Lateral with Tom Scott - 105: Unused toy boats

Episode Date: October 11, 2024

Sabrina Cruz, Melissa Fernandes and Taha Khan from 'Answer in Progress' face questions about witty workwear, tongue ticks and wartime warnings. LATERAL is a comedy panel game podcast about weird questions with wonderful answers, hosted by Tom Scott. For business enquiries, contestant appearances or question submissions, visit https://lateralcast.com. HOST: Tom Scott. QUESTION PRODUCER: David Bodycombe. EDITED BY: Julie Hassett at The Podcast Studios, Dublin. MUSIC: Karl-Ola Kjellholm ('Private Detective'/'Agrumes', courtesy of epidemicsound.com). ADDITIONAL QUESTIONS: David R., Suvi Jänkälä, Ava, dratini0. FORMAT: Pad 26 Limited/Labyrinth Games Ltd. EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS: David Bodycombe and Tom Scott. © Pad 26 Limited (https://www.pad26.com) / Labyrinth Games Ltd. 2024. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

At a Chicago museum, some employees wear shirts with Avant written on the front. What's their job? The answer to that at the end of the show. My name's Tom Scott and this is Lateral. On today's show, we welcome back the team from Answer in Progress. Hello! This is their 12th appearance on the show. Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh.

Meaning we've crossed the line from panel game to hostage situation. So here to blink three times to their loved ones, first of all we have Taha Khan. Oh sorry, I just blinked three times and realised it's a podcast. Hello! Doesn't work well in an audio show, that, unfortunately. How are you doing, Taha? I'm doing fantastic. After like 11 previous shows, and like, thank you for coming back and doing this again,

do you feel like you're getting a hang of the questions now? Yeah, I mean, I feel like, you know, at some point the balance will tip and it will be, oh yeah, those guys from Lateral who also have a YouTube channel. Oh no, no, no, I don't like that idea. Sabrina Cruz, next up, tell us about the YouTube channel. For those who are just joining us, this late in the podcast. You know, we make YouTube videos where we ask a question and then record the journey to an answer, and it's as chaotic as it can possibly be.

And rounding out the chaos today, Melissa Fernandez, welcome back to the show. Hello, hello. What is Answer in Progress working on at the minute? We're all working on different videos right now. Taz working on a video about Foley. Sabrina's working on a video about... Wait, which one are you working on? Both of them at the same time.

Sabrina's working on two videos right now about dark mode and the recorder, the bad instrument. And I just finished up a video about candles. Because I don't know what the next one is yet, so I can't tell you. Well, good luck to all three of you. As ever, it is a joy to have you back. Our questions start at impossible and get more difficult from there. So if you think you've got what it takes to solve the unsolvable, then try wrapping your mind around question one.

Sabrina's trying to grab knowledge from the air right now. Ed clicks his tongue three times to save time. What is it for, and why is it ironic if other people do it occasionally? We'll say that again. Ed clicks his tongue three times to save time. What is it for, and why is it ironic if other people do it occasionally? Guys, he's trying to time travel. He's clicking his heels together instead. He's using his tongue. OK, tongs as in the kitchen utensil, tongue as in the mouth organ.

OK, so this is an accent dialect thing. Up until I was in my 30s, I did not know those were pronounced differently. Oh. Sorry. Growing up for me, they're both pronounced the same way. They're both pronounced Tom. And that is apparently just the area I grew up.

Oh! Yeah, that's not even a UK thing. Nope, it's not. It's just the Midlands. And not even that specific bit of the Midlands. So, I got confused about this for a while. I did say tongue. Okay.

Oh! Mouth, tongue. Wow. Okay. That completely changes my thoughts. Okay, so, clicks his tongue three times to save time. Three times to save time. And then some people do it once or twice ironically? No, it messes it up if someone else does it.

No, it's ironic if they do it, but it's not ironically. So it's, oh man, every once in a while I realize that I'm not quite sure what the definition of irony is. I feel like I know, but it still isn't quite there. If someone does something and they're self-aware, it's them doing it ironically. But if they're not self-aware, then someone else who is self-aware could look at their actions and say, that's ironic that they're doing it.

