SciShow Tangents - Stefan's Favorite Things

Episode Date: December 22, 2020

Join us as we send Stefan off in grand style by talking a lot about the things that bring him great joy in life: getting yolked, going to the store, and dice. He’s a complicated fellow!Stefan, it has been a great joy to co-host this silly show with you for the last two years! I know I speak for everyone when I say we will miss hearing your voice every week. Thank you for everything!Follow us on Twitter @SciShowTangents, where we’ll tweet out topics for upcoming episodes and you can ask the science couch questions! While you're at it, check out the Tangents crew on Twitter: Stefan: @itsmestefanchin Ceri: @ceriley Sam: @slamschultz Hank: @hankgreenIf you want to learn more about any of our main topics, check out these links: [Truth or Fail]Spiders in carshttps://slate.com/news-and-politics/2014/04/mazda-issues-recall-because-spiders-invade-fuel-tank-causing-fire-risk.htmlhttps://www.popsci.com/blog-network/eek-squad/why-do-spiders-apparently-cars-so-much/http://delusion.ucdavis.edu/yellowsac.htmlhttps://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/10/toyota-is-recalling-more-than-800-000-cars-because-of-spiders/280694/Artificial Christmas trees made from car scrapshttps://www.aluminum.org/product-markets/automotivehttps://digitalcollections.lib.washington.edu/digital/collection/imlsmohai/id/14565/https://books.google.com/books?id=OlmGjEU7qU4C&pg=PA178&https://abcnews.go.com/US/ChristmasCountdown/story?id=1414607Mailing heavy car pieceshttps://about.usps.com/who-we-are/postal-history/bank-of-vernal.pdfhttps://www.deseret.com/2014/11/24/20553427/legend-of-vernal-bank-built-by-bricks-sent-through-post-office-partly-truehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kit_car[Fact Off]Wheaties jinglehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJpeR6GvpC8Workout clothing that regulates temperaturehttps://news.mit.edu/2017/moisture-responsive-workout-suit-0519http://www.digra.org/wp-content/uploads/digital-library/DiGRA_2020_paper_88.pdf[Ask the Science Stefan Couch]Random dice rollsHow random is dice rolling? http://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/8738/f63758598ca711c49817f9187f13c22a9893.pdf[Butt One More Thing]Farting gameshttp://www.digra.org/wp-content/uploads/digital-library/DiGRA_2020_paper_88.pdf

Hello and welcome to SciShow Tangents! It's the lightly competitive knowledge showcase starring some of the geniuses that make the YouTube series SciShow happen. competitive knowledge showcase starring some of the geniuses that make the YouTube series SciShow happen this week. For the last time as a regular host, I am joined by Stefan Chen. Hello. So sad. And Stefan, what's your tagline? Your last tagline.

Oh my God. I was like, I can't do a food one because then they'll get their bingo cards all filled out. Laser bear. Sam Schultz is also with us today hello sam what's your favorite thing about stephan chin oh goodness gracious i shouldn't have been taken off guard by this question but i was sarah you should probably be prepping as well oh i am i have a very sincere and heartfelt answer so you can like you can goof goof, fart, Sam. I don't have any goofs about Stefan.

I think my favorite thing, oh, for fuck's sake, why are you doing this to me? Sorry for me to be sincere. I feel it. I mean, Stefan is somebody who cares about everything he does extremely deeply. I think that's my favorite thing about Stefan. He just, like, he wants to do everything he does the best that he can possibly do it. Sometimes to my own detriment. And Sam, what's your tagline?

Pasta brain. Sari Riley is with us today as well. Sari, what's your favorite thing about Stefan Chin? Stefan is by far the best person I know at explaining things patiently to other people. Like board game rules. You walked me through building a computer and I know nothing. You like mostly it's the things that you explain to me. You don't make me feel bad about not knowing anything about a car.

And it's just like very pleasant to talk to you about things that you know about because you just you just like share and and i love talking with you that's a very nice compliment thank you stefan is 100 the person you want in the room when he has played a board game and you haven't yes because like there are a lot of people that you don't want to be in that position and sarah what's your tagline i don't have a desk and i'm fine and i'm hank green my favorite thing about stephan is that he will spend the time to get really good at things and really fast at things he'd rather spend time up front to be the most efficient rather than like learn things slowly and waste time on the way. It all started back when I was 18 in my first job when I was bagging groceries. Every year they have the grocery Olympics and they send baggers, the fastest baggers from each store.

