Lateral with Tom Scott - 11: Who uses the 10-08-42 rule?

Episode Date: December 23, 2022

Rowan Ellis, Vanessa Hill and Grady Hillhouse face questions about diehard disease, pill-popping performers, and ridiculous room numbers. 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://www.lateralcast.com. HOST: Tom Scott. QUESTION PRODUCER: David Bodycombe. RECORDED AT & EDITED BY: The Podcast Studios, Dublin. EDITOR: Julie Hassett. MUSIC: Karl-Ola Kjellholm ('Private Detective'/'Agrumes', courtesy of epidemicsound.com). ADDITIONAL QUESTIONS: Josh Halbur, Ben Justice, Lewis Tough, Arun Uttamchandani, Eglė Vaškevičiūtė. FORMAT: Pad 26 Limited/Labyrinth Games Ltd. EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS: David Bodycombe and Tom Scott. © Pad 26 Limited (https://www.pad26.com) / Labyrinth Games Ltd. 2022. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Which distilled alcoholic drink, when added to ice, becomes something a child could consume legally without any ill effects? The answer to that riddle at the end of the show. My name's Tom Scott and this is Lateral. I'm joined for the second time by three people who, between them, have more grey matter than 10,000 fairground hot dogs. We have, from Practical Engineering and his new book Engineering in Plain Sight, Grady Hillhouse.

Hi Tom. From her own YouTube channel and the Queer Movie Podcast, Rowan Ellis. Hello. From the YouTube channel BrainCraft, Vanessa Hill. Delightful to be here. Our brave three guests are on a quest to batter down the doors of Castle Incomprehension and prove themselves worthy knights of the lateral table. This time, sorry Rowan, we don't have swords and chainmail.

Oh, that's all right. I'll get over it. We start with, in 1935, the US bombed outside Hilo City, Hawaii for one week. Why? I'll give you that one more time. In 1935, the US bombed outside Hilo City, Hawaii for one week. Why? 1935. 1935 the u.s bombed outside hilo city hawaii for one week why 1935 1935 i feel like that's important is it i i'm not an expert in the history but i don't think there were any military

events at least major ones happening at that time yeah it'd be a few more years before uh hawaii got involved there and when we say outside the city that could be outside the city is like in the middle of nowhere on an island or it could be in the ocean outside the city i was just thinking of fish i don't know why i was just thinking of a lot of fish dying it made me sad oh the military was like we've got a problem and it's fish um we they're getting a little bit too big for their boots yeah some kind of aggressive whale but it was also for several how long did you say they were doing it for it's like a while a week a week yeah that's a that is a while chasing aasing a shark? With bums? I mean, I'd love to see the movie.

That's Jaws 5, that is. Oh, I hope not. I hope that's not it. Was it to avert some other issue? Yes. Because I feel like there's potentially tsunami or other types of underground earthquakes or things going on that potentially using a bomb would...

If disaster movies have told me anything, you can use a bomb to avert any natural disaster. And so I can only assume that that's correct in reality too. So you think there's a tsunami coming, so they drop a bomb and it just deflects it. Do they even know about tsunamis, like meteorologists in the 30s? I don't know. But I was thinking in the same vein, though, I mean, the Hawaiian islands are very volcanic. So maybe it's on that path. That makes sense.

Yeah. You've got it. Okay. There wasn't a sudden lightbulb moment there. Grady just kind of... Rowan mused about natural disasters. Grady mused about volcanoes. Yeah, you found it.

Geologists arranged for bombs to be dropped on a nearby volcano to slow down the flow of lava that was approaching Hilo City. How does it slow it down? It builds a massive trench, and that gets filled up instead of the lava continuing on. Interesting. Bombs, what can't they do? The answer to everything, bombs.

Yeah, this was, and the bombing runs were commanded by future General George S. Patton. So far before wartime, he was bombing a volcano, which, again, does sound like a really American solution. Yeah, that's fair. I think that's totally fair. It was later felt that the bombs weren't actually big enough to make a difference. This was the first time I think the geologists have ever tried it. So they thought, you know what, we'll see if we can dig a trench.