Okay. Do you see what I mean? So clicking one's tongue, how does one do that? Click, click. Is that it? Click, click. Yeah, it's, mm, yes, that's exactly the noise. Click, click. Three times. Save time. Yeah, it's... Yes, that's exactly the noise. Three times. Save time.

Is he talking to a horse? I don't know why I think this is how horses talk. I just feel like... Is it like a riddle? The horse's name was Friday! It's Friday! I mean, there is a famous television horse from the past called Mr. Ed, and that does feel like the kind of clue that the question writers would put in. But no, Ed, I'll tell you this, is human. Ugh.

Ah. Dread. Is he a YouTuber? Oh, are you saying that to cut? Yeah. Because what I do sometimes is I'll clap after a good take so that I can see the waveforms. Hmm.

Keep talking. Oh. So when you put footage that you've recorded into a video editor, they give you a visualization of the audio levels. And when you clap, it's a big spike, so you can really see it really clearly above all the general noise. And so because it's so visual, you can sort of skim to it and cut exactly where you've collapsed. And I guess that would be similar if you were clicking with your tongue. So it makes it easier to cut footage

because you can skim to places that are important. And that would save time. So maybe Mr. But if other people are doing it, then it would just throw off the edit. This is such a good question. If we're right, this is great. You are right. You've got the first bit, that's why he's doing it. He's marking the end of a section.

And there was a clue in the name, Ed the Editor. Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh uhhhhh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh It's ironic if other people are doing that occasionally. If other people are doing it, it might end up making the spike less visible because there's just more of them and it changes what the highest peak is, potentially. Why is it ironic? Again, it all comes down to what does ironic mean? It would be inefficient if they're doing it at the wrong time. Oh. Sometimes if you're saying something and you flub it, you go, ah, you make like a little clicking noise with your mouth, so you'd be like...

So it's ironic because it flubbed. Close, but not quite. You remember when you were all making those noises earlier and I was cringing because I'm hearing them through the headphones and feeling sympathetic for all the people in the audience? Yes, but I don't know why you were, because what's wrong with that noise? LAUGHS So is the irony that it is an unpleasant sound?

So what does he do with it? He cuts it out! Correct. Yeah. It's ironic because it's like not heard by anyone. Well, more than that. If other people are doing it. They get silenced? So when Ed clicks their tongue three times to signify a good take in order to edit it and select the correct thing,

it is ironic that when other people do it, Ed will just cut it out entirely, making it a bad take. Spot on. These noises that he's looking for to mark the end of the section, if they're anywhere else, he just has to snip it out and remove it because it's quite unpleasant to hear. We got to what irony means, guys! Yep. He makes the clicks to save time.

When other people make them, it wastes time. Each of our guests has, as usual, brought a question with them. We start today with Sabrina. Hello. Hello. Horatio Bottomley owned all six runners in an official horse race on a Belgian beach. His accomplices placed large bets on the exact finishing order since Bottomley hired the jockeys too. Jockeys and horses did their best. So how did the ploy fail?

I'll say it again. Horatio Bottomley owned all six runners in an official horse race on a Belgian beach. His accomplices placed large bets on the exact finishing order since Bottomley hired the jockeys too. Jockeys and horses did their best. So how did the ploy fail? The beach is a bad place to do a race. So no one finished. And so the order, like everyone was DNF, so there's no order.

You were there? And then... If everyone's DNF, normally the bets are just called off. If there's a complete disaster of a race, normally all bets are void, everyone just gets their stake back. Right. But Taha, you are right that a beach might not be the best place for a horse race. And it's in Belgium. And that's also probably bad. Well, just in general. Just in general, I guess.

That's just Taha's opinion on Belgium. I don't know much about horse racing. Maybe the tide came in. And that was important. Because... They all... sunk. In the sand. Because it was wet.

