Lateral with Tom Scott - 41: Barefoot job applications

Episode Date: July 21, 2023

Caroline Roper, Ella Hubber and Tom Lum from 'Let's Learn Everything' face questions about diamond dealing, disorganised diners and dodgy documents. 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: The Podcast Studios, Dublin. EDITED BY: Julie Hassett. MUSIC: Karl-Ola Kjellholm ('Private Detective'/'Agrumes', courtesy of epidemicsound.com). ADDITIONAL QUESTIONS: Lewis Tough, Matt Sheldon, Cressida, Cooper Wiseman, Jack Lawrence. FORMAT: Pad 26 Limited/Labyrinth Games Ltd. EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS: David Bodycombe and Tom Scott. © Pad 26 Limited (https://www.pad26.com) / Labyrinth Games Ltd. 2023. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When a new game in the Resident Evil franchise was released in 2017, why were two and a half letters in its name coloured orange? The answer to that at the end of the show. My name's Tom Scott and this is Lateral. Our guests today know each other from the podcast Let's Learn Everything. They are here for mutual support like one of those trust exercises. Although, to be honest, blindly falling backwards from time to time is nothing new to this show. I never know when we have three people who are all from the same show here who to introduce first, who should say what. So I'm going to start in the audio on the screen. Caroline Roper, hello.

Hello! Thank you for coming on. Let's start by introducing the podcast. What do you all do? Oh, so all together we, gosh, we're a science communication podcast, first and foremost. We share anything and everything interesting to us, from the reintroduction of beavers to the UK, right through to, gosh, I'm talking all about me, but what space smells like. That's what we talk about. Along with a lot of fun miscellaneous topics as well,

like the history of funky sports in the Olympics and things like that. So a little bit of everything. So as someone who had the reintroduction of beavers on my possible things to film list, and who also just asked a question in a previous episode about funky sports in the Olympics. No way! This is right down our alley. Next up, we have Ella Hubber. Hello.

Yes. I am the co-host. One of the co-hosts. Caroline kind of took everything there. I'm so sorry. I gave the brief and they just filled it immediately. So thank you. Ella, what are you researching for the show at the minute?

Well, I can't actually tell you because we go in blind. What have you recently researched for the show? I will, you know what, I'll just tell you. A couple of months ago, weeks ago, I did Eurovision and the history of politics and LGBT stuff in Eurovision. And I picked out my favourite songs. And it was great to introduce it to Tom, who's an American and has no idea what's going on.

I was fully indoctrinated by the end. I was really convinced. Which brings us quite neatly to Tom Lum. Hello, hello! Who is, I think, the first guest called Tom we've had on this show, so I don't think it's going to cause confusion, but I'm just slightly wary about it. There are a lot of us around. We can call him Tom Lumperson. That is an inside joke, because my username is Tom Lumperson, and there have been some actual real establishment websites that have called me Tom Lumperson, one name. I remember hearing Donald Glover talk about how he'd registered the Twitter account

Don Glover, which unfortunately does... I just heard it. Yeah, there are other ways to split up those letters that are not nearly as good for him. I would, I'd lean into that. Yeah, I think that works. But yeah, I host a podcast called Let's Learn Everything. It's like a science comedy show, if you've heard of it.'s just pretty cool um yeah we learn about things you know we answer questions

like which animal has the most bones um yeah what's the middlest size yeah i will say i also did a miscellaneous topic about uh an artistic concept just as good as Eurovision, which is PowerPoint. That was a good episode, yeah. Welcome all of you to this podcast. A little bit out of your comfort zone, but hopefully you will have learned enough of everything to be able to get through it. Lateral is a quiz where the questions are so twisted, they

can give a contortionist a run for their money. They will bend your mind, stretch your imagination, and possibly put you in hospital for a couple of weeks after you try it. Only one of you will leave alive. Well, we all know it's going to be me. That is the first time in this recording run that I've got to laugh for one of the scripted jokes.

