Lateral with Tom Scott - 188: 76 degrees

Episode Date: May 15, 2026

Sage the Bad Naturalist, Evan Heling and Katelyn Heling face questions about disruptive droughts, moved moments and sneaky snaps. 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: Alina Abidi, Trevor Cashmore, Karen Zheng, Marc Lesan, Alyshia, Maciej. FORMAT: Pad 26 Limited/Labyrinth Games Ltd. EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS: David Bodycombe and Tom Scott. © Pad 26 Limited (https://www.pad26.com) / Labyrinth Games Ltd. 2026. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In Southern California, how did a 1970s drought lead to the rise of skateboarding? The answer to that at the end of the show. My name's Tom Scott, and this is Lateral. Welcome to Lateral, which is essentially three guests, one host, several questions, and a collective agreement to pretend we know where we're going. Sometimes people get things right, sometimes they don't, and sometimes everyone agrees on something that later turns out to be wildly incorrect. It's a beautiful system.

The three participants in our process today, we start with returning to the show. You've been regular guests here for a while. Thank you so much for coming back yet again. Evelyn, Caitlin. Welcome back to the show. Hi, excited to work out our brains. I like that we're collectively one person. Yes.

Well, this is how I know a couple of folks back in the university 20 years ago. They were just really good friends. There is no euphemism there, anything like that. They were just really good friends. But they were referred to almost as a day. double act. Like, you only got first, if you introduce one, you introduce the other. And you know what? Evan, welcome to the show. Oh, thank you. Hey, glad to be here. What are you working on right now, Evan? Well, right now, along with a beautiful wife,

we are making something horrible and wonderful. It is a sandpaper keyboard. Oh, no. We actually have it. We just recently finished it. If you ever visit and touched it, it's absolutely just as horrible as you might think. And we did test it, we sanded down a piece of wood with it, and it does work. It works both as a keyboard and sandpaper.

Yes. Incredible. We're also joining us today. Caitlin, what are you working on right now? You may have heard of it. It's a sandpaper keyboard. You also got a wonderful compliment on the chokker.

that you're currently wearing from our third guest today, who is new to lateral. Welcome to the show, Sage, the Bad Naturalist. Hello. How are you doing? Welcome for the first time. I am, I am awake, alert, alive, and enthusiastic. It is 7.30 a.m. where I am, because we live on opposite ends of the planet.

Thank you so much for being here this early. That is really, really kind of you. It's a delight. You are so, so on for this early in the morning. Your YouTube bio here, it just says, Mycology, plants, and science rants, which is this wonderful bit of phrasing. And also, real enthusiast, not a real scientist.

Also correct. Describe yourself what you do. Why do you call yourself the bad naturalist? Well, because I'm not very good at it. So naturalist comes from like the sort of like the old-timey era of like right before we did like empirical science sort of correctly by modern standards.

So naturalists were, go out and feel hey, what's that? That's interesting. I had to write that down and draw a nice pretty picture. So naturalism is like observational natural science. So like Darwin in his finches, that's naturalism. So it's not, it's right before experimental

science. And so a naturalist is like, hey, that's neat. So all humans are sort of born naturalists, like all little kids who are like, ooh, cool bug and like, who just want to sit and watch it all day. And it's like, hey, the bug goes over here. And then it goes over there.

And then it goes over here. And then sometimes it does that. That's being a naturalist. And so I'm still kind of bad at it. But like, I enjoy like illustrations and observing plants and fungi and, you know, weird animals. And I enjoy learning new things. I read a lot of research papers. I'm currently doing one on decident human brains with plastics in them.

Oh, wow. Dude, I love reading research papers. Turns out it's really hard to measure how much plastic is in your brain. Like, unbelievably hard. Borderline impossible. While the brain is still working? Oh, only dead. That's the decadent human part.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You got to be dead. You can't scoop it out while you're still thinking. Well, very best of luck with your alive brain on the show today. Hey, thanks. We will give the podcast algorithm something to think about, starting with question one. Thank you to an anonymous listener for this question.