I'm just imagining the Titanic, but it's horses. Full never-ending story moment for everyone there. Oh no! Sorry for giving that reference a lot. Why are you being so sad, Tom? Yeah, sorry. A load of our listeners all just went, aww. And the rest of them will look it up later,

and also go, aww. I guess I'm going to have to look it up. But I will say that all of the jockeys finished the race on their mouths. Oh. So they tried their best to be in the order that they wanted that this guy, Horatio, wanted it to be. But they couldn't. Because the beach.

Because the beach. It's not like it's a weird track. You can't get lost on a beach. You can't take the wrong path, because it's a beach. It's just, it's a big open expanse of sand. Were there like crabs on the beach or something? Did crabs like, flood the track? I genuinely wonder if a horse would care

if there was a crab there. Maybe they have a fear of crabs. Maybe there were snakes on the beach. Ugh! I could not tell you if there were snakes on the beach, Melissa. But if there were, the snakes did not impact the results. Maybe the finish line was washed away. Oh!

Ooh! If the tide came in and washed away, or any mark, or anything like that, they just didn't know when they were finishing. But there was still... They did finish, so there was a finish line. And there was an official order, presumably, because the best one paid out. There was an official order. It just wasn't the order that Horatio wanted. Oh, no, Horatio.

Have you all been on a beach recently? Not recently. The weather can get pretty wack by the water. Is that a clue or just your opinion? It's... It's something of a clue. But you might be focusing a little bit too much on what's happening with the tide. The sky, there was a storm.

Interesting. And the sand... And the sand... What happened to the sand, Melissa? The sand got wet. And... Okay. You need to believe more in a horse's ability to move. Maybe it got stuck.

I don't know. It's not quicksand! Is it? It wasn't quicksand. Okay. Okay, okay. Hmm, interesting. Oh, if it wasn't quicksand,

then I think it might have been the opposite problem? Slow sand. Slow sand. What if there was a sandstorm? What if they just couldn't see the finish line? I mean, you wouldn't run a horse race in a full sandstorm. Like, in a complete... Do they have sandstorms on beaches? In Belgium.

Uh, fair point. To the certainty in your mind! You are on the right track. We're getting warmer. Might not have been a sandstorm. Might have been something that's... Another kind of weather. Derude.

What? Derude finished first, you see. That threw everything off. Also, you wouldn't run a horse race in a sandstorm, because it hurts. Like, you can't go out in a sandstorm. The horses would simply say no. Yeah. Technically, they'd say,

"'Nay,' but you know, that's... Hey! Smooth! That's justified. It wasn't something as violent as a sandstorm. It wasn't an anomaly. It's something that happens fairly often when you're out on the water,

but it does impact, like Tom said, visibility. Fog. Fog happens. Dew. You are as right as I would say that you can be. The fog? I made a very similar mistake. I was fog and the beach.

I'm putting my hands together. How do those cross? Okay, Melissa, put it together. I'm putting my hands together. How do that, how do those cross? Okay, Melissa, put it together. Put it together for me then. Imagine that you are on a beach, you're trying to go and finish in a very particular order, but then fog happens. You can't see what happens then.

Is fog exclusive to the beach? Well, it just happens there. It doesn't need to be exclusive. You were making a really big point to be like, the beach. What I'm saying is, weather can change quite drastically when you're on a waterfront, especially. Like, it can be perfectly clear at one moment, and then you just have zero visibility the next. And there isn't, like, a track to follow if it's on a beach. It's not like you can see the fence that is hemming in the horses.

If you go slightly in the wrong direction, you're lost until that fog clears on the next wind and then comes back on the next one. So, basically, a sea breeze blew in, and so the jockeys couldn't see each other well enough to finish in the correct order. And as a result, Horatio Bottomley lost a fortune. Oh, no.

Classic Horatio. Classic Bottomley behavior. Just a couple more details on this. The race was held in Belgium, not because of Taha's personal beef with it, but because the regulations were more lax than in the UK. And although Horatio... That sounds like a valid reason to beef.

Just saying. And although Horatio was a member of parliament, he was also a serial fraudster. He sold worthless victory bonds after the end of World War I, and he was convicted of fraud in 1922 and sentenced to five years in prison. That's what happens when you try to rig the horse race.

