what all my plans were going to be.

I obviously went to ThinkCon, and we did our road trip down south and then I booked a little bit of extra time in New York because it was kind of on the way home and I figured I'd want to pick up some more video making on the way back, film some number file or whatever else I could pick up. You know, there were lots of mathematicians around who I might hoover up and I hadn't really thought about or allowed for Thanksgiving because it's not really on my radar. Right. So, as the time got closer, I realised that my flight out of New York was going to be

the day after Thanksgiving. And that was about as bad as I could arrange anything because obviously, I'm going to be on my own in New York on like Thanksgiving when no one's going to be able to see me for interviews or work and all my friends are going to be busy with, you know, their families and Thanksgiving. So, it was just this dead day. So, I called Virgin Atlantic like, you know, a week or two before and said, can I change my flight? Can I fly out any earlier? I expected to be, you know, take a hit for this in the pocket, obviously, changing your flight. So, I called up and said, can I change my flight? What does it cost? I'll pay what it costs within reason, you know, and I was expecting them to come back with some ridiculous

amount and then I would make an assessment about, you know, the value of my time and hotels and things like that. And for the record, and also just, you know, because I think all this stuff is important, this was an expensive flight because it was like all work related and i work a lot on planes now and i need to be able to work the day straight after getting back it was a business class flight so it wasn't like a super cheap ticket i'd got it was an expensive ticket so i i expect that like that should be taken into account and okay and also like i fly with them a lot so I've got you know whatever status I am I've you know I've been working my way up the greasy pole to you know silver or whatever

like you know I'm not the top rung but you know I like to think they would have called up my account and saying okay this guy's like a customer of some value to us you make earning those corporate points sound so revolting by describing it in that manner well I think they're pretty useless and turns out they are useless so anyway I called up You make earning those corporate points sound so revolting by describing it in that manner. Well, I think they're pretty useless.

It turns out they are useless. So, anyway, I called up and I just got told, no, you booked a flight that's locked in. You can't change it. And I'm like, name your price. I said, name your price. And if they'd said like, you know, a million pounds, I would have said no. But if they'd said an amount that I thought was worth it, I was considering it. I had a number in my head how high I'd go. And they said, nah, you've booked your time, you've booked your flight, that's when you're flying, my friend. Okay. The rules are the rules. And I'm sure in the fine print and the boxes I

ticked and all that sort of stuff, I had locked myself in and I accepted this, all right? I accepted it. So, this is the context. Okay. This is what's in my head. Spent Thanksgiving on my own in New York. God, that's so sad. Which is interesting in itself. That's really sad.

It was. I went and had a look at the Macy's Day Parade for a few minutes, which was kind of weird. Anyway. Don't you dare slander the greatest holiday ever, Brady. So, the next day, the next evening, it's time for my flight. At last, I can go home. Get on the plane. We push back from the gate, get out on the runway. And then suddenly, they're like, oh, there's a problem with the plane. Something relating to one of the engines. We're going to pull over and have a quick look. Didn't go back to the gate. They just pulled

over on the side and then they taxied to a special stand for sick planes. And then they're like, we're going to see if we can fix it. And to fix it, they had to turn off the engines. And then they taxied to a special stand for sick planes. And then they're like, we're going to see if we can fix it. And to fix it, they had to turn off the engines. And then that meant the plane would lose power. So, they had to call out auxiliary power, an auxiliary power unit from somewhere else at the airport, which apparently takes a long time. And that arrived. And then like that broke.

And three of these auxiliary units in a row broke. So, they had all sorts of problems. And then they tried to fix it. And they kept having messages saying, we're doing our best. The staff on the plane were really good. The pilot was really polite. But clearly, it looked increasingly likely that this plane wasn't going to go. It was either three or four hours we waited for them to try to fix this thing.

You know, the pilot was quite reassuring and said things like, oh, by the way, it's not like a safety issue. It's like just a computer issue, but we can't take off with the issue. I'm like, whatever. Yeah, but also explain to me how a computer issue is not a safety issue. I mean, like the machine that runs the machine has a problem. Like that's not, you know, that doesn't make you feel better. There were very mixed messages circulating around the plane.

Like, at one stage, the cabin staff came up and sort of whispered to us, look, the captain hasn't announced this yet, but he's going to deplane. He's going to take everyone off, just so you know. And like, I thought, at the time, I thought that was quite, like, nice. I liked getting the inside scoop about what was going to happen. But then it turns out that didn't, that wasn't the case, and they ended up keeping us on there for another hour or two. But also, for some legal reasons, they had to make this announcement that if you wanted to get off the plane, like the buses had come out to take people away, just in case. But they made this announcement, if you want to get off the plane and go back to the airport now,

you can do it anytime you want. Just tell us and we'll let you off straight away. But then they also said, but if you do that and, like, then we fix the engine, you can't get back on. Okay, yeah. So, like, what crazy person's going to get off when maybe the engine's going to be fixed in 10 minutes? You have no idea.

So, no one took this option. But that caused a lot of confusion amongst the passengers. And then they had to come back on and say, look, basically, they came back on and reading between the lines, the flight attendant said, look, I made that announcement because I have to. And she said, and it's still valid, you still can get off the plane. But she was really saying, you're crazy if you get off the plane at the moment. I'm legally required to give you this option, but speaking in an unofficial role, you totally shouldn't take it. Yeah.

Anyway, after this epic wait, a lot of it in darkness. And just as a side issue, because I'm an idiot, I had lost my iPad a day or two before, so I couldn't watch anything on my iPad or anything. I was just stuck just sitting there, like, talking to my neighbours. Oh, God. Yeah. Oh, and tweeting a lot. I'm going to be crazy on the old Twitter. Yeah.

I asked everyone to tell me their nightmare plane delay stories, which in a future episode I should keep them, we should talk about because there were some really good ones. I said, tell me your worst delay story to cheer me up, and people sent in some great ones. Eventually, word comes through from the captain. It's not happening. We're getting you off the plane and we're going to sort you all out.

Everything's going to be fine. We're going to book you on new flights. Everything's going to be wonderful. You know, happiness and light. And the mood on the plane, I would say, was good. Staff were handling it well. Morale was high. Everyone was like, oh, I would say, was good. Staff were handling it well. Morale was high. Everyone was like, oh, what a pain in the butt.

But, you know, haha, better than taking off with a bad engine, you know, plunging into the ocean. Such is life. Yes, it is better than that. That's true. Yeah. So, they take us back to the terminal in the buses. And this is where it starts getting a bit Lord of the Flies. It starts going wrong now.