And Mauna Loa, which was the volcano, did actually stop erupting in time. But it didn't become enough of a problem to really test that. It seems so precarious dropping bombs onto an active volcano or an exploding volcano. I mean, presumably onto the slopes where the lava was heading to try and redirect it. I don't know what would happen if you... I feel like a volcano has more power than most bombs.

Yeah. What could possibly go wrong? I'm trying to get the orders of magnitude right in my head here, but I feel like bombing an actual volcano wouldn't do much other than melt the bomb. I mean, we will have to try it to find out there's like mythbusters episode coming up soon tom's new tv show bombing everything i mean i would i mean honestly i i would happily do that but if anyone with a large

budget wants to come along and just suggest that i fly over and bomb things. I am 100% happy to do that. But yes, the US bombed outside Hilo City, Hawaii, for one week in 1935 to try and stop a volcanic eruption taking out Hilo City. We now hand over to one of our guests, and as ever, I don't know their question, I don't know their answer. This is as much a mystery to me as it will be to everyone else, hopefully to you at home. We're going to start this time with Grady. Give us your question, please. This is a simple one, so think hard.

What kind of company uses the 10-8-42 rule in its advertising? I'll say that one more time. What kind of company uses the 10-8-42 rule in its advertising. 10-8-42 in advertising? Not manufacturing? What is 10... What is the 10-8-42 rule? Does anyone have any ideas? I'm immediately trying to do like... Is this like a...

I'm trying to decipher this like it's some kind of code. Like, okay, well, the 10th letter of the alphabet is J. The 8th is... The 42nd is... Yeah, that is where it fell apart that is that is absolutely where it fell apart unfortunately all i've got is j which is not really not really great um so i guess it's is there anything that is 42 of something like is there something that's because if it was something like 24 7 is obviously like okay so that's 24 hours 7 days things like that um because normally when there's three it's dimensions but i don't know whether that would there's anything with the dimensions could it be

a date like 10 8 42 would be i mean depending on the, so it's either 10th of August or 8th of... Wow, my brain just blanked on the 10th month of the year. So I'm... Only two months before Pearl Harbor. Okay, right, maybe. We've got a lot of Hawaiian bombing content in this episode, is all I'm saying. Very specific.

10-8-42. So specific. 10, 8, 40. So, I mean, I don't know anything that happened that year that would... I can't think of anything specific on that date that comes to mind. For advertising in particular. Yeah. It kind of seems too early for advertising rules. I mean, we all know just by way of smoking ads that nothing really happened in the advertising industry

until the 80s or 90s. This is a specific Japanese company. Ooh. Is it Hiroshima? Why is there so much bombing in my brain right now? But is that like... 10, 8, 42. That adds adds up to 60 so if you've got a one minute advert it could be like 10 seconds of something then eight seconds of something and

then 42 seconds of something but i don't know why you would follow that rule or wow okay um now it's japanese sorry yeah i was gonna say if it's American then it's any pharmaceutical company because they have 10 seconds of naming it 8 seconds of promoting and then 42 seconds of disclaimers

about the many ways in which it will kill you side effects include death that's a clever I think you're on a clever path Tom but you're not on the right path

that's that's a wonderful way of telling me wrong. Thank you, Greg. That smoothed it over very nicely. So I'm thinking if it's a Japanese company, I'm just trying to think of types of Japanese companies.

You have car makers, which are really popular Japanese companies, lots of great Japanese cars. You've got cameras, electronics. So why would there be that rule for those types of companies? The rival manufacturers of this specific company use similar but not identical numbers. Are we looking for a kind of company or a company here? You're looking for a kind of company, but there is a specific Japanese company that uses the 10-8-42 rule. And there's other companies within this kind of company that use similar but not identical numbers.