Thank you all. That's great. Let's go with the first question, and it is this. In which Olympic team event can one person potentially set two new records, but their three teammates can only set one? I'll say that again. In which Olympic team event can one person potentially set two new records, but their three teammates can only set one? Ooh.

So there's four people on the team. Which immediately takes me to that one cycling event. The velodrome cycling. Yeah. Where they're like ones in front and they're like overtaking each other. What's that called? Is it the Kieran? Karen?

Something like that? Oh, yeah. I'm not sure, but it's one person crosses the line at the end. So maybe they can make a record through that. Maybe they can make a record for how quickly they get around it in like one lap as well. That's my immediate. I'm running into a horrible issue, which is that we talked about how we did a topic once on like, old forgotten Olympic events. So all I can think about is like, oh, this was when like tandem bicycling was an Olympic event. There's like some like weird exception where it's like, oh, this is when like they did like hot balloon racing.

And it's like, I can't. This is team musket shooting, obviously. Oh, I absolutely believe that those are all Olympic sports from the past. So my first thought is like, you know like um uh relay race maybe like there's one portion of it where you run longer and so therefore you can set like a second record because like one person this is like uh i'm also thinking this is like a this is the nerdiest thing in the world i was gonna say this is like oh it's like an olymp Olympic game that's like a 3v1 Mario Party game, where it's like, it's an asynchronous video game,

where like one person does one thing and then three people do something different, right? Are there any asynchronous sports in the Olympics? I feel like there must be some. Or like asymmetrical like that, yeah. Oh yeah, asymmetrical, not asynchronous. Yeah, archery is asynchronous, so is there anything asymmetrical in there? Like 3v1 basketball or something? Oh, yeah.

Are there any team sports that have four on each side? No, that doesn't sound right, does it? Is it a gymnastics thing? Does anyone do... Are any of us even a little bit close so far? Yes, you've got fairly close with relay. Okay, so baton relay, maybe? Oh, if you throw the baton far enough, you get discus and relay.

When you pass it to the next person. We will now play all the Olympic sports at once. Good luck. That's what the decathlon used to be. It used to be all 10 at once. The horse is very confused. It's a normal relay, like the 400 meter, where they do 100 meters each.

That's, uh, that, but then, and then there's 200 meters at the end for some reason i mean normal is doing a lot of work in that sentence this this is a normal relay for the sport yes okay a normal relay for the sport interesting try is there like a triathlon relay where you know you pass it off to you do like it you do like someone does the swim someone do like, someone does the swim, someone does the cycle, someone does the run. That would be sick. They should make that. Here's the good news.

You've now mentioned every word in the answer here. Ooh! It's a swimming relay. Yes. And they're doing different types of swimming between the relay, like a breaststroke or, you know, know front crawl there's something different about one of the people in that relay or one of the positions in that relay

that means they're eligible for a record that none of their teammates are they start or finish they like dive in maybe yeah you both you both got it between yourselves there. No way! The first person in that swimming relay is just swimming the correct distance for an Olympic event but all the others are done by hand-offs. They don't dive in at the start. Well, actually, it's backstroke is the first one. It's not diving in.

They start in the water as normal with a backstroke. So everything else is handed off. It's not eligible for another record, but they can in theory set a single distance record and then also set a relay record at the same time for everyone and has that ever actually happened uh i do not have any record of that happening but if it hasn't tom i don't know if you're up to anything this Sunday, but we got a team going. There are four of us here. And we clearly have great teamwork. That was amazing. Hey, high five.

I'm going first, though. I want to get the two records. Oh, that's what will tear us apart. Yeah, there it is. The competition streak is coming out here. And that's the main issue is our teamwork, not our ability to be Olympic level swimmers. Yeah, obviously. Yes, you're right. The first leg of a swimming relay is backstroke.