In 1995, the Deputy Home Minister of Malaysia was so concerned about the children's TV show Mighty Morphe and Power Rangers that it was briefly banned. Why? And one more time, in 1995, the Deputy Home Minister of Malaysia was so concerned about the children's TV show Mighty Morpherin Power Rangers that it was briefly banned. Why? I wonder if the episode, took place in Malaysia and they were destroying buildings as giant people, and they were afraid

that children might think it's real. Well, they were concerned that children would try to become giant and destroy infrastructure. They just made a big investment. Destroying infrastructure is fun. There is a thing in the UK regulations called, I think it's imitable behavior or something like that, where if it's a children's show, you cannot have behavior. that children might go, that looks fun, let's try that. Boo.

That cuts out a lot of content. That's a lot. Right? I don't know why. My gut instinct had something to do with Komodo dragons. Because I feel like I have some vague memory of there being a big, real lizard in an early Power Rangers episode. And I think there are Komodo, I know there are Komodo dragons in, in, in the And somewhere in that part of Southeast Asia, I don't know if there are in Malaysia, but there are in Indonesia.

I'm also trying to think there's been different iterations of Power Rangers and like which one would have been happening in 1995. Which iterations? Like, because all I know is the like original one in my mind is like the bad effects and the robot and the like floating head in the in the like wizard area and everything. I mostly know the iterations based on the costumes because I was Pink Ranger like three times for Halloween. Okay. But there's like the original. Again, it's only costume-based,

but there was the original, which is where they were in like the like full body suits. But the next version was like the ninja version. Ninja version? Well, you've got to remember that for a lot of the Power Rangers series, they were taking basically the fight scenes and the costume scenes from a Japanese show. Right. And then just filming new American inserts for it.

Oh my God. and building the plot around that. That's why it looked a bit different, and the film looks a bit different when it cuts to the suited sequences. Because they weren't filming those, they were just taken in from... Like, some, a few of them maybe, they had the costumes, but the big fight scenes, they were the original Japanese show.

What? My mind is blown right now. What? Okay. So it's just repurpose footage. Yeah. That's why it's so weird. Okay. That's interesting. Okay.

Now, I wonder also, like, there's a lot of different aspects to this, because I know that, like, in the US, eventually, We passed regulation saying you can't play a children's TV show cartoon and then right afterwards cut to advertisements for the characters saying, hey, buy me as a toy, basically. Kind of like the characters themselves endorsing the kids to like do a behavior. It's basically like sell merchandise, sell toys. And I know that there's a law passed in the U.S. at some point.

Maybe they were doing that abroad and that's why there were concerns. Remind me from the original question, was it just briefly taken off air? Yeah, it was only briefly, and there was a quick fix they could do to make this better. Okay, the fix makes me wonder if it's something in the edit. Like, they were able to edit something for future episodes. Is this from the infamous episode that The Simpsons Parody, where it, like, gave kids seizures with the flashing lights? Oh, that was Pokemon. But have a thing more about, like, this is the Home Minister.

So this is the one in charge of problems in Malaysia, if you like. And this is the 90s, mid-90s. What sort of issues might they have been dealing with? The war on drugs. Yes. Well, that was a US thing. No, absolutely. That's what I was trying to clue up with that.

You went straight there. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Did they, like, get some, like, power up juice or something? that, like, made them strong? Well, when you find the answer, please go back to that,

because that's incredibly close, sort of. Okay. They don't have power-up juice. I think they do some sort of morphing thing. Yeah, mighty morphin time. Well, but what of their power-ups is the power-up juice? So what time do you say it was, Caitlin? Oh, Mighty Morphan time.

Morphine? Yes. What? Mighty morphine time? The government minister said that the words mighty morphine might be associated with morphine. So when you said power up juice. Oh, it all comes back around. The initial airing was banned until the title was adjusted to just it.

just Power Rangers. Amazing. So it really was an easy, an easy edit. Mighty Hydrocodone Power Rangers. That's what they thought the title of the show was amazing. Each of our guests has brought a question with them. We will start with, let's go with Caitlin. Okay.

