Hello Internet - H.I. #68: Project Revolution

Episode Date: August 30, 2016

Grey and Brady discuss: an exclusive episode of Hello Internet that will be difficult to listen to, the superiority of vinyl, Grey goes to America and complains about tipping yet again, a toothbrush update, a listener photo, airship crash corner, the first self-driving cars on the road, the discovery of exoplanet Proxima Centauri B, and the frightening Fermi paradox. Brought to You By Backblaze: Online backup for $5/month Fracture: Photos printed in vivid color directly on glass. @fractureme and #petsofhi for contest Squarespace: Use code HELLO for 10% off your website Listeners like YOU on Patreon Show Notes Discuss this episode on the reddit HI on Vinyl HI album cover artwork Music streaming boosts sales of vinyl Star Wars LaserDisc What a LaserDisc is Brady's original artwork Pocket full of Kryptonite Kokomo Flag of Wyoming Brady's wooden toothbrush Classic American Cars Listener photo from Mike Plane Crash Investigator: Deadly Silence Airship crash, Airlander 10 Hybrid Air Vehicles HAV 304 Airlander 10 Front promotion shot Airship Kardashian The World's First Self-Driving Taxis Debut in Singapore Proxima Centauri B The Fermi Paradox

Brady, do you want to tell the people about the secret project? Have you given it a secret name? Because a secret project is not a secret project until it's got some pretentious name on one of your spreadsheets. No, actually. Can we quickly give it a name? What's a good code name for it? Project Revolution is what I would call this one.

Yes. I was thinking Revolver, but Revolution's good. For many reasons, that's the perfect name. But no, I did not come up with a secret code name call this one. Yes. I was thinking Revolver, but Revolution's good. For many reasons, that's the perfect name. But no, I did not come up with a secret code name for this one, because this, as with many things, is one of your ideas that was birthed. And so this was not on my project list. Yeah. I mean, without wanting to sound too boastful, this one kind of has got my name written all over it, hasn't it? It does. Tell the people what we've been up to. Well, I'll just cut to the chase. We are releasing an exclusive Hello Internet episode that is available on and only on vinyl.

It makes me smile and laugh every time I think about a podcast episode on a record. It's podcasting getting back to its roots, isn't it? Yes, I believe, if my knowledge of history serves me correctly here, that the original podcasts were distributed via vinyl records on Pony Express. Maybe they were wax cylinders yeah yeah i think that's that's how podcasters of yore used to do this to be fair my wife played a pretty big role in the idea too because she quite likes her vinyl music so the idea came about that we should have an episode of hello internet on vinyl and i was quite nervous about suggesting it to you because

you don't seem like a vinyl kind of guy. And I thought it was going to be a tough sell. And I have to say, of all the crazy things that I've persuaded you to do, this probably required the least effort. You were on board very quickly. I was on board very quickly because it was a good idea. I get a lot of wacky Brady ideas, but I thought this one was funny. I like the pitch of it immediately. So when it's a good idea, Brady, I'm happy to go along. Okay. So just so people know where things are at before we talk about vinyl in general,

we have recorded the episode. It's fair to say it's not your typical Hello Internet episode, isn't it, Gray? Like in some ways it is, but in other ways it's a bit different. Have you even listened to it yet? Or did you not listen to the rough cut I sent you? I haven't gotten a chance to listen to the rough cut that you sent me just yet. But I was there during the recording, so I'm aware of what we did. Yeah, you were.

You were there. So we've recorded the episode. I've edited it all together. It's a very special episode. And it's now off with the manufacturers and it's going to be pressed onto vinyl. There's an album cover, which incidentally is amazing. It's going to be available in November. It takes a while to get vinyl made, I'm learning. It's a bit of a palaver, to be honest. Well, this has been an incredibly long process, because how long was it ago that you actually

pitched this to me as a thing that you wanted to do it feels like months and months and months ago it was ages ago it just took us so long to actually decide to record it and decide what the episode would be about but we finally did and we finally did that about a month ago i edited it together pretty quickly and then got the artwork made started talking to the manufacturers and they have to be sent all this stuff. It's a process. But when we did the episode, I thought that was a pretty cool episode, and I listened back to it and thought, yeah, that's pretty good. But when we got the artwork done by a professional and very good artist

who you introduced me to, when I saw the designs, that was when I was like, this is awesome. That's when I got excited because he's done an amazing job. Yeah, it does look absolutely gorgeous. We'll put a link in the show notes to the vinyl artwork. Do you want to tell people what we actually discussed? Because as people who listened to that episode might realize, I was unfamiliar with what you proposed that we do in this vinyl episode of Hello Internet.

Well, I'm a little reluctant to give away too much at this stage. I'd like to build to that. But I will say it is about music. Okay. And our taste in music. We discuss music quite a lot. It actually gave me new insights into you, Gray, like the music you like. And actually, some of the music you told me about, I have since been listening to.

Oh, wow. That's interesting. I can say the reverse is not true. There are a few questions that are going to come into people's heads. And the main one, I guess, is why on earth are you doing such a stupid, ridiculous thing? I think it seems self-evident why we would do this. Because it's fun. It's intrinsically entertaining.

I just like to create things. And it's so rare It's intrinsically entertaining. I just like to create things. And it's so rare that we create physical things. And this struck me as a rare opportunity for us to make something real in the world that people could touch and put on the shelf and handle. And I don't know, it excites me. And I was always really fascinated by vinyl when I was young, because my parents had a record player and also, you know, the idea of gold records

when people would win a gold record and have it framed and put up on the wall. And I'm not the world's biggest music head, far from it, but just the idea of records always appealed to me. And also I think it's a nice thing to own. Like when I really like a band or I really like an album, even if I'm never going to listen to it on vinyl or a CD or a cassette, I just like to own a copy of it. And sure, I might

just continue listening to it now on my computer or on my phone, but I just like having on the shelf something about that that appeals to me. How many vinyl records do you think you own? Oh, well, hardly any. We actually only got a new record player about two or three weeks ago. So we have been buying a few records just lately. But before I did get the record player, I did get the public service broadcasting album. They sent me a copy of it. So I have had that on the shelf before I had my record player. I don't know.

I like them. They're like little trophies. They're like little ornaments. And I don't know if it's true for podcasts, because I don't know how many podcasts have released vinyl episodes. But I can imagine if you quite liked a podcast, sure, you know, you can get a t-shirt or you can get a poster. But I just thought if you were going to own something of a podcast you liked, what better thing to own than like a physical incarnation of an episode of it? And that's what we're making. You can actually touch an episode of it and that's what we're making you can actually touch an episode

you can hold it it can be yours you describe it as a thing of beauty brady the physical manifestation of our lovely voices etched onto the physical surface of an object to be scratched over by a needle to reproduce the sound. Vinyl. The big question is, though, who owns a record player? Who can listen to this? Are we making something that no one can actually utilize? I think the answer to that is, in many cases, no one owns a record player, and we are making something that people won't be able to play unless they go

and visit Uncle John's or Grandma Joan's and use her record player. But I don't think that matters. I think if I liked something, just like with Race for Space, the album, before I had a record player, I wanted to own a vinyl copy of it because I liked the album. And I think I would feel the same way about this. I would like to have it even if I couldn't listen to it. That sounds ridiculous. And I thought, maybe that is ridiculous. But funnily enough, and coincidentally, I've just been reading a few articles in the last few days, I saw one on the BBC website,

saying that something like 50% of vinyl albums that are purchased by people are never listened to or never played. So I think that attitude that I have that these things can actually just be ornaments or little stylistic things is fleshed out by statistics as well. So you think people are buying them as posters and like putting them up on their wall or as ownership objects, never intending to actually listen to them? I think that's true. There was an article from April 2016 on the BBC website, and we'll try and link to it. And it's all about how music streaming has actually caused an upsurge in sales of vinyl and there's all these numbers and stats and that but they're also just interviewing a few people

about it and they were talking to this student in manchester and he said i have vinyls in my room but it's more for decor i don't actually play them it just gives me an old school vibe that's what vinyl is all about i get that i have one on my shelf at the moment. I bought the Star Wars trilogy on Laserdiscs from a second-hand shop. I've never even owned a Laserdisc player, but I just liked the retro coolness of owning the Star Wars trilogy on Laserdiscs and they're just interesting objects. Maybe this is the same thing. And we've deliberately made this Hello Internet album look kind of retro.

When you see it, you'll know what I mean. It does look like it's from another time. Did I show you my original design of the album cover? I've just sent you my original sketch of what I wanted, like my vision for what the album would look like, just to show the difference between what I came up with and what an artist can do. Oh God, I never saw this. But look, you can see my vision. You can see the vision there, can't you, Gray? Okay, we'll include this in the show notes. Because yes, this is, if you imagine, like Brady is a three-year-old child holding a crayon in two hands, drawing what he imagines an album cover to be. That is what I'm looking at right now. A very terribly drawn picture of like a beach scene and a robot

and Brady and like a gramophone on the beach. I would praise a small child for this drawing. It looks terrible, but you have done it. But I can see the inspiration that I'm sure this gave to the artist to create the final version. I think the final version pretty much looks just like it, except like, well done. They've filled in the details a little. Yeah. I'm sure that's all that was done. Oh, I like that it's also called BradyScribble.jpg. That's the file name as I'm saving it to my desktop. Fantastic. I know. Yeah. I have no delusions of grandeur. I think though, I know you, Brady, because you're kind of a hoarder. You know, you keep talking about the actual objectness of it and how people love to hold things and to run their fingers over them and to keep hundreds of photos of astronauts in a big trunk next to their desk.

Like, this is the kind of thing that you like to do. Yeah. I think people will actually listen to it. And I think people actually do own record players. It seems like old-fashioned record players are kind of a trendy thing. All of these hipsters in the world who like old things go out and they buy record players. So I think that there are actually enough record players in the world that a significant number of people who buy this will actually be able to hear the episode that is contained within it. I don't think it's just going to end up on people's walls as a piece of artwork. At least I hope not, because, you know, we record the episode for

people to listen to, and I think it will be listened to. Maybe there will be Hello Internet listening parties where the one hipster in the group or the one delusional person who thinks that vinyl sounds better than all digital recordings and thus owns a record player will be able to play the episode for a group of people to listen to, I think that's going to happen and they're going to love it. I love the idea of a party with a big bowl of crisps and a couple of beers and just hanging out. I hope they listen to it. I put a lot of effort into the episode. It was put together very lovingly, even though you haven't listened to it yet. It has not gotten to the top of my to-do list.