We get off the plane and everyone's like, okay, we were told as soon as you get back to the terminal, you're going to be told what's what and everything's going to be fine. And when we got back to the terminal, it sort of occurred to me how hard it is when you've got a whole plane full of people now that you can no longer speak to at once via a PA system and all sitting in their chairs. Communication became very difficult with this large group of people. And they were getting increasingly tired and irritable because it was after midnight at this point.

They like traipsed us through the airport to the domestic part of the terminal to like a bag carousel where our bags were supposed to come out soon, but took a really long time. And then people were saying, what's going on? When are we going to fly? What's the, you know, what have you sorted out for us? And no one like, there was no like czar or point man that was looking after everything. And all the staff there were trying to answer

and they didn't really know themselves. And then they gave us all these photocopied pieces of paper. I've got mine here actually, hang on. They gave us these photocopied pieces of paper. I've got mine here, actually. Hang on. They gave us these photocopied pieces of paper. Sorry, your flight's been cancelled, et cetera, et cetera, with the details of when the flight was going to happen. And it was going to be like 24 hours later the next night. So, it wasn't even like the next morning, which I think ambitiously we'd all hoped. By this point, people were on phones. Some people were organising new flights. But there was a few things on the piece of paper that caused concern. It said, we have arranged hotel accommodation for you, including meals and refreshments.

That's nice, isn't it? However, but then it says, however, if you can return home, please do so. As we are unable to secure transportation for you this evening we will need to ask you to make your own way to the hotel by taxi please keep your receipts and send them to customer relations at the below email or postal address so it's starting to feel a bit more mickey mouse now hang on we're gonna have to find our own way to the hotel and then and then people were asking or what's the hotel and they, we're going to tell you that later. And so, then, like, people were starting to get a bit more aggressive now and upset. And the bags were taking a long time.

And people were starting to think about all their connections and missed weddings and things like that. And then they said, all right, we're going to tell you what your hotel is. Come over to this desk over here. But then they announced that if you can, please, like, share hotel rooms, like, with family and friends, because we haven't got enough hotel rooms for everyone. Because they were having to book these hotels last minute. I was like- and I was like, oh, this is- this is- this is going to be nuts. Yeah, no, like, abort, abort, abort, abort so hard, Brady. I was pretty zen about all this. And I got in the line and I- I was in the front half of the line.

And here's where I will admit that when I passed over my boarding pass to like get told my hotel, because most people were being sent to this hotel out at LaGuardia. And they did say there's a bus you might be able to get on. I don't know much about that. When I got there, because I was like, you know, a good passenger, I had a business class ticket. They said, oh, you've got a different hotel. And mine was closer to JFK. They were showing you more respect.

They were showing me a bit more respect. But I said, oh, that's good. That's good. I'm going to a different hotel. So, which bus do I get on? Not the LaGuardia bus that you're telling everyone about. And they said, oh, we actually don't think we've got room on that bus because that's the one that the staff are using. So, I just said, you want me to get a taxi, don't you? And they said, you'd really be helping us out if you got a taxi. And I was like, fine.

So, I just, as soon as the bags came out, which they did eventually, I just grabbed my bag. I got a taxi. I was the first person to arrive at this hotel and like got my room. And, you know, it was fine. It was okay. Except I had to check out at 12 and my flight wasn't until 7 the next night. And like Virgin weren't paying for a longer stay. So, that was kind of a bit of a pain. I heard nightmare

stories from other people who weren't as quick as me, who were even staying in my hotel and got given the wrong hotel name and got trains and buses and all sorts of things. And it took them hours to sort themselves out. Just to add a slight complication, because the plane was in darkness when we left and it was a bit of a confusing time. I'd bought some expensive duty-free cosmetics for my wife and I forgot them and I left them on the plane. So, I was like, oh. So, at the same time, I was like working the emails to like customer service to try and chase down these expensive creams and lotions. And this is like the worst possible time to try to be contacting customer service about things because they're obviously like drowning with complaints because of this cancelled flight. But the thing that's interesting is all the time this is happening, I'm seeing this through the prism of you cannot change your flight time. This is the time you're

flying. We've decided the time you're flying home. And that's fine. I have to accept that. But when they change it, when they suddenly turn around and say, actually, circumstances have changed, you're not flying at the time you want anymore. I was very curious to see how this was going to play. It felt like, oh, the shoe's on the other foot now. So, it was making me more- I wasn't angry, but it was making me more annoyed by the whole thing. Flew the next night on the same plane, got my creams back. Oh, good. Which is a bit of an ordeal, but- That is the most important part though. That took a bit of work. I would be stressed out most about that part in this whole situation. That seriously was on my mind a lot.

Yeah, no, I've done the like, oh, there's special magic pills or creams that you need to get in America that can only be acquired here and you have to bring them back. It's very stressful. At breakfast the next morning, I happened to be sitting opposite the flight attendants and I said, look, I don't want to annoy you. And I know they were like, oh, no. And I said, how do you think I'm going to get my creams back? And they're like, oh. And then I told them what the creams were and they went, oh, yeah, you do need to get them back.

So, they knew they were the posh creams. You didn't just buy some toothpaste that you were complaining about. Yeah, yeah. We flew back. There were like apologies left, right and centre. When we got off the plane, they handed out Marks and Spencer's like shop vouchers to everyone getting off the plane, which I seem to have lost. So I don't know how much it was for. And I've just gone on the Virgin Atlantic website and filled out the form I have to fill out for my European Union mandated compensation. Will I still be entitled to that after Brexit?