This question has been sent in by Karen Zang. The telephone was patented by Alexander Graham Bell on the 7th of March in 1876. In Ethiopian libraries, reference books state that the telephone was patented in 1868. Why? I'll repeat it. The telephone was patented by Alexander Graham Bell on the 7th of March in 1876. In Ethiopian libraries, reference books state that the telephone was patented in 1868.

Why? So earlier, initially I was thinking, you know, like there are different patents for different regions of the world. The U.S. has a patent system. China has a patent system. I'm sure the UK has their own, you know, like, or the EU. Oh, those are separate things now. Still kind of a sore point, if I'm honest with you. Sorry, sorry.

Now, I was thinking that, like, maybe both can be correct because a different patent can be filed in a different country. But I don't know. But then it wouldn't be earlier. I know. My thought, my first thought is that it's like a Leibniz-Newton thing, where it's like, there's an Ethiopian inventor where like they're very proud of him. And like they insist, no, no, no, no, no, no. Our inventor, we're like so proud of our guy. He actually invented the telephone. Alexander Graham Bell ain't nothing.

So that's happened with a couple of things and countries. I think, oh, I risk offending part of South America here, but I'm going to aim for it. I think it's Brazil that definitely disputed. the Wright brothers' first flight. But I can't... Do I have the country and the invention right? I'm not sure. It would be amazing if neither are true. All the Brazilian listeners are like, what are you talking about?

Don't come from Brazil. Someone in Uruguay is like, we had the postage stamp first! So I'm just gonna step in and say that no one in Ethiopia disputes Bell's invention. Oh, okay. Oh. How about this?

What if... he filed the patent at the earlier date, and it just took many years for it to be accepted. And because I know the patent system now takes a long time. It can take years. You have your provisional patent, and then you have to defend it, and then all this other stuff.

Patent process is complicated. Maybe Ethiopia, or what was the country? Yeah, Ethiopia. Ethiopia was like, well, he filed it at this date, and that's when it was invented. Yeah, like what if their patent? are observed from like in, like the inception of the idea, not from like when it's like, all right, we've stamped it, like your patent's approved.

So it doesn't have to do with the patent, but it does have to do with something that Ethiopia does differently than the UK or the US. Were they using a different calendar system at the time? Julian and Gregorian are days apart. There are other calendars with wildly different dates, but I've never heard of a calendar that's eight years different. unless do they calculate the date of Jesus's birth differently? Oh, because they're Coptic Christians.

Oh, oh, oh, wait, I think that might be it. All right, Sage, go for it. Bring it around town. No, I think that's it. Because Ethiopians are someone like the first Christians, like, outside of, like, fertile crescent. So, like, I think they, they, like, the Coptic Christians in Ethiopia, I think they might, like their AD, like they started counting differently from like the Roman Empire AD.

So like they're doing like Christian calendar, but like they're counting differently. So like they're using the same incremental units but starting from a different year. Okay, yeah, you guys are right on it. It is because they use a different calendar system. And specifically you got that it's due to different calculations of Jesus Christ's birth. So basically the Ethiopian calendar. is seven or eight years behind the Gregorian calendar because of that. And so in the Ethiopian calendar, Bell's patent was granted on the 29th day of Yikatit,

Yikotit in the year of 1868. They have a 13-month calendar, and the first 12 months are 30 days, so very similar. But then the 13-month is only five or six days, depending on whether it's a leap year. Oh, that's brilliant. So you guys are great. Heck yeah. Now, I didn't contribute anything to that. You were there enthusiastically.

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Continue toward. You've arrived. Adventure in comfort with Volvo. Whether you prefer gas, plug-in hybrid, or fully electric, there's a Volvo for everyone. Learn more at VolvoCars.ca. AI is moving fast across the enterprise. But without visibility, it's just chaos. Different tools, different models, different teams using AI in completely different ways.