I've been very busy being in America, but I will listen to it very soon, Brady. Okay. So it's not going to physically exist until November, but we've been in a bit of a conundrum. It's been very difficult to decide how many to have made. So we've got a very limited run being made. So we are going to sell them now so we know who's going to get them. So if you want one, there's only about, I think, 250 being made at the moment, which maybe is way too many

or maybe is not enough. So if you want one, order it now. I'm afraid you won't actually get to hold it until later in the year. But once they're gone gone they're probably gone and it's taken so long to get these ones made goodness knows if i'll be able to get another batch done so if you want one get in if you don't want one well that's okay the final's not for everyone we're still business as usual here on the internet business as usual yeah what is business as usual brady you know we're still putting out our good old-fashioned internet episodes are you trying to allay fears that people might have that

the show is going to convert to a completely vinyl show if this is really successful like that's what it sounds like implicitly you're trying to let people know like don't worry if this sells out we're not going to become a vinyl exclusive podcast right don't worry people it's still business as usual with our fancy pantsy digital distribution like that's still gonna happen don't tempt me gray don't tempt me can you imagine the irony if the first vinyl only podcast in the world was called hello internet great are you gonna want a copy because i know you don't like physical things but surely you will have to own a copy of this what i'm trying to remember is does my dad have a record player can i send this to my parents house so that i have it and then i can actually

listen to it on vinyl and gift my parents with the burden of holding on to the actual physical object. I think maybe I'll send it to my parents and I will enjoy it there. The burden. I can't wait. If nothing else, people just go and have a look at what the cover looks like. Just enjoy the cover. It's a thing of beauty. And you can look at that for free. You can look at that for free. Yeah, you can look at that for free. See what Brady's artwork inspired. I wonder if it's too late to just replace the artwork with my original one. I'm just going to say it's too late, right? I'm just going to say it's too late. Even though this is 100% your project from start to finish, you were doing everything.

I'm going to say it's too late to possibly change the artwork for this one. No, it's not going to happen. Maybe this can be the second run printing. Do you have memories of vinyl? Did you ever own vinyl records or used to play them on your parents' record player? Or was it never really part of your life? My dad was always really big into music, much, much more so than I ever was or ever have been. And when I was a kid, I remember that there were tons of vinyl records, it seemed like, around the house. And he had a vinyl record player.

And I feel like I remember the transition from vinyl to digital. There's this big thing that we did at one point, like going through all of my dad's vinyl records and having a machine that actually converted them into digital mp3s at one point but yeah i definitely remember as a kid listening to vinyl records that was playing on my dad's system but by the time i bought music for myself it was cds i'm pretty sure embarrassingly the first cd i ever bought was like pocket full of Kryptonite by the Spin Doctors, which anyone like in middle school in the early 90s will definitely know. But they did not last very long after that, I think. But I am 100% certain that I personally have never bought a vinyl record. But you, as a man in the next decade of life for me, have you bought vinyl records? You must have. No, I started on cassettes. My first cassette was

Money for Nothing. Well, actually, the album was called Brothers in Arms by Dire Straits. But I do have fond memories of vinyl. I remember my dad bought the vinyl single of Kokomo by the Beach Boys and I remember spending a summer just playing that over and over again on the record player but we were listening to it whilst playing in the swimming pool because I grew up with a swimming pool. So we would be swimming and then when the song would finish after four minutes or whatever, we would take it in turns of getting out of the pool, drying your hands and your arms,

going into the house, moving the needle back to the start of the album and then running back and out of the pool, drying your hands and your arms, going into the house, moving the needle back to the start of the album and then running back and jumping in the pool and just listening to like, we listened to it 20 times in a row, but you'd have to go and restart the song each time on the record player. Oh God, that's awful. I could not imagine a world of music that didn't have an automatic repeat one. If you have to have to go back and reset it manually, what a pain in the butt do you know what it is nothing but a happy memory it's pure happiness and i can still see it like i can still see it sitting on the record player and i can still see like my dripping hands like fiddling with the oh brilliant yeah just a crystal clear memory in your head it does seem like it yeah

well that's the key word there it seems like it I'm glad you have a happy memory of that, Brady. Actually, I have gotten a little bit vinyl obsessed, A, because of what we're doing. Right, of course. And also because my wife got a record player a few weeks ago. So we've been buying up lots of vinyl. And I went onto eBay and I bought a vinyl release that came out shortly after the Apollo 11 landing, where you could get all the highlights of Apollo 11 on vinyl and listen to the moon landing again from the original NASA recordings. I haven't put it on yet, but I'm going to have a listen to the Apollo 11 as if it's not a scratchy enough recording. I'm going to listen to it on a record player. I feel like you might be really headed towards the deep end of vinyl. You're going to be one

of those people in six months who's trying to convince me about the superiority of vinyl as you're using one of those like vinyl oils that you're supposed to like rub gently into the surface of your records. And you're like, oh yes, this is a much better, much superior experience. Watch out Brady, that's going to be you in six months. Hang on, there's a difference between saying one's a superior experience and one's a superior sound. That's true.

Anyway, well, I tell you what, we don't have to like put ideas out there because come November, people can listen to a Hello Internet episode on vinyl and they can tell us which they think is the superior experience. Well, they're only going to have the choice of listening to this episode on vinyl. So listening to this one on vinyl

will be the superior experience and the only experience. Yeah. When you say this one, not the one we're recording now, but the secret one we've recorded. Yes, the secret one that we're recording now. Yeah. That one will never be available in digital format. Buy now.

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Basically, you've been lounging around for the last month, haven't you? You've gone into your annual hibernation. Annual hibernation. Annual hibernation? Yeah. You are a man who takes a vacation. Like when you take a vacation, you take a vacation. I think what you mean by that is that I'm slower to respond to you than you would like when you know that I am on vacation. But you don't really know what I've been up to, Brady. I haven't been sending you snaps of me by the pool with a little alcoholic drink in my hand with an umbrella in it you know

nothing of what i've been up to i think all you know is that i don't reply as quickly as you would like is that a fair assessment you don't tweet and you don't produce content well you don't release content maybe you spent the last month making 19 videos and you're about to release them all at once. That is not the case. No, that is definitely not the case. You are correct in that I try to shut down grey industries as much as I possibly can over the summer. Not nearly as much as I would like, but perhaps more than some other people like. I feel like in the past month I've been very busy because I've been doing a bunch of family stuff. And family stuff is always busy stuff, time consuming stuff.

I've been in America, driving across the country at one point. I was in Wyoming for a while. And oh, I have to say, we talked about the Wyoming flag a while ago on our flag episode. And we went through all the state flags. And do you remember, Brady, what the Wyoming flag looks like off the top of your head? No. Oh, I'll look at it now if you want. Yeah. You can look at it now. Oh yeah. Okay. It's a bad flag done badly. Is that what you think of the flag of Wyoming? Yeah. It's bad flag done badly. Yeah. Cause they like, they said, okay, here's all the things we could do to make a bad flag,

like have a weird outline of an animal and put a logo on it. But then they said, what's the worst way we could put the logo on it? Oh, I know. Let's make it too big and ill-fitting on the weird animal. And that's bad to the power of bad. See, now my view of the flag of Wyoming is that it is almost great. It's just the logo stamped across the buffalo is the most terrible thing ever. That if you were just to remove that logo, this flag would be so much better, so much cooler.

Yes, this is what you have to do to fix the Wyoming flag. Remove the logo from on the buffalo stylize the outline of the buffalo a little bit so it doesn't look like clip art made by brady and just get the proportion of that box and border a little bit different i'm okay with the box and border i agree that a slightly stylized buffalo would be an improvement but 80 of the gains come from simply removing the state seal yeah which is horrifically placed across the center of that buffalo. Don't use the word center because it's off-center in the flag and it's off-center on the buffalo. It's as off-center and badly sized as it could be.

I don't know. I think they must have brought in some consultants from Liberia to help with this one. Possibly, possibly. I think in that old episode, I would have saidia to help with this one. Possibly, possibly. I think in that old episode, I would have said what I think about this flag is like, boy, just take away that logo. And this is a pretty good flag, even if you do absolutely nothing else. And when I was in Wyoming this summer, I was in a place called Jackson Hole for a while. And I could not help but notice that almost everywhere I saw the flag of Wyoming being used as like a logo

or being used in a poster or on the outside of a store or on somebody's hat, it's like the citizens of Wyoming took it into their own hands that that logo doesn't exist. They just removed that and it's like, no, no, we're going with our Buffalo flag. That's awesome without the logo. So it felt like there was a bit of citizen spontaneous democracy taking place about how to make their flag look better, of which I vastly approve. Thumbs up, citizens of Wyoming. You approve? But when people do it on Hello Internet, you call them rebel scum. No, but they're just having an entirely different flag that didn't win the referendum.

That's, you know, that's different. Yeah, you can't support an uprising, that's no good right so it's okay to tweak a flag but you can't just completely change it i see lots of people do very interesting things with the nail and gear that icon in and of itself i see lots of interesting things done with the flag but if you're just going to try to have one of the loser flags act as the official flag of Hello Internet, it's not cool. Especially on the Wikipedia page. I saw just the other day someone tweeted at me, some diehard put white cross up briefly on the Hello Internet Wikipedia page as the official flag. And I thought, oh, that's someone really committed to a losing cause there.

I think you've hit onto a genius idea there, Gray, though, in the battle for hearts and minds. Instead of flaggy flag being called the one true flag or whatever people like to call it, we should just start referring to it as the loser flag. Because then these people are basically, you know, their totem, their standard that they're trying to take out into the world is a loser flag. Right, right. Come gather together all of us under this loser flag. Oh, hang on. It does rather deflate the cause, doesn't it? That's what I'm going to call it from now on.