I don't know. Anyway, there's EU mandated compensation, which I believe is 600 euros. So it's enough to be worth going on and chasing. I'm not going to chase the taxi fare back. That's just going to be too much effort. But I will chase the 600 euros. And I got a message saying, we'll get back to you within 21 days about your compensation claim. So, I'm assuming I'll get it. That's a real pain in the ass delay that you have there, Brady. These things, you always feel like

when one thing goes wrong it dramatically increases the chance that another thing is going to go wrong which then quickly spirals out of control into many things going wrong uh and this is an example of that and i remember a long time ago my wife and i had some cancellation and where where they started giving out the same thing like here's a piece of paper with some information and here's an airport that we're going to or here's a hotel that we're going to send you to and you know it was so late at night and my wife and i looked at each other and we realized like no this is just going to be a continuing cascade of errors if we if we go down this journey so we're aborting hard out of here and like yeah we just drove to some

other hotel far away but we thought like we need to get out of the system right well like we'll come back tomorrow and see what the situation is but we need to be out of this system for the time being so yeah that's a smart play actually just get away from the herd yeah exactly like as soon as they hand you that piece of paper and we got the same thing too about like oh do you mind sharing a hotel room with someone else it's like yeah yeah i do mind i mind a lot like no this isn't gonna happen but that's why we're like i think i think it was actually dc but wherever it was we're like we're just gonna keep driving until we find some bates motel to stay at and that's that's where we're gonna go like we're not gonna be involved in this anymore waiting for the bus or all that kind of nonsense and it's so

sad this happened over thanksgiving to you brady that kind of nonsense. And it's so sad that's happened over Thanksgiving to you, Brady, that tinges your whole story with this sad violin underneath it the entire time. It just, it makes me so sad. 600 euros sound okay to you for compensation? It actually seems, to be fair, it actually seems not that bad. As always with these stories, when you tell them, Brady, I don't know what's going to happen. I don't know where it's going to go and i was expecting that in this story you were going to have some kind of major meltdown but it's it seems to me like you you floated through this minefield of corporate compensation like you said very very zen like like a budd I was. I was the Zen master. And- I was way- I was calming other people down.

Yeah, like, how to put this? And after what Virgin had done to me, after they'd done me over and said, no, no, you fly when we say, and then they don't then uphold their end of the deal. I can't believe they wouldn't let me change my flight. Well- Anyway. I just- I know rules are rules and stuff, but like, they didn't even like name a price.

They didn't even try. Like, I think there should be some flex- it was very computer says no. There should be some like- I should be able to go to like the manager and say, what do you reckon? Maybe this guy's going to fork over a thousand bucks. Should we try our luck? Well, I probably wouldn't have, but they could have tried. Yeah.

I mean, I've been in this situation of collecting the airline points and also whatever you called it, climbing the greasy human pyramid to the top of this horrible system. And I too always think, wait, why do I even have these points? What are they for? If I can't change my flight or I can't get up, like, why are you giving me these pretend points that just don't do anything? Yeah, it's like monopoly money. Yeah. So, in some ways, I feel like I'm listening to your story through the lens of a person who has already spent a year plus being resigned to the fact that these points mean nothing

and you're just going to have to do what the airline tells you and there's no other way. And I'm mostly just impressed that, let's put it this way, the Brady in my head, I would imagine having a tremendous nuclear meltdown in the middle of this whole situation. And so, I'm very pleased. I'm very pleased that you didn't. But I thought you were going to have me adjudicating some tremendous personal dispute between like you and the airlines. I'm pretty polite. Like I'm pretty nice to people 99.9% of the time. Individuals.

But I was expecting like an explosion on the Twitter, right? Like who knows? Who knows what happens on Twitter, Brady, right? It can be a huge disaster. So. Well, who knows? Maybe the people from Virgin Atlantic will listen to this episode and like give me an extra 20 status points that are good for nothing. Yeah. Your 20 status points are just good for sorting you in the

relative ranking of all humans within their system and offer you absolutely, absolutely nothing. I did once go to the front of the plane, like, you know, when you're stretching your legs on a Virgin Atlantic flight and they had written down on a piece of paper, like stuck to the wall for their flight attendants, the names of all the passengers and their seat numbers, and then handwritten next to it what their status was. So, it was like gold, gold, silver, red, nothing, nothing, nothing, gold, silver. And I'm not gold. And I did look at it and thought, what are those gold people getting that I'm not getting? Like, are they being nicer to them or are they giving them, like, more jelly beans or something?

Like, why did they have to have that written down? By that point, we're all in our seats and we're all, like, on the fly. What are those people getting that I'm not getting? As someone who is gold, I can tell you what you get, Brady. What you get is in the mail, they send you a little gold tag that you can then affix to your luggage. So, you look like a total status-seeking asshole. Like, that's, as far as I can tell, that is the only thing that you get with this gold membership. And I am so aware of people who put it

on their bag, like it's some kind of proud accomplishment. And I can never not immediately think less of those people. And it's like, yeah, I could have one of those tags too, but I'm not putting it on my bag because I'm not advertising for the airline. And also, it means nothing. You just want to show off these pointless points that you have. Pointless points. That's what they get. They get a badge to show off these pointless points that you have uh so pointless points that's that's what that's what they that's what they get they get a badge to show off like they get a sticker from the airline saying thanks for spending all this money with us would you like to show everybody

that you've spent all this money with us that's what you get brady well as long as i get my 600 euros i'll try not to talk about it again i hope you do but you got to do it fast brady you got to do it fast before the Brexit window closes. Presuming that's still happening, I guess. I'm assuming that's still happening. But yeah, you got to do it quickly. Let's not even talk about that. I keep wanting you to tell me what's going on with Brexit.

And you always go, oh, let's not talk about it. I don't even understand myself. And it's changing every day at the moment. Yeah, but that's why. I'm just going to sit here and assume that it's still happening until you tell me otherwise. You're my news source for Brexit and you tell me nothing. So like, whatever, I'm sure it's going great.

But yeah, sounds like do it quickly. This episode of Hello Internet is brought to you in part by HelloFresh. HelloFresh is the meal kit delivery service that shops, plans, and delivers step-by-step recipes and pre-measured ingredients straight to your door so you can just cook, eat, and delivers step-by-step recipes and pre-measured ingredients straight to your door so you can just cook, eat, and enjoy. No matter who you are, HelloFresh has something for everyone. There's three different plans to choose from. They're classic, they're

veggie, and they're family. And all of the ingredients that you're going to get in those boxes are made up of fresh, responsibly obtained ingredients from carefully selected farms and high-rated, trusted sources. And HelloFresh lets you rediscover the excitement of cooking. You can feel confident when cooking with HelloFresh because the simple recipes are outlined on pictured, step-by-step instruction cards. And let me say from personal experience here, pictures. It makes a big difference, especially when you're not so familiar with cooking. When an instruction says this thing or that thing, I don't know what it is. I need a picture. Pictures. They're very helpful. And HelloFresh also takes away what we all experience, the crushing burden of having to

decide and plan out what is for dinner. And it's easy to make because HelloFresh believes cooking should always be simple and convenient. All the ingredients come pre-measured in handy labeled meal kits, which again, from personal experience, I don't know what a dash of spice means. What does that mean? Nobody knows. You just get exactly what you need. It's fantastic. And you won't have to spend all night in the kitchen because recipes only take about 30 minutes. There are so many benefits from subscribing to HelloFresh. You spend less time meal planning and less time grocery shopping, and you get back those hours to do what you love, all the while

getting delicious filling meals delivered right to your door every week for less than $10 per serving and free shipping. We've had HelloFresh come to the office and it's just so simple, so easy, and so delicious. Oh hi, do I suddenly sound different? That's because Pass Gray ran out of time to finish the ad read before he had to go run to the airport. So right now, I'm at an airport, a terrible airport, surrounded by screens and lots of noise, and there's no food. It's a food desert. Nothing like HelloFresh here. Now, if you want to get delicious, delicious HelloFresh and get a total of $60 off, that's $20 off your first three boxes, visit HelloFresh.com slash HelloInternet60 and enter promo code HelloInternet60.