But I wasn't there long enough to go to the Olympics. So I practiced all my bagging skills for nothing but i was very fast and that's still haunting you to this day yeah i use self-check every the self-checkout things every chance i get so i can be like boom boom boom yes i still got it baby that's me with what with shopping carts at walmart i'm like i know these carts so well oh yeah i can make this thing do things you wouldn't believe and my tagline is i can make these things do things you couldn't believe every week here on tangents we get together to try to one-up amaze and delight each other with

science facts we're playing for glory but we're also keeping score and awarding sandbox from week to week. We do everything we can to stay on topic, but we aren't always great at that. So if you go off on a tangent, you can be docked one of your sandbox if the rest of the team deems that tangent unworthy. And it's almost the end of the year, which means it is almost the end of season two of Tangents. So this month, we are celebrating science and friendship and the end of the season with an episode about each of our hosts. The topic of each of the episodes of December was one of us, and we are on our last episode.

And then at the end of that, we will know who our winner is, and they will be the currency of the next year. So now, as always, we're going to introduce this week's topic with the traditional science poem this week from Stefan. Well, I have to write a poem about my favorite things. But as it turns out, it's pretty simple, you see. Whatever it is, I'll use a spreadsheet to keep track. So let me regale you with the Stefan almanac.

I love to find heavy things and give them a lift. I love to drive around things and give them a lift. I love to drive around town with a manual shift. Love a freezer full of already prepared meals. Love a good coupon or one of those BOGO deals. Can't decide what to eat? Just whip out your dice. Let the universe choose.

Ah, stroganoff does sound nice. Whatever the meal, serve it with a pinot or scotch ale and turn up the spice until I start to wail. I'll swipe through TikTok when I should be dozing, or if I'm inspired, I might do a little composing. I might read about dragons or how to get those gains, but mostly I just want to play more video games. Oh, nice. Our topic for the day is Stefan and Stefan's favorite things. topic for the day is Stefan and Stefan's favorite things. Sari, what is Stefan? So Stefan is a lunar impact crater on the far side of the moon.

Whoa. Ooh, really? Yeah. I didn't know. You know what else Stefan is? Stefan is the vast majority of the last name of the lead singer of No Doubt. Is that Gwen Stefani? Yay, Sari!

I'm so glad I could puzzle that out. Happy holidays, everyone. But as a name, it's also from the Greek name Stephanos, meaning crown or wreath, or more precisely, that which surrounds. So I don't know. Stephan means a hug, maybe? That sounds great. A moon hug. So does it mean circle, and that's why the crater's named Stefan?

Because it's a circle? It looks like the crater might be named after Joseph Stefan, a physicist, or Stefan. I don't know. I was named after my great-grandfather, who was Stefan. It was like a Yugoslavian name. But I was never called Stefan. I was always Stefan. Interesting.

From the moment I was born. Do you wish you were Stefan. Interesting. From the moment I was born. Do you wish you were Stefan? No. You can always make that happen. We could. But Stefan is unique enough. Like, you don't need to take it to that extra level. I don't really sound like a Stefan either.

I don't think I would represent that pronunciation of the name. And I guess now it's time for Trigger Fail. One of our panelists, it's Sari this time, has prepared science facts for our education and enjoyment, but only one of those facts is real.

And the other panelists have to figure out either by deduction or a wild guess, which is the true fact. If they do, they get a sandbuck. If they are tricked, then the fact presenter gets a sandbuck. Sari, what are

your three facts? Here are three weird things that people have either done to cars or that have happened to cars because Stefan is a car guy. Which one is true? Number one, hundreds of thousands of cars from both Mazda and Toyota in the US have been recalled in the past few decades because of one seemingly tiny animal. Yellow sack spiders spinning webs in small cracks because they like hidey holes and possibly hydrocarbons like those in gasoline. Those webs can lead to sensor malfunctions or broken parts, which is very bad for the cars. Number two, aluminum has been used in car manufacturing because it's lightweight, malleable, and absorbs energy from crashes in relatively non-destructive ways. But using aluminum for manufacturing also means aluminum scraps. So Ford Auto Parts factories repurposed these scraps into affordable aluminum artificial Christmas trees, popularizing them in the mid-1900s.