Loser flag. Oh, you're team loser flag, are you? All right. It's all about branding in elections. I think that might be a winning point to hit on there so in my travels across america as we have discussed previously on the show there is always the problem of tipping and while this is my second trip to america this summer this time because i wasn't just staying in hotels i was actually actually going across the land. I kept running into this thing, which I just haven't come across in America before. They're called square terminals for taking payments in America. Do you know what I'm talking

about if I say a square terminal? No. Okay. America seems to have this horrifically backwards payment system for accepting credit card payments. I don't understand what's going on in America. I don't understand why they can't just run credit cards like normal people. But there seems to be this old fashioned way of doing things. I constantly have to hand my ID to people when I'm buying things in America. It's very annoying. But Square seems to be this company that tries to solve this problem by having a little, either they just have like an iPad that's mounted in the store, or it's set up on the vendor's phone that you can actually run the credit card

through a little dongle that attaches to the phone, and they can take credit card payments there. And it seems like all of a sudden, every single store everywhere in America is using one of these things as a way to try to make credit card payment accepting easier. It's just like, boom, all of a sudden they're everywhere. It's like, okay, fine. I have no problem with this. I like things to be easier too.

But what I don't like is that on this system, when you run your credit card, they flip over the littlead so that you can you know sign your name but before you sign your name at every single store it asks you how much of a tip that you want to leave every single time they flip over the ipad the person looks into your eyes and there's a bunch of buttons which will say like two three five ten other or whatever it is for tip amount and then there's one little button, which is like no tip because you're a mean person and you have to tap that one. And then it lets you sign the thing. It doesn't make like a sound effect when you hit it. Yeah. It totally should make a sound like that. Even if it doesn't make that sound, it's psychologically feels like it makes that

sound. Right. And this is one of these things like in America, I also run across the situation of every single receipt has a space for a tip. And I find that much more ignorable, but I was so aware this summer of every single store using these square terminals feels like a little moment where you have to decide if you're going to leave a tip or not. And I just, I can't deal with it, Brady. I find it exhausting. I find it like weirdly judgy on behalf of the store in some ways. I don't know how to get through this. I mean, I'm on your side with this, Grae. You know how I feel about tipping as well. Although I have to say a couple of times

over the last few weeks, I found myself in eating establishments in the UK where the service has been so poor and I have been so riled up and mad at the poor serving staff just ignoring me or doing a terrible job and me knowing they're going to get their salary at the end of the week anyway that I have wished they had to work for their tips. I wish they had that incentive because if they'd been nice, I would have tipped them. But I was just thinking there, you've done a terrible job here and I have no retribution.

There's nothing I can do. All I can do is pay my bill at the end and leave and you're going to get your salary and your boss isn't going to know what a terrible job you did. And I did wish they were incentivised. You want to smite them. Well, no, I don't want to punish them. I want them to do a good job. And if incentivizing them is what will make them do a good job so be it because they

sure as heck weren't incentivized by their salary because they were doing a terrible job so i have to say i a couple of times over the last few weeks i've had a little flicker of tipping does have its benefits but overall when all things are considered and everything's measured and weighed i agree with you. I would prefer a system where people were paid and we didn't have these weird tipping scenarios that come about. Yeah, it's really frustrating. And I don't like how it just becomes everywhere because now I don't understand. And I have a couple of questions for you that I hope you can clarify for me about whether or not I'm supposed to tip in a particular

situation. You're asking me? I'm asking you because I feel like I have no idea. Okay. Okay. So here's a question, Brady. Okay. I'm in a hotel. I order room service. Yep. The room service is delivered to the room. Yep. Do I tip yes or no? Yes. Okay. How much do I tip? Do I tip like the person is a waiter or do I give them a couple bucks? Well, I don't know what you mean by, do I tip them as a waiter? I would just give them one or two bucks. So what I mean by as a waiter is, do I give them a percentage of the food bill? No, not a percentage of the food bill. Okay. This is just my opinion, by the way. Listen, I just need someone to tell me. That what i would because i cannot tell you how much anxiety and frankly how much radically inconsistent tipping

i did over the summer because it was a bit like i feel ambushed i don't know what to do right and i would just do something and it was always wrong okay you're saying room service just a couple bucks to me it's like that's the guy that delivers my pizza. Okay. All right. Now the hotel that I'm saying at, it arranges a complimentary ride to the airport from the hotel. Do you tip the driver? Yep. Yes. Okay. How much do you tip the driver? Usually because I'm in a good mood with those people, about five bucks. Five bucks. Okay. So they get five dollars yeah people driving you okay it feels to me like if it's a complimentary ride i shouldn't have to prepare for it in advance with money in my pocket but okay okay yeah but it wasn't the driver who decided to let you have it for free

right but presumably the driver isn't there because he is physically chained to the inside of the car presumably he's there because he's getting paid to drive yeah right yeah isn't that how society holds i hope we pay people to do things i hope so i don't know how they rock in wyoming but yeah okay so now here is the one that i found the most confusing and i don't know what to do okay so now my wife and i we were in las vegas there was a restaurant we were going to a bunch of times and okay in a restaurant is the clearest thing. I understand what's going on. And I figure, I guess like 15 to 20% tip is normal. Okay, I understand.

I can do this. Okay. Here's the question though. Yep. When I go to that restaurant to pick up takeaway food, because my wife and I don't want to actually spend any time in the restaurant. Yep. We just want to go back to the room. And they give me the food. What do I do then? Do I tip them then? No. No tip at all? No tip. No tip at all on the food? Not from Brady. Not from Brady. Okay. Complicating factor. You've been there so many times that the waitress

obviously knows who you are. And it's the same waitress who would normally serve you handing you the food that you're taking away. Do you tip yes or no? Well, no. But if the amount is close to a round number, I may do a cheeky keep the change and a wink. Okay. Okay. Keep the change and a little wink because all this person has done is hand you the food they haven't like been shuttling back and forward five or six times and

making conversation with you and smiling and being nice all they've done is literally picked up a bag and put it in your hand but if you've got a relationship with the person and you're going to continue that relationship and you want to keep the rapport going and you want good service next time then it can't hurt just to grease the wheels but i think there's no tip expectation you think there's no tip expectation there well certainly not from me certainly not from you okay final one yep the bellman who takes your bags at a hotel normally of course i hold on to my bags with my dear life because i just want to avoid the tipping situation right yes it's like even if i obviously need help like i'm gonna suffer through this i'm gonna greatly inconvenience myself because of the anxiety over the situation of course but

when i'm traveling with other people there are many bags and it is too much for one man to handle so i need the help bellman when he takes your bags do you tip him then as opposed to what at the end when he drops them off yeah no you tip when they're dropped off at the end okay okay but here was my conundrum on the final day when i was in las vegas yeah bellman has to take my bags yeah and our flight isn't until much later in the day so we're leaving them at the hotel yeah bellman takes the bags yeah i tip the bellman because i want the bags taken well care of during the day while I'm gone. When I retrieve the bags, it's the same Bellman who's retrieving them again. Do I tip the same Bellman again? Like every time I touch this person? No, I'm sorry. You've already made a

mistake. You shouldn't have tipped him at the start. I've made a mistake? Okay. So you don't tip it when you give bags. Yeah, you do it at the end. Only when you get bags. Yeah, and maybe it's not the same person, but that stuff evens out at their end. It swings and roundabouts. I'm sure they take it in turns at being the first guy and the last guy, so they get their equal share of the tips.

But I wouldn't have given the tip at the start. I could be wrong because I know in America people tip before they order their drinks, which I think is strange, but I know that's a thing. What? god okay i didn't even know that at the bar sometimes you put a tip on the bar before you even order your drinks because you're like you're laying down a marker that you're a good person to give good service to but yeah see once again that just seems like bribery that totally seems like bribery and the restaurant at the hotel that i'm thinking of they had a which said, please do not accept bribes from patrons,

which I thought was really funny. Okay. Thank you, Brady. I will keep these as ironclad rules for when to tip, when not to tip. Got it. All right. Let me ask you something. Yeah.

I know what your answer is going to be, but let me ask the wider community of Tims what they think because this is a conundrum I sometimes have and I had the other day. If you see someone or you may have an interaction with them or you may just be in passing and they're a stranger and there is something that they could have pointed out to them. For example, a big tag is out at the back of their clothing or something is hanging out of their trousers or something.

Do you alert them? Like their fly is unzipped? Is this the kind of thing that you're talking about? Yeah, their trousers or something. Do you alert them? Like their fly is unzipped? Is this the kind of thing that you're talking about? Yeah, that's another example. That's a, I guess a more embarrassing example, but that's another example. Do you point this out to strangers? Would you say to a stranger on the bus or the train, oh, excuse me, the tag's coming out the top of the back of your shirt. You might want to tuck it in because otherwise it's going to be out all day. Would you do that? Or would you just sort of stare at your shoes and pretend it's not happening?

Yeah, no, don't get involved. Don't get involved. That's the thing. I got involved once and it was not a good... What, with someone's tag being out? Or is this your Starbucks thing where you, you know, tried to help someone? Basically, there was a situation

where I thought that a woman's skirt was riding up in an embarrassing way and she was a stranger and i wanted to point it out and then she yelled at me because she was just wearing yoga pants and like a funny shirt that was sort of half tucked in and i was like okay never again like sorry i thought i was going to be helping you out but i learned one never get involved and two i discovered what yoga pants were at this point in time, which I'd never seen before. Well, at least that made good game of it. Yeah. Once again, this kind of thing is never rewarded.

Don't do this. So no, I would not get involved. Definitely not. Okay. Would you though? Would you be like, oh, hey, would you just reach over and tuck the tag in on their shirt? Would you do that? I wouldn't do that.

Usually a tag I will let go. But sometimes I point things out. I was at a wedding recently and there was a lady there who, like something that was going wrong with her shoe, very obviously. And I just felt like she would want to know. It's a wedding and she was looking all pretty and it was a special day and she wanted everyone to think she was pretty. And I didn't want people to be talking about the thing wrong with her shoe all day and, you know, two hours later she looked down

and thought, oh, no, I thought it would diminish her day. So I just quietly pointed it out to her and she was like, oh, thank you so much and she fixed it up and then she could go back to looking fabulous. So I felt like I did her a favour. But generally I probably wouldn't say anything. Yeah, but see, you can get away with these things because you just give a smile and that Brady wink.