That's HelloInternet, all one word, and the number 60. You can't get delicious, healthy food in an airport, but you can get it delivered straight to your door with HelloFresh. Once again, for a total of $60 off, that's $20 off your first three boxes, visit HelloFresh.com slash HelloInternet60 and enter promo code HelloInternet60. All right, I've got a flight to catch. Hey, speaking of planes, there's another plane story from a little while ago. I have heard of this before, but it never happened to me. But I was on a flight and we were seated and the voice came over the PA saying, excuse me, everyone, but we've got someone on this flight with an extreme peanut allergy. Can no one for the whole flight eat peanuts or touch or take

anything out of their bags with peanuts and we won't be serving any peanuts for the whole flight, eat peanuts or touch or take anything out of their bags with peanuts, and we won't be serving any peanuts for the whole flight. And like, I get that. The funny thing was, as the announcement was being made, my wife was stuffing a peanut protein bar in her mouth. She was like, oh. So, she put that away in a hurry. So, you know, I get that, you know, this is this extreme case. But then a week or two later, something else happened, which I did think took it to take it to the next extreme. So, I went and saw a play at a theatre in Bristol, which was a pretty cool play, actually. It was about mountaineering. It was Touching the Void, based on that book, Touching the Void, which is quite interesting to see as a play. Okay.

So, anyway, when I was looking at the website the day before going, there was a warning. I think there was a warning saying it contained, you know, naughty language. Okay. And there was a warning that the play contained and involved peanuts. Wait. And I was like, what? What? I was like, what?

What the heck? And then when I got to the theatre to watch watch it as you were going in like the main doors into the theater there were like printed out signs on pieces of paper warning you that the play contained peanuts and involved peanuts okay hold on i need to i need to pause you here yeah because i'm thinking something that can't possibly be true, but I'm afraid that it is. So, the play had- did they throw peanuts at you from the stage? Well, obviously, this is what I was anticipating. Right. There was going to be some peanut stunt at some point.

Right. Okay. Anyway. Anyway. The play ensues and I'm spending the whole time waiting for like, I've got no interest in how they're going to depict like the injuries and the famous story of Touching the Void. All I'm waiting for is what's happening with the peanuts.

Yeah. Right. Okay. Yeah. And a lot of the play was set in like, like a tavern, like a Scottish tavern in the mountains where people are reflecting on mountaineering and what happens. And there's this one scene in the play where two characters are talking and one character is trying to explain to the other one how you climb this rock face. And the character says, I don't understand. Help me understand how you climb the rock face. And he says,

let me explain it to you like this. And he reaches over like, because they're sitting at a table with beers and stuff. Imagine this peanut and he picks up like a peanut from the table that they're at, that you would have at a pub. And he holds it up like, you know, above his head. Imagine this peanut is a person. And you go here and then you move to the right and you move to the left. And he's just using the peanut between his fingers to represent a person on a rock face to tell the story. And you do this and you do that and you go there. And the other character is like, oh, okay. Yes. Thank you. Thank you. I understand now. And then the character

puts the peanut back down and they continue their talk at the table. And that's it. That's it. That's all that happens. And numerous things came into my head at this point one is if you've got a peanut allergy that is so severe that you could have an attack based on someone on a stage 50 meters away holding a peanut i feel really sorry for you and you should and you should be careful but i don't think you should be going like to theatersres or places or walking the streets, like in the busy centre of Bristol, if that would be enough to send you into shock. Right. And the second thing that came into my head was, I'm not even sure it was a peanut.

So, why did they have to use a peanut? Why not use like a stunt peanut or like a cashew or just like a small pebble. I was like completely baffled. There's been a few stories in the news lately in the UK about people dying from peanut allergies. So, I get that the theatre was being extra careful because it was a red hot news story at the time. There'd just been a court case like a day or two before. So I get why they were being cautious. But if they were so worried about it, just don't use a peanut. It wasn't even that important to the story. It could have been anything.

He could have used a hot stopper or a potato crisp. But they know we've got to keep the peanut in the story. It's important to the story. But instead, let's plaster all these distracting beware of the peanut signs all over our theatre for everyone to read as they walked in and completely distract you from the play. I'm so confused on this on every level. Because yes, I'm thinking- Join the club.

This isn't a play about George Washington Carver. Like, peanuts are not integral to the story. No. and Carver. Like, peanuts are not integral to the story. And if it's just an example, why not rewrite it? Hell, you don't even have to rewrite it. Just tell the actor, oh, this line about a peanut, we're just going to use a stone. We're going to use an almond, right? It doesn't- it's crazy making. Even in the front row, you wouldn't have been able to tell what it was. Yeah. Well, like, that's the hilarity of it, right?

It's not even, it's not like, you know, it's not like it's autumn and they're arranging pumpkins on the stage and someone has a big pumpkin allergy and everyone can at least see the pumpkin. I mean, it might as like, he might as well be using a dust mite for all people can see in a theater at

what like a person is holding between their fingers. That's, that's crazy. I don't'm just like my head is my head is so swirling on this because yes i know i have unless there's something i missed but i don't think there is i've told you all the information i have yeah i mean and i don't want to make light of peanut allergies you know and i get that it's like serious business, but this just struck me as crazy. Yeah, and having worked in the schools, like we had some students with no joke peanut allergies that were a really big deal. So, it's like, I know it's a real who has an allergy so extreme that to breathe the air of a theatre that has been contaminated with a single peanut is a problem? And if that person exists, they can't live in the world. They have to drive out into the middle of Montana and live in a cabin alone forever.

