How To Do Everything - Pumpkins, Spiders and Henry Winkler

Episode Date: October 23, 2024

This week from the archives, a teenage math wiz helps Mike and Ian optimize the Reese's chocolate pumpkin, and a tip on the spookiest (and most strategic) way to heal an open wound. Plus, when one listener wants to know how to look cool, the guys call up the Fonz himself.You can email your burning questions to [e-mail] To Do Everything is available without sponsor messages for supporters of Wait Wait Don't Tell Me+, who also get bonus episodes of Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me! featuring exclusive games, behind-the-scenes content, and more. Sign up and support NPR at plus.npr.org.How To Do Everything is hosted by Mike Danforth and Ian Chillag. It is produced by Heena Srivastava. Technical direction from Lorna White.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Support for this podcast and the following message come from Autograph Collection Hotels, with over 300 independent hotels around the world, each exactly like nothing else. Autograph Collection is part of the Marriott Bonvoy portfolio of hotel brands. Find the unforgettable at autographcollection.com. Hey, before we begin this week's show, we should tell you this is another archive episode, an episode that was recorded who knows when, but a long time ago. NPR killed it, but we are bringing it back to life for you. Halloween is next week, and that means the pumpkin-shaped Reese's Cup is now in stores.

So we want to know, does the pumpkin-shaped Reese's Cup give now in stores. So we want to know, does the pumpkin shape Reese's Cup give you a larger peanut butter to chocolate ratio and therefore a superior peanut butter cup? Joining us now is Sam. He's a 14 year old math student. So Sam, before we get into this, I might understand that you are skipping class to have this conversation. Well, actually, right now, this is my lunch period. I was doing some research during gym class. Okay.

Okay. Wait, did you already skip gym? Yes. All right. Well, let's start here. Do I get a better peanut butter to chocolate ratio with the pumpkin-shaped Reese Cup? Well, I was wondering the same question. So I actually went to the store

and I bought six different types of Reesies just for a variety. And out of the regular circular cup sizes, I got the king size, the regular size, the miniature size, and the mini size. And then out of the pumpkin size, I got the king size and the regular pumpkin. All right. So for the first four that were in the cup shape those are really

in the shape of a frustum. In case you don't know like a frustum is when you take a cone and then you slice off the top part like the pointy part. Yeah. How you have like a circle on top and then a circle on bottom, but like the circle on the bottom is bigger. And that's a frustum? Yes. All right, okay. And that would be the shape of the Reese's Peanut Butter Cup.

So that's something I've just learned already is that the basic standard Reese's Cup shape, it should be called a Reese's frustum. Yes, not a Reese's cup. Okay. Okay, so which of these mini shapes that you did calculations on is gonna give us the best peanut butter to chocolate ratio?

After finding the volume of the inner frustum of the peanut butter and the whole frustum of the peanut butter cup, I got that the king size has 37% of it is peanut butter. Okay. And the regular is about 30% peanut butter. So just the regular shape is 30%. Wow. And so where does the pumpkin fall? So the pumpkin, I had to measure it in a different way because the pumpkin is like an ellipse. Okay. So the regular pumpkin rices had 38% peanut butter. So it beat out all the other rices.

Wow. But then when I went to the king pumpkin, it won by a really large amount. It had 67% peanut butter. What? Yeah, it was a lot. That's really, I mean, this is really helpful. Yeah, so if you're like really into peanut butter,

I would suggest taking advantage of Halloween and buying a lot of the pumpkin shapes. So I have to ask, in doing this research for us, which we're very grateful, how many ellipses or frustums did you eat? Oh, whoa. I ate a decent amount. I'd say maybe, I tried to stay low on them

because I didn't want my mom getting mad at me. So I think I only ate maybe like five, six, maybe seven of each kind. Don't tell her that. Wait, seven of each kind? Maybe. Wait, and there were what, seven kinds? Yeah, there were like- 49? Well, there were six kinds. Oh, six. So, six times seven is 42. Are you going trick or treating this Halloween? Yes, I am. What's your costume? I haven't decided yet. Do you have any suggestions?