Or, number three, private mail delivery companies flourished when the U.S. Postal Service had a maximum weight of four pounds. But in 1914, the post office began accepting packages weighing up to 50 pounds, varying by delivery zone, which meant some people got sneaky. Including a General Motors bigwig who, instead of paying to have new cars shipped via freight engine from Bay City, Michigan to Detroit, mailed them via individually wrapped pieces to cut costs. None of these are things that car people would generally know, so this is great. You've done nothing for Stefan. So you can play along at home, by the way, at twitter.com slash SciShow Tangents, where we will put up your three facts and you can click on the one that you think is true and then find out if you got it right after we tell you in a little bit.

But we have a yellow sack spider and their webs have led to car recalls in the U.S. Or number two, aluminum scraps from car manufacturing were repurposed as artificial Christmas trees in the middle of the 20th century. Is that what you said? Yes. trees in the middle of the 20th century is that what you said yes or number three gm wants mailed cars as individual parts to be assembled to save on shipping costs if how much does it how much does a car weigh stefan like 2500 to 5000 pounds depending on so 50 to 100 packages yeah like there are weird ways that people get around car things like laws and regulations and things like like some companies will sell cars that aren't actually street legal.

They're just missing a part. So they're technically not operational. And then you just have to order the one part and then complete it. And now you have a beast for the street. For the street. The part that seems the fishiest to me is whether GM would do it as one of the major car manufacturers. Can you just buy your own train? You can buy your own train, but you can't.

The people who own the train tracks still control who is on the train tracks. I would be interested, though, if you want to go down the path on the train tracks. Right. Still control who is on the train tracks. Okay. I would be interested though, if you want to go down the path to discover how we can have our entire office on a train. It's like remote working. Welcome to the extra future. Now we got like Starlink satellite enabled

internet on a train that like this entire educational startup exists on a train. It's like Snowpiercer. Yeah, what a horrible prison you've invented for us. What will we be eating on this train? Oh, you know what we'll be eating. Whatever we have delivered by drone. We'll never stop.

What if we don't want to live on the train? Do we have to? You can quit. It's fine. And as you quit, you have to jump off the train with all of your stuff. Yeah, yeah. We'll throw the stuff off. You jump first, then we'll throw your stuff after you.

Okay. Can we take turns driving the train? Yes. Okay. Definitely. What I like to picture is that they didn't let the postal carrier know first, and the post office person drove up in their little mail truck, and they were like,

we've got 80,000 50-pound packages that we're going to need you to pick up. And he was like, I can't do that. I don't have that ability. The mail car cannot deliver another car all at once. I can say that when the post office changed this rule, they told postmasters to watch out for very large or unusual number of parcels for mailing. And the postmasters were like, well, I don't know what that means. And so they just were like, well, my job is to deliver mail. So I guess I'll accept this mail and pass it on.

mail so I guess I'll accept this mail and pass it on. And then once they got scammed then they got a little stricter on what very larger and usual numbers of packages meant. And then these yellow sack spiders, why did they hurt the cars?

They gumming stuff up with their webs? Yeah, they spin their webs in front of sensors. I don't really know how cars work. So to my best understanding is they would get in little cracks because that's where they feel safe. And in the fuel tank, then they would spin webs in like pipes. And that would mess with the air pressure or the pressure of whatever was going through that pipe. And so that could cause it to crack because everything is so finely balanced. Or it would just obscure sensors that need to monitor things within the car.

If I'm a car company and your car has a spider in it causing a problem, that doesn't sound like a me problem. That sounds like a you problem. Well, but if you designed your car in a way that looks exactly like this spider's home, that seems like the car manufacturer's problem. Are yellow sac spiders everywhere in the U.S.? They're pretty common, yeah. Okay. And they eat hydrocarbons?

They don't eat hydrocarbons, but hydrocarbons, for everyone listening, are just hydrogens attached to carbons, pretty common organic chemicals. And these spiders have sensory organs that are receptive to them and i don't think scientists are exactly sure what they do but they they might use hydrocarbons to communicate or something so then they they like whiff the gasoline and then are like oh spider friends or something like that but we're not entirely sure they just have they can sense hydrocarbons in some way in the way that we can like smell bread baking. Then the Christmas tree one just feels like a coin flip. That seems perfectly reasonable, like a reasonable thing to do. So Sari said that happened in the mid-1900s.