Like, surely that's the only thing the person can do. Yeah, who's to say they're not going to leave the theatre and walk within a metre of someone just walking out of a pub with a packet of peanuts? Yeah. I don't know. I don't know. It's very strange. Like I said, if they were that worried about it, fair enough, fair enough. But just don't even use a peanut in the play, because it really affected my viewing of the play. Until that peanut scene happened, it was all I could think about. And then when it happened, all I could think was, was that it?

Well, that's just it. Like, we've talked about safety gone crazy. And that's why this is such a baffling situation. Because surely, if safety is going to go crazy, the safest thing to do is to not have a peanut. It's weird and baffling that you want to draw so much attention to it. I would almost think, I don't know, I would almost think like, I'm trying to think if I had been in charge of that play, what would be the reason that I would

do it? And the only reason I would do it is because I would find it hilarious to imagine people wondering what the giant peanut explosion is going to be, and then to put a single prop peanut on stage and then just have it like that be that. The only reason I would do it is like a just a hilarious troll that I could giggle at from behind the scenes of like, everybody's waiting for the peanut and here it comes. But there's no other reason. It's madness. It's total madness. I don't understand. That is bizarre, Brady. That's a really bizarre story. I'll also put a prediction down on the table that in 20 to 30 years, peanuts just don't exist in the cuisine of anyone in the world anymore. I think peanuts are an endangered species for human consumption

because of this sort of stuff. It's like, okay, peanuts are going to go away. And then someone's going to be watching this play and the distracting thing will then be, what's a peanut? What is a peanut that he's using, right? What is this thing? Hey, Greg, if peanuts go extinct, right, because of this situation, does that mean people with peanut allergies, like, you know, will reproduce more and peanut allergies will become more and more common and then peanuts will become like a secret weapon and like a country could just drop peanuts on your nation and kill everyone? You know, I hadn't thought about weaponized peanuts more common and then peanuts will become like a secret weapon and like a country could just drop peanuts on your nation and kill everyone i you know i hadn't thought about weaponized peanuts uh that wasn't that wasn't where my brain went with that um i don't know i mean this touches

this touches the topic that is one of those things i don't know what the current consensus state of science is so i'm going to we're going to say this next sentence with a huge asterisk on it, which is, I don't know how true this is. This is just my understanding. I think that the consensus is lack of exposure to peanuts is a large factor in what causes peanut allergies. I think that's true. And that then you end up with a self-fulfilling cycle that as you remove peanuts from the food supply specifically of children like i said at the schools i taught peanuts were just totally forbidden so i i think that that's the consensus that lack of exposure causes at the very least peanut allergies there are many allergies that don't work like this but for some people food

allergies do work like this and that's kind of why I think it's, peanuts may really be a thing that just totally goes away. Because the more you become cautious about peanuts, the more you have to become cautious about peanuts. I could be wrong about that. But that's what I think is the case. And so, yes, if that is true, then perhaps in 50 years, Brady, you could build weaponized peanuts, that that could become a thing. A peanut bomb. Yeah, a peanut bomb.

Let's hope the brutality of war doesn't reach that level. Let's just keep the corners going. Sportsball corner. Oh, God. Okay. This is just a corner oh god okay is it this just is this is just a corner corner show isn't it okay yeah i feel it i've got of course because after this i've got a paper cut too if you'll let me have one okay let's do sports ball corner first okay i think this story is charming and it's so british so this story starts with a soccer match in the uk i believe it was quite a high level women's soccer match that was being refereed and the

referee forgot his coin. At the start of a soccer match, you toss a coin usually to decide which team will kick off. He'd forgotten his coin. So he just organized a quick game of rock, paper, scissors between the two captains of the soccer teams to decide who would kick off. Who kicks off in a soccer game is pretty irrelevant anyway, if you ask me, but anyway. Yeah, but someone has to be first. Someone has to do it. Yeah, okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, you know. So, he just said, okay, let's just do rock,

paper, scissors. They did it. The game went ahead. He got in loads of trouble, this referee, and he got banned for like a few weeks from being refereeing because he did this thing he shouldn't have done, which I think is ridiculous. That is ridiculous. But, and I'll come to whether or not you think rock, paper, scissors is fair anyway, but a lot of other people thought it was ridiculous. And then across the nation, admittedly at low levels, at low level soccer matches, people like referees like did this show of solidarity and they all did rock,

paper, scissors to decide like who were kicking off matches. And there was like this like protest, this protest amongst referees about this draconian decision. And some people saying, oh yeah, that's really good. And other referees were saying, no, no, you shouldn't be doing this. Two wrongs don't make a right. And for like a day or two, it became this big, I won't say scandal. It wasn't. It was just like a low-level British controversy.

But I thought it was very charming and I thought it might appeal to you. The coin toss versus rock, paper, scissors. It is totally charming. Yeah. And in no small part because I love rock, paper, scissors. It's great. It's not truly random though, the way a coin toss is though, is it? Like, can you outfox your opponent in rock, paper, scissors?

Is it no longer a chance decision is it now becoming a game of skill to decide something that's supposed to be decided by chance okay all right here here's here's why i love rock paper scissors it's the illusion of skill which can be useful sometimes so to go back to my teaching days and this is this is like top tip for teachers, aside from one, learn how to train dogs, which is the most important thing. Maybe tip number two or three on that list for teachers is anytime a dispute arises between students, have them settle the dispute with rock, paper, scissors. The amazing The amazing thing is, in all of my years of teaching, everyone just took the rock, paper, scissors decision as like an arbitration from God about who gets that seat, right?

Or whatever it is. More than a coin toss, because they felt like they had some control over their destiny. I think that's what it is. That it's, it wasn't like, oh, it's a random thing. It was, I lost in this game of skill that is no skill at all right it's like they like i think the loser took personal ownership of the rock paper scissors defeat and so it was like the greatest arbitration thing ever like there's a problem do rock paper scissors rock paper scissors shoot done okay she won you lose sit

down we're done here it's great it's it's perfect but yeah for something like the the kickoff it's it's random it's random enough uh you know it's random enough for something like a like the who kicks off first in a in a football game i'm not sure i would want you know like i wouldn't i wouldn't want my uh encryption keys generated by a series of humans doing rock paper scissors like it's not random enough for that but it's random enough for most for most everything that you're going to come across in the world so i'm reading this famous story because i just wanted to brush up on it i should have read it beforehand i'm sorry when sotheby's and christie's the auction houses both wanted to auction some Cezanne painting.

