Lateral with Tom Scott - 168: Removing the roof

Episode Date: December 26, 2025

Michelle Wong and Dani Siller & Bill Sunderland from 'Escape this Podcast' face questions about Soviet spats, spot situations and spoiled science. 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: CherimoyaZest, Vasilii Popov, Owen T., Ben, Ghostbear, Conall Knight. FORMAT: Pad 26 Limited/Labyrinth Games Ltd. EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS: David Bodycombe and Tom Scott. © Pad 26 Limited (https://www.pad26.com) / Labyrinth Games Ltd. 2025. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In what non-medical location might you see vomits, nosebleeds, and spots? The answer to that? At the end of the show, my name's Tom Scott, and this is Lateral. On today's show, we have three players from the continent of Australia, a land of big skies, big barbecues, and even bigger opinions. But that's enough bigging up with the guests, let's get on and meet them. we start returning from Lab Muffin Beauty Science, Michelle Wong. Welcome back to the show. Thank you for having me.

Last time you got some really good solves in on your first show. How are you feeling? Well, now I'm intimidated, but I was confident three seconds ago. Thanks, Scott. Oh, did I call you Scott? I called you Scott because I'm looking at your name. Well, you deserve that. You deserve that.

Thank you very much for coming back on the show. What's going on with the channel? What are you working on at the minute? The usual, terrible, long video editing life. Oh, yeah. The curse of the video essayist. Yeah, I am turning into a video essayist now. Yeah, it's become video essays about beauty, which apparently there is an audience for.

Yes, there's an audience for a lot of things that are far more niche than making sure you look good. And on that note. Also, from Australia, and here since the first episode, Danny Seller from Escape This Podcast, welcome back. As niches they come, I feel. Thank you so much. What is the nichest escape room you've had on the podcast? I'm probably going to say, I mentioned it last time we were on, that I recently, for National Science Week, wrote a room that was all centered around

the idea of goat genetics, where you have to interpret some goat family trees and find out some genetic fraud that has gone on in the species. I realised a moment later that you said centred, as in like, with an R in there. Revolving around. Yes. Sented. As in, no. A goat-scented room.

Goat genetic centred room. That's even worse. Also joining us, the other half of Escape This podcast, Bill Sunderland, welcome back to the show. I'm excited to be back. When you started talking about all the big things in Australia, I thought you were going to talk about the fact that we have a whole cultural landscape of big things. things in Australia as you drive around. The big merino and the big prawn and the big banana and the big pineapple.

It's just what we do. I've seen the big pineapple. It's a big pineapple. I've seen the big penguin. Have you seen The Big Pooh? No. Don't worry. Do you want to?

Not really. Is it in your house? Prorn, though. The big prawn is pretty good. At some point, could you do a big escape room? Like an escape room themed around the big thing. We probably could. and easily, definitely accept that I'm writing it down now.

The benefit of the audio escape room medium is we can say, all right, you're in a really big space. It's like 100 kilometres wide, and it's just as true as it would be if we said they were in a small room. Well, best of luck to all three players today, and before we get into an argument about whether penguin biscuits or Tim Tams are better,

we'll start the cultural exchange that is question one. Thank you to Ghost Bear for this question. In the Netherlands, Beatrix is choosing between a goat saying, and a sheep saying, hola, below each one are up to five black circles. What do the circles mean? I'll say that again. In the Netherlands, Beatrix is choosing between a goat saying chow

and a sheep saying hola. Below each one are up to five black circles. What do the circles mean? All right. Michelle, how are your farm animals? Pretty good. I actually went to an agricultural high school. Oh, that works.

Off the recording, I asked what high school you went to, I didn't get an answer, but I know the answer now. There's only one. There's actually four. Yeah, so, well, I know we had sheep, but we didn't have goats because they smelled too much. But, I mean, you just did a goat genetics escape room. I know everything about the goat smells. Sorry, it's taking me this long as the Brit to go, I'm sorry, agricultural high school? Oh, yeah.

Yeah, it's a very strange Australian thing where, um, One of the biggest nerdy high schools, like traditionally, it was agricultural. And so all these nerds, including me, little 12-year-old nerds just go to this high school. And they've just done maths and then they see a sheep. And the teachers take great joy in making us touch the sheep. Someone has to put a hand up a cow's butt. Really? That's so cool. Well, it's also year seven.