Just a wink. Yeah, and there's a little ting sound as you give them the wink and everything's okay. I'm not a particularly good winker, Gray. I don't think I have a sexy wink. I don't know. I've never really been a big one to use the wink. Maybe I do.

Maybe this is a secret weapon I should wheel out, but I've never been a big winker. it seems like this is something that you should do you seem like a man who get away with winks no i'm not charismatic enough i've got friends who are winkers i don't have the charisma to pull a wink off you don't okay yeah i'm a few levels below being able to be a winker you've got to have a certain cheeky charm that I haven't got. I think you have cheeky charm, Brady. I think you should try it out. What could possibly go wrong? I have a small amount

of cheeky charm, but I do not have anywhere near enough cheeky charm to be a winker. This episode has been sponsored by the people at Fracture, and well, I'm well-placed to talk about them this week because I've just received my own Fracture order. Tim's will be aware that I recently received a certificate

from the University of Nottingham, and while the original is safely stored here in my office, I thought my parents might appreciate their own copy. So, rather ingeniously, I thought, I scanned my diploma at high resolution, uploaded it to the Fract the fracture website and days later received two copies printed onto a piece of glass in the fracture style with the laser cut rigid backer ready to hang straight out of the box on walls back in Australia now I thought this was pretty clever and I told the fracture people about it only to learn this is actually a pretty popular

thing to do so maybe I'm a bit late to the party, but it's still a cool thing. And if you have a special document like a birth certificate, a degree, some kind of prize, and you'd like to display it in a clever way while preserving the original, well, maybe you're onto something here. To give it a try, or maybe just a more conventional photo from your digital album, go to fractureme.com slash podcast. There there's a page where you can tell them what podcast you've come from, hopefully Hello Internet, and you'll get 10% off your first order. Seriously, give them a look.

It's a really cool service, great way to immortalize your memories, photos on glass, ready to hang, fractureme.com slash podcast and by the way fracture is also running another little contest for hi listeners to win one of three hundred dollar gift cards to win one this time you will tweet or instagram your favorite pet photos could be a dog could be a dog, could be a cat, even a boa constrictor, they say, and tag it with actfractureme and hashtag petsofhi. The deadline to be in the running for the vouchers is September 26, 2016. And in fairness, I'm not eligible to win them, so I'll spare you all more photos of Audrey and Lulu. But I do look forward to seeing what pictures of your pets are posted.

All right, so I have a toothbrush update. Oh. Now, long time listeners, loyal Tims, may be aware of the early days of Hello Internet. We had some discussions about toothbrushes. And I like to think I kind of introduced you to the world of electric toothbrushes, which you then adopted with gusto. Is that what happened? I don't think that's what happened at all. I thought you started using electric toothbrushes after I recommended it. I feel like I'm pretty sure I use an electric toothbrush because my wife recommended it. I don't think this was you.

Well, that is possible. She has got nice teeth. But anyway, the thing is is i then went from electric toothbrushes back to the old leaf and twigs as you like to call it i went back to a manual toothbrush and my reason was as i put it at the time was i wanted to brush my teeth more violently right i wanted to really hit them hard push hard and when you do that with electric toothbrushes they usually stop and things like that it sounded sounded like you just got a crap electric toothbrush. Well, maybe that too. Maybe that too. This to me seems like an incredible Brady characteristic. I mean, you want to feel like it's hard and effective, even if it's less effective. I like a good hard as nails brush of the teeth. And I like to, you know, push hard because then I feel like I'm really attacking the things in my mouth that shouldn't be there. So anyway, that's what happened.

Now, this seems fine. With modern toothbrush technology, you can handle this. But in another retrograde step, one may argue, my wife recently purchased wooden toothbrushes. And I believe I sent you a photo of one of these because we have a very beautiful bathroom and it's very old-fashioned and my wife didn't think that plastic colorful modern toothbrushes looked very nice in the antique cups that we were keeping the toothbrushes in yes i can imagine this so she found these wooden toothbrushes which is basically instead of the usual plastic handle it's wood but it's

still got you know synthetic bristles It's not like wooden bristles. Not yet. You give that time. Give that one time, Brady. Yeah, we're gonna get the goat's hair one later. This seems inevitable to me because for the listeners, when I have been to Brady's house, I always have the same thought, which is this house is magnificently appointed. It is beautiful. It is decorated really well. And it is the height of comfort and charm for 1910. Like everything in the house looks like this is, these pillows are amazing in 1910.

These bath towels are amazing in 1910. And so the fact that you are now slowly, but inevitably approaching this dental hygiene is amazing in 1910. And so the fact that you are now slowly but inevitably approaching this dental hygiene is amazing for 1910. I am 0% surprised. So it's wooden toothbrush today, goat's bristles tomorrow. That's what's going to happen. Yeah. What are we going to do after the vinyl episode then? We're going to have to actually get one of those cylinders, those metal cylinders they used to have.

You really are. Just wait. But I was still giving it the big treatment. And I was having a toothbrush the other day because, you know, I brush my teeth once a week. No, I don't. I brush my teeth twice a day. And I was giving it a really big smash because I wanted to give him a good clean.

And something completely unexpected happened. Not unexpected. The toothbrush pretty much exploded in my mouth. And like before I knew what was happening, my mouth was just full of bristles. Like the bristles just went everywhere. I'll send you a photo because I thought Grey's going to love this. Basically, the wood failed me and it sort of split up at the head of the toothbrush so my toothbrush was not hard as nails and this is what happened.

This is why we make toothbrushes out of plastic Brady. We don't do it for no reason. We do it for this reason so that it doesn't explode in your mouth. You don't end up with a mouth full of bristles if you're lucky and splinters if you aren't. This is why we use modern things. Well, I thought I'd give you this one little victory. I thought you'd get a cheap thrill out of seeing the old technology fail me so spectacularly. It's not a cheap thrill. It's just, it's the image of inevitability is what it is, Brady. It just seems like obviously it's going to happen. To be fair, my wife's toothbrush is

still going great guns. I think I am quite hard wearing on my toothbrushes. Maybe that's the case. But you know what? An answer of just be more delicate with your things is a terrible answer. Now you have to tiptoe around all your possessions. No, I think you're ridiculous for wanting to brush your teeth really roughly. But if you want to brush your teeth really roughly, your toothbrush should stand up to that rough treatment. That's my perspective on it. Treat that toothbrush rough. And this wooden one, well, I guess this is the real question. Are you going to be able to go back to plastic toothbrushes or is wood here to stay well i mean necessity is the mother of invention as they say i mean i've had to go back to my reserve plastic

toothbrushes immediately because i didn't even know where i've found wooden toothbrushes we haven't ordered any more but i don't think i can go back after this i think you know fool me once wooden toothbrush i think i I'm going to compromise. I'm not going electric, but I can't go back to wood. So it's going to have to be plastic manual. Well, there you go, listeners. If you were considering a wooden toothbrush, don't. Or if you are, just be careful.

Don't brush too hard. No, don't do that. Be careful is a terrible answer. That's not a good answer at all. Don't do that. They do is a terrible answer. That's not a good answer at all. Don't do that. They do look lovely. They do look nice. But the aesthetics of a thing should not be considered

over the actual usability and practicality of the thing. That is a terrible decision. I don't always agree with that. I think sometimes you can compromise. Like you look at people like on a weekend driving around in some old vintage car and they're getting blown to bits and they look freezing cold with their red face and they're all rugged up and they're going along the motorway

at five miles an hour in some 1920 car that's not practical but it's still beautiful and it's still fun you know what i think every time i see one of those cars yeah i have two thoughts yeah one i do agree with you brady i think wow that's a good looking car they don't make cars like that i saw a bunch of classic american cars this summer and every single time i thought good looking car and the second thing i think is if i was king i would ban all cars older than 10 years from driving on the road at all they're just just death traps, those old cars. You shouldn't be allowed to drive them. If I was king, I wouldn't let you drive them. Well, thank goodness you're not king, hey?

I'm just trying to save lives. Okay. So, Gray, I've had quite a good track record just lately with the... Oh, you're getting cocky. You're getting cocky, buddy. No, I have had a very good track record lately with viewer photos. I've been cherry picking because I still get quite a few and I really appreciate them. Keep them coming, people.

And I do try to cherry pick those one or two that I think will stay on the show and Grey will allow. I have received one that is like no other and I'm going to give it a try. I want to tell you about it. But I'm taking a risk this time because I think what people do while listening to Hello Internet Corner or whatever we call this corner, this is the Marilyn flag of viewer photos because there is so much going on and it's so dense and it's so full of detail and it's such an attack

on your senses that maybe it's too much. But I want to give it a go. Okay. Now, you know I like setting the scene, Gray. I know you do. So settle in. Okay. Because I want to talk about one of my favourite television shows

and that is Air Crash Investigation. Okay. Yeah? Yeah. Or as many Americans know it it i think it's called mayday in america come on perk up it's all right i'm listening it's very exciting it's very exciting air crash investigator sounds like you're unwrapping something just getting a little something to eat while i'm settling in it's fine i just i figured you're gonna be talking for a while so i'm unwrapping a protein bar uh eat while I'm settling in. It's fine. I just figured we'd be talking for a while, so I'm unwrapping a protein bar.

I'm listening. I won't be talking for too long. Okay. So, you're distracting me with your protein bar. Can you put it down? Okay, I put it down. I need to feel like you're listening. I'm doing nothing but listening.

You sound like you've got your mouth full of food. It's not true. All right. You sound like you've got your mouth full of food. Mm-mm. It's not true. All right. Tell me when you're right. I'm set. I'm set. It doesn't sound like you're set. Okay, I'm good.

I'm good. All right. Have you ever watched an episode of the show, Gray? The only time I have seen anything of Air Crash Investigator is I saw somebody else watching it on a plane right and quickly diverted my eyes from their screen that is all i have ever seen of the show i love how you always get his name wrong as well it's like such a dad thing to do say it wrong again yeah that's good i don't want you to change that never stop getting that name

wrong okay so basically there are all sorts of components to the show there's like you know That's good. I don't want you to change that. Never stop getting that name wrong. Okay. So basically there are all sorts of components to the show. There's like interviews and archive footage. But a key part of any episode of Air Crash Investigation or Mayday is the reenactments. And there are various roles for actors in these reenactments. And they're usually pretty standardized. And the main roles you can have is passenger, which I think is pretty simple.