So, to decide who was going to get to sell it, they had to play rock, paper, scissors. And it says, the president of Christie's in Japan spent the weekend reading up on strategies and consulting experts, including a colleague's 11-year-old twins, Flora and Alice, who recommended using scissors. Rock is way too obvious and scissors beats paper, Flora explained. On the other hand, Sotheby's didn't prepare at all. This is a game of chance, so we didn't really give it much thought, Sotheby's impressionist and modern art expert said. So, who won?

Both auction houses were asked to write their weapon choices on pieces of paper. Oh, that's not quite as fun, is it? Which were then turned over to an accountant. Looking at the face of the accountant holding the piece of paper, you could tell nothing. He looks at it for what was probably 30 seconds and your heart's in your mouth. In the end, Christie's preparations paid off.

Their scissors beat Sotheby's paper. The twins were unimpressed with Sotheby's choice. You never go paper. It's a weak move, Alice said. Years later, Flora agreed. Paper just sounds that it's not going to win. That's fantastic. I love this for many levels. Because the only problem with rock, paper, scissors that they're trying to avoid here is the people who, for some reason, think that you

do your role on the word scissors. Like, I don't understand those people. And they mess it up, right? So, it has to be very clear that you're doing rock, paper, scissors, shoot. You do it one beat after that, do you? Rock, paper, scissors, reveal. Yeah. Because I would reveal on the scissors. Oh, goddammit.

Rock, paper, scissors. You can't reveal on the scissors because then you're saying the word of one of the choices. Well, that's what I think about how they did it with this auction thing too. You are being asked to write paper or scissors on a piece of paper. Like it felt like that was preloading it as well. So, you know, rock, paper, scissors, reveal is what you think. That is the correct way. But surely the fact you said scissors last is still biasing it a bit.

It may be biasing it a bit, but to do it on the scissors is just wrong. I feel like that's the only thing you have to sort out with the rock paper scissors that's the only problem is some people want to jump the gun okay and then and then you get into this invalidated state of wait what just happened so that that it's like shooting on nine in a gun duel yes i guess i guess that's what it's like although not at all but sure uh it's like shooting on nine in a gun duel um you know i've got a number file video all about like strategies to win at rock paper scissors well it's because of the international rock paper scissors competition right isn't that what that one was about yeah no

yeah but there's like there's like mathematical research into it and there's like there is a strategy but this is if you're playing multiple games right a one-off game yeah because you can start using what people have used before and watch the video people yeah well that's why people are people are terrible at being random yeah but that's why that's why for a one-off decision it's perfect it's it's random enough like it's it's random enough although yeah like i'm sure i've i've said it before is i occasionally did rock paper scissors with the students about something or other you know when the when the decision didn't really matter but i wanted to give them the the illusion that they they're participating in this

this dictatorship of the classroom and yeah my favorite move just because it was like a fun psychology move to do was to be like okay we're going to do rock paper scissors and i'd look at them very seriously and i'd say and i'm going rock all right and it would always freak them out right because they'd be like who reveals who reveals which way they're going in rock paper scissors and then you could see they got caught up in their little brains about like wait he can't possibly be telling me the truth about which way he's going and i would go rock and they would almost always go scissors it was great it was so great should we have a one-off game now okay we can do it we can do a one-off game now? Okay, we can do a one-off game now.

So we reveal on the beat after the scissors, yeah? Do I have to open up my FaceTime? Do you want to do it live on FaceTime? All right, I'm looking at you right now. We can do it. Okay, hang on. Let me open up. Can you see me?

Okay, hang on. Let me see you as well. Make sure you don't cheat. So we reveal. Okay, we're looking at each other on the FaceTime, and we're going to reveal on the beat after the scissors. On the beat after the scissors. Okay.

Okay. Here we go. Rock, paper, scissors. Shoot. Oh. Yes. You win, Brady. My paper beats Gray's rock.

I went rock. Do you know what? Before you even told that anecdote, I said to myself, I'm going to challenge Gray and I'm going to play paper no matter what. Nothing that gets said is going to make me change my mind. So I decided that like two minutes ago. Congratulations, Bernie. You are the winner of the rock, paper, scissors duel.

I'm going to retire undefeated. I think that's a good move. That's a good move. Okay, everyone, I want you to stop and think for a moment. What's the best photo you've ever taken? Can you picture it? The best photo you've ever taken? Or how about this?

What's the best photo with you in it? Now, I reckon you can probably picture them in your mind's eye. And I'm guessing you probably posted them to places like Twitbook and Snapstagram. But have you printed them out do they exist in the real world are they on the wall of your hallway at home does one hang in your office if not today's sponsor fracture is here to rescue you in just a few clicks on their very easy to use website fracture will have your picture or pictures Printed onto the reverse side of an actual piece of glass Mounted with a fitting so you can hang it straight out of the box

And shipped to your hot little hands And it's not just photos either Why not Fracture a piece of art you like Or a picture someone drew for you How about a podcast flag logo that might be close to your heart Nothing makes a room come to life like having images on the walls, and Fracture makes decorating your space with pictures ridiculously easy. Of course, this doesn't have to be something just for yourself. These sleek and stylish Fractures

also make great gifts. My dad has a Fracture on his office wall of me standing on the magnificent Khumbu Glacier, which runs off the flanks of Mount Everest. That was a gift from me, in case you're wondering whether he liked it or not. I'm pretty sure he liked it. I don't think he just gets it out when I come to visit. Nah, he definitely likes it. Now, to get in on the action and for a discount on your first order, go to fractureme.com slash hi,

and also pick Hello Internet from their simple one question survey. That shows them you came from us. That website again, fractureme.com slash hi. Our thanks to them for supporting this episode. And our thanks to them for bringing so many photos to life in the real world. So, Gray, we have a very special announcement and opportunity for the Tims. We want them to get involved with the show in a very special way in the lead up to Christmas. Sorry, I was- There's a pause there for you to sort of say something exciting, like, yeah, it's great, Brady.

