Lateral with Tom Scott - 48: Increasingly impressive plays

Episode Date: September 8, 2023

Jacklyn Dallas ('Nothing But Tech'), Beryl Shereshewsky and Alec Watson ('Technology Connections') face questions about martial arts mastery, boating back stories and motoring materials. 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: Luke, Ghabdidabdi, François Reincke, Robert Spencer, Alex Sloat, Jojo. 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

What is the only film broadcast by the UK's Sky Comedy Channel every February the 2nd? The answer to that at the end of the show. My name's Tom Scott and this is Lateral. Welcome to the show that defies convention and celebrates innovation, which is just as well as I've just accidentally put salt in my coffee. We start today with, from the channel Technology Connections, Alec Watson. Hello! How are you doing today, Alec? It's the first time on the show for you, but we've done a lot of stuff, haven't we? You've appeared on Disconnected a while back, I think?

Yeah, I think it was the first time I ever did anything with you, and then randomly you've showed up in Chicago, so that happened. Yeah, that's the point. We've been on roller coasters together that's the yeah for for everybody in chicagoland i got tom scott on the whizzer so i did my part i feel like a roller coaster is like an intimate experience i mean the whizzer would be if we're in the same cart because it's it's a very strange roller coaster where you're basically sitting in like an armchair with a lap belt same cart because it's a very strange rollercoaster where you're basically sitting in like an armchair with a lap belt. It's a very strange old thing. Is it called the whizzer

because it would make you whiz? No, it whizzes around. Or for the sound of whizzing. Not really sure. I don't like the way this conversation has gone at all but we're going to roll with it and we'll go next to joining us from Nothing But Tech, Jack from Dallas.

Hey, thank you so much for having me on. We have never been on a rollercoaster together, but we were at YouTube headquarters. I think that's where we first met. Yes, and Tom was recognized by many a people. People were stoked about the videos, like freaking out every time they saw you. It turns out, if you did videos about computer science a few years ago,

and then you go to the YouTube engineering office, a few people might recognise who you are. It was a little awkward. How are things going with you, Jaclyn? Good! I'm so excited about the show. I was watching a bunch of the episodes over the last few weeks. It's such a unique concept, I feel like no one's doing this on YouTube. And you know why? Because finding three guests for every episode is really, really difficult. And finding good trivia. Which brings us to our third player today, Beryl Chagashevsky, who has, I think, the most joyful YouTube channel I've seen in a long time about different cultures' foods.

Wow, thank you. Yes, hi. You've got to describe your format here because you're going to do a better job than I am. Yeah, the concept is I take one food or like a feeling associated with food, so it was like comfort food. And then I ask my audience from all over the world what comes to mind for them. and I send them a guide and they record an interview and talk about their dish to everybody and I attempt to cook it so it's five dishes from five countries or cultures per episode that I make in my tiny New York City kitchen that is such a cool concept it's crazy like on any given day I'm cooking a Mongolian dish, a Cambodian dish, Nicaraguan food, and like, you know, I don't know.

It's just wild. And I'm just like, cool. Occasionally, someone will come up with a format that I'm, it's so good that I'm slightly angry I didn't think about it. Never mind, I can't cook. It's just like, that's a good idea. Yeah. All right. Well, good luck to all three of you with today's show. Before we begin, I just want to say Fish 42 Purple Wednesday. And if you thought that didn't make sense, here come the questions. We start with this.

A replica bust is sold online. The rear of the bust has room to store 14 pens or pencils, though it should probably store nine more. Why does it look familiar? And one more time. A replica bust is sold online. The rear of the bust has room to store 14 pens or pencils, though it should probably store nine more. Why does it look familiar? So what it needs to be storing 23,

but I don't really know what hat what Wait, what, what is 23 significant of? Uh, chromosomes? Ooh. A small percentage of the audience got this immediately on you saying the word 23, and will now be spending the next five minutes screaming at their speakers. Oh no. It wasn't chromosomes, was it? The word that I just sped up? It wasn't chromosomes. Ah, darn.

So when I think of, when you say the rear of a bust, are we talking like the back of a skull? Like someone's head? I automatically think of like Beethoven bust for some reason, because that's like the most famous, well, maybe that's not the most famous bust, but that's just the bust I always think about. It feels like you're onto something with Tom's reaction to that.