Your job is to sort of look happy and do up a seatbelt and think everything's wonderful and then scream and be terrified for a couple of minutes at the end. Right. The key role, I guess the marquee role you can have is pilot, where you have to say lots of technical jargon from a script that's obviously been given to you from a transcript and you have to press buttons and look very assured and suave except for the last five minutes when you have to look absolutely terrified and pull

sticks and press buttons and things like that but i think the unsung hero role of any episode of air crash investigation is flight controller and these are the people that have to sit behind a screen and say lots of things like keep your bearing 473 roger that see you on the other side and it's a pretty boring role except for your role in the last five minutes when you have to look at a blank screen and look puzzled and think where did that thing go that was on my screen a minute ago these are the key roles. Yeah? Yeah. I'm just terrified thinking about all the things that can go wrong with airplanes as you're talking.

Sorry. So anyway, we had an email from a chat named Mike. Now, I think Mike is based in Canada. I'm an actor who recently played a small role on your favourite TV show, Air Crash Investigation, also known as Mayday. I played an air traffic controller in the episode about the Learjet crash of pro golfer Payne Stewart in 1999, one of my most interesting plane crashes, by the way.

I don't think I'll win an Emmy for the part, but I got to work with very nice people and I listened to my favourite podcast on the lunch break. Here's photographic proof from my fake air traffic control station. So, Gray, here's a picture of Mike acting, looking at the screen, looking all serious. It appears to be episode one of season 16, which is called Air Crash Investigation, Deadly Silence. I have to say, he looks very serious. He looks like a really believable aircraft control guy.

Yep. So well done, Mike. But here's the piece de resistance, Grey, coming through now. Here is a picture from the other angle of Mike at his pretend air traffic control station. Holding his phone, listening to an episode of Hello Internet. Ooh, I like this. Hello Internet on the set of Air Crash Investigation. This is a fantastic things people do while listening to the podcast.

I feel like what more can happen now? We've peaked. You know, I thought Air Force One, does it get better than that? A fighter jet, does it get better than that? A fighter jet, does it get better than that? I thought we'd reached the pinnacle of aviation listening experiences. And I could only but dream of, no, no, that's not true. Because I don't think I would have had the imagination to have dreamt of someone acting on Air Crash Investigation, listening to Hello Internet in their lunch break. I could not have imagined that.

But you know what? It has happened. That is fantastic. He has no buttons on his phone, on the physical phone on his desk. That's obviously the red phone that you pick up. So, I mean, you don't need buttons when you pick up the red phone

because that can only mean one thing. Good news. Happy birthday. That's what that phone means now. Mike did send me a link to the episode on YouTube. And I thought, oh, brilliant.

I can watch him in action. Cause I haven't seen that episode on real TV. But when I went to it, it said this video is no longer available due to a copyright claim by Fox Factual Channels, LLC. So I think Mike, you may have sent me a link to a little bit of freebooting there.

It's okay. Because this is a fantastic listener photo. That just adds to the perfect storm of hello internet-iness of it, that he tried to show me a freebooted episode. It really does. This is absolutely great. That is fantastic. So you think this is the pinnacle of aviation listener photos? Well... fantastic so you think this is the the pinnacle of aviation listener photos well what i'm wondering is can people download podcasts in space i mean yeah you must be able to listen to podcasts in space does nasa allow them to have the bandwidth for that i wonder oh they must do the stuff they watch up there they've got a really fast connection up to the international space station these days

oh do they? Yeah. Must make it tolerable. I mean, you can watch constant streaming HD video of the space station itself, you know, views from it live. That's download. That's not necessarily their upload speed. Download, upload. I bet it's not a symmetrical connection.

No, you're right. You're right. But I imagine it's pretty high. I don't know what the uplink speed is. We'll find that out and let people know. I imagine most astronauts would load up their their podcast play with hello internets before they leave the planet anyway just to be sure that's what most astronauts would do yeah of course no i agree with you that has to be the case yeah but no we haven't had any news of hello internet in

space yet but i don't know i'm still not sure that space would trump air crash investigation it's a crash investigation. It's air crash investigation. It is a bit of a Hello Internet Perfect storm here. This is fantastic. Thank you, Mike, for sending this in to Brady to find, by the way. Always send your photos to Brady. Should we keep plane crash corner going for a minute? Let's do that.

While we're plane crash cornering, there's something that you wanted we're plane crash cornering, there's something that you wanted to discuss plane crash corner wise. Well, like most people with an interest in aviation incidents, my feed this week did fill up with chatter about an airship crash. There had been a crash of an airship and there was video footage of it and everyone was linking to the video. And as you can imagine, this was cause for some excitement. Airship crash? I mean, there's one thing you think, isn't there?

Hindenburg. You're thinking, this is going to be big time. This is going to be spectacular. So I clicked on this link to watch this airship crash. I'd read that it had, like, clipped a pole and things and I thought, this is going to be amazing. And it was this airship called Airlander 10, I think it's called. It's the biggest aircraft in the world.

It had had its first flight the week before. This was its second flight and it crashed. Can you believe it? On its second flight. So I watched this video and I have to say, not the most exciting air crash I've ever seen. Gray, have you seen this? You sent this video to me and said, oh, I want to show you this air crash. And of course, because I'm not really in this world, when you say airship, it doesn't even cross my mind about the Hindenburg. I'm just thinking like a plane. And so I load it up and I go, ah, that's weird.

I didn't really know that we still made these things. I think this is like a relic of the past. And then watching the video, it is very slow. I wasn't even able to watch the whole thing. I had to jump around in my YouTube player because I'm like, I cannot wait for this airship to slowly approach the ground and very gently make contact. It was more of an air kiss than an air crash, wasn't it? Yeah, I don't know the motion to describe it. I'm sure on the inside it was not like this, but from watching it occur, it looks like it's a gentle bounce of a beach ball in the moon's gravity right is what it looks like that's that's what watching this is is like before i'd seen the footage i'd read that it had nosedived and i was thinking wow a nosediving airship that's amazing

i would describe it as more of a belly flop meets a nosedive, almost like a chin flop. It sort of gently falls down chin first. I mean, the exciting thing is the cockpit of this airship happens to be right where it hit the ground. So it did give the cockpit a bit of a smash. Thankfully, the pilots weren't injured. I can't see how they could be really looking at this footage. On their beach ball on the moon. Yeah.

But the thing it did make me think is just like an airship can't seem to even do a crash properly, as much as I like things old school, and we've been talking about how I like things old school in this episode, airships to me feel like the technology or the invention that humanity just refuses to let go of despite the fact it's just not going to happen. It's like airships don't realise we're just not that into them.

And they just keep trying and, like, obviously the Hindenburg was different with the hydrogen and, you know, we don't use the flammable gases anymore. But apparently this thing, this thing called Airlander 10, was originally commissioned by this company. They were going to make it for like the US military as like a surveillance type thing. And then obviously the military came to their senses

and were thinking, what the hell are we drinking? And cancelled the contract. But the company said, oh, no, we're going to keep going. We're going to make them into passenger things or we're going to find all these other uses for them. And they're talking about all these things they think that airlander 10 could be used for but i just think that air ships like i think they're kind of cool and you know there is a romance to them but they're just not going to happen i like that people keep making them and it keeps me entertained but

i wouldn't want to be buying shares and i put it that way i wouldn't want my money to be on the block i'm looking at the at the wikipedia page for these airships yeah it's hybrid air vehicles is the company and airlander 10 is this it's the biggest aircraft in the world it's nearly 100 meters long i mean just looking at pictures of zeppelins and all of this stuff this to me looks like a transport vehicle that might be best suited for a human colony on jupiter it seems like on earth anyway this is poorly optimized in every way it's enormous right they take up an enormous amount of space yeah it seems like they hold a minuscule amount of cargo or passengers. And they seem to travel very slowly. So slowly, they can't even crash properly. But also, I mean, what are the military doing even thinking about these things?

Like the military, the last people, like we all know the saying, you brought a knife to a gunfight. They're bringing a balloon to a gunfight. Yeah. Like. It's not stealthy. It's not stealthy. It's not stealthy. It must be the easiest. You know, a kid with a slingshot could probably bring it to the ground.

Anyway, there is one thing. I was looking at some pictures of it, and I'll just send you this. This is one picture of it, which has been doing the rounds a bit lately, and it's on the Wikipedia page. I think it's a publicity shot of it, of the front of the airship. Tell me your thoughts on this. It looks like a butt. It looks like a great big bum.

It completely does. And funnily enough, as sophisticated as Grey is, Grey does seem to be one of my friends who recognises these funny pictures more than anyone, so I thought you would be amused by it. And even I thought that looks like a bum, so gray's definitely going to think it looks like a bum and then i went was doing a bit more googling about the airship because it's actually called martha gwynn that's its name and i thought that's an interesting name you know we like discussing

how things are named so i decided to look up why is it called martha gwynn and i googled martha gwynn and the first article I found was mail online I'm afraid to say but anyway and the headline is the flying bum in quote marks is officially christened Martha Gwynn and this was the point I found out that this thing has been called the flying bum for ages and there's been memes and people have been doing pictures of it and so obviously it's it's not a nice look and in case you're, the flying bum being named Martha Gwynn is named after the company CEO's wife is Martha Gwynn. Because I thought, oh, this must be some aviator I've never heard of. Or, you know, I thought it was going to be a clever name, but it was just not. It's Philip Gwynn. He's the chairman of

hybrid air vehicles and that's his wife. Martha gwynn sounds like a daring do person from the 1920s it does it's a cool name but i can already imagine her in a black and white photograph with her goggles on about to step aboard you know a zeppelin i can totally see this but apparently not i wonder what she thinks when she opens up her daily mail and it says the flying bum is officially christened mar Gwynn. Thanks, love. Thanks for that. Thanks for making my name immortal. Right. By putting it on something that looks like a bum and crashed on its second flight.