And I don't know when we started using aluminum heavily. I could be wrong about this, but I feel like cars were more made out of steel earlier. And then the aluminum transition happened at some point, but I don't know when that happened or if that's true. Could be making it up. Stefan, car guy. What are cars made of? I don't know.

I think I'm going to go, my heart's telling me the Christmas tree one. I think Sari's invented a lush narrative around the shipping on the train thing that is not real at all. And then the spider one sounds like other stuff I've heard of before that wasn't spider related. I'm going to go with little spider boys. And I'll tell you why later. I really want the mailing one to be the true one.

It's fun. Yeah. So I kind of want to go with that. Yeah. I'll just, I'll go with that one. Go vote at twitter.com slash. SciShow tangents.

I forgot how to talk there in the middle. You can, you can, you pick the one that you think is the true fact. And then Sari will tell us. And I, hopefully I'll be right about the thing that I was pretty sure I knew. What is it?

You are right. It is the spiders. I didn't actually know that. What I knew is that they weren't putting any aluminum in cars in the 50s because they didn't care about weight at all. I was worried about that too. I tried to research when aluminum was used in cars

and I just like couldn't figure it out. And so I just went with it instead. But yeah, Toyota and Mazda have both recalled cars. So Mazda recalled them both in 2011 and 2014 because yellow sack spiders were getting into fuel tanks in like non-insignificant amounts. Like everyone was having spider problems. Tens of thousands of people with cars all ended up with spider webs in their fuel tank and they were like, uh-oh, this seems like maybe a car problem. So in 2011, it was like a gap that could have been sealed more tightly.

I mean, you kind of want your fuel tank to be sealed pretty well. But in 2014, like spiders still found a way into the fuel tanks and we're still causing cracks in the fuel lines and so they just did a software update to help monitor the fuel tank pressure and alleviate it before it got too high to crack that one seemed like a little bit more sketchy to me it was like well the spiders are going to get in there so now let's just like adjust the sensors so you'll be fine. Can't they make it so there's no spider hole? Don't let the spider in. If I ever

ask a car manufacturer a question I'll be like, what are you doing to prevent spiders from crawling into the holes of your car? They'll probably have an answer for you. Maybe at this point. You get a small bird that lives inside of your gas thing gas bird

don't worry about it so what's up with uh shipping cars around so it was not shipping cars around i swapped out the object in the story in in utah they shipped the outside of a bank through the mail when this regulation increased the weight limit. Because someone in Vernal, Utah, wanted special bricks, but the nearest supplier was in Salt Lake City. And it would have been really expensive to do it by private carriers, and it cost less than half that to ship it by USPS. And so they just shipped 15 000 bricks individually wrapped in in 50 pound packages because that was the weight limit so they like packaged up a bunch of 50 pound brick packages i think they ended up being like thousands and thousands it filled 1500 crates and weighed about 37 and a half tons. And then they were like, oh no,

our mail system is a little bit broken because people in Utah can ship the outside of a bank. That's so rude. Maybe this is the company I need to start. I only ship packages 50 pounds or more and that way I'll get a good workout while I'm delivering things. Oh, you'll be the person delivering them.

Oh yeah. Yeah, no vehicles involved. It's just the power of Stefan's back. And delivered. And then there was also the cars that Stefan was talking about. I didn't understand them enough, but I read the Wikipedia article on kit cars,

which were like cars that you could buy, and they were not always legal, but it was like, build it yourself. And is the Christmas tree one, just that aluminum Christmas trees exist. Um, it was not aluminum Christmas trees exist. And that some of the first big manufacturers of them were toilet brush

manufacturers, which I just thought was very funny because they are, they're basically the same thing, like wiry and, and fluffy. Oh yeah. Okay. And so then I just replaced toilet brush with car.

But I wanted to share this holiday fact with everyone. Oh, yeah, very festive. Next up, we're going to take a short break, and then it will be time for the Fact Off. Welcome back, everybody. Sam Buck totals. Sari has two. I have one. Stefan has one.

And Sam has none. But it's time for Sam to maybe make his return because it's time for the fact off where he and I have brought a science fact to present to the others in an attempt to blow their minds

and the presentees each have a Sam Buck to award to the fact that they like the most and to decide who goes first, somebody's going to read us a trivia question.

Stefan is the best jingle writer and singer at Complexly and he also loves an athletic performance enhancing food. I didn't write the question.