It's best not to second guess what's going on on this face. I guess I think I'm frustrated because I feel like 23 should be obvious as to what it is. It should hold 23, but it doesn't. Oh, right. It doesn't. It only holds 14. Yeah, there wasn't quite enough room to fit 23 in there. Pens or pencils and nothing else either. What would you need all those pens and pencils for? Any papers, art, like an art kit?

So is this like, I mean I'm not good with art, but like a bust of Da Vinci? You're along the right lines with sort of person from history. I'll give you that much. It looks familiar because you will have probably seen something like this before. I feel like I'm like fidgeting so much right now because I'm like, what is it? I can't figure it out. So I figure if I perch myself on a chair i'll be in prime thinking position like oh who's that guy who like thinks isn't that a famous bust as well like the thinker but that has nothing to do with

23 i'm just thinking of 23 and 14 well if we're if we're going with, like primary color sets or something like that. Ooh. Like one of like the palettes? Something like that. Or we could do like, no, I think we were landing on art. So, but like 2014, but there should be 23. There's a difference of nine. 14 days in the week. I mean, 14 days in two weeks.

Okay. We're like, well, I live in the week. I mean, 14 days in two weeks. Okay. We're like, well, I live in a different... I perched too high. I didn't even notice that. I was trying to think, is that close? And then I just completely didn't notice the number was wrong. I went straight over my head. Yeah, 14.

Mine too. You're right that it's a person from history okay the design is very apt think about how it might look rather than specifically what you might put in you maybe because it goes in the rear it's something with a butt instead of the back of a head being open well i was you know when when you said the back of a bust, I was thinking like something with spiky hair, but that's not ringing any bells. Maybe it's maybe it's actually their back. Oh, like maybe it's like maybe it's actually. I don't know.

So what famous figure was stabbed 23 times in the back? Ooh! Julius Caesar was stabbed in the back. 23 times. Absolutely right. See, I knew the question, but I didn't know the answer. Whoa! Yes, this is a bust of Julius Caesar pencil holder

because apparently tragedy and death do become entirely merchandisable after a couple thousand years. So this is... That is dark. This is a Julius Caesar pencil holder, which only has room for 14 pencil pencils in the back. We go to Jacqueline

for the first guest question of the show. Whenever you're ready. This question has been sent in by Kabdi Dabdi, and it says, though it varies, karate belts generally range from white for beginners through yellow, orange, green, blue, purple, brown, and black for experts.

Other martial arts have roughly similar systems. Why this order? Okay, the question again is, though it varies, karate belts generally range from white for beginners through yellow, orange, green, blue, purple, brown, and black for experts. Other martial arts have roughly similar systems. Why this order? Is that like the color of your bruise as it darkens when you've been hit by somebody who's a master i love that idea i

i don't think it is because i think older bruises get yellow like i feel like that's in reverse i guess actually that's right you're you're so you're super close though really oh oh man i was color i was thinking it was like because it gets dirtier over time. Like you just keep using the same belt for years and years and years. And they just steadily get... Tom, that's the answer. Oh, really? Oh.

Yeah. The answer is the belt color gets darker as your belt gets dirtier. I was just thinking like you said, it was, you started with, well, no, that's not right. Cause it starts at red. I was like, that's the spectrum,

but no, it's not. So no, it starts from white. Right. Right. Right. But the, with the colors went not quite rainbow order. My brain wasn't working. I was just going, they they're getting darker and murkier. Oh, and then you, then you said bruises and it's nearly that. Oh, no, it's actually okay. Well, what happened there was i accidentally said the right answer very early on i did not know that one so interestingly there were actually no colored belts in martial arts when it started but um what happened is by not washing the belts the belts were kind of used as a sign of progression so naturally the belt colors changed as people were doing more and more martial arts man i just i yeah sorry folks just just went in on a punt and happened to get that one right sorry yeah well dude it was also wild it's like um they were saying back in the day people obviously didn't wash them but now

they recommend washing it for hygiene reasons and in 1936 um one of the main teachers moved to france and he was the one that actually introduced coloured belts to help the students feel like they were making some type of progress. Now you can wash the belts, but they're coloured. I actually remember, I did martial arts, and I only got to yellow, so it was like the second belt,

really like no progress. But it does feel like you're completing a mission when you get a new belt colour. All right, we move swiftly on then to this one sent in by Luke, thank you very much. The environmental play Are We Not Drawn Onward to New Era begins cryptically. The audience don't understand the Belgian performers, nor the mess they make of the stage. Suddenly, the actors stop performing and the audience becomes increasingly impressed. Why? I'll say that one more time. The environmental play Are We Not Drawn Onward to New Era begins cryptically.