So everyone's trying to, everyone's like nervous at this new school. so the nerdiest kids all like really want to be the person to put the hand in there and touch the cow and make sure its head is in the right spot and stuff it's it's really bizarre but we did learn a lot about sheep that's so cool you have to stand in a row and you shake your hands and then they that's hurting sheep they run away from you so when you don't have a sheep dog you just do this in a row and you all have to be very short I guess I'm not sure that makes a difference well I don't know a huge amount about dealing with sheep and goats. Black circles, on the other hand,

surely we can deal with that. Oh, you're an ex-a-old. Oh, absolutely. Initially, I heard the name Beatrix and I was going, oh, I don't care if that's a common name. I'm assuming that this is about Beatrix Potter because we're talking about animals. So I'm thinking paper. So I'm thinking black circles on paper. Oh, there's a Morse code going on here. That can probably go up to five dots. Beyond that, appropriately enough, I have dot, dot, dot, dot, dot in my head. I don't know what's happening next. Again, there's clearly like language stuff going on, right? We have both the fact that this is happening in the Netherlands,

whether we're speaking Dutch or Flemish. Dutch? No, that's Belgium. Get what they're close. They're speaking Dutch. They love to hear that. Let's offend as many European countries as possible. I don't think, but also I don't think they're like explicitly don't like hearing it.

I don't know if that's a longstanding feud. Flemish, I think it's just me being. dumb. So they're speaking Dutch. Then we have two animals, so we could have the words for those animals or the sound they make in, because every language has its own sounds that animals make. Cats say, meep, in some language, somewhere. And then the animals themselves are speaking Spanish or Italian? Italian and Spanish. Chow and holla. Chow and So maybe it's about not the word, but like, the Dutch word for goat is the same as their word for Italy.

Oh, Godland. You don't really think of goats when you think of Italy, do you? Not as you don't. Maybe you do, because, like, sheep, Spain, wasn't there like the golden fleece or something? I might be mixing five countries. The gold fleece was Greece. We're jumping all over Europe together. Yeah.

So surely there's a language element to it, right? It'd be strange for a Dutch goat to say chow. Yeah, hello and bonjour are also available. Initially, I was hoping that there'd be as many dots as letters, and there's some highlight which ones are written, but there's five dots, four letters for holler. It's set up to five dots, didn't it? Oh, that's interesting.

It's almost like a score. It is. Score's not the right word, but yes, that's more towards it. Rate this goat one out of five? Rate my pet. Yes, a rating, I think, would be a thing here. Maybe not like how good it is, but certainly how something it is. How correct it is.

How many... The cow is also common here. Cow is probably the most common. The most common. Is it cheese related? Yes, it is, Danny. Interesting. Where did that come from?

I really like cheese, and you have listed most of the animals. Whose cheese I have eaten? Yes. So goat cheese comes from Italy. And sheep cheese comes from Spain. This particular one does. Where might we be seeing these animals and circles? Are they in a supermarket?

Labelling the cheeses or a deli? Yes. These are on the labels for the cheeses. And is it a rating of firmness of cheese? Or like how aged they are? Or age of cheese? That's it. That's the last thing. Really?

It's the strength of the cheese. This is the Dutch supermarket picnic who put labels on their cheese. The animal indicates the type of cheese. The language indicates the country of origin and the dots are the strength or the age of the cheese. You are absolutely right.

That came from nowhere. Well done. I love that you get a little bit of language education as you scarf it down. Yeah, the label is just an outline of a cow with a speech bubble that says, Bonjour, and one dot underneath because it's mild. We'll go to our players for a question, and we'll start today with Michelle whenever you're ready. This question has been sent in by Chera Moyer's zest. A scarf's knitting pattern uses 20% red, 60% white, and 20% black. A few extra colours might be used before the red.

However, the design can't be appreciated while the scarf is worn. Why? I'll say that again. A scarf's knitting pattern uses 20% red, 60% white, and 20% black. A few extra colours might be used before the red. However, the design can't be appreciated while the scarf is. is worn. Why? Because if it's too worn, the colours will have faded away.

Hey! That's it. We're done. Next question. Trying to draw it, which is not easy when you only have a lead pencil. Yeah, I've got one colour of pen here. But we know the percentages that are in there. We don't know the pattern at all. Not, which presumably will be very relevant.