Service Now turns that chaos into control. With the AI control tower, you see all your AI across the business in one place. what it's doing, what it's done, and what it's about to do. So you stay in control. To put AI to work for people, visit servicenav.com. Thank you to Alasher for this question. Jane works in a tech store. At the start of every workday, she sets things to exactly 76 degrees,

which customers find uncomfortable. How does this boost sales? One more time, Jane works in a tech store. At the start of every workday, she sets things to exactly 76 degrees. degrees, which customers find uncomfortable. How does this boost sales? Is the tech air conditioners? It wants to like, it reduces their indecision because...

They want to get out fast. They want to get out. And they're just like subtle for whatever they came in for. They're not like looking at the TVs and they're facing decision fatigue. They just grab a TV and get out of there because it's too hot. What other tech stores are there? When I think of, like, tech store in my brain, I go to Best Buy, the most, like, generic tech store possible. But, like, you know, maybe the question's coming from someone who has a different definition of tech store.

Because tech could be anything. Yeah, I'm also thinking just, like a cell phone store. Like the Apple store. Like the Apple store, Sage. Yeah. Okay, wait. So if you're at the Apple store and it's hot. Why would that boost sales?

The Apple store. I've never been in an Apple store where it was particularly hot. You know what? It's probably because Apple provides tech support. And like, you know, people come in wanting to like, my phone isn't working. Can you help me send this email? You know, like the genius bar and everything like that. And like the manager doesn't want the genius bar taken up by people who like,

like, sit there forever for hours, taking up time. That does make sense in terms of getting them out early, but then how does that translate to sales? Sales. Oh, no. I'll say you're right that it's a psychological trick. I mean, I know I've heard, like, restaurants will make the restaurant colder because, like, you get more hungry when you're chilly. So is there something similar to that for, like, being hot and closing a sale?

When you're hot, you just want to spend money. Do they sell tiny personal fans, like right at the checkout? No. Well, one thing I'm wondering is this. If it works at Apple, why doesn't it work everywhere else? What is it specifically about the Apple store? Like, expensive, shiny cubes, you know what I mean? I don't know.

Actually, not... Do you say cubes there? You said it's a very nice way. They're all cubes. The AirPods, cube. iPhone, cube. Macbook, cube. Kind of rectangular prism.

This is about the Macbooks. The MacBooks. Oh, is it that elevated stand thing, that expensive, like, uh, it'll overheat if you don't buy this $1,000 aluminum tilted stand? No, not quite. You are going to hate me when the penny finally drops on this one, because there's a very early clue that I've sort of skipped over, because you've got Apple Store very quickly.

Just to reread a little bit of the question. She sets things to exactly 76 degrees. She sets things to exactly 76 degrees. Yes. Oh, we're assuming it's the thermostat. We assume there was thermostat. Mm-hmm. You did. Not a correct assumption there. She sets things.

What is she setting? Oh, wait, wait, 70s... Okay, okay. It's not... It's an anchor. It's an angle. It's an angle. The screen. The angles of the laptop screens. You know what's so silly?

One of my first questions was going to be, is this Fahrenheit? But then I was like, of course it's not Celsius. I wasn't thinking angles. But if I had asked, then we would have known so early. You're right. I did hate that. And I was kind of right on the track of like, well, why is this specifically at the Apple store, not other stores?

It's because they're not selling MacBooks at other stores. So, customers find that uncomfortable. Why do they boost sales? You're right, she's positioning the MacBook screen at a slightly awkward angle of 76 degrees. And it makes people interact with it? Yes. Wow.

Yep. It makes people interact with it. They automatically reach out, tilt the screen back, and that taps into something called the endowment effect. Once you have physically interacted with the object, you might like it more. Wow. We are being manipulated at all times.

Well, that's given. I know, but still, in new and exciting ways. Now, does that work, or is that one of those studies that got lost to the replication crisis a few years ago, couldn't tell you. But the staff in Apple Store locations are apparently trained to position MacBook screens at 76 degrees so that customers touch them and get closer to the product. I wonder if they have, like, a 3D printed assistive device that is like pushed down on all the screens. They've got like a little carpenter square that's at 76.