They start in the water, so they can also set a normal one-leg record, but everyone else starts with a handover, and that is different, not eligible, but the whole team can still win a world record for the group. Each of our guests has brought a question with them and I am assured that despite all being friends off the same podcast, they do not know each other's questions and I certainly don't know any of them. So we will start with Ella. What have you got for us? Okay, so thank you to Cooper Wiseman for sending this question, and it is, in December

1988, Denny's made a small charitable gesture to its hard-working employees that meant tradespeople had to be sent to 700 of its diners to solve a problem they hadn't had before. What was it? to solve a problem they hadn't had before. What was it? I'll say that once more. In December 1988, Denny's made a small charitable gesture to its hardworking employees. This meant that tradespeople had to be sent to 700 of its diners to solve a problem they hadn't had before.

What was it? Caroline, you gasped. Do you know this? I think I know the answer, so I'm going to keep my mouth shut for a little bit. Yeah. How do you? I thought, is Denny's also, is Denny's a UK thing? No, we don't have it. I thought you'd get this, Tom. It's up to the two Toms. All right, two Toms together. Here we go.

Let's sync up. All right. It's got to be a Christmas thing, surely. That's what I was thinking with December, yeah. Because Denny's is famously open 24-7 every day of the year. No, is Denny's just every day? No, no, no. You're right.

Denny's is 24 hours every day of the year. It's got to be a Christmas celebration thing that they sent to their employees. I'm wondering if it's like a tree thing or like a light like a light tree tree lighting thing maybe they they have to like worry about the the inside conditions for having a tree everywhere it was phrased as like a gift right or something like that a small charitable gesture i feel like a tree is a terrible gesture you you have to work on christmas on christmas day but here's a tree here's a present you take care of this thing it's not okay what trades people are they like plumbers electricians yeah they've blown the circuit

somehow or clogged the drains somehow i think if you think about you've got it that it was something about christmas if you think about what kind of gesture you would give to someone a shop that is open 24 hours a day 365 days a year i'm loving watching you to try and figure this one out as somebody who also knows the answer i'm just this is this is very entertaining we nearly didn't do this as part of the format you know we nearly just had me be the question master for the whole thing and sometimes i regret it sometimes well tom i will say i'm sure you have these strategies i've actually haven't listened to a lot of episodes i have three like really good strategies for solving these first one is

uh check the comments no they're saying christmas tree too which is weird um second one is fast forward 30 seconds until we get to the answer um and then the third solution is um oh actually i know this one so just just you tom actually just you just you because i know it because i do know it but okay what do know it, but... Okay. What do you give someone at Christmas? You give them a present. You give them...

Presents. Something charitable. You can't just be... They gave them money. Mistletoe. And they gave them money and everyone took Christmas off and they had to bring extra people in. Oh, you kind of hit something.

You said the right thing then. Oh, they gave everyone money. They gave them time off? Yeah. And then is it because what is it because they're like so used to running 24 7 that they didn't that they they needed someone to like did they just close the restaurants for christmas yes yeah they did they closed but what does that mean for the restaurant that's open 24 hours there's something that's never been turned off in there so they broke something in there because it had never been turned off you're you're on the right lines they us they were missing they were missing something because of this business model they have they were missing the keys they'd never closed

they gave their employees a day off they had to lock up the restaurant and they'd never locked it yeah yeah that's exactly it that's amazing wait what i just imagine that they like go to put the key in the lock and there's no like lock hole like they've just they weren't made designed that way they just go don't it's like so yeah basically the trades people that were called in were locksmiths no they either had to add locks to the doors that had never been locked i was joking that's actually what happened or they had to replace locks where they had lost the keys because they hadn't used them for so long. That's amazing. That's really amazing.