The audience don't understand the Belgian performers, nor the mess they make of the stage. Suddenly, the actors stop performing and the audience becomes increasingly impressed. Why? So the idea is that in the beginning, the audience is just like not impressed either. They're like, this is a joke. Like, even if they don't get it, they just become impressed. Whereas before, they were not impressed by what was happening on stage. When you said that they don't understand the Belgian performers, does that mean literally it's a different language or they don't understand what's going on? You know what?

I'm going to leave that question out there because I don't think I can give that away right now. That's one of those, isn't it? But you're right. That is a very carefully phrased question, Alec. Yeah, I feel like it probably... Well, I guess my gut is not a language thing, but they don't understand what's happening.

a language thing, but they don't understand what's happening. Although, maybe it's also something meant to be a crude joke against. I feel like they wouldn't mention Belgium if it wasn't important in some way, because otherwise they could have just said performers. I would tell some jokes about oil,

but they are all too crude. Oh. I thought what I was going to talk about waffles was bad, but that was... A hook has just appeared vaudeville style from offstage, just about to yank me off the screen. So what I'm now picturing is like, do they immediately come on the set and start destroying it? I was kind of picturing like people, a lot of people don't take like the environmental issue seriously enough. And so there's like a lot of chaos and people just think it's like normal and then when

they stop then everyone notices the destruction on stage that was like my first thought my first thought was from that movie hook where they have that food fight and it's all that like sherbert colored play-doh and it doesn't make any sense and then as the audience you figure it out so i just imagined it was a ginormous food fight that then everybody got to be a part of. And I want to go to that show if it exists. But it's when they stop that then the audience becomes impressed. Increasingly impressed. Increasingly impressed.

So I imagine they're not just sitting there in silence impressed by that. Increasingly impressed sounds like, whoa, whoa, whoa. Like that's increasingly impressed. So they have to keep upping the ante. Otherwise you would just be baseline impressed if it was the same thing happening. Just the, oh. So maybe it's hard for them to stop like whatever they were doing. Like acrobatic tricks like at Cirque du Soleil.

I'm definitely increasingly impressed when I go to that show. Are they doing circus tricks? I haven't seen the play. I don't think they're performing circus tricks, but yeah, they're making an increasing mess during that confusing part. Maybe it's like, yeah,

maybe they're destroying the set, and then in the destruction of the set comes the rebirth of a new set. And everyone's like, this destroying the set. And then in the destruction of the set comes the rebirth of a new set. Yeah. And everyone's like, this is the set. Yes. Like the construction when they begin is not, it's like a puzzle that's not put together, but it's put together in a different way that makes sense.

So they destroy it. What if it's all in reverse and everything is a mess and then they're doing it in reverse and in reverse everything comes back together? That's it. I don't know where that came from, Beryl, but yes, that's it. What? The actors stop performing. The entire first half has been filmed and they then play it backwards for the second half of the show. That's so cool. So what's the reason that the audience can't understand them?

It's all in reverse. Because it's in the wrong order. I'm also increasingly impressed hearing all of this. So they're speaking backwards words. They are speaking English backwards for the entire first half. Oh, that's amazing. Increasingly making a mess of the stage, and then it's filmed and played in reverse.

And as the cleanup happens on screen, the audience is now impressed with both the trick and the fact that this was all said backwards. That's incredible you scoffed at. That is so cool. I would like to see this. There is a clue in the name, which is, are we not drawn onward to new era?

Ah, is it palindrome? There we go. Yes. The last letter of that is a capital. It reads the same forwards as backwards. That's it. And that was an Edinburgh Fringe show that's gone on to greater things since. Alec, next question's from you whenever you're ready.

All right. This question has been sent in by Robert Spencer. Trinity College in Cambridge, England hires out punts, flat-bottomed shallow boats, to students and tourists. The college has punts with names such as Fluffy, names such as Fluffy, Lithium, and Grace. What's the joke? I'll read that again. Trinity College in Cambridge, England hires out punts, flat-bottomed shallow boats, to students and tourists. The college has punts with names such as Fluffy, Lithium, and Grace. What's the joke? and Grace. What's the joke? Is it a Harry Potter joke? Because Fluffy was the name of the three-headed dog in the first movie, and they all take the punts to get to Hogwarts? Sorry, I thought you were about to say they all take lithium. And they're all on lithium. Not quite, but you're on a very good track there.