And not only any bum, an enormous bum. Perhaps the biggest that humans have ever built. Looking through the Wikipedia article, the only thing that i see here that is remotely oh maybe that's what modern airships could be used for is that the original design plan was for long-term unmanned aerial vehicles yeah for surveillance and target acquisition yeah and it feels like oh okay i can kind of see that. I know that there's a big question about surveillance and equipment in the military and this idea of being able to have a essentially permanent,

never has to land fleet of surveillance vehicles. Yeah. And maybe I can imagine that an airship, when you just fill it all up, it has very low power requirements. It could serve as an unmanned surveillance vehicle in an area where you don't really care about being sneaky like you already have troops on the ground and you're just gonna fill the skies with a bunch of these vehicles yeah so maybe that's a legitimate use case but otherwise they do just seem comical

and looking like a gigantic bomb does not help. Yeah. This is a ridiculous picture you sent. Thank you, internet. Brady has sent me a clever Photoshop combination of Kim Kardashian and the gigantic bomb. I'll leave it to your imagination and possibly the show.

So speaking of technology, self-driving cars. Great. Yet again, I am going to mea culpa, apologize and fall at your feet because every day that goes by, I realize how right you were and how wrong I was about how quickly self-driving cars were going to be a thing. Like I knew they were going to be a thing, but this is just moving so quickly now. Yeah, I just had a quick little thing that I wanted to put in the show notes because I think it's a real moment. So last time we talked about self-driving cars, I think I mentioned then that Uber getting into the business of self-driving cars to me was the most interesting news, because if there was

any company that would push ahead relentlessly, being openly disdainful about having to pay all of their employees and not caring, it was Uber. And I thought Uber might get there first. But it seems like out of nowhere, this company I have never heard of called Newtonomy has partnered with the city-state of Singapore, who doesn't love city-states, and on Thursday are going to have the world's first fleet of self-driving cars operating in Singapore. It's a small number. It's going to be six. There are some limitations about where in the city they're going to go, but it's going to be the first time that there are actual taxis that people can use that will not be driven by humans anywhere in the world. There's a whole bunch of asterisks on this, but I still think it is an interesting point to be at. And they've gone for a cuter looking car than Uber's Apache helicopter version. Right, yes.

Uber's evil empire cars. While cool, not friendly. Yeah, newtonomy is going with the friendly look. It looks like they're beating Uber to do this by just a few weeks. Because it's, how many streets? Is it Pittsburgh or is it Philadelphia? I can't remember where Uber is doing their test. It is Pittsburgh, yeah.

Yeah. Uber is going to do the same thing with the self-driving cars. What they're both doing, just for the time being and for safety records, is that they are going to actually have somebody in the car like as a just in cases oh well that doesn't count i think it totally counts because if the person's not driving if they're just there for basically insurance purposes i view this as like whatever i wouldn't be surprised if this is just entirely to allay people's concerns just for the time being but it's like if humans aren't touching the wheel it's good enough for me it doesn't matter if

there's somebody in the front yeah you're right but it's still not quite the same it's not the magic moment when there's just nothing there it's not like kit from night rider is it you know no it's not kit from night rider coming to pick you up yeah so that's why i was saying before like there's a bunch of asterisks around this but i'm still saying this is a functional self-driving car even if it's only in a confined area, even if there's still somebody in the front seat. It's just another example to me of like working technology. I'm a little bit surprised still about the fast push for the individual taxis, because I still always think like the low hanging fruit on this is self-driving long haul trucking. Like I really thought that

would be the very first place that this happens. Even just like on the interstates, self-driving trucks, you know, going from like a depot outside of New York to a depot outside of San Francisco and humans picking up the last mile. But it looks like human taxis are going to be the first one and it's moving fast. Cool. Self-driving cars still counts even if there's someone in the front seat, which does make it a little lame. What's the current state of play with nomenclature i've seen autos popping up a little bit lately but oh have you i have not seen that i have not seen that oh i'm not sure if i should say this but i am i'm working on a video which may or may not be out either just before or just after this podcast comes out but i am mentioning self-driving cars in the video. I had a long think about it,

like, how do I want to do this? And for clarity's sake, I decided to go with self-driving car because I don't mention them very much in the video. And I thought, you know what I don't want to do? I don't want to try to push what I think is a term that is not going to win for the difficulty of immediate understanding for someone watching the video. So even in my own style guide, I have backed off auto, even though I totally love it. Here's a question then, in one of your videos, would you use the term freebooting for copyright infringement and uploading unauthorized media? I would not. I think if I was making a video i'm trying to think

this circumstance where it would come up like if it wasn't just a jokey reference and a jokey way i'd be happy to do freebooting but i think if i was doing another video on copyright infringing i would not use the term freebooting i'd obviously use viewjacking you broke my heart just a little bit i'm sorry brady but i think it's the same thing about when you're making a video it's a the term freebooting. I'd obviously use viewjacking. You broke my heart just a little bit. I'm sorry, Brady. But I think it's the same thing about when you're making a video. It's a question of clarity and immediate understandability to the audience. Like the point of language is to convey an idea. I'm just cautious about using any kind of terminology. Sometimes you've got to be a leader.

Sometimes you've got to take the flame and run with it. Other times you don't. This episode of Hello Internet is brought to you by Squarespace, the simplest way for anyone to create a beautiful landing page, website, or online store. Start building your website today at squarespace.com. Enter code HELLO at checkout and get 10% off your first purchase. With Squarespace, you can build a site that looks professionally designed regardless of skill level. No coding required.

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record this episode a few days ago and we had a technical problem it It was at Grey's End, I hasten to add. His computer basically died on us. Yep. So we didn't record the episode. But about an hour before we were going to record the episode, a big news story broke and it was all over my Twitter feed and it was all over the internet. And this was the discovery of an exoplanet around the star Proxima Centauri, which is the closest star to the sun.

It's the second closest star to Earth after the sun. So this was a big deal. And before we talk about that, and I do want to talk about it, but before we do, it was a very interesting reminder to me of something that Grey always talks about, about the importance of news stories. Because at the time, this seemed like such a cracking story. And I was reasonably excited about it. And I thought, we've got to talk about it on the podcast. It's awesome. There's going to be so much

to talk about. And then when we had to cancel our recording and do it a couple of days later, I thought, that's okay. It's still going to be a big story and still really interesting. And do you know what? Two or three days later, nothing. It's just disappeared like it never happened. It's disappeared into the ether like all news stories do. It was a nice little reminder of Grey's little stories about news stories. Not that big a deal. But that's what I'm saying.

Every one of these seems like it's the most important thing in the moment. Yeah. And lo on these three days later, it's already totally disappeared. But before I put more coal onto the fire of grey smugness, let us move on. Because I am a bit cynical about exoplanets too, which we may come to the reasons for that in a minute. Oh yeah? But I do want to talk about the story, because even though it has died down a bit, I think it's still a pretty cool story. And I know literally nothing about this.

So I would like to hear what the new story was. I haven't heard about it. In a nutshell, these astronomers, it was announced at a European Southern Observatory press conference, because they've been using ESO telescopes to do the work. This team has discovered that there is, they will call it an Earth-like or Earth-sized planet orbiting the star Proxima Centauri, which is the closest star to our sun, and it's orbiting the star in what they call the habitable zone. This is the zone at which temperatures would allow water to be a liquid. So it wouldn't be frozen solid or it wouldn't boil away because it's too close.

This gets everyone excited because this raises the possibility of life. You've got liquid water. You've got a rocky planet which could, you know, sustain life. That's the story in a nutshell. For people who are not particularly interested in astronomy and stars, which from my experience is most people, I should point out that Proxima Centauri is a very small star. It's a red dwarf star.

And amazingly, considering it's the closest star to us after the sun, you cannot see it in the sky. That's how faint it is. So the nearest star to us you cannot see. You can see Alpha Centauri, and it is part of the Alpha Centauri system, which is two stars, Alpha and Beta Centauri. And they think, but they're not sure, interestingly enough, for something reasonably close. They think Proxima Centauri is sort of part of this system. It's a triple system. But Proxima Centauri is a little pissy star

far away, orbiting very slowly around the two bigger ones. So there we go. That's the story. Now, I think this is really interesting. Obviously, finding exoplanets has become an industry, and it's actually an automated process now. Most exoplanets are found automatically. And I might point out that this new planet that they have found around Proxima Centauri, they haven't seen it.

They can't see it. All they do is they measure the gravitational effect that this planet has on the star as it goes around. Just like the star has a huge effect on the planet, the planet has a little effect on the star and the star wobbles a little bit because the planet's going around it. This little wobble of the star causes a very slight movement in the light from the star. It'll get red shifted or blue shifted, presumably, relative to us. And they measure this very

accurately. And from that, they deduce a whole bunch of things about the planet, which is terribly disappointing when you hear that and you realize no one's actually seen the planet. They just say it's there because they've measured a wobble. Right. What people want is a photograph of a planet with jungles. That's what people are looking for. And astronomers who are very good at marketing themselves are very aware of that. And they never announce anything without artists' impressions of everything to the hilt. So if you go online, you'll see a million pictures of this planet going around the star and views from its surface and all sorts of things. But obviously, these are just all made up. I think this is quite interesting in the world of exoplanet hunting though

because people are always trying to up the ante with how many planets they've found and how Earth-like it could be and how good they're getting at it. But in a way, finding a planet in the habitable zone that is Earth-like around the closest star to us, it like ends the game in a way, doesn't it? That's the holy grail of exoplanets. Oh, yeah.

If you could find any exoplanet that would cause the most excitement, it would be on the closest star to us because it's the easiest to get to. And it wouldn't be some super giant and it wouldn't be something you couldn't live on. It'd be a rocky one where water could be liquid. And now they're saying they've got it. So while I'm not for a second suggesting this is the end of the world of exoplanet hunting and things like that, obviously it's still just the beginning, in a way this announcement has trumped everything.

Any announcement that comes after this, to me, seems like kind of inferior, doesn't it? That's an excellent point. This is top trumps. This is the one. This is the dream one. You're totally right. Every announcement after this one is by definition boringer.