So is it a ratio of something to something else? Is it... Do the numbers even matter that much, Grady? The first two numbers do matter quite a bit. Well, I'll say the first number matters quite a bit, the second number less so, and the third number even less. It's a rare hint that makes us more confused. Yeah, like is it 10 hours and 8 minutes and 42 seconds? You're on to something there.

I'll say that. 10 hours, 8 minutes, 42 seconds. Is it a time? I was just thinking that. It's like 10 o'clock. The best time to advertise to people is exactly... At 10pm? Because is Japan like China where they work 9 to 9?

So they're watching TV at 10? Who knows? Japanese TV schedules aren't usually to round numbers of minutes. Or at least they weren't a few years ago. It may have changed since I read this a while back. But they sort of had a battle over when particular shows would go out. So one channel would try and preempt the other shows by two minutes. And then the next one would try by one minute.

So the TV schedules just ended up on arbitrary numbers throughout the day. Is it a superstition thing? Is this a time, Grady? Is this like an actual plot? Yes. Okay. So you're right that it's a time, but you haven't quite landed on the type of company

that uses this time in their advertising. Oh, but God, it's a watch manufacturer. Yep. Oh. That makes so much sense. It's the time they point the hands to on the watch. Oh my gosh. Because 1008-42 means you've got two,

you've got that thing that you see in all the, like back when the Argos catalogue was a thing, which is a reference that isn't going to land for a lot of the audience, but like you would see the lineup of watches. They would all be put to roughly 1008 because it looks aesthetically pleasing. So you leave the second hand at about 42, just kind of create a balanced image. Is that right? That feels... You're exactly right, Tom. This actually is to do a Seiko. Oh, amazing. So what's the time that the competitors use?

time that the competitors use? So there's a few other watch manufacturers. Timex uses 10.09.36. Rolex uses 10.10.31. And even HTC phones use on digital clocks used to show 2.08 and Apple watches show 10.09 on their ads. Wow. So everyone kind of has their own rule that they follow that's so interesting and the and the thing on the on the watches the analog watches is it also reveals the logo which is dead center top dead yeah just frames it neatly i spent so much time just staring at my watch trying to imagine what this looks like and it would look good as soon as you were saying about a time like I'm so used to digital clocks that I did not even think about an analog clock like I was literally thinking about uh kind of the the numbers literally being on the screen yeah so I wrote down on my notes that

the time as as a as a string because of course i did it's not like i doodled a clock i i've sort of i haven't forgotten how to tell the time but it's been so long since i've had to rely on analog clocks that i've sort of lost that instinctive ability to glance at a clock and know what time it is so the kind of company that uses the 10-8-42 rule in its advertising is a watch manufacturer, and in this case it was specifically Seiko that uses those exact numbers in its ads. Next one's from me. Here we go, folks. At the end of the 19th century, a certain tradition became popular in the US. This directly caused an increase in tetanus cases, and the cases were called patriotic tetanus.

What caused it? I'll give you that again. At the end of the 19th century, a certain tradition became popular in the US. This directly caused an increase in tetanus cases. Such cases were often called patriotic tetanus. What caused it? Just, there's two words in there that have multiple pronunciations, and no matter how I say it, people are going to be angry at me that I either said patriotic tetanus or patriotic tetanus.

And just please hold your emails and complaints. I do not care. So, yes, patriotic tetanus at the end of the 19th century. Grady, was there a point in American history where people started shooting themselves with metal bullets? With rusty knives. With rusty metal bullets. Not that I can recall, but I won't rule it out.

I was like, yeah, what kind of stuff is patriotic in America? Like stabbing yourself with a flag? Like what's the, what kind of stuff might be seen that way? Oh man, we could be here all day i mean there's a lot of stereotypes we can roll with uh but honestly this is a stereotype question and you're not too far away people are having their skin broken by rusty stuff oh is it tattoos is it like a tattoo of the flag or like a tattoo of an eagle or something like that Is it like a tattoo of the flag or like a tattoo of an eagle or something like that?