I take objection with this. I am definitely not the best singer, and I think Tuna would give me a run for my money on jingle writing. Stefan is an okay jingle writer and singer at Complexly, and he also loves an athletic performance-enhancing food. And it's Christmastime. The first modern commercial jingle, Have You Tried Wheaties, And he also loves an athletic performance enhancing food. And it's Christmas time. The first modern commercial jingle, Have You Tried Wheaties, promoted Wheaties cereal to the Minneapolis, Minnesota area as crispy and crunchy the whole year through.

Causing sales to skyrocket and saving the now classic cereal from being discontinued by General Mills. The jingle aired on Christmas Eve of what year? The first jingle. I did not expect this. I like that it's crunchy the whole year through. At no point can you go to the grocery store and buy some soft Wheaties. Not even in April. That sounds like a jingle from, let's see, let's see,

19, I was gonna say 1924 but what do i know i know nothing when did the radio get invented i imagine it would be around then i'm gonna say 1930 hank wins because it's 1926 that early huh wow i didn't know we had cereal that early cereal's not one of the first foods or something it feels like one of the first ones you just put That early, huh? Whoa! Wow! I didn't know we had cereal that early. Cereal's not one of the first foods or something. It feels like one of the first ones. You just put an oat outside and dry it out, and then you got a cereal. I guess so. All right.

Well, I guess that means that I got it, and I will go first. Stefan, do you want to hear about two of your favorite things, music and lifting? Ooh, yes. So a lot of people obviously like to work out to music. Might motivate you to go a little bit faster, work a little bit harder. We've actually talked a little bit about that on Taisho Tangents before. But what if it could also be used to teach you

how to lift better? Not just more, not just faster, but actually better because it's important to have good form. This is what researchers at Ghent University tried to figure out how to do. The team recruited local recreational weightlifters to see whether they could use music to train better deadlift form into them. In their system, music acts as both a punishment and a reward. When your form is bad, the music gets worse.

And when your form improves, the music gets better. They attached 22 sensors to the lifter and to the barbell. And it included a pair of trousers with six markers attached. So they had to put on special pants. And then they had them do some deadlifts. So a deadlift involves lifting a heavy barbell off the ground. Sounds simple, but it's actually really hard as it gets heavy and really easy to hurt yourself if you're not doing it correctly. So as lifters did their deadlifts, the sensors sent data related to two major form issues.

First is the curvature of the spine, which should stay, quote, neutral, whatever that means throughout the lift. The second is the path of the barbell, which should follow a straight vertical path over the middle of the foot and not track forward towards the toes. So it's all very technical, a thing you have to be very careful with. So while they were doing their deadlifts, the researchers played some music composed specifically for the project, and it was a nice sort of neutral piece of instrumental music but if their spine started curving the feedback system from the sensors would start to like mess up the sampling rate of the music and it would make it like

distorted it would make it like the rhythms would not line up with each other and if the barbell started moving too far forward over the toes the audio configuration would change it so that the volume would go down and be only coming from the front of the room. So they could tell if they, when they moved forward, the volume of the music would, would center in front of them so that they knew that they were doing it. So they, they created this punishment reward system of, of good music and immediate auditory feedback. And they found that the music feedback was just as effective as having a real live personal instructor give them the same feedback on their form issues, making it a potentially useful tool for training good form when there aren't people around to tell you if you're doing good deadlifting, like, say, maybe during a pandemic. Can you buy these?

Not yet. Do you deadlift? like, say, maybe during a pandemic. Can you buy these? Not yet. Do you deadlift? Well, not these days. Where am I going to go? Do you usually? Yeah. That's one of the big three, you know? What are the big three?

Deadlift, squat, and bench press. Between those three, you work in most of your body's musculature. You can get pretty yoked off of those. Sam, what do you got for us? I should go now. Stefan, are you ready to hear about two more of your favorite things? I'm so ready. Biotech and lifting.

Perfect. Let's go. An underlying theme that Stefan did not mention in his poem, which I'm not even sure he knows is an underlying theme of his own self, is that he focuses on almost unsettling blends of the mechanical and the organic. Like the micro robots made of frog cells or the buildings with the biomimicking window shades. Stefan dares to imagine a future where the line between living things and machines are a little blurry. And Stefan likes to lift.