Sage, we will head to you for your question, please. All right. This question was sent in by Trevor Cashmore. In 2006, scientists used inspiration from the circus to prove how desert ants navigate. How did pig bristles help? And what did the results prove? Once again, in 2006, scientists used inspiration. from the circus to prove how desert ants navigate.

How did pig bristles help? And what did the results prove? Did you say pig bristles? I think it's like the hair on pigs? I'm assuming, yeah. That's the only thing I can think of. Oh, not like whiskers. We're talking like little hairs?

I didn't think pigs had whiskers, but I could be wrong. I think I'm fair to say that the bristles are just there, All their hair are brisk. Oh, I think once I pet an elephant and its hairs were so thick.

It was like a steel brush. They're very strong. And you think pigs would be similar? For some reason, I think so. I think that pig hairs might be pretty stout. But there's a lot going on in that question. The circus. The pigs.

The ants. The ants. 2006. I'm trying to think of circus skills. You have juggling. you have sort of body movement and stunts and aerobatics. What other circus stuff is there? I'm going about it from a different perspective

because desert ants versus normal ants. There must be a difference there if they're saying desert ants versus just like ants in general. Ants in general communicate via like sense, right? Like smells. Yeah, I think so. And maybe in a desert because like the sand is constantly shifting. The sand is always shifting.

They can't leave a scent trail as easily, so it has to be some other sort of trail. Yeah, I mean, like, I've spent nights in deserts. I grew up in the Middle East for a portion of my life, and the sand do be moving. You know what I mean? A lot more than, like, dirt and ground and, like, leaves in the forest and stuff like that. So what's something from a circus where, and specifically pig bristles somehow, where, like, a trail could be left, or some sort of communication could be communicated. Okay.

One of the circus skills is where you have groups of acrobats. So you have people forming pyramids, putting on each other's shelves, like trying to high... So maybe the ants are climbing on each other somehow to communicate. Have you ever seen an ant do that? No. I'm asking the ants, like, build structures, like, like bridging gaps and like building bridges and stuff, you know. So they do have like a like hive construction capability.

Okay. And traveling circuses will set up big tops temporarily in a field. But it's communication specifically and then big bristles. Yeah, I'm trying to figure out how the pigs tie into this. Gently redirect you back to desert. You were doing good. Okay. Scent pheromones might be hard to leave a trail because the sand is moving.

So they need some other way of communicating. Because ants, they go out and they scout. And a scout ant needs to send, hey, there's a dead thing over here. Let's get the whole colony over here. Harvest this dead thing and bring it back to the queen and all that stuff. Do they leave things in the ground as they go? something like that. Like a tent pole.

Like a pig bristle. So I like where you're going with tent poles. Think more along that and circus acts. Okay. Okay. They gave ant pig bristles. And the ants buried them like poles, like towers, like signal towers. Uh-huh.

And they like scout out and they have these like signal towers. to lead them back and forth along the towers, and the towers survive for longer than the sand takes to shift? Let's see. You're assuming that they were simply gifted a pile of pig bristles. Yes. And then they just got to do with that one they pleased. Consider if it were less a pile of generosity,

but that the pig bristles were more involved. More involved. Perhaps the ants had no say in the use of the pig bristles. In this circus-like situation, the ants now found themselves in. Oh, they had to cross a pig bristle bridge. I think you're kind of closer. This circus act is stilts. Oh.

If you wore stilts, what would change? I would be tall for once in my life. Uh-huh. Are you saying the scientists, like, grafted stilts onto the ants? Like, they used pig bristles as ant stilts. Ooh. So the ants will be taking bigger steps from farther up. They might be moving faster.

They might be able to, like, clear larger debris more easily. It means they count steps. The ants are taking longer strides. They can count. They can count! Oh, and then they're like, okay, we go 5,000 steps this direction to the meat. And then, but they can communicate that? Or maybe they remember it and they're like, follow me, 5,000 steps this way.