Not in this case, unfortunately. That would have been cool. Grady, what was happening in that time period? What was it? The turn of the 19th century? End of the 19th century. Oh, end of the, yeah. Cowboys. Oh, you're asking an engineer history questions.

Yeah, but big, like, skin-cutting history questions. Do you know why I said skin-cutting? I could have phrased that a lot better. I want to be careful. Like, skin-penetrating sounded worse. It does sound worse. It did. Yeah.

Oh, my gosh. Something people are doing to themselves or to other people. But if it's patriotic tetanus, oh my gosh, that is difficult to say. It's really difficult to say. Is it the person who's being penetrated? I think it is the penetratee. In this case, there is not necessarily any link between... This could have happened to innocent bystanders. This continues to get worse every time I add a hint. But yes, this could affect innocent bystanders.

Could it be shrapnel? Is this another bomb question? What is it with shrapnel? Yeah, that's... Is this another bomb question? Is there... Why? What is it with you and bombs? Specifically American bomb questions, apparently. Oh, is it a fireworks thing? I was wondering about fireworks, but what's coming out of fireworks?

Different kinds of metal, I suppose. At the end of the 19th century, yeah, not particularly well-constructed fireworks is actually the right answer. You are entirely right that this is a second US bombing question in the same thing, which in hindsight, I should have probably not put in the same show. Yeah, I don't want to say amateur fireworks, but certainly poorly constructed fireworks might not go up all the way, might not explode properly, would send shrapnel shards out to the bystanders and people would get tetanus from fourth of july fireworks celebrations incredible yeah i love how that like i don't know who came up with the idea of it being like patriotic tetanus they weren't like this is

horrific we must stop this they're like you love america so much tetanus for america we must keep the fireworks dibs on patriotic tetanus as a band name that's pretty great it's good yes patriotic tetanus or patriotic tetanus depending on how you want to pronounce it uh was a common way to get tetanus on July the 4th at the end of the late 19th century, thanks to some very dodgy fireworks. Next question comes from Rowan. So Vanessa, Grady and me, good luck to us all. Let's see what you've got. It's rumoured that the legendary soul singer Jackie Wilson consumed handfuls of tablets to make the show better. But what were the tablets for?

Handfuls of tablets, not one or two tablets, a handful. Handfuls. Also, I've got to be honest, I am not sure who Jackie Wilson is. I feel like I should know that. Same here. You do not need to know. All right. Are there tablets that can change the pitch of your voice?

Oh, can you get helium tablets? I just feel like that'd be funny if you could. That's just... They just steadily effervesce in your stomach and give off helium, and just it's a steady... No, that wouldn't work. That would just make your belches higher pitched. Yeah.

Although now I want to try swallowing helium to see what happens. Great idea for a video there's just so many different drugs that it could be i feel like there's got to be something that like makes yeah i'm really getting caught up on the word better because it's so subjective right like if they're sleeping tablets and he falls asleep is that better for some people who knows i'm getting caught up on the word handfuls. I know some countries still have the big pill bottles where you can just kind of shake a load of pills out, but I don't think... I mean, it's not going to be something that's massively psychoactive,

because you just can't... Like anything that's got an overdose potential, it's not going to be that surely. So our mind has automatically gone to a tablet that you can consume, but is there a different type of tablet or something that we're not thinking of? I mean, there's that. Isn't tablet some northern British, like British sugar snack thing? I can't remember the name of it. I think it's called Tablet.

I think there's something- It is called Tablet, but that isn't the answer. But I would have loved it if, to make the show better, this soul singer was like, it was Northern Soul, and they were like, let's get some Tablet. I mean, it does say consumed handfuls of Tablet, so you do assume that's something that yeah they're eating i i've just learned to be so wary of every word in these questions yes like it's it's it's consumed it's not