And I'll add that they never did this again because they lost $5 million at the time for closing for a single day. Next question's from me. Good luck, folks. In September 2003, the Diamond Information Centre started promoting something that had the potential to increase the sale of diamond rings

by up to 100%. What was it? And one more time, in September 2003, the Diamond Information Centre started promoting something that had the potential to increase the sale of diamond rings by up to 100%. What was it? They introduced patriarchy 2

the sequels of patriarchy now you gotta wear two did some kind of big event big celebrity around that time do something and they got that person to wear the diamond i don't know the queen's wearing a diamond it's look it's how good that is the queen's wearing i don't know the queen's wearing a diamond it's look it's how good that is the queen's wearing i don't know was it so was it sales of diamond rings or diamonds diamond rings specifically that's very interesting they did something or they advertised something they started promoting something started promoting marriage as a concept nobody had ever got married before although i mean that part of that's true with all the like debir's stuff right with like wedding rings debir's basically just invented the concept of the diamond ring right

or promoting it as a i can't remember my i can't remember my debir's history and i feel like off this podcast at least one of you will know that I was literally just about to ask like when did we start wearing diamond rings as a wedding thing I believe that's relatively recently and I believe that was that was all De Beers marketing I don't know if this is going to be on the same level where it's like get a diamond ring for graduation or when you go to Denny's. In every Denny's happy meal. How do you get more people to buy diamond rings? The health properties of diamond. Oh, that's nefarious.

Yeah. Lab grown diamonds. I was just going just gonna say synthetic maybe the perfect diamond ring from it being a synthetic ring is the year is it like tied to like a movie that year maybe titanic no that was you know the heart of the ocean that was i think that was a sapphire though right also a necklace right am i right it's a new tradition to throw heart of the ocean. I think that was a sapphire, though. Right. Also a necklace, right? Am I right? It's a new tradition to throw diamonds into the ocean. That's a whole new tradition that they're trying to create.

Oh, that's good. I was going to say, it's like, don't be like one of those chumps with like a sapphire necklace. Get a diamond ring instead. You stay on that door. Tom, you're actually quite close. They were trying to create a new rationale for buying a diamond ring. Okay. Oh, scarcity?

Like a false scarcity? That's the whole diamond industry, I think. Yes, but like an extra bit. We've thrown them all of the diamonds in the ocean. Did they start advertising diamond wedding rings for men? Ooh. They should. They should.

Diamond wedding rings for pets. For children. So down. Charlie and Teddy. Uber for wedding rings. Oh, you know someone's pitched that as a startup. It's somewhere in Las Vegas. Someone has pitched that as a startup. It's somewhere in Las Vegas. Someone has pitched that as a startup.

If you're getting married in Vegas, they will arrive with someone in an Elvis costume and a diamond ring at 20 minutes notice. You know that's some company in Vegas. That's not a bad idea. That's actually not a bad idea. Don't get me wrong, like marrying on 20 minutes notice in Vegas

is a terrible idea, but the company, solid. Did they start advertising diamond rings for divorces? Not quite, but you're actually not too far away with that. They were trying to increase the sale of diamond rings by up to 100%. So with rings for men as well, you're nearly there. With rings for divorces, you're nearly there. There's one other thing here that they were trying to sell.

So 100% means that everyone who already has a diamond. Is it like backup rings? Like buy two, get one free for your next marriage or something like that? One on each hand. One on each hand. One on each hand. No! Stop! No way!

What? That doesn't even make... No, no, no! No, no, no! I mean, if you're gonna say that doesn't really make sense, neither does like the ring and the diamond on it itself, but it's not like buying two for the wedding. There was one other trick they were trying to do here so yeah you would you would wear your wedding ring but you could also have one on the other hand for what i know there's eternity rings that's a oh

like a promise ring similar sort of thing or is it like when two people hold hands together, the rings are both... They interlock! I don't know. Are both photographable? And this is, by the way, the Diamond Information Center is marketing on behalf of De Beers. You were right there. It's all the same thing. All of these, all the way. It's actually much simpler and a bit more selfish than that. Is it like an investment, just because. It's actually much simpler and a bit more selfish than that.

Is it like an investment? Just because like it's a good, because the price of diamonds will go up? Is it a, have a backup? So the gimmick is that, you know, some people will have a ring on their left hand because they're married. Then you can also have one on your right hand because... Because you're divorced. Because you're not married. Because you're pregnant.