You could be a frustrum. Oh, maybe. I notice we should just clarify that I am saying frustum and Mike is saying frustrum. Which one is it? Okay. So originally when I first learned the word, I thought it was frustrum, F-R-U-S-T-R-U-M, but it turns out there isn't the second R. It's just F-R-U-S-T-U-M. Frustum. Yes. Okay.

I guess being wrong about that, that's probably frustrating. Yeah. I myself was not frustrated by that. Yeah. Okay, so we know about the pumpkins, we know about the frustums. Is there an ideal, perfect, best shape? So I actually did some research on this

and I figured out that the best rissi shape for having the most peanut butter would be rissis in the shape of a sphere, because it would be able to hold the most volume, which would be the peanut butter, using the least amount of surface area. And then I guess, is it the bigger that sphere got, the better ratio of peanut butter to chocolate we would get?

Um, the bigger it got, there would be a better ratio. Uh-huh. So really the best optimal Reese's would be a sphere of infinite size. A sphere as large as the universe would allow. Yes, like something really, really big. Wow, but you couldn't sell that in a store. as large as the universe would allow. Yes, like something really, really big. Wow, but you couldn't sell that in a store. I think you'd be frustrated in trying to get it in the store.

All right, Sam, back to class. This is How to Do Everything. I'm Mike. And I'm Ian. On today's show, we ask an icon of cool, how to be cool. But first. I was just reading Child 44. It's a thriller

I recommend it actually I gave it to Mike. He has yet to read it It's still on my desk at work But there's a passage in it that jumped out at me. The main character has been wounded he's out in the woods and He's with this woman. She sees a spiderweb on a tree. I'll just read from here. She broke the web with her fingers, transferring it whole and laying it across the ripped flesh of Leo's upper arm. Immediately, the blood seemed to solidify

upon touching the thin silver lines. She worked for several minutes, searching for more webs. By the time she finished, the bleeding had stopped. Now, we were curious to see if you could actually do this, if you could actually staunch bleeding with a spiderweb. Fritz Vollrath is the head of the Silk Group at Oxford University. He's kind of the guy you go to for spiderweb-related questions. Fritz, is this a real thing? Yeah, it's old peasant, I would say, technology. I think they're doing all over the world. I think certainly farmers in Europe do it, and it works. And there are a number of reasons for that. The one is that the threads are very thin, And if you put them on, they obviously

they form a fine mesh that encourages blood clotting. Because thin threads like that just kind of gives the blood something to latch onto. Is that correct? Spider webs are clean because they've just been out there. Depending on what web you use, it's probably fresh, it's just been built. And quite a number of webs have a sort of fungicidal and bactericidal properties because fungal spores can land on it and the fungus can grow on it because spiderweb is a protein.

The spider protects its proteins from being attacked by making them bactericidal a little bit. So it is actually the right thing to do, is all I can say. I've once seen somebody do it in Mexico somewhere, I think he chopped himself a little bit with a machete and and and he just went there and grabbed Handful of spider webs and slapped it on. Wait a minute. That's a deep cut right with a machete That's quite a deep cut. Yeah, and you can do that with I mean how many webs would it take to? Just as much as you can find. Yeah, you know look around, there's quite a lot of web around. And yeah, you just slept it on. I mean, what else, what is the alternative? Yeah.

The alternative, if you have a clean bandage, of course, perfect. You wrap it around, it's all wonderful. If the alternative is a dirty shirt, it's an experiment in that case. It's kind of astonishingly perfect for this application. It clots, it's antibacterial, it's biodegradable. It's amazing.

Yeah. Yeah, no, no, it's absolutely the right thing to do. Can I ask you one thing not having to do with spiders? Yeah. Are you married to the person who invented Jenga? That's correct. That's amazing. You want to talk to her.