Yeah. It's like, oh, could this have humans one day? Well, yes, but wouldn't we go to Proxima Centauri first where we've already found one? Like. Right. So that's one thing I thought about it. The other thing I've thought about it was if the nearest star to us has a planet like this is pretty much suggesting that planets are a dime a dozen aren't they like if even the next star over has got a planet going around it like

this makes exoplanets seem incredibly unremarkable now important and interesting but it seems to me like these are just a thing now. We no longer can be excited by these. This is one of these things that over my course of time learning about physics and, you know, doing physics in university, that this is the thing that has gone from, we speculate that there must be exoplanets out there. That was when I was in college too. At the time when I was teaching physics in the UK, I remember trying to like weave the story for students about how like we used to not know and now we know there are a whole bunch of them,

but we don't know how frequent they are. Like we're just trying to raise the probability and the more frequent they seem to be, then obviously the more likelihood there is that there's life somewhere. But yes, you're right. If we've found one on the star that is closest to us, it doesn't really prove anything from a statistical vantage point. It certainly makes it feel like, oh, there must be planets around every star. It must be almost impossible for a cloud of gas to condense into a star without planets.

Yeah. Like it must be almost improbable for that to not occur. Obviously, barring situations where you have multiple stars and gravity just screws everything up. But yeah, I know what you mean. So the other thing, and you kind of have touched on it in a way there that this has got me thinking about. And this is life elsewhere in the universe, the galaxy, whatever. I don't know where you stand on the likelihood of that,

whether you think it's almost inevitable or it's highly unlikely. But the thing that has made me realize the way these exoplanets have evolved and these announcements have happened is that if there is life somewhere else in the universe and humans discover it, it's not going to be like Close Encounters of the Third Kind, obviously, where a spaceship lands and they come out and say hello. But what I've now realised is it's also not going to be like this incredible contact moment with Jodie Foster out amongst the satellite dishes.

It's just going to be a gradual series of press releases. It's going to be, we found this exoplanet, now we found this one. We've just found a signature that's characteristic of this gas. Now we've found a signature that's characteristic of this. Now we've found some evidence that suggests this. And we're just going to get, I think if we are to discover life elsewhere and it's to be announced, we're just going to be weaned onto the idea. And I think it's going to be surprisingly unremarkable when it happens.

What do you say to that? Well, you're talking about life elsewhere, not intelligent life elsewhere. Even intelligent life, I think it could be sufficiently gradual. It's going to be a series of press releases culminating with a press release from the species that we're getting in touch with. Yeah, I do. I think we're going to see bits of evidence that it could be, hang on, there's a 1% chance that this could be caused by a civilization. And then they're going to be backward steps and forward steps. And I think it's going to be quite gradual. And the press conferences are going to be exciting for a day or two. And then there's going to be an earthquake. And then there's going to be a tsunami. And then there's going to be the Olympics.

And people are going to calm down about it. And then there's going to be another press release. And I think the realization that there is even intelligent life elsewhere when it finally happens is going to be quite different to what I imagined it may have been, the dramatic moment that changed us forever. I don't think it is going to be that. I think we're going to be quite blasé about it by the time it happens. And that's a controversial thing to say. Well, not controversial.

Maybe it's just a stupid thing to say. But I suddenly think it. I just think we are so hard to impress now as humans. And the way science works is we kind of just, everything sneaks up on us to the point that very little amazes us anymore. Before you suggested this, I would agree with the idea that, just like with most things, even the announcement of like, oh oh we know we found a planet and there's life on it not intelligent life but we can see there's creatures running around and plants and stuff yeah i think most people wouldn't care like the vast majority of people would be unmoved by this piece of information what you're talking even if it was like antelopes and trees

not just bacteria yeah i think most people just sort of wouldn't care. And I agree with you that we'd almost certainly be walking close to that in a very slow way. So it would be unremarkable. I feel like I am convinced that if we are in a situation where through our telescopes, we discover intelligent life elsewhere, that is unable to communicate with us for some reason, right? Like, oh, they're still building mud huts or whatever, but they're obviously intelligent. Yeah. I think you're right. I could see a scenario where this is just because it's press releases is kind of boring

and it's not actually that big of a deal. It's because it's incremental. If they tomorrow found mud huts on Mars, it would be a big deal. But that's not how the mud huts will get found. Yeah, that's exactly it. It will be maybe mud huts and maybe not mud huts. But also if it's a situation where if there is no contact moment, it becomes a thing that is just abstract in most people's life.

Oh, there's people building huts on planets elsewhere that we can't communicate with. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, as long as they're not going to fire a laser ray at the White House, I don't really care. Yeah, like it doesn't affect things. And I think the vast majority of people

have an amazing ability to not care about things that affect them directly. And so, yeah, I agree with you that I can foresee a scenario where intelligent life is greeted with a meh, it's discovery. Like, oh, okay. Or like this exoplanet story. It's big news for three days and then something else happens.

And then it becomes a quiz question that you ask people. What is the name of the star around which the first intelligent life was discovered? Yeah. And like, oh, I should know it. I should know discovered. Yeah. And like, oh, I should know it. I should know it. Yeah. I also sometimes wonder when I go, especially when you go somewhere

where you can see lots of stars and you're looking at them all, whether in a thousand years, humans, the future us's, will look back at you and me and think how adorably cute it was that we used to look at the stars and think maybe there wasn't anything up there.

And like the universe will be teeming with life and people will look back at us and think, isn't it funny that, you know, Brady and CGP Grey used to look up at the sky and think, are we alone? Maybe we are alone. But if we're not and the universe is teeming with life, we will seem so funny to them. Like we will seem so adorably naive that we used to look up at the sky

and think it was all empty and there was nothing up there. No one up there. Do you ever think about that? I feel like surely we have touched upon this before, but like, you know, we had that AI discussion a while back where I said,

this is a thing that I've changed my mind on and that has rocketed to like the top of the list of things that I am concerned about in the future that has rocketed to like the top of the list of things that I am concerned about in the future. Like the very top, maybe I could list three things and I put AI in that list of three things. One of the other things that would be in that top three, which ever since I became aware of it has seemed like an incredible concern, is the Fermi paradox, this question of where is the other life in the universe? And my take on it, my starting assumption is that if there's life once, there should be life more than once. And the universe is really big. So my gut feeling is

there should be life everywhere. But the Fermi paradox is, of course, like, why haven't we actually contacted anybody? And I and we can send messages over great, great distances and we have gotten nothing back. I think it is one of the most concerning things to think about when you start thinking about it seriously. So, yeah, I think about it a lot and I find it worrying. I find it deeply worrying. I can see why you would think about it a lot, right? Because it's really interesting and it's fun to think about. I can't see why it worries you. I can see why AI worries you because a robot could come

and rip your head off tomorrow, right? Or something could go wrong here on Earth. A bit like people, you know, just being selfish. I don't see why the Fermi paradox worries you. I can see why it perplexes you, but I can't see why it would like, I know you didn't use the word scare, but I can't see why it would scare you or concern you. It would just be like, oh, like a crossword puzzle you can't solve.

It's just, oh gosh, that's really tough. I can't answer that. Why does it worry you? It's concerning to me because one of the most probable conclusions to draw is that there is something in the universe which is anti-civilization in some ways like the universe is more hostile to civilization than we would think that it is okay and and there are very many things that can possibly cause that but the the conclusion to draw is like the only civilizations that survive are the civilizations that don't broadcast their existence okay and we are broadcasting our existence right and we are

broadcasting our existence so it's almost like the silence that's raining down on us from space scares you in the same way that if you walked into a city that was completely empty and quiet you would be scared you'd be thinking why are there no people here why is it so quiet okay same with space you're thinking why the hell is it so quiet up there when it probably shouldn't be it is amazing that you picked that analogy because that is literally the feeling i have when i look at the sky sometimes it is a feeling of like we are one room lit in a city full of empty lights right it's like that is concerning that is a thing to note that maybe everybody else who has the lights off knows something that we don't right or like they're not there for some reason but they were there this of course with all these things gets into into the realm of like things to speculate about.

That's good, man. That makes the night sky scary, doesn't it? That makes looking up at the night sky go from something that's beautiful and wonderful to something that's deeply, deeply terrifying. I don't have it all the time. The closest I can compare this to is when I am in Hawaii and I look out at the ocean, I have this feeling of vertigo that's very hard to explain. But it's like this feeling of like this island is incredibly isolated from everywhere else. Yeah. So the night sky is not like that, but it is a thing that when I look at the night sky, if my mind starts going into that place, I do feel uncomfortable. There should be activity up here, but there is nothing. So, Gray, we often joke about if you were king of the world, the things you would and wouldn't do. If you were king of the world, would you start imposing restrictions on what was getting away from Earth, like sending messages out for a start and maybe even sheltering our just general radio noise like would you send us to ground basically and say guys we need to shut the hell up let's put it this way i would at the very least form a team of people to

look into like give me a cost analysis of what kind of things in the world emit broadcasts that could be heard, you know, 10 light years away. Like what equipment do we have on earth that is doing that right now? And what would it mean to ban this? I would at least look into it. I wouldn't rule it out as like, oh, this is just a crazy idea.

If it came back that we, you know, we don't have an enormous amount of technology that is doing this, I'd say like, well, maybe we should shut down the things that are. I would look into it. I'm not saying I would do anything about it. If it came back and they said like, oh, we have to spend 50% of our GDP on this. And we're like, okay, well, I have to weigh our potential destruction of civilization versus a loss of 50% of GDP. And like, maybe it's not sensible to do. I would investigate. I would investigate, Brady. That's what I would do.

What do you think of having people who are appointed to speak with aliens if they ever contact us? Well, I mean, my view on it is, okay, you know, you got to plan for all of the scenarios. But I don't think the empty night sky holds a lot of promise for getting in touch with other aliens. Yeah. There's a couple of reasons why the night sky might be empty that are benign. But I feel like we've had SETI running for a long time.