I feel like I should know this. This is something that must have crossed my sphere of knowledge at some point. It's not like I went to Cambridge, but I know folks who did. I've seen the punts. I feel like I should know this, and it is incredibly frustrating that I cannot connect fluffy lithium and grace in my head. What is lithium as a shortened chemical compound name?

Oh, like an element? Yeah, is it like L-I? I think that's L-I. Yeah, I think it's L-I. Pretty sure that's right, but that's not going to be helpful. It does not matter. Yeah. He's like, yeah, get off that track. Okay, so what other connections are there? If we go with pop culture,

lithium is a Nirvana... Nirvana song. Song, not album, right? Oh, maybe it's an album, but it's definitely a song. I'm smiling because I'm really happy with the direction you're going. Ooh. Oh. Don't think it's happy in a productive way.

And Grace. That's like the generic name. It's like both of them are random and then you just have like Grace. Grace Jones, Grace Kelly, Grace. Saying Grace before you eat your meal. Well, I will say I have, Beryl, you have already said something

that's very helpful. I think it was the Harry Potter track The first thing you said Oh yeah about Fluffy from the first movie So they're Three headed It was the dog that kept the The orb thing

The None of us have deep Harry Potter knowledge here Never I feel like I should have it because I'm peak millennial, but like it's... I've never seen them. No. So other colleges wouldn't have been able to do this joke?

Oh, damn it. It's Trinity College. So it's three, Trinity, three. Fluffy has three heads. Trinity is three something, but okay. Lithium, is lithium the third element? I believe it is. And grace is the third of the virtues?

In this case, grace refers to the three graces, beautiful goddesses in Greek mythology. Trinity. The clue is Trinity. Nice. You killed that, Tom. I feel like I should have got a matrix reference in there first before going straight for trinity college there well and uh also some of the other punts that were not

named were weird sister and barion i don't know if that would have helped sister i know barion i have no idea what that is it sounds like a cereal from america though it's a subatomic particle that contains at least three quarks. Oh, yeah, no, of course, of course. Okay, but I love that, like, baryon crunch could be a thing. Yeah, it sounds good. I'd buy it. Technically, you are eating a lot of baryons there, like, uncountable numbers of them. And I only know that because of a Star Trek reference. I only know that because of a deep, nerdy Star Trek reference that in one episode of The Next Generation, they had to do something called a baryon sweep to clear baryons out of the Enterprise.

Ah, yes, I've seen that one. That is what everything is made of. That's just, that's like saying you just need to remove all the atoms from this starship in order to clean it. There are even more puns called wise monkey and wise man, which I think would have been the final ones to help you all out if we needed to get there. Next question is based on an idea that came in from Jojo,

so thank you very much. In 2016, using a tiny sample size of 45, scientists were able to estimate that the average Chinese adult consumed 3.1 cigarettes and 8.1 millilitres of pure alcohol per day. How? One more time. In 2016, using a tiny sample size of 45, scientists were able to estimate that the average Chinese adult consumed 3.1 cigarettes and 8.1 millilitres of pure alcohol per day. How? Okay, well I think the first, my first thought is that averages are immediately skewed by extremes.

So it's very easy to have like an older part of the population maybe like smokes a lot or drinks a lot then skew the data completely. I think I've landed upon something that is probably very close to correct, but I don't want to just say that. Okay. You get to take the gamble here, Alec, which is that you get to sit back, you let Beryl and Jacqueline take this question, and we hope you're right. If not, you come back in later on. Okay. Well, my thought is that the small sample size needs to somehow be representative of something much larger.

So like the 45 has to actually be way more. And like, how is it like 45 sets of identical triplets? So they all have the same DNA. And so it can like be representative of a larger sample size or something because like yeah 45 doesn't work on its own to give you an accurate number so how can that 45 actually be really big yeah you've spotted that it's not 45 people 45 districts 45 groups from like different age like demographics no they they only took 45 samples they only had to analyze 45 samples here to get that that estimate 45 samples of what like samples of like like spit samples of blood samples of toenails samples of hair? It could be a sample of anything.