Classic Horatio. Classic Horatio! I am delighted to say that the new Lateral Book is now available for pre-order. People have often asked to play the game at home. Well, now you will be able to, by yourself or with others. There are a hundred questions in the book, most of them are brand new and will never appear on this show. Plus, there's the best of the questions from previous episodes. Each one has all the official clues and hints and background notes, all the stuff that's on my cards that you don't get here at home. And I've played all the new questions myself so you can compete against me and see if you can do better.

It's great for meetups with friends, game nights, road trips, family gatherings. Also, you can play it on your own. There's a bunch of warm-up questions and bonus articles in there as well. Pre-orders count towards our first week of sales, which are really, really important in the publishing trade. So if you can, please go to lateralcast.com and pre-order The Lateral Book. Lateralcast.com, hopefully, will see you there. Next question's from me, folks. Good luck.

Thieves broke into the premises of Mysterium in Utrecht in the Netherlands. They prized open an antique safe, even though the key was tucked around a corner. They were confused by what was inside, and stole a CCTV camera instead. What happened? I'll say that again. Thieves broke into the premises of Mysterium in Utrecht in the Netherlands. They prized open an antique safe, even though the key was tucked around a corner. They were confused by what was inside and stole a CCTV camera instead. What happened? They got punked! Okay, did they steal the camera?

Because they probably saw something that they didn't want other people to see? Ooh! Right? Did they intentionally steal the camera? I didn't even think that. Yeah, that was intentional. Because they went in looking for treasure, or supposedly treasure, something valuable. Something in a safe, you know.

A body? Did you just actually spit-take there, Sabrina? That sounded like a spit-take. I caught it. We're all good. Nothing moist has entered my devices. No! There were a number of ways to phrase that sentence.

That was certainly one of them. I was thinking that they pried open the safe. The safe contains some information about something. However, when they opened it up, they couldn't quite figure out what the information was. Maybe it was affected by the fact that they didn't open it through legitimate means. And as a result, they were like, right, someone who's been here before will have opened it and revealed the valid information. So if we steal the CCTV, then we can see the last people.

This is very Ocean's Eleven of you. You're mine. V national treasure. what do you mean? My apologies, there's only one heist movie. Or, or. Okay, the thing inside was too heavy to move. So instead, no one had cameras on them. So the only thing that was recording what was inside there was the camera. So they're like, what if I just take the camera so they're like what if I just take the camera I will have the

knowledge that I need with me in a zoom enhance on that note because you said that the key was around the corner but they still pried it open now was the key just staying behind the corner or did somebody else have the key already and like it was like it's like a Connections kind of heist situation. That would be so cool. The key was deliberately placed where it was. Oh, interesting. I return to getting punked.

I think you're giving the thieves a bit too much credit here. They were later described as certainly not smart people. Okay. Why didn't you introduce us like that, Tom? Maybe they did something silly. They got embarrassed. They cracked open the safe and inside is a paper card that was just like, ha ha, doof. The key is just over there.

And then they were like, we can't let her use this. Weirdly, not too far away, what was in the safe was seemingly meaningless. NFT. In a safe, and they were really confused, and they stole the camera, and then the judge was like, they are certainly not smart people, because NFTs have no value. – Ha ha ha ha! – Hmm. – Those meaningless messages in the safe were deliberately put there.

– Where were— So where is this? A place, Mysterium? – Mysterium, in Utrecht, in the Netherlands. – Is the location's name Mysterium relevant? Because I'm just thinking, like— – Oh, yes. – An optical illusion museum. Yeah. Or like an escape room. Oh, my gosh. Yep. Keep talking, Taha.

They're in an escape room? Yep. Wait, the thieves tried to steal from an escape room? This is hilarious. No way. Did they go in thinking it was like a real bank vault and it was an escape room? Oh, and that's why the key was just around the corner because you have to be able to let people out. Oh no.