I know that you wanted me to hype it up, but I was realising in that moment that I don't know any of the details of this. I only know the very broad outline of it. And so, I froze. I froze like a deer in the headlights in this recording. Yes, I am very excited for the Tims to participate too, but I just don't know any of the details. So, you may remember we had an election where people sent in postcards. I do remember that. Well, obviously, you remember. You had an election where people sent in postcards. I do remember that. Well, obviously, you remember. You had to count them all with me. But what we're doing this Christmas is we are asking people who are so inclined to send us a Christmas card,

partly because, well, sending Christmas cards is just lovely Christmas niceness, isn't it? It is. It is. Christmas cards are very nice. Yeah. But secondly, as you may or may not know, Grey is still deep in his Project Cyclops, and he's a very hard man to reach. He's a very hard man to influence at the moment. If there's something you want him to discuss here on Hello Internet, you've basically got no chance whatsoever because he's not on the Twits. He's not on the Snapstagram. He's not even on the Reddit.

But here's the deal, people. If you send a Christmas card, a hard copy Christmas card, a physical Christmas card to our address, and you write on the card a question or a topic or something that you would like Gray and I to discuss on Hello Internet over the festive period, there is a chance we will do it because we are going to do our best, depending on what happens, to read these cards and talk about them. We've got a few plans. So, if you would like to do it, I'm going to put details and addresses and things like that in the show notes. It will in places like you know patreon and my twitter and

the the information will be available i just want to say something from the start we will receive them up until christmas after christmas they won't times up right and they won't even be read they'll probably actually just go straight into like a shredder or the bin so if it's really really close to christmas or after Christmas, I would suggest probably not sending one. Right. Because it just won't get read. It will just go in the bin.

Right. So, and I don't want people to like waste their time and their money. So, this means you, future Tim, listening to the show in March or whatever. We're talking to you right now, buddy. What year is this? This is Christmas 2018, by the way. Postcards are acceptable. I actually prefer the idea of a traditional Christmas card, like a proper card.

But postcards are acceptable. Suggesting topics on Twitter, suggesting them on Reddit and things like that, because you can't be bothered with a card. It's not going to work. I will actively not do those topics. So don't say, oh, I didn't send a card, but I'd love you guys to talk about, you know, unicorns. That won't work.

We will only read the ones on the card, but we will read many of these out on the show and it's a chance to be involved. I actually announced this on Patreon a few weeks ago because, you know, Patreon people get special treatment and their cards could go to the top of the pile. And I've received some already. And I thought I'd just share a few now, Gray, just to give people an idea of how this could work. You want us to do a little preview with a couple of questions?

Just a little preview. So I've chosen three that have come in already. Two of them happen to be postcards. And one of them's a Christmas card in an envelope. And I'll just tell you about them. So here's a postcard that's come from Providence RI, which I assume is Rhode Island. Yes, that's correct, Brady. Yes.

Yes. So, there we go. They've gotten to the spirit already. This is a view, the picture on the postcard. It's not very Christmassy. It doesn't have to be Christmassy. We would much prefer Christmassy. I feel like it does have to be Christmassy, Brady.

They're Christmas cards. Like, I don't want just people's postcards. It's Christmas is a charming time of year, right? It's very special. Yeah, you're right. It has to be Christmassy from now on. It has got a Christmassy stamp on it. Okay.

We'll let that one slide just this once. Max, what did Max say? Well, funnily enough, Max said some nice things and then just said, and we'll just get a quick response from you here, Gray, said, I'm wondering what your thoughts are with the UPS, the US Postal Service, and the Royal Mail in the UK, when everything is being sent electronically nowadays, what is the future of these organisations? Can they survive in the long term? That sounds like something you'd have an opinion on, Greg. Yeah, I don't think they're going away.

We still need physical objects, don't we? You still need physical- You still need food and gadgets from Apple. Yeah, yeah. And boxes from Amazon, although I think they use their own private service now. But you still need to send stuff. And at least in the UK in particular, when I have to go into a royal mail branch, I'm always a bit befuddled by just how much can happen at those branches.

I think every time I go, there's someone who's paying their gas bill at the post office, which I always find confusing and I never understand. Like, they do a bunch of things. I think they'll expand, maybe do a bit more. Or in other ways, they'll shrink in the way that the US Postal Service has a lot of little, like, super mini branches where it's just in the back of the store. There's like a tiny, tiny little post office. But I mean, yeah, I'm a very digital person, but I don't think the mail is going anywhere. I feel like that's almost as fundamental of a government service as something like roads. So, I don't think it's going to disappear. Otherwise, how would we get our Christmas questions? I mean, like, do you think I'm crazy with that, Brady?

It's true as well, yeah. Christmas questions, I like that. Here's one in an envelope. Take it out of the envelope. Bit of sound effects for you here. I like that. Here's one in an envelope. Take it out of the envelope. Bit of sound effects for you here. Take it out. I always love your Foley work. Yeah, I'm pretty good, aren't I? I'm always thinking. I'm always thinking of the edit. Yeah.

This is a very Christmassy card. Actually, if you're on the camera, I'll show it to you. Yeah, I would like to see them. Let me open up the camera back up. Here we go. Oh, yeah. Nice. Nice Aurora Borealis. I feel like everything from Finoscandia is intrinsically Christmassy. Yeah. It's nice.

I like it. It is. It's over Iceland. That's the dancing Aurora Borealis over Iceland. Beautiful. Bold call. It could have been the Aurora Australis, but you showed your biases there. It ended up serving you well.

Aurora Australis. Whoever thinks of that? Nobody. Oh, Australians. All right. So, let me tell you what's in the card it says dear gray and brady and they've written your name on the left and my name on the right but then they're putting brackets underneath that they think you're on the right and i'm on the left so i'm expecting a lot of in jokes here oh no no surely surely not brady the kinds of people who are going to send us christmas cards those are not the same sort of people who will be interested in the in-jokes.