What, it was 20% red, 60% white, and then another 20% black? Black. But then it said that a couple of other colors might be used before the red, which does sound like we've got sort of an ordering to it, which is curious. What is this imitating? This has to be a pattern of a thing that appears somewhere else in the world. My first thought of something that you wouldn't be able to notice as easily if the scarf was being worn, because you would wrap it around yourself to wear it. But if you spayed it out, what if it was, well, I was going to say something stupid, like, what if it 1-1 from Mario

like people very often reference the first level of Super Mario Brothers, Super Mario 1-1, and so you could do that whole thing as one long horizontal strip of the full level. What if it's the bayou tapestry? If you extend it, you're like look, there's, he's being shot in

the eye with an arrow, but if you wrap it up, it's like it's just a mixture of colours, you can't quite tell. Orientation seems to matter. That's a good guess but I feel like there's more colours in the by your tapestry. Yeah, the colours here are

red, white, and black. So, what's black and white and red all over? It's a newspaper. Like, the red is the tabloid red title at the top, and the rest is newsprint somehow. And the other colours are

maybe if they had a photo on the front page. Yeah, yeah. I do like the idea of going into this mosaic vibe of you've got to lay it out and then walk really far back to be able to appreciate it. It's one of those magic eye puzzles. Oh, no, I can't do those.

Yeah. Surely there's something, some image that we know collectively as a trio. You definitely know it. There's red, white and black. Or black, white and red. The bit with the order of colours was a good place to go down. Well, yeah, as soon as we started listing colours in an order, I was thinking of flags, but the ratios are unusual for flags, as is the, and maybe there's some other colours.

design is usually don't appreciate that. Usually you know the colors in a flag. Red like a sunset. White, like the white sands of the Atacama Desert and black like something. There are football scarves as well,

which have team logos or something like that. So you have to hold it up to get message out. But I don't see that as like white, black and red. Like, there are definitely teams with those colours, but 60% white. Well, if it was about a sports team colours, then I would hope that Michelle would have enough tact to say,

you might know this and not you do know this image. I've been assuming that these are, I mean, I don't know how to describe it as horizontal or, like, they could be latitudinal. Like, as you move down the long part of the scarf. Oh, like it's red for a while. and then it's white for even longer, and then eventually it's black at the end. Oh, that was how I drew it.

Yeah, but you could flip that 90 degrees. As you draw the scarf out horizontally, it could be red at the top, then white, then black at the bottom. Yeah, I think I was picturing the latter. Which would be, that would be a white centre with red on one side, black on the other side. But that, like, that would be just as noticeable worn as it would be not worn, right? No one's like, is that red, white and black? Oh, my gosh, it is. You took it off, and now I know that it is.

Like, it can't just be three blocks of colour. That's just as interpretable when you're wearing the scarf, yes. Or not. There's got to be some, like, if you... Are we going famous... Is it a mosaic of some sort of a famous artwork? That's all I've got in my head right now, and I can't think of what famous artwork is primarily red, black and white.

It is actually blocks, like Bill said. Oh, okay. Oh, okay, so it's a Mondrian painting. Gotcha. So it's in, like, for a while it's just red, and then for a while it's just white? Yeah. So think about if you're not wearing the scarf,

how might you arrange the scarf? You could fold. They actually have it like folded, like a mad magazine folding effect is happening rather than circled around a neck. Or just hanging up from its centre? Keep going. Okay, so you've got it hanging on the washing line

or hanging, or like, hung up half it. So it's white down both. sides, then one of the ends is black, the other end is red, maybe with a bit more stuff at the bottom. Another way of storing it could be if you hyper-roll it up, so that it's, you know... Oh, it's like a snail that's red in the centre and then white and then black. Oh, which would make it look like a target? Which would make it look like a target?

A target's red in the middle, and aren't they usually red? Or a dartboard? Red than green. You're getting that. Okay. So you roll it up, red in the middle, then it's ring of white, and then a thinner ring of black. Well, right, right, that's a target. Sometimes the red is a little bit pinker, if that helps.

It doesn't, it could be lots of different colors, plus the extra colors. But you're getting extremely close. It's like, yeah, it's like a black ring with a white center and then a red thing in the of that, that might have other colours in it, which makes it an eye, it looks like a red eye, to promote the movie Red Eye starring whoever's in that, starring, Starring, Rachel McAdams. So a popular choice of colour for one of the other colours might be green. Black ring round the outside, big white section. Yeah, so 20%, yeah, 60% white, a little bit of red in the middle.

Maybe green. Green like the eyes of Killian Murphy, who I've remembered is the person who stars in the movie red eyes. Yes. Coincidentally, I'm holding one. What? I actually have one. Is this a flag? It's not a flag because it's circular, but what else do you associate with Pacific countries?