Oh my god. Wait, so why would they take the camera? I'm confused about that part. Okay, yeah, the camera, maybe it's because they're not very smart people. They could have just found the key. I think they were like, oh no, we've broken into a place. If we take the camera, then they don't know that we've been here. We don't know the motivation for this, but the thieves left with cash, some snacks, and

a CCTV camera. Some snacks? They needed pretzels for their road! Which presumably was just because it's electronic equipment that they can hopefully resell. I would guess that the motivation was just, oh, that's something electronic, maybe it has value, because we just pried open this antique safe and inside was just a load of nonsense. Oh my goodness.

So it wasn't even that they were trying to, you know, remove evidence. They were just like, I could sell this on Facebook Marketplace. I genuinely would watch this film. Where it's like Oceanuses 11, they plan it all out, but there's some logistical error in putting into Google Maps the location and they end up at an escape room instead of a bank vault. It would be so good. It would be great.

Answer in progress for his feature film. Let's do it. Yeah, the owner said, I'm curious whether these bastards, and I believe that has been translated from the Dutch, so the translators made a choice there, would even be able to escape if they were insiders' guests. 60% of our visitors escape, and these were certainly not smart people. Wow. That's fantastic. Very iconic.

Taha, it is over to you for the next question. Okay, this question is sent in by David R. In 1885, a farmer left his home in the city of North Yakima, Washington. He rode for three miles and hitched his horse outside a local store. After shopping for a while, he left the store, unhitched his horse, and rode 2.5 miles home. Why was the ride back shorter? Horse's name was Friday. And you got in one! And I'll say it again, in 1885 a farmer left his home in the city of North Yakima, Washington. He rode for three miles and hitched his horse outside a local store. After shopping for a while, he left the store, unhitched his horse and

rode 2.5 miles home. Why was the ride back shorter? Guys. This is it. Go. Go. Okay. He was in the store for two hours, right? Few hours. A few hours. Okay, so I said a while. He was there for a while.

Enough time. Enough time. How long? I'm gonna say it anyways, but I'm realizing the plot. There was a storm. Okay. Or there was a tornado. It wiped the land. So on the way there, there was a lot of hills. And when you go up and down a hill, it's a longer turn.

But on the way back, there was no hills, so it was flat. Beautiful, I hope it's right. I've just written down the word hills here the minute that Taha started talking about the question, because I was like, maybe the horse can walk uphill just fine, but a fully laden horse can't take a steep track downhill or something like that. But then the track would get shhh longer. Or something like that. It was something to do with the horses' abilities in Hills. Because I have, weirdly, once been to Yakima.

And there's not much there, but there are Hills. I remember the Hills. Okay, I didn't realise that was a key component. You guys both went to Hills. I don't know if it is. It's just my only memory of Yakima, because I tried to go up to the top of one of them, and found that every entranceway was just like, oh, private property, private property. I could not get the view over Yakima that I wanted. I was going Riverboat House. And high tide.

But I don't know if they have water there. Apparently they only have hills. Do you put the horse on the boat? I don't remember there being a river there, but I could be wrong. What if it's not a Riverboat house, but it's a riverboat shop? And you hitch the horse up, and the horse and riverboat just steadily go downstream for a bit. I don't know why you'd have a moving shop. That's a stupid idea. And just go to the shop. Where is it? I don't know. It's 1885. It just moves. So, your stupid idea was exactly right.

Which one? Who's stupid idiot? Which one? All of us had stupid idea. The Yakima store was being transported while he was in it. It was a moving shop. What? Yep.

In 1885, the entire city of Yakima was moved piece by piece, four miles to north Yakima. Stores, restaurants, and even hotels remained in business while on large log rollers, pulled along by mules and horses. So it wasn't a river, it was even weirder? There's no tornado, there's no hills. How long was he inside of the store? He was in the store for about an hour or two. That's a fast moving mule.

Wow. Yeah, so the Northern Pacific Railroad wasn't given any incentives to build its transcontinental line through Yakima, instead building a new city four miles to the north. The residents of Yakima, now Union Gab, moved their buildings to north Yakima either wholesale or plank by plank. When the offices of the city's Signal newspaper were lifted onto blocks and ready to move, a rebel blew it up with dynamite during the night. The owners simply picked up the remaining pieces

and rebuilt it in North Yakima anyway. Wow. How did I not film that story? I mean, there's not much to film these days, but there would have been folks like, I went there. I didn't film anything in Yakima. Yeah, so you didn't actually go to Yakima. You went to New Yakima.