No way. This has come from Mark, who is Welsh, but seems to be working at the University of Iceland at the moment, and has previously worked in Durham, Amsterdam, and Heidelberg. This is quite good. This card's actually got citations. It says, my Christmas wish this year is that the sterile neutrino, which I hadn't heard of before, the sterile neutrino, be made the unofficial official dark matter candidate of Hello Internet. He says, Professor Ed Copeland, who's in my 60 symbols videos, could give a recommendation based on a workshop last February, perhaps best check with him. And then he gives three archive paper references and then numbers of papers we

can look up to read about the sterile neutrino. And I have to say, you know, I love having official and unofficial things for Hello Internet. But the idea of having an official dark matter candidate for Hello Internet had not occurred even to me. It hadn't occurred to me either. I don't know anything about the sterile neutrino. I've never heard of that before. No, neither do I. Neither do I. But I've got some citations here if you want to read up on it. Well, it also, I feel like it's immediately opened the door to some interesting particle zoo that I was completely unaware of with dark matter particles. I feel like that wasn't really in place as a thing when i was

doing my physics degree we just had the regular particle zoo of quarks and everything so i feel like yeah what are these these dark mana particles that are out there i know nothing about them so i wouldn't i wouldn't want to settle immediately on which one is the unofficial official article i can't you know but it's i would love i would like to know more that's what i would like to know it's a discussion you're willing to have. You're open to the idea. I'm very open to the idea of a particle for the podcast. Yes. An official, like, are you talking just an official particle or an official particle that is a candidate to be dark matter? Or we could just broaden it and just say,

we've got our official particle. Yeah. Well, I mean, look, there's much to be discussed here, I think, Brady. I'm open to many possibilities you know if we have the official swamp hen of the podcast like i think i think there can be i think there can be particles it feels very on target i like it i like it yeah an up quark or something like that yeah i always i always like the quarks yeah with their with their flavors and their spin they're so i don't know they're whimsical, those quarks. All right, it's not sounding good for the sterile neutrino.

No, it isn't. But that's just it. Like, it's a terrible name. It's a terrible name, sterile neutrino. It just sounds boring. You know, neutrinos are always kind of boring. It's like, oh, what does a neutrino do? A spoiler, it doesn't interact with anything ever. You have to build these gigantic, gigantic facilities to even try to just observe one. It's like a ghost particle that barely exists at all. And that doesn't appeal to you, CGP Grey. I resent that comment. No, of course it doesn't appeal to me, Brady. So, yeah, sterile neutrino sounds even more boring than a regular neutrino.

No, give me a charmed quark any day, any day of the week. Give me a peanut neutrino. So, this last one, Gray, it's been personalized. It says, Merry Christmas in a very computery font. And then there's like a robot of some sort that seems to be made of black boxes. And it's sitting on top of a rug, which has the nail and gear on it. This comes from guido who says guido from europe he he say you know obviously this where people are from thing's gonna haunt me till i die i was like brady you are set up until the end of the time end of time with this one i'm so sorry this is this is gonna be

worse than don't tweet at me on when you're on a plane like it's it's, you know, ugh. The stamp has come from the Netherlands. Dear Brady and Gray, thank you for bringing much appreciated podcast fun into my life. You're welcome, Guido. You're welcome. Suggestion for a topic. And I love this question. This is one of my favourite questions. In fact, we've probably discussed it before. I love this question so much, but just in case, because I can't remember. If you could travel back in time, as a time traveller, if you will, to a historical event to clear up a present day mystery, to which historical event would you go? A present day mystery?

The present day mystery thing, I didn't read that the first time I went through it. That's a bit of a curveball. I'm not going to hold you to that, but you can use it if you like. Or if you could just time travel to, you know, an event or something, what would you choose? Well, I'm just trying to think of like a present day mystery. Like, did aliens build the pyramids or not? Well, I guess, you know, you could go to the JFK assassination and stand on the grassy knoll, couldn't you? And see if there was anyone behind the fence. Well, this is what I'm trying to think. Like, I suddenly feel as though, am I not aware of all of the present day mysteries that exist from history?

Because the only thing I can think of is the JFK assassination, right? As the, ooh, what happened? Is there a whole field of these things? I don't know. Well, yeah, I guess you could ask to be on the moon in July 1969 just to be sure that they stepped on it. Or what I'd really want to know is if that bracelet got dropped into the crater or not right that's that's that's where i'd be standing i'd be standing on the other side of that crater looking going i think they're going to take some artistic license with this in the future i don't know there was no there was no bracelet

let's take away the mystery thing because i think that's that is probably a little bit too too much cognitive load if you could just go back in time for like, you know, a day to a historical event, just to lay your own peepers on it, what would you choose? I don't know. Like, I just don't care because it's already like it's done and it's over. They're really- Boring. I know.

Like, but that's why I want to know your answer. But for me, like- I have my answer to this. I have, you know, like there are silly answers like the Big Bang. But my choice is far less significant, but pretty famous. I would, if I could, love to go and sit in like, you know, a hovering flying saucer to watch the Titanic incident. Huh. I would like to see what that really looked like and sounded like.

The ship hitting the berg, the way it broke apart, like just- I know it's really morbid, but hey, you know, I'm the guy that invented plane crash corner, so I can be morbid. I think that is an event that has captivated me and has a spell on my brain. And I've seen so many pictures and paintings and now movies about it. I just am curious to know what the actual event was like. That's interesting. That's an interesting answer. And you are the history buff. I only just recently came across all of this information about the ship that was nearby during the Titanic. What's it called? Was it like the California or something like that? Not the one that helped. Was it Carpathia or whatever the one that helped them? Yeah, I think that's it. It was the Carpathia, something along those lines.

And I never really been aware of this as a thing. Like, part of the reason that all of the events happened the way they did on the Titanic was they thought there was this ship that was nearby that they could use the lifeboats to ferry everybody over. Like, that's why the lifeboats weren't full, because they thought they had tons of time to get people over to this other ship. But that the other ship had turned off their telegraph operator, like their radio operator, and weren't receiving any of the messages. I think you're right.

I think the Californian was the one that may have been close, but the Carpathia is the one that actually came and did come in. Ah, okay. All right. Maybe that's what it is. Like, that's why all these names sound familiar. I was coming across this information somewhere and it's one of those, I don't know, sometimes I feel like when you're reading stuff, there are stories which are

just a little too perfect. And this version of, oh, we just don't have the radio on sounds to me like it's a little too perfect of a story. Like it has too much built-in drama. And so, I could see that being interesting of you want to hover over and see how how the titanic actually went down how all the steps really occurred i mean i'm not even being as like noble as you know wanting to know what was going on on the californian and who did what i'm just more like just like what did it look like like what did it sound like like it's just such a famous event when you said you wanted to hover above in a UFO, I thought you were going to say something, and then I was like, oh, I would want to be in that UFO with you. I thought you were going to say you want to hover above the Earth when the asteroid comes and strikes the surface and wipes

out all the dinosaurs. Now, that sounds like a show. I could get on board for that one. Good call. That's a good one. That's what we can see when we become time travelers. And I also extra like that because we're in a UFO above the earth. And so we don't have to worry about all the old germs, right? We can just, we can float above and watch the asteroid come in and see the firework show for goodbye dinosaurs. Hello mammals.