Yeah, a coat of arms, a map, a... Go away from symbols, things that you enjoy from different countries. countries and every country has one of these or multiple of these food it looks like a food of some sort that's a disappointing pizza it's a sushi roll yes oh oh oh yes oh wow you really do have that so I'm holding one which I I made a really skinny one because I was just trying to get the design right but yeah it's like once you roll it up you've got like the reddish salmon in the middle then you've got like a bit of avocado lettuce and then all the rice my my one doesn't have much rice and then the seaweed on the outside because the seaweed is 20% when you pull it out but it's

the widest part it's a circumference so the 20% on the outside looks tiny the 20% on the inside looks big that's infuriating how do you have one of those did that question just get sent to you and you're like, oh, I have one. Yeah, I was like, yeah, actually, I designed one a while back. That's amazing. All right, here we go. In 1270, roof sections of the Episcopal Palace in Viterbo, Italy, were removed. The roof didn't need repair, and the material wasn't valuable.

Why did the locals feel compelled to do this? I'll say that again, in 1270, roof sections of the Episcopal Palace in Viterbo, Italy, were removed. The roof didn't need repair, and the material wasn't valuable. Why did the locals feel compelled to do this? As a famously lazy person, if I had, say, a flood and the floor of a place that I lived, and I didn't know what to do about it and didn't really want to remove the water,

I might just open up the roof and let the sun do the work for me. The roof was fine, maybe the floor wasn't. I think the power of God compelled them. You could kind of argue that very, very loosely. But you're right to pick up on Episcopal Palace. This is religious. This is religious. Who lives in an epist...

I can't say that word, palace. Is it like the priest or the king? I think I'm confusing it with a different word, with like ecumenical, which is in reference to bishops. But maybe bishops. Episcopalians live in an episcopalians live in an episcopal. palace um was his hat too tall yeah oh it's a real tall hat kept him hitting on the roof and he just hinted to the townspec was like oh my hat just keep getting knocked off by this darn roof if only

someone would remove it for me no no please it's all right don't worry about it i'll just straighten my hat and keep giving a sermon i keep thinking you're done the character work goes on i don't want to mock bill for it it's good character work there is a simpson's episode he does character work I do Simpsons, where they wanted to bring God in as a witness to a court case. So they opened up a roof panel to let the sunbeam in and the sunbeam was God. Is that what happened? No, I'm staying quiet because there are several things you've said that are sort of related to the answer. Big hats, certainly related.

What? Was the person doing, were they doing masses? in this building, and he just went real hard on the incense. He was swinging the sensor over, and they was like, we've got to let this out. And so they took the roof off. And the roof was the only way. They didn't think of opening.

You can't open a window. They're stained glass. But the roof, destroying the roof is fine. Pull the roof off. It's not valuable, apparently. Insurance scam. That's usually the answer. Yeah, what compelled them?

The townsfolk had done a few other things in frustration. Was there a bird stuck in there? There's a dove in this church. How could big hats be related? Oh wait, was big hats a good? Big hats was actually pretty good, yeah. Oh, no. There wasn't a bird stuck in there.

Yeah, did they need to remove the roof to get the organ in or out? A famously large thing in a religious building that you probably can't get through a door. You think an organ's the size of a door? The pipe organ, because the pipes were too tall, like hats. Did they have to get something out of or into the church that they couldn't normally? They definitely wanted to get something out of the church, yes. The palace, I suppose. Was it the people? Were they stuck in the church?

Now we're getting close. There's also a Simpsons episode where that happens. It's also a Lyle Lovett song when that happens. Oh my. That's just for me. And however, the small amount of Lyle Lovett fans who listen to Tom Scott's lateral. you're out there, and you know what I'm talking about. I forget, did we know

geographically where we were on this question? I remember temporarily, but not geographically. Viterbo in Italy. And I've forgotten temporally, when are we? 1270. Oh, all right. My love it wasn't even born yet. I don't know what the weather gets like in

Viterbo, so I don't know if we're dealing with, did snow freeze this place shut We're getting early enough that there's a possible level of superstition that might be more... Like, they were just like, oh, there's a ghost in here. We've got to open the... We've got to get the spirits out. The very tall spirits out.

Yeah, you block it up, you open the roof, and then you fill it with holy water, and it'll get it out. Yeah, the people had done stuff in frustration, which made me think stuck. Yeah. Stuck and big hats. And wanting to get something out, yes. They wanted to get... And, yeah, it wasn't people out, right? It wasn't, like, just escaping, or was it?

It was people. Okay, so people needed to get out through the roof because they were being kept in. No, actually, if anything, the opposite problem. They couldn't get in. The priest had barred the door, and he said... Is it like a Cosamoto situation? Like, was someone, like, in their seeking sanctuary,

and then they needed them out for a court case? A witch? It's not seeking sanctuary, but I think you're right that they wouldn't leave. I'll give you that. They wouldn't leave. The local priest refused to leave, but he was a real bad priest, and they were like, get out of here. And he ate so much that he couldn't get out the door. That's a great, that's a great form of protest. Talk about indulgence.