Because your child is getting married. I can't think of any... Is it about marriage? It's even more basic than this. I mean, I'll give you not married. The reason was just for yourself. Just because you can. You've got your wedding ring on your left hand.

Buy one as a gift for yourself. Put that on your right hand. That was their shtick. What terrible marketing. Did it work? They say that a few months after the campaign, a 15% rise in non-bridal diamond sales was reported. How much of that is from this campaign?

How much of that was diamonds coming into fashion? I don't know. OK, no, no, no. I am seeing... When you phrase it a certain way where it's like, you're going against the patriarchy. You get one for yourself. Like that's empowerment. I can see how that can be spun a certain way. I that's, that's, you know, whoever like mad men came into the room one day and was like, slammed on the board, like two rings. And they were like, what do you mean? It's like one for yourself. And everyone was like, Whoa. Like your planets, like watches. It's like, two rings! And they were like, what do you mean? It's like, one for yourself. And everyone was like, whoa! Like, your planet's like watches. It's like, we're two watches. Why not?

But what kind of marketing is, but you've got one, that's what you wanted. Now get another one. That's it. Get more. Why? The slogan was, your left hand says we, and your right hand says me. Oh, I kind of like that that don draper he got it he got us we go over to tom for the next question whenever you're ready this listener question has been sent in by jack lawrence in 2023 mich Michael Dorman sued his parents for a loan repayment. He produced a document from the year 2000, apparently showing that they had a repayment agreement. The defense proved that the entire document was visibly fake without advanced forensics. How? I'll say it again. In 2023, Michael Dorman sued his parents for a loan repayment. He produced a document from the year 2000, apparently showing that they had a repayment agreement. The defense proved that the entire document was visibly fake without advanced

forensics. How? My initial thought was that it was a repayment for being born or something like that. But now I'm thinking he's much older than that i've got to step out of this one i think i know that story caroline ella this one's up to you okay okay so the does the repayment have any what the loan was for have any bearing on the or is or is it really just it being about it being fake not particularly it's not it's not like uh yeah was it was it handwritten and that's why they were like well this is clearly just a handwritten note was it in a country that's name had changed in the last 23 years and he had put the wrong name of the country

down that's very interesting caroline it's a you're you're on a vein like that it's not that though that's a great that's a great thinking okay something to do with spelling like terrible or terrible legalese like it just has none of it made any sense so real bad i've got to check in here just to make sure that i'm not being not going to humiliate myself by coming out too early this is this is like an anachronism on that page right correct and it was it was the whole document what does anachronism mean um like doesn't fit with the timeline, anachronistic. It's like having a cell phone in like an 80s, you know, period piece. Oh, interesting. Okay.

Oh. The document was supposedly from the year 2000. Oh, it was not. Okay. It was from a computer or something that hadn't been made yet. Ooh. Or it's from a company that hadn't been established yet you're on you're on of you're getting you're getting warmer you guys are getting warmer so not computer or company

um it was in a font that hadn't been made in 2000 no way you guys i gotta say you guys are so close. You just got to name that font. Helvetica News. The thing is, I can name the font. I am that kind of nerd. Oh my God, Tom. The font is a guess. The font is a complete guess.

But this has happened a couple of times. So there was, and I can't remember which country it was, there was something, some political scandal where someone had forged a document by just doing it in the default font in Microsoft Word but the default font changed about 2007 and so it was meant to be in Times New Roman it was actually in Calibri

yes there we go oh my goodness and there was there was something years earlier. Sorry. Hello. Welcome to Tom's font knowledge.

There was a scandal. A side podcast of Lateral. This must have been like late 2000s because it was a US election thing and a news organization published a fake memo, a fake document that was meant to incriminate someone or cast aspersions on a presidential candidate. Can I remember the candidate? No.