Biotech and getting swole seem like a pretty perfect pair to me. For example, in 2017, researchers at MIT designed a line of bio-organic workout wear that they called biologic or maybe like biologique or something. I'm not sure. I didn't see anybody say it. That features ventilation flaps that open and close automatically based on heat and moisture from the human body, a.k.a. sweat. based on heat and moisture from the human body, aka sweat. So to achieve this, the researchers printed sheets of flexible latex with rows of a non-pathogenic strain of E. coli that's also used in some traditional Japanese methods of soybean fermentation. So this bacteria, I think these researchers discovered this, I wasn't 100% sure on that, but the bacteria swells as heat and moisture increases. So the sheets of E. coli are sewn into flaps on the workout wear and the swelling action when you get hotter opens up flaps where you are sweating and where you're getting hot.

And it seems to work pretty well. So lab trials found that people wearing biologic clothing had lower skin temperature and weren't as sweaty. So I guess like what more could you ask for from workout clothes? And one of the researchers described wearing it as feeling like she was wearing an air conditioner on her back. And they also stress tested the materials. And they said after they did up to 100 cycles of getting the fabric really moist and then drying it out, and it had no dramatic degradation in its performance. And there are videos of it working.

And I think that they're really creepy because they kind of like trypophobia, is that what that's called, with the holes? There's like all these holes that open up on your back and it looks really creepy. And beyond just being able to open and close, they've engineered these same microbes to glow when exposed to heat and sweat

with the goal of making clothes that would be safe to jog in at night, like for example. And the glowing was sort of like a proof of concept that they could engineer the microbes to do lots of different things. And one thing that they're working on is microbes that can eat the stinky stuff in your gym clothes so they don't smell as bad when you're done working out. And they made a pair of shoes too with little channels in it that can open and keep runners' feet cool and dry. And they floated the idea of moisture responsive sheets, which sounds incredibly disgusting to me.

I'm not really sure how they would work. The researchers were looking to, as of 2017, they were looking to collaborate with sportswear companies, but they're not out anywhere yet. So maybe that didn't pan out, but maybe this time next year, Stefan will have armpit vents. The sheets thing sounds very useful, because that's like

when you get in bed and it's like cold, but then after half an hour you're sweating. I guess it'd be good for summer. Some venting. No, this is a winter problem, I feel like. But you have a big blanket on top of you, so where's the vent opening up to? Well, the blanket's got a vent too. It's all got a vent. Do you have to do So where's the vent opening up? Well, the blanket's got a vent too.

It's all got a vent. Do you have to do anything to keep the E. coli alive? Or even if they're just like a sheet in your clothing, are they just happy there? I'm not sure. It seems, I mean, it seems like they last at least a while if they last 100 wet dry cycles. Maybe they eat this moisture or they eat something that they're printed on, but I couldn't figure out the answer to that if you had to tend to them somehow. But they're sewn in really well, so you can't get to them. Oh, that's good. I don't think you want E. coli in your body. So we have me with researchers who used workout music, special created workout music

to react to a weightlifter's form to improve posture. Or Sam's researchers designed bio-organic workout clothing that use E. coli to regulate temperature. I'm ready whenever you are, Stefan. I guess I'm ready. Three, two, one.

Hank. Hey, I got Stefan, which is the real win. Yeah, I mean, I like them both. I mean, I really Stefan, which is the real win. I like them both. I mean, I really want those sheets, but deadlift feedback just seems so practical. I could use some of that. And that means it's time for Ask the Science Couch,

where we ask a listener question for our couch slash just Stefan of finely honed scientific minds. It's from at Space hikes who asks, what is the most random way to roll dice? Can a roll of the dice ever be really random? And if not, why? So now we're not talking about like the randomest way to roll the dice.

Like you put it in your mouth and spit it into a cup and then like throw the cup in the air. It's like, wow. So random. Actually like the the most the way that will introduce the most stochasticity into the process yeah i mean i from what i can tell it seems like the randomness of dice mostly has to do with how well you are able to reproduce the initial conditions because

if you could perfectly hold the dice in the same way and move your hand in the same way and the dice were oriented like if all the initial conditions were the same that you would be more likely to get the same outcomes or similar outcomes and it wouldn't get a random distribution

of results it's random enough for like everyday purposes you know apparent randomness is perfectly fine for most situations it seems like it's really hard to get true randomness i think what we find is dice like if dice weren't random they would be bad for gambling but they are good for gambling so they must be fairly random Do you feel like a physical dice or your dice app is more random? I don't know which one achieves a superior level of randomness, but I feel like they are both beyond the threshold that I can discern.