Hey! I don't know, there's a joke there about the church in the 1270s. Yeah, yeah, it's a solid 13th century medieval. evil religion joke there. Yeah. We're all enjoying it. This is absolutely my wheelhouse. Anyone who doesn't like La Love it, at least likes church history.

Alright, let me run through what you've got so far, because it's been a bit scattershot. There are people in this church? People in the church. The locals would like them to leave. You've got that. Get out of my church. That is why they're removing the roof. What might be going on here?

Why have they got to this point? What is taking so long in science? that church. What do people do in churches? A really big wedding or funeral. I don't know what 1270 is like. And I'm going to remind you with the final thing you picked up, which was big hats.

Had they not chosen a pope? Correct. Oh, gosh. It was a conclis. Of course, it's not a church. That was the other clue. Yes, this is an Episcopal palace in Viterbo. There was political instability in Rome.

So the election took place 50 miles north in an Episcopal Palace. How long do you think they'd been in there? Oh, no. How long does it take to choose a Pope? If this is noteworthy, let's start small. They were in there for a week. You know what?

I'm going to steal a joke from another show I do here and do Price's Right Rules, closest without going over. Bill, are you sticking with a week or are you going to? No, I'm going to jump up to eight months. Eight months, Michelle? Ooh. Two and a half years.

Two and a half years? Danny? I hate this. Now I have to go. You know, just go for a day, get in under. But I don't think that's true. I'm going, yeah, but I'll cheap out. I'll go with exactly, nope.

Squatters rules, I'm going seven years. Michelle, two years, ten months of deliberations in total. Yes. Two factions reached deadlock. They had been in there since 1268. It was now 1270. In frustration, the mayor closed the city gates. locked the palace, rationed their food, bordered up the windows, and eventually removed

segments of the roof to force them to make a decision. Pope Gregory X was elected after two years and ten months of deliberations. What was one of the things he introduced? Gregory, the calendar. Yeah, calendars. Um, indulgences. Very relevant to this question and very relevant to the news not that long ago as we recorded this. Uh, just official conclaving? Oh, yeah, conclaving. Yes. He introduced the formal process of a conclave,

which has happened ever since. Bill, it is your question. This question was sent in by Owen T. Thank you, Owen. A medical team gave photos of moulds and skin cancers to an AI model to improve detection rates. Initially, the results were promising. However, a 2021 report

showed that the model was actually quite dumb. Why? And I'll give that to you again. A medical team gave photos of moles and skin cancers to an AI model to improve detection rates. Initially, the results were promising. However, a 2021 report showed that the model was actually quite dumb. Why? We've got two Australians on this question, one of whom's an expert in skin science and beauty. Oh yeah. I feel like I should know this. I know a lot of people doing research in this area. So I shouldn't have said that. No, it's extra embarrassing.

I feel like I should know this because it's my wheelhouse, this, like tech stuff. So my assumption is the model is picking up on something else. So you're thinking that it's more a false positive thing than a false negative thing. I think that's fair.

Or there's a leak in the data somewhere. Like they're picking up something else. Like the files are tagged as mole 1 and benign 1. And actually the model can just read that. And it's just going, well, the file's given me to me with the word mole in them. Those are clearly moles. Can't argue with that.

Tom, you were fairly close, but I will say, I don't believe it was given access to the metadata of these things. It had the visuals to work from. Okay. I was wondering, remember that thing that went around of the viral picture that everyone was saying, here is a close-up of a planet and then it turned out to be a piece of salami that just happened to look very planety. Was something similar going on there?

It identified chocolate drops as cancerous moles, something like that. You're getting further away. Okay, okay. What on the body looks like a mole that they could be misinterpreting? Depending on... There's not much that looks like a mole. It's basically intended to tell the difference between benign mole and cancerous mall, presumably.

Like, they're sending pictures of blemishes to it. All right, so we can say what some of the things that are meant to distinguish a scary mall. I think we're all of an age where we've had to be paranoid about these things, especially in Australia. So, colour and shape and change tend to be the things that they ask you to look for.

So what could it be doing wrong there? I remember a story from years ago where, possibly apocryphal, where a model had been trained by sending it alternate images of A and B and A and B. So it just learned that every other image

was to be classified one way. That's a benign, not benign, benign, not benign. And like, oh, okay, so the even-numbered ones are the bad ones. But again, that feels like metadata. That feels like... Yeah, it, look, it has a very similar feel

to the correct answer, but that is not it. Danny, you are onto something talking about how we talk about what we care about when we're looking at them. I'd also like to point out that on this lateral thinking podcast, not a single one of you questioned whether we were talking about all blemishes. Maybe it was skin cancers and little rodents. You're assuming that just because we didn't say it, we weren't all thinking of it at that same time.