Obviously, it's a big sky to search. But I feel like if there was a civilization that came before us, that we would know about it if they wanted to get in touch with us. Sort of like, you know, we mentioned the Guns, Germs and Steel episode about how even on the same planet, the technological difference between the Europeans and the Native Americans was just too vast to be overcome. That in the universe, if there's other intelligent life, you know, statistically, it's very unlikely that we are the first. I mean, even if you imagine a civilization that's 200 years ahead of where we are now, since technological progress is exponential, it seems like they should have borderline magic technology. And so if they

wanted to get in touch, they could get in touch. Maybe they could then. Maybe they're just waiting for something. Maybe they're waiting for us to solve the Riemann hypothesis. Or they're waiting for us to do our first warp drive out of orbit after World War III. I would be comfortable with you being on that committee, Gray. I wouldn't mind you being one of the people who speaks for us. As inhuman as I think you are, I think you'd be a good person for that. I'd allow you to be on that committee. I think you would make wise calls.

Oh yeah. I feel very flattered, but I'm not sure that would necessarily be a good call to have me be on that group of people. No. Why would you not be a good person to speak with the aliens? What is it about you that is a shortcoming or a deficiency? I think my difficulty of speaking with humans does not bode well to speaking with aliens. No, no, that's your strength. That's your strength because they're not humans. That's one of the reasons I think you'd be so good. That's the reason I think I would be terrible.

I would be the worst person because I wouldn't be able to resist making a joke or like saying something ironic. I could be in the wrong mood or a bit moody and a bit grumpy and i'd say something i shouldn't say or like they could not treat me with sufficient respect yeah that's true yes at least you acknowledge your own shortcomings in that way but i think you are immune to all those things your lack of humanity for lack of a better term would be a great strength. You wouldn't do anything rash. You would be very careful. I don't think you'd be overawed. I think you'd do it well, Gray. You're in. I want you to do it. I want you to do it.

I didn't realize you were in charge of making this selection, but I guess it's good to have the people making that decision be secretive but so thank you for putting me on the committee i guess i will try to be prepared for a scenario that i think is incredibly unlikely yeah let's just hope it doesn't happen during your month-long annual vacation right yeah that's true if you're sending me a message in august that the aliens have landed on earth it is very likely that one i will will not receive your message. And two, I have missed that news. I will not be aware of this. So yes, 11 months out of the year, good. They'll sort of land on the lawn of the White House and we'll say, can you just wait two weeks? Grey's got his do not disturb on.

Yes. But like I said, I think that is the vastly less likely probability, more likely probability is sudden inexplicable death descends from the sky and consumes the earth that's more likely yeah well that's just that's that's gonna be bad but anyway it's funny thing about this exoplanet though right like i feel like this somehow changes the calculus a little bit like what's your gut feeling do you think there's life on this planet any kind of life not intelligent life Do you think there's life on this planet? Any kind of life, not intelligent life. Absolutely not. And there's been a few things that have been less well reported about this discovery.

Okay, tell me, tell me. One being that the star, a red dwarf star, and this particular red dwarf star, Proxima Centauri, is quite a hostile star. It sends out a lot of flares. It's not as friendly as our sun, if you want to call the sun friendly, which is an interesting call in itself. So it's very hostile now, and it was probably more hostile before. So any chance of life being there is probably being constantly quashed

or has been quashed in the past. Any atmosphere may well have been obliterated. It would not be a very life-conducive place. Lots of astronomer terms like Earth-like and habitable do not mean like the Earth or a place that can be habitated like we think. So I think it's very unlikely there's life on this planet. And so far most of the experts I've heard talk about it have said similar things.

It's only like the normal news that talks about things like A, this planet and so far most of the experts i've heard talk about it have said similar things it's only like the normal news that talks about things like a the possibility of life or b the possibility of us all going there like some kind of noah's ark but yeah the second possibility is dumb i mean i forget alpha centauri is what like four light years away yeah the system's about four yeah proxima is a bit over four light years away right okay so yeah going there obviously not a realistic probability but when i think about life existing i always think about the extremophiles you know that these like little bacteria or creatures that live in seemingly shockingly hostile environments like the things living at the bottom of the ocean by those trenches yeah where you have water that

can't boil even though it's hundreds and hundreds of degrees in temperature because of the pressure and it's like oh but there's little creatures that live in this environment that's kind of what i'm thinking about like oh if there's a planet if there's water it just seems to me like water so dramatically increases the probability help me understand that then, because I never understand this. Like, I always think it's arrogant that we assume life is so intrinsically linked to water. And therefore, if you've got liquid water on a planet, you know, you've got life. What is so special about water that connects it to life in terms that aren't arrogant and just aren't like, well, every sort of life we've ever seen before involves water. Because that seems very narrow-minded to me.

That is narrow-minded. But my view of it is this is a kind of anthropomorphic viewpoint here where we're talking about we know that on Earth, water is important for life on Earth. And so it seems to me quite reasonable to extract from that, that where else there is liquid water, there is the possibility of life. Right. And so, I mean, at least my understanding of it with chemistry is that water acts as this agent that allows vastly more chemical interactions to occur. And so if you just have a place where there's water you're going to get more random chemistry and all you need is like a prion like just a chemical that reproduces itself through total random chance just by combining with other chemicals in the same environment it's like that's all you need to get this ball rolling downhill that will slowly slowly accelerate over time and so that's why i

think like oh once there's water my gut instinct is there's something in there that's like life even if it's very very very basic you know like bacteria virus level kind of reproduction that that's kind of my my gut. But of course, we have a sample size of one. This is the whole thing, right? Maybe life is incredibly rare. Maybe it's not. We just don't know. We don't have any real way to know.

But I lean on the side of, I think it is more probable than rare. That's my personal guess anyway. I was having a bit of a read about this earlier. And Proxima Centauri and plans to travel there and how we could go there. And obviously, there are all sorts of things that are put out there as suggestions. And one that I was reading about that got a bit of publicity a while ago, but it kind of passed me by.

And I had never read much about it before, but I read a bit about it today. It was called Breakthrough Starshot. And this one was Yuri Milner, it was Yuri Milner, the venture capitalist, and Stephen Hawking was involved. You know, every time anyone makes a billion dollars, they straightaway start some kind of space operation. Apparently, that's what you do now if you're a millionaire. That's what you do.

And all these people are involved. This is the one. And I was reading about the concept. And the concept, I think, is basically to create a swarm of these tiny little spaceships that are like measured in centimetres across, each one with a light sail of about sort of four metres in size, and you send them all up into sort of high up, you know,

just above the Earth, and then you open up these sails and then you fire these incredibly, incredibly powerful lasers at these light sails, and then you send off all of this swarm of thousands and thousands of spacecraft at speeds of about, I think, it's 10% or 20% the speed of light, so ridiculous speeds. And you send them off to the Proxima Centauri and Alpha Centauri and they go past and hopefully you get a few pictures or whatever on the way past

and it's this like you know it's this incredible incredible thing i was reading about it on this quite small wikipedia page and my favorite thing was then the last subheading on the wikipedia page was technical challenges and it goes through in like four or five sentences. Some of the technical challenges you will have making a swarm of spaceships going at 20% the speed of light after being fired from lasers from Earth. They're so curt about it. At the end it says, according to The Economist, at least a dozen of the off-the-shelf technologies will need to improve

by orders of magnitude for this to happen. Sometimes Wikipedia is wonderful with its understatement as well as its overstatement yes wikipedia does have sometimes like a an understated sarcasm for some of these these articles which i do just love i love the idea of a swarm because if the thinking is sending a swarm of spaceships is because inevitably a whole bunch will get knocked out by all the stuff you bump into on the way so it's just increasing your odds by sending a swarm i love that and i love the idea that maybe you know one would make it into immortality one of these little they call them star chips one of these little star chips would

make it take that picture well this also to me really touches upon the whole idea of if we ever do have first contact it seems inevitable that it's going to be contact through essentially an autonomous system. If something lands on Earth to say, hello, welcome to the universe, we are an intelligent life. It seems so unlikely to me that it's going to be a living alien. It's going to essentially be an autonomous probe of some kind. And this idea of like, oh, we're sending out a whole bunch of little tiny spaceships out there into the universe. It seems to me like a similar idea. Like, if you want to try to get in touch with other life forms, like, and you want to have a physical thing go, like, well, you have to build little autonomous ships,

send them out into the universe. And I think that's how, if anything, ever lands on Earth. That's the way it's going to be. And I think if we're ever going to get serious into the space exploration game, it seems like, well, obviously what we're going to do at some point is build little self-replicating spaceships and send them out into the universe. Build a little thing, just like we have 3D printers now, build a machine that can replicate itself, send it off into the universe to do exploration. Little pre-recorded message, little nail and gear flag. Yeah, a little tiny nail and gear flag. But that is also related to my AI concern. One of the very

reasons why I worry about something that destroys civilizations because i can imagine some programming going wrong right and ships that reproduce themselves infinitely competing with other ships that reproduce themselves infinitely and suddenly you have just a turf war for resources in the universe and machines that just turn planets into machines that explore the universe endlessly for no real purpose do you know what what is pioneer isn't it that has that big gold record attached to it, the Pioneer probe. We could attach our episode, our vinyl episode, to one of these probes that gets sent out there.

So a Hello Internet episode, like landing on Proxima Centauri b, the exoplanet. Imagine that. This is the vision of the end of the universe a robot that reproduces itself to explore the universe carrying a vinyl record of hello internet all across the skies devouring all before it i'll tell you what that would be a where did you listen to hello internet photo that would surpass air crash investigation. I listened to it as the harbinger of the end of my civilization. All right, grey. So, um, been another good episode along with going and asking people to have a look at our excellent album cover. We're going to actually set homework,

which we haven't done for a while. Yeah. We haven't done it for a long time but i have to say we get asked to watch movies and by far and away the number one request from people is a movie called we were debating about how to pronounce we believe it is pronounced ex machina or Ex Machinima, but I'm going with Ex Machina as in Deus Ex Machina. This is by far and away the number one most requested movie for us to watch and for us to talk about. And since today we kind of touched on AI a little bit, I think this is the time we're going to assign this

for homework for the listeners. So we're going to talk about it probably next episode. So you might want to have watched it. Yeah, probably next episode. So I'll put a link in the show notes for people to find it easily. As always with movies, with every single movie, I always just recommend you watch it without really learning anything about it. Just watch it and we will discuss it probably next time. Forward to it. Just watch it cold. And we will discuss it probably next time. Forward to it. I still have this picture of your hand holding the broken toothbrush open up on my screen. I feel like it would make a beautiful iPhone background.