What? They know it's that many steps and then some scientist comes along and gives them longer legs? meaning that the ants had to do what? They took fewer steps. They had longer strides. So they had to learn to adjust their stride to be smaller because now they had longer legs. That's so smart, but I also like,

why do I feel bad for the ants? I feel really bad for the ants. They're so tiny. I'm so delighted by this. I have actually prepared a visual aid. So I happen to have a different arthropod just on my desk. A convenient lobster

You know If you would imagine Poor little lobster here You know with his legs If you were to suddenly attach like Chopsticks to him If he you know Were to try to do this

He would have to like take teeny tiny steps now And like if he were memorizing How many steps it was to get where he was going He would have to take like a little bitty Little bitty you know Like I'm wearing a tight dress little steps But yeah, the reason why this is so cool, I happen to have a boar's head brush because I'm a painter. They're really stiff.

So, like, if you see, like, how much resistance there is in a boar's head brush, you could definitely, yeah, if you attach one bristle per ant leg, you could support the weight of an ant with one of these. I don't know what adhesive. It doesn't say what adhesive they use. And some of the ants were not so lucky. They did shorten some ant legs to see if it would work the other way. And those ones didn't walk far enough. They couldn't lengthen them their stride. Oh, no.

Scientists wanted to find out how desert ants found their way around, given that they didn't have landmarks because it's out in the desert. And the chemical trails would be, you know, quickly buried beneath the sand. So they attached pig bristles to the ants as miniature stilts. They found that the ants would walk past their home. This meant that the ants were using some kind of internal pedometer. they were counting their steps to judge distance. So after a few days with their modified stilt legs,

they were able to adjust their stride to be shorter to get back to the correct distances again, suggesting that they can recalibrate their internal measurement distance. I don't know how such a tiny brain can work so well. Thank you to Machet for this question. Producers of the 1981 Polish film Teddy Bear ran an ad in a daily newspaper stating that they were searching for a look-alike of their lead actor.

They didn't find one, but didn't care. Why? And one more time, producers of the 1981 Polish film Teddy Bear ran an ad in a daily newspaper stating that they were searching for a look-alike of their lead actor. They didn't find one, but didn't care. Why? Was it some... Because my first thought was like they need like a stunt double or something. But then if they didn't care, I wonder, was it some sort of competition

that they were advertising? Because they were actually the police and it was a wanted poster. Well, we know, we know, you know, we work with sponsors and doing some sort of competition or giveaway or something where there's a winner that is a form of advertisement

that, like, brands will do. And so maybe they ran a competition to like, hey, if you look the most like this actor, you can, like, win a free day on set. And nobody won, but they didn't care because the purpose of the advertising was fulfilled. Hmm.

I think the one thing I'd take away from that is that the purpose of the advertising was fulfilled. But other than that, no, they didn't really care if they found what. Whenever one of these questions is read, like, as someone with ADHD, my mind starts going down on each individual data point too far. I'm like, okay, the date, go this way.

Okay, the title, it was Teddy. like teddy bear does it have to do with like bears animals stuff animals like and like every little bit of the clue triggers its own separate branch of the thought path there's too many paths at the beginning there's too many paths at the beginning for for my brain sometimes and sometimes i latch onto the right one sometimes i'm like which one do i go down on okay well but we know one thing is that the purpose of the advertising was fulfilled despite not finding the lookalike So what would be scenarios where that would be true? That's not the scenario that I came up with earlier. Is the title of the movie literal, like it's literally like a stuffed animal, like a teddy bear? So, like, were people, like, bringing in, like, teddy bears and they found a cuter one than what they were looking for? Oh, it is just a photo of their lead actor, who is, as we often have to check in lateral questions, is a human, yes. Okay.

Not a teddy bear. Okay. So they're trying to find a replacement for the actor who is a human. Not a replacement. A lookalike. 1981. Let me like put myself back in 1981. Before you were born.