I was thinking it. I'm still going to admonish. Okay, what if the photo? of bad stuff have like a ruler in the picture or something like that or there's something else

or a circle like a marker circle something about scale as being really messed up Tom Thomas Scott anytime it saw a ruler in a picture

it went well that must have cancer that's cancer they're measuring it yes that is 100% right it was Danny saying size Yes, yes, exactly. It was all size. Because if you're just getting like the first test done, like, oh, to take a photo of it, fine, like at the point where they're doing more deep sampling, oh, yeah, get the ruler on, get the... Yes, as soon as you suspect the thing of being, a blemish of being cancerous, you would usually have a photo of it taken with a ruler in the photo to show, oh, here's the current size of it, this is why we're worried, look at this, that's part of that process.

And so that you could take another one later and measure. against it. Exactly. So it learned that if there is a ruler in the picture, it is more likely that it is a cancerous growth rather than something benign. It was being distracted and all it was looking for were rulers. Thanks to Conall Knight for this next question. Dima, a user interface designer, hung seven colourful paper rolls of varying length on a wall. The longest, which continued onto the floor was labelled 17,161, and 86. What did this mean and what was this public installation's two-word title? I'll say that again. Dima, a user interface designer, hung seven colourful paper rolls of varying length on a wall. The longest, which continued

onto the floor, was labelled 17,161, and 86. What did this mean and what was this public installations two-word title. Okay, I was busy drawing seven pieces of fake paper roll. Beautiful. What was the number? 17,000? 17161. Yeah, you don't need the exact numbers, but it's a lot. And was the 86 on the same long one, or was it on the shorter ones? Like, ampersand 86? Those numbers were both for the long one. Yeah. So if they are some, if there's some form of measurement, that's a pretty wild difference, not impossible. but a pretty intense difference. It could be really narrow.

86 something's wide and 17,000 something's long. Not impossible. And this is like an art installation. This is my understanding. Yeah. So it's like, it's trying to make a point. Like this is how much paper you use every time you send a text. Oh, I don't like you.

It reminds you. You know what that reminds me of it? It doesn't work with seven, I don't feel. Although maybe you could abbreviate this, an XKCD comic that is trying to come up with an illustration of climate change to show exactly where we are in relation to history of the global mean temperature and how much we have increased the temperature or how much it's decreased over time. and you can just see tiny changes for millennia upon millennia and then for the last hundred years, suddenly a massive rightward shift. So that's definitely something.

If you abbreviated that, yeah, small changes for the first six and then one massively long-rolling one to show current climate crisis change. There's 17,000 climates. Exactly. Thank you. Or 86 degrees Fahrenheit.

And importantly, climate change is two words. I think we've cracked it. Yeah. Are they, is there, these seven roles, are they in like an, do they get bigger every time? Or are they sort of spread out, do we think? Like, what's? I've got to get a good visualisation. I'm thinking like seven, things that are seven, I'm like rainbow colours. Yes. Continants, maybe, I don't know. That could be completely wrong. These are related to his job, user interface designer. Oh, that's right. They're user interface designer. So something to do with user interface. Those are the sorts of words that when they're

put together, they make my brain panic in that way of, oh no, I am unqualified for this. And I know that you've got to push past that feeling, but it's the brain panic. Hey, if you have this many options on your website, this is how long your drop-down menu will be. Now, not that, Bill, but closer than you might think. Okay, all right. Options or drop downs. Hmm. Yes.

I've got seven things. One is really big. Don't do it that way. That's bad user interface. Actually, they're all pretty big. They're all pretty big. Okay. And I wouldn't focus too much on the seven.

It's the amount of energy it takes to run a chat GPT query. It's a lot. Compared to a Bing search, compared to a Google search. I think people would be surprised by the length of the paper. Yeah. It is the amount of code needed to be written to make a small widget appear on a website. Now, again, not that, but you've picked up on something there that the rolls were not blank. I could picture that instead of being an art installation by a UI design.

The idea of like a coding demonstration of like, I'm going to create the same effect and I'm going to demonstrate the efficiency of good code writing. If I did it all in just nested if statements, it's this long. That's insane. But look, this one's better and this one's better. And then the final one is something I don't understand about programming. Like, I could picture that being a lesson that you would give and everyone go, oh, my gosh. It's not really public art installation.

No, no one walking through is going to be like, oh, cool man. I guess I won't nest my if statements. See ya. Like, what? So is there something fun there? It could be that more people. would just find light and amusing and an interesting thing to think. Well, shocking and horrifying.