I was just passing through. And that was somewhere on the road trip. I had no idea about that. That's amazing. Thank you to Dratino for sending this question in. Every year, thousands of virtually identical toy boats, each 2.4 inches long, are produced globally. Surprisingly, very few of them will ever be placed in a bath or even played with.

Why? I'll say that again. Every year, thousands of virtually identical toy boats, each 2.4 inches long, are produced globally. Surprisingly, very few of them will ever be placed in a bath or even played with. Why? They're professional toy boats. 2.4

They're for the miniature, those like miniature villages. Correct. It's for models. Government models, they don't play with their toy boats. They're serious toy boats. Wait, is it for, yeah, is it for modeling? Is it for like, the... I learned this in a Tom Scott video. — Here's a pattern. — Where they made that model of, like, the river, or like a lake, and then they put loads of boats on it to simulate a bunch of different scenarios. I think it was to do with boat building.

But is it to literally model different water conditions and how boats can travel in them? That wouldn't be produced globally. They just buy a load of boats, or more likely a load of tags or something like that. Oh! Is it for 3D printing? It is for 3D printing, Sabrina! Keep going!

I love it! Yeah, so when you get a 3D printer, when you need to set it up, you do test prints, and they're like certain files that are just like normal to do, because it lets you use, lets you try out different settings on your 3D printer, and make sure that they all function properly. And so I assume a tiny little boat is one of those. Ah! Yes. This is the 3D Benchy, which is the standard benchmark test for a 3D printer.

It is the equivalent of that test page your printer comes out with when you first install it. And I never consent to that page being printed out and it scares me every time. I hate that Sabrina got that in one. I got it in two. I said that they were professional boats first. Great. Yeah, you just got that one. This is the 3D Benchy, which is the common test model for 3D printers. When I say test page, it's not like it automatically prints it or anything like that, but it's been downloaded nearly four million times from the Thingiverse website, from the standard

repository, things like that. So it is almost certainly the most common object produced by 3D printers around the world. Melissa, it is over to you for the next guest question. Alright, this question has been sent in by Suvi Jankala. On the edge of a forest in Ostrabofnia, Finland, you can clearly hear an old lady recounting her experiences during wartime. This saves lives. How? I'll say that one more time. On the edge of a forest in Ostraboethnia, Finland, you can clearly hear an old lady recounting her experiences during wartime.

This saves lives. How? Because that's creepy as heck. They're just like, no, I don't want to go into the forest. There's a weird old lady being there. Can we establish that she is doing this? She is recounting her stories of her time during the war, or was she recounting stories when the war was happening during wartime? You can hear the old lady is recount was happening, during wartime. You can hear the old ladies recounting her experiences during wartime.

But is she recounting her experiences of life during a war, or were they the experience she had of a war after the war? That's what I'm trying to understand. Definitely the second time. It's got to be the second time. After the war. She's telling stories of wartime. Yes. These days, presumably. Okay. I just didn't want to go down a massive rabbit hole.

She alive? Is this a recording or is she... ...is she kicking? Oh, I kind of assumed it was a recording, because it's like you can hear the sound of. Ah, I get it. That was very clever of y'all. Point.

Point one. Oh wow, they're points now? Yeah, the old lady's not actually there, it is a recording. Extra creepy. I would agree. I think the creepy factor is part of it. I think there's like an old abandoned building, they play these recordings,

and it keeps people out because it freaks people out. You know, something along those lines. It is the Finnish equivalent of the Blair Witch Project. Hmm. They're trying to keep people out of the forest, is what I'm assuming. And part of that is playing this creepy old lady. We're assuming that it's creepy. Maybe it's kind of heartwarming.

Maybe it's just really a warm telling of a story that... During the war, Tom. In the forest. In the forest. In the forest. Yes. In the forest. Does it help guide people out of the forest?