eaten is that important i don't know maybe maybe the question writer just just deliberately chose that maybe maybe the question writer deliberately chose that maybe it's it's just it just sounds better i don't know i'm just i'm just so wary of everything in these it has to be something like something that they can safely consume like like antacid tablets or something relatively benign to physiology yeah homeopathic pills because have you ever seen that pills i've seen that stunt done on stage um james randy who's but the late late lamented james randy uh used to do a stunt and i've seen it live done on stage. James Randi, the late lamented James Randi, used to do a stunt, and I've seen it live once, where he would bring a pill bottle on stage, like, literal, he's bought this, it's a genuine pill bottle, unseals it, takes the

wrapping off, and over the course of the first minute of his lecture, just steadily downs the entire bottle of pills, and they're homeopathic pills, so they don't do anything, they're just chalk and a bit of sugar, and they might giveopathic pills. So they don't do anything. They're just chalk and a bit of sugar, and they might give them mild indigestion, and that's it. And it's a wonderful demonstration. Wait, they weren't placebos, were they? Like, someone gave Jackie Wilson, like, magical voice-changing pills, and he sung so much better,

and then it turns out the magic was inside him all along. Oh, my goodness. Oh, Tan, that's so sweet. I would have loved that to have been true, but no. And in fact, these tablets did not affect his voice. Oh. Okay. But they did affect something.

Maybe it was the dancing. Maybe he had some kind of ailment and he was taking a lot of pills to be able to move. They also were not medicinal tablets. And like throat lozenges count as medicinal so it's not and they'd affect his voice i'm gonna be angry about this because this is one of those things where you where your brain's not indexed the right way like you can't just list off all the tablets you know of that don't fit the categories medicinal or voice changing um so this is not something that just jackie wilson did um but the reason why it applies specifically to

jackie wilson is that he was nicknamed mr excitement due to his very high energy shows that was part of what made his shows like so for people. Were they just sugar pills? Just to get him hyperactive and enthused? What about caffeine pills? You're on the right track with this kind of idea of connecting them together. Not quite the right type of pills. I mean, I did say ecstasy earlier, and I just feel like we we

moved away from that slightly too quickly perhaps i'm now struggling for a second uh upper and you can tell how exciting my life is by the fact that i cannot think of any i but i mean even if you had some kind of amphetamine is that does count as medicinal? You wouldn't want to down handfuls of them. Yeah. I also get the feeling that illegal amphetamines are normally consumed some other way than that. I'm going back to your helium idea. What other substance could be packaged into a tablet?

I'd love to have some of those tablets right now. They're not like diuretics. So he was forced to hop about because he really needs to pee. No, but I love where your mind is going. I don't. I hate where my mind is going. I'm really getting caught up on the medicinal thing because I feel like almost everything that you could ingest that's a tablet could somehow be categorized as that.

Is this a first question where the entire panel just gives up? I don't know. If you want, I can give you the final clue. Yeah. Please. We need it. I come at your question with a question for my question, which is what might an audience expect to see as a result of Jackie Wilson's impassioned dance moves?

Oh, they made him sweat. Are there pills that can make you sweat? Why would you want to take so many pills that would make you sweat? This was why when Vanessa was like, I would love some of those pills. I was like like you would not vanessa no i would not they gave him hyperhidrosis so he looked like he was way more enthusiastic and way more there yeah it's um salt tablets and he did salt tablets to make him sweat which is uh

someone with hyperhidrosis uh i'm like, cool, good to know I will never be taking those. That's already too, I already have that a bit too much. Yeah, so Wilson decided that his largely female audiences wanted to see him sweat on stage and so used the salt tablets accordingly. And supposedly, when I said that there were other people who had tried this trick, Jackie Wilson gave the same tip to Elvis Presley so that he could do the same thing on stage when he was performing wow nothing like a sweaty man did jackie wilson die of high blood pressure and a stroke or something like that because that is a lot of salt to be taking to make you sweat i didn't even know that was a that was a connection you had um so potentially uh because in i all i know is that in the um the the wikipedia section for him