Can I remember the year? No. Can I remember that they got caught because it was meant to be typewritten, but it was actually in Courier New, complete with superscripts for where they'd written like third or something like that,

which doesn't happen on a typewriter. That I can remember i will say i i looked this up on wikipedia and on the the page for calibri there it says like this has been involved in legal issues and there were like five footnotes there are like five to ten photos it's like but like this has happened multiple times which is wild so um according to notes dorman produced a document that had been printed in a font called calibri this only became a standard font in microsoft word in 2007 and wasn't even created by the creator lucas degru until 2004 but i i do love the idea of him being

like like them be like this was made in this font him being like i'm actually like friends with lucas and he let me like play around with his prototype pot like early. I got early access. Actually, that's actually what happened. I actually invented this one and it was stolen. Yeah, yeah, exactly. He stole it from me. Did this get to court?

Because I feel like this is the sort of thing that one of the lawyers... Yes, it did. How did one of the lawyers not throw that out? Like you'd think they would have sent that to the uh to the other lawyer at some point and gone folks can we can we talk about this rather than actually getting to court and doing a dramatic perry mason walk down the the corner i submit to the judge if you look at this seraph look at these two letters, because they didn't have a font expert, they didn't have Tom on the case, Tom's font on the case,

they apparently recreated the document in Calibri in the same font and then showed it to the judge and they looked identical. But this is basically a pro tip for all you real forgers out there. Gotta use Comic Sans. I looked it up if they had used comic sans comic sans had been invented i believe in 1994 1990 um so they would have gone away if you if you had just if you had only but you but you you look down on on comic sans could have saved you. So the defense knew that the document

from the year 2000 was fake because the font it was written in had not been invented yet. Next one's from me, folks. Good luck. At 8am on the 16th of September, 2020, millions of people in Sudan found themselves unable

to access the internet using their mobile data. But just three hours later, everyone had the service restored. This turned out to be a planned outage. But what was the reason for it? So one more time, 8am on 16th of September 2020, millions of people in Sudan found themselves unable to access the internet using their mobile data, but just three hours later, everyone had the service restored. This turned out to be a planned outage. But what was the reason for it?

Does Sudan have a king or a prince? Who's their ruler? A president? So that the ruler of Sudan could watch Netflix without it being throttled. I was going to say, this is like Tiger King era. This is like... September 2020.

So we're in COVID times. Sorry, I've just been told by the producer that the answer is who is head of state of Sudan is kind of a tricky question. So we're just going to move over that. Okay. Fair enough. Well, whoever it is,

they were watching Netflix on the 16th of September 2020. Was it to stop everyone from Googling something at the same time? Is this like a political-y thing or is this something more like commercial or like technology based than it is like a... Yeah, maybe something like this. There was some kind of real real hot hot merch drop that they were trying to stop people from grabbing up all the merch my brain went to were they trying to increase the sale of wi-fi uh like providers you you've picked up on something there caroline yeah it was only the mobile data that went out okay oh very interesting was it to like upgrade to like a new G? Like 4G to 5G?

Blah, blah, blah, blah. I don't think Sudan was getting 5G in 2020. We barely got it here. Mobile data went down. Wi-Fi and things were still working. Where does mobile data come from? Is it like different from the way we get... Towers, right?

I believe so. Yeah. I'm wondering if you would need to like take, turn the towers off for like a environmental reason, maybe. Maybe there's like a migration of birds or something. Yeah. You know how when plane like traffic is low or boat traffic is low, whales can hear each other better.

They like speak more during that those like moments i did not know that yeah so when there's been like prolonged plane outages due to various reasons whale song picks up loads during those times because they the sounds disrupt their um communications between each other did you say plane outages there i think you may did you mean boat boat or plane? No, planes as well. They can hear the sounds. Yeah, it's all transmitted down into the ocean.

They can hear a lot down there. Wow. I didn't know that. It's a lovely story. Unfortunately, not. It wasn't Wales. Yeah, it wasn't for the whales around Sudan. Is it an animal reason?