If you want to talk to her, I can get her. She's just, I think she's just sitting in there chatting. Really? I think we'll say hi, sure. Why not? Okay, let me get Leslie. Leslie. Hello? Hello, Leslie? Yes. Hi, how are you? I'm fine. So there are two people

here. This is Mike and that's Ian. Hi there. Hello. So we were just speaking with your husband. We had found him because we have a podcast and we had a question about spiderwebs. But in our research of his work, we discovered that he was married to the person who invented Jenga. He just handed me the other over the phone with no explanation of who I was going to speak to. Yes, I'm she. Well I guess mostly we just found that amazing and I think we both wanted to say thank you

because we love your invention. You're very welcome. I hope you've had many lost hours playing the game. Indeed, yeah. Can we ask where the idea came from? Yes, sure. It's a game that evolved within my family. We're talking back in the 70s

when I was living in Ghana. I mean, it took some years for me to sort of, for the penny to drop that it was, it wasn't what everybody did with a power on brakes. Wow. Then I actually took the game to market in 1983 when I was living in Oxford and figured out that every time I brought out my set of bricks to play with people, they got excited about it. And I suddenly thought, why not try and, you know,

turn this into a game and a commercial game. When you were first playing in Ghana, what were you using as the blocks? They were blocks, they were offcuts. Ghana is a country that's full of, it's a timber producing country, and these were offcuts from a sawmill. I had a much younger brother, and they were just blocks that he used to play with. You know, the kids building blocks. And actually they were a slightly different proportion to Jenga. But what I wanted to keep in there was the fact, which is another thing that sort of realized that if they were absolutely exactly the same size as each other, the blocks, the game doesn't work. So I had to sort of figure out a way of building in the randomness into the size

of it. So each block in the game of Jenga is randomly slightly slightly slightly different to each other block. Oh so that allows them to slide out. Exactly. Yeah. I mean they're all exactly the same size and the same weight. You know, it doesn't function as a game. That's so interesting. I would have, I think I always assumed they were exactly the same, but there were just these subtle differences. It doesn't work. It doesn't work if they're exactly the same. So Leslie, you created this game. Are you, are you really good at it? I get beaten a lot. Who's better, you or Fritz?

Ah, me, of course. Well, Leslie, thank you so much for talking to us about this and thanks for Jenga. It's a pleasure. I'll find out from Fritz in a minute who I'm actually talking to. Please thank him again for us too. It's been a pleasure talking to you both. And you. Hey, if you have a question for us, whatever it may be, send it to our email. That's howto at npr.org. Maybe you have a question about peanut butter cups or about Jenga. Whatever it is, we promise we have an army of 14 year olds ready to skip class and help you out. We will ruin the next generation of children just to help you. So consider that when you

send us a question at howto at npr.org. This message comes from Wyse, the app for doing things in other currencies. Send, spend, or receive money internationally and always get the real-time mid-market exchange rate with no hidden fees. Download the Wyze app today or visit wyze.com, T's and C's apply. Support for this podcast and the following message come from the NPR Wine Club, which has generated over $1.75 million to support NPR programming. Whether buying a few bottles or joining the club, you can learn more at nperwineclub.org slash podcast. Must be 21 or older to purchase.

It's a high stakes election year, so it's not enough to just follow along. You need to understand what's happening so you are fully informed come November. Every weekday on the NPR Politics Podcast, our political reporters break down important stories and backstories from the campaign trail so you understand why it matters to you. Listen to the NPR Politics Podcast wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, Josh. What can we help you with? So I was wondering how I could look cool while kind of standing and waiting for someone. Like you're meeting somebody somewhere.

Yeah, meeting at a cafe, but maybe they're late, so I'd be standing near the door just waiting. You're biding your time. How do you normally look? Not cool. I just stand and kind of looking. Do a lot of looking. I try whistling.

That's my only other idea. OK. Yeah. That's very casual. That's a casual only other idea. Okay. Yeah. That's very casual. That's a casual look. Maybe not cool. Yeah. Was there maybe, was there a moment where you realized you needed to address this issue? Yeah, well, you know, it hit me the other day that I was waiting for a friend at a cafe and I just realized they always just look so uncool whenever I'm waiting.