the fact that he took a lot of salt pills is under the section illness and death right okay quite possibly the joke is true it just really feels like you could have some kind of fake sweat that is just a liquid you know that you're like applying to yourself rather than taking a tablet just just build a rig just build a rig that just kind of steadily drips water out of your forehead from the audience much much healthier way of doing that so it turns out if you want to be known as Mr. Excitement uh you can down a lot of salt pills on stage to make you sweat, which is exactly what Jackie Wilson did during his performances. The last big question from me then,

we've got one to come from our guests and then the audience question, but the last big one from me is, I promise, not about the US bombing anywhere. Mostly. From August the 8th to 11thth 2019, the largest convention of its type was held in Las Vegas. The attendance fee was $300 cash. You couldn't buy tickets online beforehand and no other form of payment was acceptable. What was the conference about and why was it so inflexible? I'll give you that one more time. From August 8th to 11th 2019, the largest convention of

its type was held in Las Vegas. The attendance fee was 300 us dollars cash you couldn't buy tickets online beforehand and no other form of payment was acceptable what was the conference about and why was it so inflexible i mean maybe something to do with like security or like not being tracked or something like that like you could only pay in cash no conspiracy theory con oh yeah only in las vegas august 8 to 11 2019 it's actually not there it's actually that's a false flag it's actually being held in new york three days later but only for the people who know i mean i don't necessarily think vegas is particularly relevant in that vegas is like a massive convention town so i I don't necessarily think Vegas is particularly relevant in that Vegas is like a massive convention town. So I don't necessarily think that's a clue.

It's not COVID related because this is right. It's 2019. Pre-COVID. Unless the conspiracy theories were correct for the convention. Is that convention where COVID was created? Oh, wow. I've gone down the rabbit hole. I'm really sorry.

This podcast just had all its advertising taken away. Because it can't just be the idea of like the cash was available as an option because the idea is you had to pay in cash and you couldn't pay online in advance. So it's not just trying to be like

accessible to people who couldn't have bank accounts or something like that. Like it's specifically that cash was needed i wonder i'm just thinking of communities that are cash only like if it's in the u.s is it some kind of like armish type thing hasidic jewish type thing communities that don't rely on technology as much as we do for religious reasons yeah but i wouldn't think they would gather in las vegas exactly another cash only industry in the u.s is marijuana actually or at least to a certain

extent because most major banks won't work with since it's a federal since it's federally illegal but legal in some states most of the major banks won't won't help the marijuana industry and so that was one idea i was thinking about yeah or or kind of on a similar vein anything that they wouldn't want some kind of paper trail to or some someone who needed to get that cash fast? I mean, you might have been on to something with the first idea, Rowan, which was security. There's a big conference called DEF CON that happens in the summer. Incredible name.

I wonder if it's... You need to be a little bit... Every time, Grady, that you nail an answer, you say it in such a I wonder maybe way that I never get a chance to go yes and get excited about it. You just kind of pass the answer by, you wave at it as you go by. Yeah, you're absolutely right.

It's DEF CON. It was DEF CON. What is that? It's a hacker conference in Las Vegas. I don't know very much about it, except that, yeah, it's DEF CON. It was DEF CON. What is that? It's a hacker conference in Las Vegas. I don't know very much about it, except that, yeah, it's a hacker conference that happens every summer. I know they always have really cool name badges that have some gadgetry or electronics,

but that's the extent of my knowledge about it. And the most hostile Wi-Fi network in the world. You just want to keep your phone in airplane mode anywhere near the convention hotel because someone will have set up a spoof cell tower and a spoof Wi-Fi thing nearby. It is an enormous conference. And their words,

they don't want to be a target of any state or federal fishing expeditions because every summer, there'll be a glut of news stories that come out about, yep, someone's found a way to just tap into this ATM and get all the money out of it. Yep, someone's found a way to hack your car so it just drives on its own now. Those stories all come out of DEF CON, and a lot of folks who go do not want the paper trail that they were there.

Wow. That's fascinating. So is it cash only every year, or was 2019 a specific thing? Good question. Don't know. I believe that's fascinating. So is it cash only every year or was 2019 a specific? Good question. Don't know. I believe that's every year. The reason we said 2019 is that since then, it's not been the largest convention of its type because we're still coming out of COVID and the big conventions haven't happened yet. But yes, it was the biggest hacker convention in the world, DEF CON at Las Vegas. Good knowledge there, Grady.