It could be that the voice is telling you which side, like the story would be indicative of which nationality the person is, and so maybe you go towards that voice because you go towards Finland, and maybe the other side of the forest goes out into another country. That would be the Russian border, which you do not want to cross. I mean, they're not going to kill you immediately for crossing it, but there's a lot of warning signs up about that. We're getting a little cold here, y'all.

We're getting cold? Okay. Is it because Russia's cold, but. Yeah. So the sound is played on the edge of a forest. Oh, okay. So I should probably also mention that it is, there's a break in the forest and then it continues again. The forest continues again.

Animals. Is it to save, you said save lives. Yes, to save lives. Is it human lives? Yes But but you're on the right track with animals what you mean Humans are animals There are animals and humans involved in this the human lives are being saved Trying to scare off bears, like most people.

We don't want to hang out with a bear, so we have a human voice, and bears are like, I do not... I don't want to get up in there. So the bears stay away from the edge of the forest, so that doesn't go to the human side. That's not a bad shout, Sabrina. You're getting very, very warm. Not necessarily a bear, another forest-dwelling creature that you would not want to be near

humans. It keeps the animals... foxes. Moose. It keeps the foxes or the polar bears or the moose. Polar bears? One of those animals is correct. Fox. Polar bears.

No, not that one. Moose. I'm going with moose. It is moose. It is moose. So we got half of it there. It's to scare a moose away. From the street, there's a gap. If a car hits a moose, the car loses. Yeah.

I think the moose also loses in that situation. No, no, no. Quite often the car is the one that loses against a moose. The moose may not come off well. You know how big a moose is? Is you enormous! Yeah, and the problem is it's got fairly spindly legs. So a car will come in, take the legs out, and then the body of the moose will go through the windscreen.

A moose-shaped missile. Yeah, like, it will crush the windscreen, crush everything in there, and if the moose is lucky it might just wander off. I feel like he's got all the pieces here. Is it just to scare moose from a road? Yeah, exactly. So, basically... I feel like the touch about war stories is crazy.

They didn't need to do that. I will say that there's an old lady's recording from back in the war. Heartwarming. I just love a news headline. Heartwarming, woman tells war stories. So the sound is played because moose are afraid of human voices. So if they play the sound at the edge of the road,

it'll keep the moose away from the road so that the cars can drive safely on the road and they won't collide and... Cool. No crash. No crash. So, pro tip. If you are driving through moose territory, you should wind down your windows and start telling war stories.

Maybe the moose isn't afraid of people. Maybe the moose is afraid of war. Maybe. Very deep. Maybe. But yet in Finland, there are thousands of traffic accidents every year. Oh no. Because of moose. A lot of the time because of the moose. Our whimsical riffing suddenly seems so sad now. I've never been to Finland, but I remember when I went hiking in the,

I'm gonna say it, I'm gonna say it in my way, the Appalachians, the Appalachian Trail, I know other people say it differently. Appalachian. And I was with my friend who was from the area and she was like, we should make sure that we were always talking and not be silent. And I didn't understand why, but I was like,

okay, fine, let's just have a chat. And then when we got out of the forest, she was like, yeah, I just didn't want to scare you guys when you were in there, but there's bears, so if we talk, then they won't come near us. I was like, oh, thank you for telling me that after we got out of the forest. That's wonderful. You guys got out of the forest, and she's like,

okay, you can stop, I don't want to listen to you anymore. Thanks to a couple of very quick solves there, we have unlocked the shiny bonus question. Oooh. Wow, I didn't know there was this level. When getting changed, why might someone use the rule, sometimes, always, never? I'll say that again. When getting changed, why might someone use the rule, sometimes, always, never? Sometimes, change your shirt. Always change your underwear.

Always change your underpants. Never change your jeans. Yes. To be honest, like, valid alternate answer, not what I've got in the card, not what the rule is known for, but... Sometimes, always, never. When getting changed. Okay.

Never... be naked. I don't know. Sometimes, always, never. This is a terrible rule. When getting changed, like, your clothing, or like, physically changed? Like... Clothing. Like, plastic physically changed? Like... Clothing.