I'm thinking like birds might, maybe if there was some like migration pattern. Oh yeah migratory that would be interesting. We're really we're going sciencey here because that's what we do. Caroline earlier on you said to stop everyone googling at the same time. Oh. It's not quite there but it's close. Is this sport related at all? I wonder if there's, you know, if there's like an event where, you know. Oh, is it kind of like, you know, how you have to turn your phone off when you're in an airplane because it disrupts sort of like the controllers? If it's about searching for something or looking at something online, maybe.

Maybe there was a. But the Wi-Fi was still. Yeah, that's true if the wi-fi was up then is it something to do with the signal that phones are emitting or maybe a new tom scott video had dropped and they didn't want everyone to all right so i'm sucking do i get a point for that? No, absolutely not. Two reasons. One, I don't want to reward that. And second, we don't have points.

We're not tracking them. Does someone win at the end of this show? The audience, maybe. Certainly not me. Maybe, hopefully. I'm just going to hold on to, we're not going to reward that. That's one line that I'm going to say all the time from now on.

We're going to have to start implementing that on our podcast when Tom tries to make a joke. We're not going to reward that. Again, Caroline, you came in with, you know how everyone has to turn off their phone when? And then you went to airplane and that bit's not right when you're in the cinema was everybody being forced to watch something at the same time at 8 a.m voting voting something to do with, it was like a... Yeah, maybe so that people would not be able to, like, corroborate with each other. Cheat in the vote?

Yeah, yeah. Is that? But they would still have normal cell service. You've got very close with cooperation, collaboration, and preventing things like that. Exam. Was it an exam? That's it. Oh! Great job, Ella!

Wow! Oh my goodness! It was the National High School exams. And you're right, it's COVID times. This would have been August and earlier, but they'd been postponed. So yes, 8am, 16th of September 2020, there was a national examination.

And so, as an experiment, they just turned off cell data so students could not Google the answers. Did it work? I do not know whether it worked or not. I feel like if they're not doing it still, probably not. Maybe not. Yeah. Students will find a way to cheat no matter what. I was going to say, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Ella, did you cheat at school? Is that what you're confessing to me right now? Oh, sorry, I'm drinking water. I can neither confirm nor deny. Ella will be like, I don't know, that doesn't work. All you have to do is like... It's very easy. God, can you imagine if you didn't know, though,

and you're just like, you're just a student, you're just like, oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, no. Caroline, time for your question, whenever you're ready. Amazing. This is a listener question that has been sent in by Cressida.

Katie went for a new job at a prestigious employer. She was 50% more likely to go through to the next round compared to the past when asked to take off her shoes and sit behind a full height partition. What was the job? I'll say it again. Katie went for a new job at a prestigious employer. She was 50% more likely to go through to the next round compared to the past when asked to take off her shoes and sit behind a full height partition. What was the job? Full height partition? So she's blocked off visually from the interviewer, from whoever's hiring? Yeah, yeah.

So the partition stopped Katie and the panel of people from seeing each other. But she's taken her shoes off for some reason. That's what's very interesting to me. Is this like a bank teller? No. Why do you say that? Oh, because if you're a bank teller, there's like a partition and maybe you have to be tall enough so that they can see you. Am I?

That makes a lot of sense. I love it. maybe you have to be tall enough so that they can see you. Am I being, am I? That makes a lot of sense. I love it. So you're saying they have to be tall enough to look over the partition in this scenario. Yeah. But why, why 50%? And why do you take your shoes off? Yeah, I don't know if that number is specific or.

Can you see under the partition? No, so the partition is specifically designed to prevent Katie from seeing the employer panel and the employer panel from seeing Katie. Oh, okay. Wait, wait, wait. So are we seeing Katie's lower half? You're seeing nothing.

It is a full height. Oh, okay. Maybe the shoes gave away... Maybe the sound of the shoes gave away her gender or something about her i was thinking about yes okay spot on yeah it's because you can't see her and then you can't work out stilettos or footfalls or anything like that so okay you're% more likely to get the job. If you're not a woman in this scenario. Or if they don't know what your gender is. Yes, well, so prestigious.