Because I'm not rolling a thousand times on any given day, maybe over the course of a week. But I'm not going to remember all those rolls. I actually don't have a dice tower, but I feel like a dice tower, if you were really a stickler about it, would be the way to go. I guess I should explain what a dice tower is.

It's just a tower that's hollow with a bunch of baffles inside so you throw the dice in the top and they bounce around against all these baffles and they come out the bottom but that like removes any repeated like hand motion or anything from the equation i had no idea that that was a thing oh Ooh, this one's only $250. It must be a fancy dice tower. It is. Very cool. Looks like it makes good noises when you use it. Oh, yeah.

I've been down this path. You're going to order a bunch of tabletop gaming stuff, and you're never going to be able to use it. You're just going to be sitting there. Because there will be a pandemic? Is that what you mean? No, just because, you know, life is too hard to have time to tabletop game, I think. Someday, right?

When we're in our 60s, maybe? After we retire, our whole generation can go back and start playing D&D. Oh, my. I bet retirement homes in 40 years are going to have ongoing D&D groups. For sure. They're going to be fun as hell. That sounds great. That's dope.

That's totally true. It's going to be cutthroat. Nintendo 64 is hooked up to... Oh my God. It's going to be so good. Oh, all right. I'm in. Let's get old, everybody.

If you want to ask the science couch your questions, you can follow us on Twitter at SciShowTangents where we'll tweet out topics for upcoming episodes every week. Thank you to at StravBun,

at WitchV Vulgar, and everybody else who tweeted us your questions this episode. Sandbuck final scores. Sari and I tied for the lead. Sam and Stefan each got one, which means, which means

Stefan is the winner. I did it. Congratulations. Of season two of SciShow Tangents, and we will return in the future with no Stefan, but with Stefan Bucks. I will live on through my Bucks.

Well, Stefan gets to choose the name. Is it Stefan Bucks, or is it something else? Do you want to nail one down right now? You have to, kind of. Yeah, I guess. This is the last time we hear your voice, so. I mean, I'm fine with whatever.

Oh my God, Stefan. Well, because you guys have to say it a bunch of times. And like, I don't know, it has to like make sense in the world of the podcast. I'm going to come beat you up. I put in the work. Okay, but if everyone's fine with Chincoin, I kind of like it. Okay. I think that sounds great.

The new crypto. crypto well it's settled then welcome to the future everyone that's it for season two of scishow tangents this uh coming season is going to look a little bit different uh at the very least there will be no stefan but in the meantime we're going to take a short break the next two episodes will be classics from our back catalog but we will be back with you on on January 12th with something new for you. We'll start the new year by trying out some new formats, some new games. Also, we hope to have a guest join us, but things will feel normal to you soon enough. If you like this show and you want to help us out, it's easy to do that. You can leave us a review wherever you listen. That helps us know what you like about the show,

and it helps other people know what you like about the show. Second, you can tweet out your favorite moment from the episode. And finally, if you want to show your love for SciShow Tangents, just tell people about us. Thank you for joining us. I've been Hank Green. I've been Sari Reilly. I've been Stephen Chin. And I've been Sam Schultz. SciShow Tangents is created by all of us and produced by Caitlin Hoffmeister and Sam Schultz, who edits a lot of these episodes along with Hiroko Matsushima. Our social media organizer is Paola Garcia Prieto. Our editorial assistant is Deboki Chakravarti. Our sound design is by Joseph Tuna-Medish.

And we couldn't make any of this without our patrons on Patreon. Thank you, and remember, the mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be lighted. but one more thing so this is because stefan likes games according to oral histories collected from finnish world war ii veterans uh one way that soldiers would combine their need for leisure, bonding, and gaming were to play farting games, particularly following meals of pea soup. These competitions could involve all sorts of comparisons, including who could fart the most in a minute and who could light a bigger flame with their fart.

And sometimes they would get in fistfights over it, it sounded like, on the paper. Is that a science fact? It's a social science hank come on what is farting the most in a minute is it like the longest continuous fart is it like the most cubic centimeters yeah like if you can parse a longer fart out into smaller like break it up and i can yeah and i do have that ability yeah you really know i believe both of those games were games that I read about in this paper that's called Farting on the Frontline, Playing with Flatulence During World War II. It's a really good paper.