Like plastic surgery changed? Like, you know what I mean? Oh, wow. You know what's interesting about this rule is it does cover literally every option. You know, sometimes, always, never. Yeah. That's my rule about things. If it needs to fit into one of these three categories.

It is getting changed to do with clothing. Specific kind of clothing. Oh! Okay. I wonder if it's like... I remember there being some rules about getting changed when I was in like P.E. class, where it was like,

you know, don't take off your underwear. It was definitely a rule, so maybe there's some level of getting changed in the semi. Is it your social conduct or does it refer to a specific article or genre of clothing? Definitely a specific article. Oh, interesting. Sometimes, I'll just never. Sometimes. Like a belt?

A tie? Never. Wear underwear that has a hole in it, y'all. I've learned awful things. Hang on. Is this to do with a suit? Keep going, Tah. Because when you do the buttons, it is, if it's a suit with two buttons, you never do

the bottom button up. If it's a two button suit, then you do the bottom button up. If it's a two-button suit, then you do the top button. And if it's a three-button suit, you sometimes do the top one? What? Yep. Keep going. This is ridiculous. So the rule is, sometimes top button, always middle button, never bottom button. And then if it's a two- two button suit, then it's...

Yep, that's the rule for a single-breasted suit jacket with three buttons. Like, your most common basic suit, that is the rule. Sometimes the top button, always the middle button, never the bottom button. It is not meant to be done up. Melissa, I prefer your answer. Thank you, Derek Guy on Twitter for telling me about suits. It's not something that you're generally taught, if you wear suits. You just have to kind of pick it up.

At some point someone has to nudge you and go, oh no, you're ruining the line of that suit. Undo the bottom button, you're not supposed to do that. It's not like you get a user manual with your suit that tells you to do that. Yeah, I mean, I've only ever worn two-button suits, really. Yeah. So the first time I wore a three-button suit, I was like, I had to Google it, be like, what do I do with this third button?

Yep. And the answer is, sometimes. Yeah, which wasn't helpful. Ha ha ha! Which means all that's left is the question I asked at the start. Thank you to Ava for sending this in. At a Chicago museum, some employees wear shirts with Avant written on the front. What's their job?

Go! I'll say that again. At a Chicago museum, some employees wear shirts with Avant written on the front. What's their job? I was too busy reading the question, I didn't notice what happened. I tried to answer. Sabrina tried to answer the question, but you didn't realise that you were going to repeat the question. But she shouted out what I assume is the answer, and she went,

God! I'm so sorry. It'll be funny if they weren't. Artists. Sabrina, you just want to give us that again? Guard! Yeah. Sabrina, what just want to give us that again? Guard! Yeah. Sabrina, what is their job and why?

Avant-garde, it's a fun little pun based off of a word that means like, it's at the forefront of a movement, I assume, which is what contemporary art is meant to represent and mean. So, it's a pun. So the guards all wear shirts that say Avant, because they're Avant guard. Yes, they are the security guards at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, as of 2016. They just had Avant on the front and guard on the back. That's so good.

I would hate to be a security guard there. Because you just ever, like, at some point your life becomes people visiting the museum and going, oh, that's really funny. And you go, yep. Yes, it is. Thank you. Move along. Congratulations to all of you, particularly Sabrina, for your enthusiasm on that last question. On that, let's find out where can people find you, what are you up to. Let's start with Sabrina. still corpseing. You know, you can find us at youtube.com forward slash answer in progress.

Taha, what can they find there? They can find YouTube videos. We make very interesting videos about all sorts of things, from why you're so tired to why expensive candles are so expensive. And all things in between. And Melissa, what are you working on at the moment? At the moment we're working on a video about Foley, we're working on a video about the recorder. Dark mode versus light mode? Question mark? Controversial? Curry? Curry?

And if you want to know more about this show you can do that at lateralcast.com where you can also send in your own ideas for questions. We are at Lateral Cast basically everywhere, and there are regular video highlights at youtube.com slash Lateral Cast. Thank you very much to Taha Khan. Meep. Melissa Fernandez. Bye, can we just be normal?

And Sabrina Cruz. I'm so sorry. I've been Tom Scott and that's been Lateral.