Podcast host. Yeah, thank you. The most prestigious. What do you call four men in a room? A podcast. Yeah, okay. I would say, I would try and come up with a specific example but i feel like almost any prestigious industry or the tops tend to be men banking

there's got to be a trick to this though there always is in these questions there's got to be something i'll give you a little something she didn't even speak to the employer panel that's fascinating did they smell her just vibe the employer panel were dogs acting entirely by she had to do something for the interview if she didn't speak she had to wait wait wait did you say she didn't speak, she had to perform. Wait, wait, wait. Did you say she didn't speak or they couldn't hear her? I said that she didn't speak, not that they couldn't hear her. What is happening?

Is she a musician of some kind? This is a performance and the... I don't know where I'm going with this because I don't see why there'd be a gender selection for how good your violin performance is. I'm going to guess an instrument. Is it an orchestra?

It is an orchestra. Yeah. This is, at the beginning of this, I was going to say as a joke, this is like the thing that happens in Tar, but this is actually a thing. So yeah, please continue. Is this?

Sorry, the thing that happens in Tar? Because I've heard a lot of things about the movie and not sure what... They do like a blind audition of a person and then Lydia Tar notices that the shoes of the person walking away, like underneath the partition, she can see the shoes and she knows

it's like a person that she fancies. So, and I was like, so I was going to say that as a joke, but think is this actually what's what's happening caroline yeah pretty much um so like in the 1970s uh top orchestras especially in the u.s had as few as five percent women in their holy moly yeah um so to improve this bias many orchestras implemented blind auditions um where players would like perform anonymously behind like a screen that partition but they found that the sound of shoes often gave it away if it was a man or a woman or not and therefore some bias still was happening um so to combat this they made performers take off their shoes before the auditions before the uh before doing their

initial performance and researchers found that this method increased the chance of women passing the first round of auditions by 50 percent that is nice terrible yeah instrument playing playing That is nuts. Terrible. Yeah. Instrument playing, playing a violin. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Which brings me to the last order of business. At the start of the show, I asked this question, which was sent in by Matt Sheldon. When a new game in the Resident Evil franchise was released in 2017,

why were two and a half letters in its name coloured orange? Two and a half. Two and a half letters in its name colored orange two and a half do the two and a half i should know this i do love some of the resident evils did they spell like the high spell the number of the game yes yeah that has to be yes they did how is it oh is it village is it resident evil village and it's like they doI? No, that came out like a couple of years ago. Okay. I mean, you're right. You've just missed a slightly more obvious place those letters could be.

Evil. In the word evil, yes. Okay, yeah. Yes, it was Resident Evil 7, which is V-I-I in Roman numerals, and they took the V, the I, and half the L from evil to make that seven. Congratulations to all our players. Normally, I hand over to each individually to say what's going on in your world, but in this case, let's just go for the chaos.

Tell me about Let's Learn Everything. Right now, the device you're listening to, you're listening to podcasts. You're a fan of podcasts. If you want to hear us, we host a podcast called Let's Learn Everything on the MaxFun Network. Every episode, we learn about a science topic, we answer a science question, and we learn about a miscellaneous topic. tests throughout the ages. We calculated the middlest size in the universe, and then we learned about the history of fan fiction. We do a lot of research, but we also make fun of each other. We think the best way to learn is with friends who are excited and who make dumb jokes. Tom, did you write that? I did. I did for her. And you can visit, if you want to see,

everything is at letslearneverythingpod.com. And if you like Lateral, you will definitely like Let's Learn Everything, because we learn this kind of stuff all the time. And if you want to know more about this show, you can do that at lateralcast.com, where you can also send in your own listener questions. We have video highlights every week at

youtube.com slash lateralcast, and you can find us at Lateralcast pretty much everywhere. With that, thank you very much to Caroline Roper. Woo! To Ella Hubber. Woo! And to Tom Long.

Ka-chow! My name's Tom Scott, and that's been Lateral.