So I just had to call you. Yeah. Well, Josh, I think we can help you out with this. We're going to look into it. We'll find an expert. Hopefully he or she will be able to come up with some tips. Okay, great. Okay.

Online with us now, I think is the perfect person to help. An icon of cool. Henry Winkler played the Fonz. He also, you may know him from Arrested Development or Barry. There is maybe nobody cooler in the world. So Henry, what's step one for Josh? Step one, lean against the wall and put one foot up. Yes.

Yeah. Okay? Uh-huh. Two, put your hands in your coat pocket, or if it's the summertime, in your pants pocket. Okay. Both hands. Okay. Do not smoke. Okay.

Okay. And the most, that's number three. So number four, I think is the key. Be authentic. Cool actually comes from the inside out. Okay, sure. It has nothing to do with what you're doing on the outside trying to put it on. Right. the outside trying to put it on. Right. So cool is being yourself. And being yourself is compelling and magnetic and dynamic. And I think, you know, there's probably a significant other or a would be

significant other that he wants to look cool for. So, but... Okay, then you know what? There's number five. Oh, okay. Okay? You don't want to have a latte because that really screws up your breath. Oh, yeah. So, I would read Tolstoy. Okay.

Because I think that if he or she knows who that is, she'll be impressed, and more, he'll be impressed and or he'll be impressed. If not, the other person will just be overwhelmed by the size of the novel. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, so you've kind of described a kind of a James Dean image. I've seen this picture of James Dean where he's leaning against the wall. You have your hands in a pocket and then you're also holding then a great work of Russian literature. That's what I would do. And you can just hold the literature in between your arm, your upper arm, and your ribcage if your hands are in your pocket. Oh, okay, sure. So, you know, now that I think about it, I think the sheer, just the sheer thickness of the novel will be impressed.

And you know how they did in high school, you took a magic marker and you wrote your name on the pages, you know, on the outside of the novel, along the pages? Sure. You can write, happy to see you. And if you're really good in Russian, which I could never do. So there's kind of a paradox here though because...

Of course you would find the paradox. So he wants to look cool. Your advice, which sounds very good to me, is just be yourself. Yes, that really is the truth. That is the nugget in all of this other crapola. And it seems like a big part of that is not trying to look cool. Like to let go of trying to look cool

while trying to look cool is part of looking cool. When you let go of trying to be anything, you are. Yeah. Do you? Even, you know what, and honestly, seriously? Yeah. you are uh... yeah do you uh... you know what and honestly seriously yeah i mean uh... even as an actor as i learned to let go of trying to be funny or smart or

you know great on screen whatever it was the more I let that go the better I became and I would have I I'm telling you pennies to donuts that would apply to dating. Well do you do you remember like a moment that speaking you know as a man not as an actor, where you were like, you know what? I'm comfortable. I'm not trying anymore. Yes.

It happened about 15, 20 minutes ago. It takes, for me, honest to God, for me as a human being, it took an awfully long time to get to that place. I spent a lot of time revering it, searching for it, looking under every cushion for it. It took me a long time to mature. Last, one more question for Josh. One of the things that Fonzie did, as you well know and are tired of talking about, he had a catchphrase. He would say, hey, would you give any any tips on Josh maybe coming up with something that he could throw out in

a desperate moment just to have a cool catchphrase? No. And I'll tell you why. If you're not committed to the catchphrase, if you're, if you're not, if it doesn't come naturally, then the person is going to look you in the eye, turn on their heels, and go home hungry. I'm not kidding. That's something to avoid. I would not try a catchphrase. Yeah, that sounds right to me.

Unless you say, good to see you. Henry Winkler, this has been great. Thank you so much. What a wonderful conversation. All right, well, let's call Josh back. Hey, Josh, how you doing? Hey, good. So what do you think of Henry's advice?

Yeah, I got it. I'm ready to wait at a cafe now. Okay, well, let's practice. Can we ask you to... Are you near enough a wall to lean against it? Yeah, near a wall, yeah. Okay. I'm right next to one. Can you lean against it? Yeah, near a wall, yeah. Right next to one. Can you lean against it?