Wow. That's fascinating. It must be so hard to organize something like that. Well, it's interesting. The only reason I know about Defcon is because my publisher, who focuses mainly on coding books, was there and had my book on the table and it got stolen. They had one copy. And so you could go on twitter to my publisher and see them asking if anyone knows where this book went at defcon that's that's not hacking

that's just outright theft that's just yeah exactly you don't you don't get to steal someone's book and go i've hacked you that's not that's not how that works not how hacking works yeah so there's 25 copies that exist and one of them is location unknown. Time for our last guest question of the show then. Vanessa, this one's on you. Okay. So a sign outside a hotel room has a plus one at the end of it. Why? Oh, I hate these short questions. You want the clues in the question. A sign outside a hotel room has a plus one at the end of it.

Why? Okay, so our brains automatically, when it says a sign outside a hotel room, it's like, oh yeah, so the sign that is the number of the door, but that's not necessarily the sign that it is. Yeah, it could be a do not disturb or the evacuation things that tell you where to go. Yes. I was thinking country code on US phone numbers. A lot of times it's written plus one, but i don't think that's probably it you're

gonna have this this is the hotel for the stars of the eurovision song contest and for some reason they've been indexed by country code that's uh i mean the obvious one being plus one is in like a plus one invitation or a plus one to the room in terms of like there's someone else in this room on top of who is normally there yes although so could that be for fire safety or something like that like you you need to tell rescuers there's one more person but it's not like fire it's not like the fire brigade gets a an index of who's in each room they just go and knock on each door and see if anyone's in like all of the beautiful short questions i wouldn't think about this too deeply. That's more simple.

That's fine. I can definitely not think about this too deeply. Just smooth brain thoughts. That's what we're looking for here. I was thinking about superstitions, like if there was a room that ended in 13, maybe instead of writing 613, they would write 612 plus one. Is it definitely plus one and not just like line, line, line, that looks like a plus one? That would be so cruel.

It's a really, really badly drawn H. It is definitely a plus one. But I feel like if you were superstitious and you saw 612 plus one, you'd know what they're doing. That brings attention. That brings more attention to it. Sorry, I just realized that I was staying in like room 414 the other day.

And now that was probably room 13. It probably was. Okay, I'll give you a hint because I think Grady, as always, is on the right track. It is a room number. Okay, it's give you a hint because I think Grady, as always, is on the right track. It is a room number. Okay, it's a room number. The sign is for a room number. Okay, is that the whole room number? It's adding on to something, or?

The sign is the room number. So the final room number requires some addition. Like, this is not relevant to the question. I just haven't had a space to rant about this like they they put the room numbers so i was in like it was something like four two three which was written as number four number two word three t-h-r-e-e which interesting like you okay you're in room 43 and then you get there you get to the fourth floor and it says, yeah, room 400 to this. Your brain just completely faults.

You have to like do mental juggling to try and work out what the sign is telling you. This isn't relevant to the question. I was just angry about it. Architects, who needs them? That's interior designers, Grady. I mean, I was going to say, like, if they change the rooms of the hotel and they were now two rooms, but they'd already numbered them. But I feel like you would just put B, like room A, room B,

or something like that with the same number, rather than just like plus one. This isn't Hilbert's Hotel, is it? This isn't that thing with the infinite hotel where an infinite number of mathematicians arrive and they all have to move down one. It doesn't specify what hotel it is, but no, it's not that one. Grady, you had a thought immediately

before I went off on my rant about room numbers. Sorry, I don't... I mean, Grady probably knows and he'll just casually introduce this and it will just be correct. Well, my idea doesn't shake out because my thought was maybe maybe a room site could only have a certain number of digits and so they couldn't like roll over to them to it but then if you could add a plus one to it you would have

enough room to add another digit so that doesn't make any sense yeah i feel like they'd go to like room 4 100 before they went to like room 499 plus 1. Right. I used to live in an apartment building where the floors were letters and the apartments were numbers. And I find it so confusing. Who wants to live on floor C in apartment 8? Oh, wait, that way round. You weren't on like C3, not C3.