No internet. You had to put ads in newspapers, like posters and stuff like that. You can't just like do the advertising you can do today back then. It was a different time. I'm almost thinking it is more of like how people would do like a Craigslist ad. like when they're looking for like an actor or something for like a small film. Not saying this is a small film necessarily,

but like they were looking for something on the production side. Like they needed a lookalike for some sort of production purpose. I think they were looking for a lookalike or their lead actor, but they found someone so much more handsome, such a better actor that they're like, screw the lead actor, we'll redo the movie with this guy. I think of those suggestions, Caitlin, you said something they needed for production.

that's definitely right. So I'm trying to imagine what the ad would look like. It's in the newspaper and it's like a picture of the lead actor, most likely. Because if they're trying to find a lookalike of someone, they would need to provide a picture. Like, do you look like this person? Photograph. Yep, that's exactly what it looks like. It's a big photo of the lead actor and some small text next to it. Yeah, it's like, if you look like this person, apply here and there's a phone number or something like that.

who would apply that doesn't look like the lead actor that would solve a problem that they have? Also, why would they be looking for a lookalike? They weren't. They didn't care. They didn't find a lookalike. That wasn't the point of it. Okay, wait, wait, wait, I have an idea.

The actor's super handsome. What they actually want is a, like, romantic lead interest. And so they put out the photo of a handsome actor and hoping a lot of potential actresses for the romantic lead position would apply, just because they think he's cute. I think there's better ways to do that. Yeah.

They would have been happy if no one had seen this ad at all. What? But it wasn't just an ad for the movie, like, hey, we have this famous actor. You're definitely gonna want to watch this in a year. But Tom said, they would have been happy if nobody saw it.

Did they just want the photo of the guy and they needed to use the advertisement as an excuse to get a photo of him? Evan, you're very close there. I mean, obviously, they already have the photo of the guy. They sent it to the newspaper. Wait, wait, wait, wait. In the movie, they needed a shot of a real newspaper ad

with this guy's photo and small text. You didn't say what the small text is. The small text was, do you look like this guy? Because that is just a plausible reason to put a picture of someone in a newspaper. Oh. The newspaper was a prop for the movie. Yes, it was.

They needed a prop for the movie. And instead of like making their own prop, which would have been more expensive, they just paid like 10 cents to the newspaper and got it printed big or something. Yeah, absolutely right. Poland was also controlled by the censorship office at the time. So if they wanted to print their own newspaper,

that would have been a nightmare, let alone, you know, in the 1981, trying to find a printing print. and everything like that. They just put an advert in the paper with a big picture of the guy's face and a plausible reason in small text next to it and use that in the movie. That's clever. That's some good problem-solving.

Evan, it is over to you, please. This question is based on an idea by Mark Leeson. Lyra Rebane's game, Chartery, has a unique interactive gimmick. What is it? Lyra Rebane's game, Chartery, has a unique interactive gimmick. What is it? No, that are too many proper nouns.

Chartry, like archery, but starting with a CH? Caitlin's on something. Chartery. Okay. Is this a... So, game, it could be a board game. It could be a video game. It's some sort of play on words.

I'd like to tell you what my hunch is when you said that Chargery, like Archeri, like archery. I've got a hunch as well. So let's just let's all let's all put our hunches in and see what we've got. Well my hunch is stupid so I'll go first. In kindergarten and first grade I played this game called backpack rock paper scissors, uh, which is where you put your backpack on the front and you do rock paper scissors and then the loser would have to brace their backpack and stand still and the winner would get to charge you with their backpack and just slam into you. And that was backpacked rock papers and censors. So I think it's that.

Okay. But with bows and arrows somehow. And like you got a shield or something. My brain will portmanteau almost any two words, if it can. So I hear charchery and my brain goes charcutory archery. You have a charcutory board and you are firing arrows at it to try and work out what you can eat. Cold kebabs, just instantaneous. Okay.

I'll tell you my word combo that popped into brain, because we have, like, charging archery, charcutory archery. I went to chart archery, chartry. So I pictured there's like a grid or like a chart, and you have to shoot at specific places on the chart as your targets. For those watching an audio, Evan is just leaning back, covering his mouth with paper to avoid grinning and giving anything away. Evan has zero poker face, so he has to do this for us.

Is it any of those? The funny thing is, none of you guys are at all right, but each of you has a little bit of truth in it. And if you combine the right aspects, or at least the words, but then you use them in a different context, like, you're going in the right direction. You're going in the right direction. That's all I'll say. I'll say this, though. It is digital. Okay.