Samples of... This is a G-show. I don't know. It could be samples of... It wasn't until that joke. It could be samples of their garbage or something, and they could see how much... How many cigarettes are discarded

or how much alcohol is discarded. Like neighborhood garbage cans? Yeah. So that they would then be able to look through and be like, oh, but a sample. So they looked at a sample of 45 and figured out smoking and drinking habits. Trash does connect. Because that could easily be skewed, right? Because if you have, like, a chain smoker, they could be throwing out a lot more in the trash than like the average person, which would show the skewed data.

What if it's like public ashtrays and it was like like 45 locations in around like a town because like people walk in smoke and also like at the end of the night, like at least, you know, in New York City, there's like always empty bottles like in the morning, usually filled with pee. But like before then or not. like in the morning, usually filled with pee, but like before then they're not. But I just mean like the morning after you can get a sense of what happened the night prior. You're getting very close with that. Okay. Alec, are we close to where you were?

Yes, but I was thinking the sample was probably taken prior to consumption. Ooh, what do you mean? But then how would you know if they consumed it? Like, I have a bottle of whiskey in my house that I've not touched. It doesn't mean I'm drinking it. I was just thinking, so maybe this isn't correct, but I was just thinking you could just look at like 45 liquor stores and tobacco shops

and count the sales versus the number of buyers. Oh. Now, in this case, Alec, I don't think you could be more wrong with that statement. Oh, no, really? Okay. Ooh. The girls were closer.

Okay, interesting. I feel like there's something with the public sampling because it has to be skewed because I would be shocked if the average person was having three cigarettes a day. So they have to be taking it. Because it was also like, I feel like we were close on the trash part.

I agree. Right? Landfills? Again, very close. Gutters. People throw stuff into the gutter, and then it gets stuck in the drain pipes and stuff. So they cleared out and they checked water treatment,

45 water treatment facilities. I'm going to give you that one, Beryl. That's close enough. You know when you were just listing bodily fluids and things like that and then you stopped? You should have kept going. Wow, I've never heard that before, but I will next time.

My brain did think about the COVID prevalence in wastewater. I was like, well, maybe they could do that with nicotine and alcohol. Sewage epidemiology is the term. Yep, you can do that for COVID prevalence, but you can do it for nicotine and alcohol. And yeah, 3.1 cigarettes.

So it did come back to pee? It absolutely did come back to pee, yes. Wow. You cut yourself off on saying it's a G show. I don't want to talk about bodily waste. And then, yes. I was close on the P because I talked about the P in the morning in New York City. I should have kept on that P train.

So, yes, when I say accurate, it was not 3.1 cigarettes per person. It was the nicotine usage over the whole population can be pretty accurately checked by testing wastewater. Our last guest question of the show then is from Beryl. Take it away. This question has been sent in by Francois Reinka. In 2005, a hunter was fined 200 euro for the unauthorized killing of a sparrow in the Friesian Expo Center of Leeuwarden, the Netherlands. Many people were thankful since the sparrow was an immediate threat to the annual event held there. What was it? I'll read it one more time. In 2005, a hunter was fined 200 euro for the unauthorized killing of a sparrow in the Friesian Expo Center in Leeuwarden, the Netherlands. Many people were thankful since the sparrow was an immediate threat

to the annual event held there. What was it? There's a lot of hooks in that question that I don't know where to start. A lot of rabbit holes to go down. My first thought was that's a weird law to have for like 200 euros to kill a sparrow, but I guess that just falls under cruelty to animals. Like you can't randomly go out and start killing sparrows.

Yeah. It's also interesting that people were grateful, though. Yeah, I'm trying to think of an event that like a bird is, you said Expo Center, right? Yeah. So can we assume this is an indoor thing? It could be indoor or outdoor, by the way, though. Okay, so that doesn't matter.

Just what would a bird... So what does the Netherlands do? They have a lot of bikes there. Okay, let's run through the Netherlands. They wear a lot of orange. They've got a lot of canals and really good trains. And flowers, right? That's where the flower auction is.

Yes. Yes, but I don't think that's where the big flower market is. That's going to be near the airport. Do flowers have anything to do with this? No. Oh, okay. Because I was going to be like, I wonder if birds affect flowers, but yeah.

Yeah, pollination or something. They were going to cause crossbreeding. Yeah, pollination. That was... Okay, what else do I know about the Netherlands? New Year's Eve, they let off a dangerous amount of fireworks.