Here is the code to make your computer play happy birthday. Again, I don't think it's code. We didn't feel like we'd hit on something there, but... Shocking and horrifying, maybe. Perhaps a bit strong, but something like that. I don't know. I was thinking the if statements were good. Like, this is how much it takes to code, I don't know.

Flappy Bird, if you tried to code it. If you move away from code to something that people are more used to seeing than yes. Does it just say certain websites that scroll down really far, something along those lines? Length of Wikipedia pages.

Now we're getting close. Now we're getting close. Normally you would just be scrolling down this. Oh, oh, is it to do with... On like an Instagram or TikTok? Yeah, right. It's like a feed as you scroll through. Oh.

Twitter. Or a Facebook page. Not quite, but you've now got what those colours are. They're the corporate identities for Twitter and Instagram and Facebook and Snapchat. How long everybody spends on them every day? How long is correct? And you've got the companies, and it's something that everyone here will have dealt with. Let's go.

Hey, let's do the answer two words at a time. I'll start. How long? A person. Take it away, Michelle. Oh, nurse. Spends on. Okay.

How long a person spends on? Maybe would spend on if any of us actually did do this. Oh, how long... This is something all of us have just scrolled by. Is it the ads in some fashion? I scroll past those. Maybe you didn't even click on it. Is it how much you watch without actually selecting to watch anything?

How much is auto played at you? at you. The fact that no one's thought to this yet, that is exactly the point of this exhibition. Interesting. Where might you find long, long, long sections of text? Is it the terms and conditions? Yes, it is. Terms and conditions that you never read.

Oh, that's exciting. That's too long in terms and condition. That should be illegal. What are the numbers on the floor? What's 17,161? The word count? Yep, that's the word count. That's the word count. What's 86?

Well, how many hours it would take you to read it? How many minutes? Yes. How many minutes? That is an 86 minute read. You don't know how slow I read. So, last question. What was this public installation's two-word title? I accept.

I agree, yes. I agree. I agree. I agree. Well done. This was, I agree, by Dima Yerunovsky, a U.X designer, visual communication student to visualize the power of large corporations. Danny, your question whenever you're ready. Absolutely. This one has been sent in by Vasily Popov. Thank you so much. According to Krushchev's memoirs, Turkey once complained that Armenia's Soviet emblem contained Mount Ararat, which was no longer in Armenian territory.

What was the USSR's witty and compelling counter-argument? I'll read it one more time. According to Krushchev's memoirs, Turkey once complained that Armenia's Soviet emblem contained Mount Ararat, which was no longer in Armenian territory. What was the USSR's witty and compelling counter-argument? I have a thought.

Is it witty and compelling? I mean, maybe. Depends what your standards are. It's definitely compelling, which is them agreeing to fix the error by redrawing the borders of... Oh! Right? Oh, you're right.

That is an oversight. We're going to take Ararat back. Oh, no. That's pretty compelling to stop complaining about it. No, it's fine. Don't worry about it. You can keep the symbols. Oh, you're going to complain?

We'll start a war. Yeah. To the best of my knowledge, Mount Ararat is still a turkey thing, right? That's because they stop complaining. Oh, right. I've been trying to think of puns, and it has only just occurred to me

that these will not be in English. whatever this is, it's going to be translated. So it can't just be like a pun on what it sounds like. That's reasonable as a thought. Just to be clear, like Turkey was complaining that it's on Armenia's emblem. Yeah, saying, Armenia, I can't have a problem with your emblem. You've got our mountain on it. What's up with that?

Armenia? Hardly neither. No, that doesn't work. What do we know about Mount Ararat, Turkey and Armenia? Is Mount Arrow at like the Ark one? Yeah, it's why Noah's Ark was purported to have landed. Not really. You can tell that it's clearly relevant to the answer based on my response.

Yeah, what would you say? Tom, pretend you're the Soviet Union. Okay, hold on, hold on. Let me get the character as... This old chestnut. To be fair, we're looking for the Soviet's response, not Khrushchev's response here, right? You're just a general Soviet Union.

Yeah, Khrushchev's memoirs just happened to be where we got this from. The Soviet Union, yes, go ahead. I'm not going to do the accent. I'll be Turkey. Okay. And I will do the accent. Yeah.

Michelle, congratulations. You're Armenia. Oh, you can be Armenia? Yeah. Here we go. I'll do his accent. Here's the accent. Here's the story.

All right. So, I'm looking at our rat here, right? And I'm thinking, that's in Turkey, right? But here's Armenia. Look at them over there. They're all like, oh, we got our route on our crest. And I find that personally to be a bit disrespectful. So what do you have to say for Armenia?