It's a digital game. It's a video game. All right. Yeah. Wait, but is that a trick? like digital like you use your digits, your fingers, or do you mean digital like ones and zeros? No, no, no. It's all, I'll get even more specific.

It's on your phone. It's a mobile. Okay. Okay. Okay. Oh, wait, wait, wait, wait. Wait, I think I know. Is this a game where you use like a little Nerf, like archery thing to try to get the charging cable

into your phone's port? Charge archery. I was thinking you were playing with the amount of charge in your phone and you have to aim the arrow by getting your battery to a certain percentage. I was thinking, because it's a mobile app, it's pay to play, and it's charging you for a thing. We are workshopping a load of good app ideas here. I think Tom was onto something. You do have to hit something.

There is a target. It's archery. I don't feel like I should get a reward for saying the word target in the context of archery, but I'll take it. Okay. So was Tom? on to something specifically having to do with the charge of your phone? Maybe, perhaps.

Maybe perhaps. So I wonder if it has to do with like, as soon as your phone hits a certain charge, you have to do something. Oh, this feels like the sort of thing that gets rejected from the app store for potentially damaging your phone. And I feel like you line up your phone. And to loose the bow, you yank out the charging cord. And that's pulling the crossbow. Yes.

Tom's got it. Yes. It's interactive. Okay, let me read the official answer. In charge tree, you kill enemies by shooting arrows with your charger. You plug in the charger, aim the bow by tilting the phone, and fire arrows by pulling out the charger to mimic the motion of shooting an arrow. Oh, no. The funny thing is, Tom, you made that motion.

and I thought that you had it like minutes ago. Lyra was also the developer of Foldy Bird, a version of Flappy Bird designed to be played on foldable phones where instead of tapping the screen, you had to fold it. So you guys were kind of like, boom boom, boom, boom, boom.

Like, Sage said charging. Both everyone got archery. Like all the pieces were there right from the beginning. Thank you to Alina Abidi for sending in the question I asked the audience at the start of the show, in Southern California, how did a 1970s drought lead to the rise of skateboarding?

Does anyone want to take a quick guess at that before I give the audience the answer? I have a guess that it would have to do something with like drainage ditches being dry, and so people were skateboarding in them. Or pools.

Pools are like great shapes for skating, and with a drought, you can't mean, your pool? Yep, there were more than 150,000 swimming pools built in California's homes in 1960s. Most of them were the kind of kidney-shaped pools that sort of looked like a skateboard half-pipe these days. So when the drought hit, homeowners drained their pools and those empty pools became impromptu skate parks. Congratulations to all of our players for running the

gauntlet. Where can people find you? What's gone on your lives? We will start with Sage. Hello, you can find me on YouTube. That's basically the only place I am. I am at Bad Naturalist. And I'm on multiple places on YouTube now. I'm on my channel. And I am now on Crash Course. I am on Two shows on Crash Course.

I am on Crash Course Scientific Thinking. I have a little bit part next to Hank Green himself. Holy Cow! I won the nerd lottery. And then I am about to be the host of a whole Crash Course Show. Crash Course Geology. If you want to learn about rocks and beyond, you can hear it from my pile. And treating them as one unit again, Evan and Caitlin.

You can find us everywhere on YouTube. That's our primary platform. We have like six or seven channels. We've only abandoned one. And if you want to see how we do this trick right here, I'm going to turn our desk from sit mode to stand mode. The entire desk is raising. The mics are raising.

The camera is raising. Goodbye. You can check it out on our second channel. And from all perspective, because you're using a green screen. You're just sinking down into the ground. And if you want to know more about this show, you can do that at lateralcast.com,

where you can also join Producer David's Lateral Producers Club for extra behind-the-scenes stuff. Thank you very much to Evan and Caitlin. Yeah, thanks for having us. To Sage the Bad Naturalist. Howdy, howdy, thanks so much. I've been Tom Scott, and that's been Lateral.