I love that you know that. That's so neat. I've got a friend who lives in Rotterdam and every single year she's just complaining on New Year's because the Dutch just

buy industrial quantities of fireworks you shouldn't set off near people and then just set them off near people. Like it's... Wild. Year end in the Netherlands

is just a lot of explosions. I suspect that's got nothing to do with the dead sparrow, but... Maybe there's like an expo for like, yeah, no. I'm still stuck on the fact that you said that they wear a lot of orange.

Like is that general knowledge that the Dutch wear a lot of orange like is that general knowledge that the dutch wear a lot of orange i've just been in amsterdam on queens day and uh it's just a sea of bright orange that is the national color oh that's fun i mean that has not that's not going to help you over here but okay that was a good tangent also frisian expo the only connection i've got with frisian is like frisian cows but i don't think that's that's what's going on here it's going to be the region so were the things in this expo like particularly fragile they were difficult to set up you said hunter like is is this one of those things where someone has brought in a bird of prey to try and take down? Because there's railway stations in the UK where they will hire in a bird of prey just as a pigeon scarer to keep the birds away.

No way. It's not actually meant to kill the birds. It's just meant to be, here is a giant predator flying around and all the pigeons decide they'd much rather live somewhere else. No. There was a slight bit of joy in that. Try again, Tom. I want to pull back on, if there were a random bird

flying around this expo center, it would wreak some form of havoc. Yes. People would be scared by being convenient oh i wonder if there are other animals coming to this expo or something and the bird would scare them it's a tiny little bird though like it's the international mouse expo and they're terrified that what you said difficult to set up um Oh. Yeah. Is it like one of those domino runs where they're just setting up an enormous string of dominoes

and there is a bird that is going to come in and flap and flap and at some point going to hit it and they're just terrified. And like the airflow from the bird. Yes, that's correct. Hey! Killed it. Yeah, so this was a domino day, which was televised between 1998 and 2009,

where builders were challenged to beat the record for the number of dominoes toppled. And if left to fly around, the sparrow would have caused a major section of the domino displays to fall early. I think I'd rephrase that as the sparrow would have won. The notes are a little bit confusing. It says, if left to fly around,

the sparrow could have caused a major section of the domino display to fall early. And then it says it knocked over 23,000 dominoes before it was killed by an extermination company. So I'm not sure, maybe there's two sparrow instances. No, that 23,000 dominoes is not much for a domino run. Yeah. That's a tiny, tiny fraction.

Like they'd be putting millions up for something like that. It's going to be a massive expo hall. That's why it's indoors. Like a gust of wind would start knocking that over. Yeah, it says in 2009 there were 4.5 million dominoes in the expo. Wow. So 23,000 is minor damage for a sparrow. And all of a sudden, you have all these domino setter-uppers.

There's got to be a term for that, but I don't know what it is. Just kind of terrified of a tiny little bird. Yeah, they're like domino artists. We have time for the rare bonus question, because we've rattled through those so fast. Congratulations to all of you, and thank you to Alex Sloat for sending this one in. Fordite is a material that is cut and polished into jewellery stones.

It's noted for its multitude of stripes or layers in different bright, sometimes psychedelic colours. How was it produced? And one more time, Fordite is a material that is cut and polished into jewellery stones. It's noted for its multitude of stripes or layers in different bright, sometimes psychedelic

colours. How was it produced? This one I definitely know. I thought you might! The minute I saw that, I thought, if there's anyone who knows this one, it's going to be Alec. Which actually might be a little bit of a clue to the other people here. Okay. So that means it's some old tech yeah that's what i'm gathering so it's not made the way that we made rock candy in middle school of like a piece of wood and sugar

that we leave in a dixie cup overnight maybe it's uh is that like an american thing i've never done that before i feel like that's just you, but now I'm going to have to try it. I don't think that's a thing that I... I was going to let that roll past as like, oh, this is clearly something all the Americans know about. Yeah, no. Wait, what?

You guys weren't all rolling rock candy crystals in elementary school? No, but that's dope. Wow, my school was cool. Yeah. Anyway, let's just brush past the uh weird personal development we've now learned um so this is a gemstone that uses old tech to make lots of psychedelic colors yes with stripes and patterns. I mean, not technically a gemstone, a material, but yeah.

Like a glass piece of like, you know how when you make a loom and you have to string the different colors together and you knot it, and then maybe you compress it down really hard with a lot of pressure and then boom. My first thought was CDs. Because CDs reflect light really interestingly.