Do the accent. I was, I knew you weren't going to go for the accent, but I was like, what, what route are we going down here? All right, yeah, we're going company wide, boy, fine. What if I had a perfect, like, like pitch perfect, absolutely spot on, like Turkish, like, oh, that's someone from Ankara? How would I know? Would it be cool? Oh, it would be great. So, yeah, how did that go?

You've teed me up to give the answer here, and unfortunately, I'm imagining myself as a Soviet diplomat, and the first thing, as this formal request comes in over the wire or by post, and you go, oh, now I've got to deal with this. And don't forget, you are the most witty and compelling diplomat that there could ever be. That sounds like you're giving me an AI prompt. Please respond to Turkey's complaints about Mount Ararat. Certainly. You are a witty diplomat.

Like, because presumably, like, what did it compel them to do? Just stop complaining about Mount Ararat? I think that's fair. I don't think that you should look at compelling in so much as making them, like, compelling them to do something, but just making them go, yeah, right, fair enough. Good point. Was the response, mate, every mountain looks exactly the same. That's just a different mountain.

Oh, oh, it's got a peak. Yeah. It's a mountain, dummy. Was that it? Is that witty and compelling? It's not that. I think you can go, like if I'm typing into my chat prompt, one step wittier.

Is it like thanks for putting our nice mountain on there? It's a good mountain, glad you like it. Definitely more of retorty. At least they didn't try and steal the real thing. What do we know about Turkey? It's, they said Well, you don't have a picture of a bird On your flag, idiots

Like that? It's across two continents Annoyingly, Tom, yours is great Geographical information But Bill is closer to the correct answer Okay Oh, Turkey has Does Turkey have a crescent moon on its flag?

Yes And they said, hey, Turkey, you've got a moon on your flag That's not in Turkey you are correct they said um you've got the moon on yours do you own the moon turkey and uh yep fair enough what were they going to do about that yeah this is an anecdote that's apparently been around for going on nearly a hundred years from now the truth of it who can say but i hope so because fair enough which means there's just one order of business left uh thank you to ben for sending in this question from the start of the show

in which non-medical location might you see vomits, nosebleeds and spots. Anyone taking a shot at that? Again, Michelle, this isn't beauty exactly, but it feels closer to your things than ours. I was thinking manga. You're not wrong.

There's a lot of nosebleeds in manga. I was thinking it could be like in a concert hall, like in the nosebleed section. Oh, nosebleed section. In the vomit. Yes, section. Yes, it is. So.

It's the nosebleeds. section. I've listened to Hilltop Hoods. Yep, the nosebleed section is the highest seats in the auditorium, where Payton's is said to get nosebleeds for having to lean forward and look down at the stage. So, what is a spot? Lights? Spotlights are known as spots. Vomit, or vomit, is a little bit more obscure. Anyone want to take a guess? It's the exit, like in a vomatorium.

Yes. Yes, it is. It's the passageways or openings that lead to the seating areas areas because they are designed to allow people to disperse quickly and that, and ejection is the same sort of route as we use vomit for now. That is the vomitoria. Now, I will say the nosebleed section is something that has caused some contention because some people have learned it as the highest up far away seats. Others have learned it as the super close in section. That definitely ends up being a divisive argument. I don't know, like, I don't know who ended up being Correct. The far-off one sounds like it's got more of an origin, but I don't know, maybe mosh pits are very nosebleedy, and that's where that one came from.

Yes, vomits, nosebleeds, spots are all theatre terms. Thank you very much to our players. What's going on your lives? Where can people find you? We'll start today with Bill. I've often talked Escape This Podcast, but we also have a show called Solve This Murder, where we solve murder mysteries, one of us taking the lead as the detective. And if you haven't given that a listen, go and check it out. It's a lot of fun. we write original murder mysteries, try and solve them, and we don't do it brilliantly, but we don't do it poorly.

Danny, where can people find you? You can find us at consume thismedia.com. You can just search, escape this podcast, solve this murder. We've got good SEO on our side. And Michelle, where can people find you, and what do you do that? I'm at Labmuff and Beauty Science. I'm on YouTube, Instagram and TikTok, and I talk about the science behind beauty products. I debunk misinformation, and I talk a bit about how to work out what is and isn't true.

And if you want to know more about this show, you can do that at lateralcast.com. We can also send in your own ideas for questions. We are at Lateralcast, basically, everywhere, and there are full video episodes every week on Spotify. Thank you very much to Michelle Wong. Thank you. Danny Siller. Thank you so much. And Bill Sunderland.

Thank you. It was wonderful. I've been Tom Scott, and that's been Lateral.