Oh, oh, yeah. So all the other rooms in the hotel don't share this feature. This is unique to one room. A single room. Is it like two rooms? It's like a suite or something like that where there's... Where they added a divider wall. Or there's a kid's room inside it.

And so it's got a second room you can book. It's just a nesting doll of words when you walk in the door inside the room there's another room then another room then a doll's house and then a mouse hole yeah yeah i think we can all agree that this is bad notation whether yeah yeah well maybe maybe this turns out to be really logical once we actually get yeah that's true so the reason that this is done is to prevent the sign from being stolen oh okay yeah this is i it's a 68 plus one or it's 419 plus one it's one of these one of you has said the correct answer which one is it so i know that the uh street sign for like mile 420 of some highway in the u.s keeps getting stolen they've changed it to 419.9 which also now keeps getting stolen um

so i'm i'm gonna put my money on 420 grady rowan where are you you know what i'm sticking with my 168 grady's gonna have to be the deal breaker oh man i'm sorry tom but i think wait no i'm going to i'm going to time because most hotels i feel like have three numbers also as their which hotel is this that has to do that it actually doesn't say what hotel it is but i can finally reveal that the room says 419 plus one to stop people stealing a sign that says 420 on it. Amazing. Amazing. And I'm sure it doesn't work just like the road sign doesn't work. Well, interestingly, this road sign that Tom was speaking about is in Stratton, Colorado, and it marks mile 420. But now it says mile 419.99.

It's on Interstate 70, but it's been stolen since 2017, the 419.99 sign. Now it's more novel than a 420 sign. Yeah. So the 420 comes from 420 friendly, which means a recreational use of marijuana, and it comes from a group of California high school students allegedly who would meet at 420 4.20pm to get high.

One last thing on the agenda then, which is the riddle. I'm not even going to say this as a question. I read this and I was just annoyed by it. The riddle that I asked the audience at the start of the show, which is, which type of distilled alcoholic drink, when added to ice, becomes something a child could consume legally without any ill effects? Before I make you all angry with the answer, does anyone have any suggestions on what that might have been? I mean, is being drunk an ill effect? Because sometimes it's pretty fun. Do you need your child to sleep and have you very little ethics? You've got a solution there. It depends on the amount of ice, right? Very little ethics. You've got a solution there.

It depends on the amount of ice, right? No, absolutely not. You're just adding it to ice. Dry ice or normal ice? Just ice. Are you freezing some kind of alcohol that would freeze? So they're not actually drinking it? It's a riddle. It's very much a sideways look at this. You are adding distilled alcoholic drink to ice. this you are you are adding distilled alcoholic drink to ice which means you're adding liquor to ice which means you're making licorice and wow yeah i did warn you that's a stretch yeah

it really is but that is our show thank you to everyone for getting through that juggernaut of US bombing questions. Vanessa, tell the world what's going on in your life, please. You can find me on YouTube or TikTok, against my better judgment, as BrainCraft. I make videos on psychology and habits and sleep. Rowan. Yeah, I'm on YouTube as Rowan Ellis. I make videos about LGBTQ plus history and culture and have a book out called Hearing Queer. And Grady. I make videos about infrastructure on a YouTube channel called

Practical Engineering. And I have a book coming out in November called Engineering in Plain Sight. And that is us for the day. If you want to send in an idea for a question or you want to know more about the show, you can do that at lateralcast.com. You can find us at Lateral Cast on basically everywhere. And you can catch video highlights at youtube.com slash lateralcast. Thank you very much to Rowan Ellis. Farewell. Vanessa Hill. Thank you.

Grady Hillhouse. Thank you, Tom. I'm Tom Scott, and this has been Lateral.