They have a rainbow light, and that's old tech. It's called Fortnite, like the game? Fordite. Oh, Fordite. F-O-R-D-I-T-E. It's old Ford cars that get chopped up, and the seatbelts become the pieces that you wear around your neck. This is a Wrangler from 1995.

That would be old tech and you're in the right area. Oh my gosh. Keep talking and eventually you'll get something. So it's like chopped up bits of something old. Old 8-track players. Old VCRs. You're getting colder. Colder.

So it's got to be related to cars then. Okay, so it's like used car parts, and they're somehow taking the car parts and then making it this material. Batteries. Fordite is from Ford. Okay. Oh, it's from Ford.

Okay, so it's a Ford part for a car. I mean, not necessarily Ford. Okay. Oh, it's from Ford. Okay. So it's a Ford art for a car. I mean, not necessarily Ford. It could be any similar old manufacturer, but yeah, it's named after the car company. The only thing I can think of then are like gear shifts that people like, the little knobs on that, and also hood ornaments. But like, what else in a car? Hood ornaments is smart because those can be like melted down. Could you talk to me about how you made that rock candy?

It's like a sugar water and then the sugar evaporates and sticks to a wooden dowel that you put in and then it forms crystals and then you can eat it. It's like a super saturated solution. You stick a stick in there.

Yeah. It's great. You can buy it. Oh, does a super saturated solution. You stick a stick in there. Yeah, it's great. You can buy it. Oh, does that have something to do with this? Something evaporates onto a wooden dowel and you eat it as a eight-year-old? I mean, no, but it's that sort of building something up over time. Okay, every single Jeep rank

or every single Ford F-150 that's ever been done, they take little bits and then they stack them on top and slice them like a piece of cheese and compress them down and then that's the jewellery. Nailed it.

That is... You're missing a key part of that, but actually, that's kind of what happens. Oh my God. There's one key section there that you're missing. Sugar. But yeah, every car that was manufactured,

a little bit of it ended up in Fordite. Oh, like when they're grinding, when they're cutting the metal and they're shaving the metal down, all that little bits and stuff, and then they gather it and then they sell it. But that wouldn't be very colourful, would it? Then they put food dye in it, like Easter eggs.

No, maybe it's after they paint the cars or something, like the extra on the assembly line. Yeah, that's it. It's the overspray. So for years and years and years, Ford cars would be spray painted. They don't use that anymore. They've got more modern ways of doing it. But they would just spray the cars. The paint would build up on every indoor surface around steadily over time. And so at some point, someone started chipping that off and realized actually all these different layers of colors from all the cars have been painted. We can make jewelry out of that. And that is Fordite.

I want to know, I want to be in that meeting where they were like, I'd like to talk to everyone about a new product I'd like to bring to the table. I got some paint scraps. Put that in a nice little gold bracelet and they're going to fly off the shelves. Sick. And they were like, yes, Tim, we love that idea. Let's do it. Of course he's called Tim. At the start of the show, I asked the audience,

what is the only film broadcast by the UK's Sky Comedy Channel every February the 2nd? I suspect someone's going to get this immediately. Let's go to the panel and see if anyone can take a guess. It's got to be Groundhog Day, right? It is Groundhog Day, yes. February the 2nd is Groundhog Day, and on that day, Sky Comedy plays that movie on repeat.

With that, thank you very much to all of our players. Let's find out where can people find you, what's going on in your lives. Let's start with Beryl. You can find me on YouTube. It's really simple. Just Beryl Sharashevsky rolls right off the tongue. But just search Beryl.

You'll find me. Jacqueline. Also on YouTube, the channel's called Nothing But Tech,l. You'll find me. Jacqueline. Also on YouTube, the channel's called Nothing But Tech, but if you also just looked up like Jacqueline Dallas, it would come up. And Alec. I am also on YouTube. You can find my channel name, Technology Connections. And yeah, that's pretty much the only place you find me these days. It's the same with me. The others just don't seem worth it, do they? But if you do want to find out more about the show, then you can find us at Lateral Cast.

Pretty much every social network still. And if you want to know more about the show or send in an idea for your own question, you can do that at lateralcast.com. And you can see video highlights every week at youtube.com slash lateralcast. With that, thank you very much to Alec. Bye.

To Jacqueline. Thank you for having me. And to Beryl. Whee! I'm Tom Scott, and that's been Lateral.