Yeah, yeah, okay. I'm leaning against it now. All right. Now, get your foot up. You got a foot up? Okay. Yeah, foot's up. We want you to stay on the phone, so maybe just put one hand in a pocket.

Do you have pockets? Okay. Yeah, it's in the, yeah, okay. There we go, my hand's in the pocket. So how does that feel? Feels great. You feel pockets? Okay. Yeah, it's in the, yeah, okay, there we go, my hands are in the pocket. So how does that feel? Feels great. You feel cool? Yeah.

Well, now wait, we need a book too, don't forget the book. Yeah, do you have a book, Andy? I have, you know, a notebook. Good enough. Is that cool? Yeah, that's good, you're a writer. Okay. All right.

Yeah, okay. Well, the last thing then would be the catchphrase, which Henry came up with, good to see you. How does that sound coming out of your mouth there, Josh? Yeah, I'll try. So the last thing then would be the catchphrase which Henry came up with, good to see you. How does that sound coming out of your mouth there, Josh? Yeah, I'll try. Good to see ya. Alright. Yeah.

I'll try again. Well, it sounds a little, yeah, maybe a little more like relaxed maybe. Laid back. Oh, okay. Yeah. Okay. Good to see ya. Okay.

That's about the same. Yeah. Okay. Think about it, now you're cool, Josh. How does cool Josh, what does he say when he sees somebody? Okay, just, good to see ya. All right, we're getting there. Yeah, this is sounding good. Does this feel, this seems like a cool pose. Does it feel cool?

Are you feeling good? Yeah, it does, it does. Okay. You know what, yeah, I'm not in anyone's way. I like a cool pose. Does it feel cool? Are you feeling good? Yeah, it does. It does. You know what? I'm not in anyone's way. I like that about it. Yeah, that's good. Sometimes I'm in the middle, right near the door, or sometimes people walk around. So this is nice. Well, Josh, it's been a pleasure talking to you. I guess we should say good to see you. Good to see you, Josh.

Good to see you. Ah, it's getting better every time. That's a cool guy who says that. Yeah. All right. Stay cool, Josh. Okay. Thank you guys very much. Well, that does it for this week's show.

What did we learn today, Mike? I learned that a spiderweb can stop bleeding. Yeah. It's almost better than a band-aid because it's antibacterial. It's fun stop bleeding. Yeah, it's almost better than a bandaid because it's antibacterial, it's fungicidal, and it's horrifying. I think it probably, like the pain is numbed because you're so afraid of all of the spiders

that you've just stolen the home of a bunch of spiders, and now they have nowhere to go and are probably mad at you. Your current wound is healing nicely. But there is an army of spiders coming for you in the night. It'd be like if a giant went up to your house and grabbed your bed and just rubbed it under their armpit. Which for any giants out there listening, that's another great how-to, is human beds are a great deodorant,

but not an antiperspirant, because beds don't have aluminum in them. So it's ultimately better for you. Yeah, you need memory foam for that. At this point, I don't know if this counts as a correction, but I feel like we should mention we got a message from Amy who was listening to an episode of how to from a couple years Ago, yeah, I think was episode 90 where we talked about this robot called puking Larry

It's a robot that vomits that they use to sort of test how diseases are spread through vomit and it is officially named puking Larry and she said it should be named Spuey Lewis and that then when it made news it would be Spuey Lewis and the News and Amy you are correct. We apologize for that oversight thank you Amy. How to Do Everything was produced this week by Nadia Wilson with Technical Direction from Lorna White. Our intern is Amy who helped us out with Spuey Lewis. Keep himna White. Our intern is Amy, who helped us out with Spui Lewis. Keep him coming, Amy.

Our artist in residence is Justin Witte. I'm Ian. And I'm Mike. Thanks. Thanks. This message comes from Easy Cater, a platform where organizations can order food for meetings and events from favorite restaurants nationwide, with tools to help meet dietary needs, stay on budget, and manage food spend.

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