Secretly Incredibly Fascinating - fun additional stories about paprika, hyenas, cursive, purple, the middle finger, and Microsoft Excel

Episode Date: June 17, 2024

This is a new episode, rounding up a grab bag of new stories! Alex Schmidt and Katie Goldin explore why additional tales about paprika, hyenas, cursive, purple, the middle finger, and Microsoft Excel are secretly incredibly fascinating.This week's bonus show is the second episode of our very special TV recap podcast "The Inspectors Inspectors". Become a Maximum Fun member to hear it: https://maximumfun.org/joinAlso, come hang out with us on the SIF Discord: https://discord.gg/wbR96nsGg5

Paprika and Hiatus and Purple and Cursive and Middle Fingers and Microsoft Excel, additionally Auspice. Let's find out more ways all of those things are secretly incredibly fascinating. Hey there, folks. Welcome to a sort of different and special whole new podcast episode. This is a podcast all about why being alive is more interesting than people think it is. My name's Alex Schmidt. I'm not alone. I'm joined by my co-host, Katie Golden. Katie! Yes. We are one week away from episode 200 of this podcast.

What? And right now we are in the week of The Inspectors' Inspectors episode two is out in the bonus feed right now. Oh, yeah. That's my favorite show. that's my favorite show. It's such a joy that it is difficult television to watch and we have so much fun with it. It's we just taped it.

It's so good. I told my husband that I, I watched another episode of it and he's like, they're making you watch more of that show. And I said, they're letting me watch more of that show. It's how I feel too. inspectors yeah it's true because nothing on heaven and earth could move me to watch it except the support we got in the maximum fun

drive and we got a lot so we did it it's growing on me the show the characters the plot the sexual tension between a son and his mother. Which continues, yeah. Which continues, yeah. And yeah, folks, this is a whole episode of new stuff here in this main feed, this public feed about many different topics that have been recent shows. You don't need to hear them to enjoy them, but I think that enriches them. And then instead of a bonus show about the topic, enriches them. And then instead of a bonus show about the topic, the bonus thing in feeds is our second episode of The Inspectors Inspectors, which is a recap podcast about The Inspectors. The Inspectors is a scripted crime drama funded and produced by the United States Postal Service. USPIS.

Yeah. United States Postal Inspector Service, USPIS. Yes. Also next week, you'll get digital art for the 200th episode of Secretly Incredibly Fascinating. Again, if you're a supporter of the show. NFTs! Oh, no. I'm realizing I think the first one of those posters for episode 50 was before NFTs. And since then, NFTs has made digital art weird.

That's fun. Yeah. Great. Yeah. The thing is, you own a pointer to the art, not the art itself. Yeah.

I guess I'm proud everyone gets the same PDF and high res PNG. Like it's way better than NFTs. It's really good. It's just a very low res JPEG of Alex mid-bite of like

a chicken wing. But it's a collectible. Some of you aren't getting this. Three Slurp Juices is one Alex chicken wing or whatever that viral tweet about NFTs was. He can evolve up to a mega Alex. Yeah.

So yeah, MaximumFun.org slash join to hear the inspectors inspectors episode two and the first one as well. And in the meantime, folks, amazing stories about recent topics. And the first one is some personal experiences because takeaway number paprika. We have Pringles updates to share with the listeners. Pringles updates. We wondered what are the paprika Pringles like? Because if folks haven't heard that episode, Europe, especially like continental central

northern Europe, has a lot of paprika flavored Pringles. Right. And I tried them. And Katie, you're located in Europe. Yeah. It's pretty cool. I found them in the grocery store where you get groceries. And I picked them up and I purchased them with legal tender.

And I took them home and I did try them and they were great. I don't usually like Pringles, to be honest with you. I find them the lesser of the potato chips. Okay. But these paprika Pringles, I don't know, they kind of slammed. I liked them. I bought a second tube of them. And it was on that episode we talked about Germany having three different ones for like the smoked and the sweet and the spicy.

Was yours just labeled paprika or was it a type? It was just paprika. I would say it was probably the flavor, I think it was probably sweet paprika. So like a little bit spicy, but a little bit sweet. But it just said paprika. That makes sense. I feel like that would be a, if you're going to do one paprika flavor, that's the one you'd probably run with. That's the optimal one. Yeah. Would you want that seasoning on your favorite kind of chip that's not Pringles? Yes. I, yeah, it was very good. I would say like the Pringle, the problem with the Pringles, it's sort of a potato amalgam. There's like, it's like a pressed

potato amalgam. There's other things in it, I think, that are not potato that are making the texture a little odd to me. Yeah, mainly rice, apparently. There's a lot of rice in a Pringle. Rice is okay. It just, the texture of the Pringle, I do not think is like optimal, but it's not bad. So yeah, that's why, you know, eight out of 10. Cool. chip experience. Yeah.

And I'm really glad you went and tried it. You know what? There's another. Actually, guess what, Alex? I found another paprika chip, and I didn't even really think about it. Oh. It was just a potato chip with paprika on it. It was good. I'll bet it's some Europeanan version of lays or something like a

very standard chip yeah exactly yeah okay great uh i think they're it had like the little ridges on it the little ruffles uh and and like and then see that's my favorite chip ruffles i like that chip the rough for some reason the ruffles do help with the chip i don't i can't explain it i don't know what physics is going on there, but sometimes when you're doing just a plain old potato chip, there are shards that cut the inside of your mouth in a bad way. But with the Ridges, you get a more optimal chewing experience. And the paprika on it, it was excellent. Those were good chips. I had them at a board game party that I hosted and everyone ate them and seemed to enjoy

them, but mostly me. You even had a group try them. This is so exciting. This is great. I should have asked everyone, like, how is your chip eating experience? But I was too distracted by games. Yeah, that's exciting. but yeah that's exciting i also uh the other story we have received is that listener chris g i want to shout them out they are american chris g and i also just anytime you listen to the show

i'm like a trip let me know i'm just thrilled about it and chris said he heard the paprika episode while driving the vacation. Oh, okay. Yeah, hippies. I don't want to hear about the other one. Okay, hippies. What a way to you, man. And so Chris G was on a vacation and he was driving the ring road of the country of Iceland. Iceland has this amazing ring road where you see the sea and glaciers and stuff, you know, and was listening to Arthur's show about paprika.

And so then pulled over and the first place had the paprika Pringles. I think just the one variety that you had. He described them as, quote, slightly sweet with a bit of spice. Yes. And I'm going to post his picture on our Instagram of the tube of paprika Pringles on an Icelandic cliff. That's beautiful. With the sea below. It's wonderful. Yeah, this is exactly the same thing. I'm looking at this picture. I like how the little guy is.

It looks like the little Pringles guy is looking out at the vista. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. He gets to see the Atlantic Ocean in the north. Yeah. He's raising his little his little eyebrows that like pop off of his head and his little mustache is just askew enough that you can discern an expression of subtle enjoyment of the Icelandic cliffside view. Yeah. Oh, I hadn't even thought about him, but yeah.

He's beautiful. The Pringles guy. He's like a dot with a mustache, but he's got lots of personality. Yeah. He really works. I don't know much about his deal. I guess Pringles could be an episode. Let us know. Let us know in the comments. Like and subscribe if you want a Pringles could be an episode. Let us know. Let us know in the comments. Like and subscribe if you want a Pringles episode. Yeah, hit us up. If we'll watch the US piss show, we'll definitely do Pringles. That's much more enjoyable. Come on.

So I love that. Thank you, Chris and Katie, for your paprika pringle experimentation. It was a big, big sacrifice. And we have many more stories about other recent topics. And the next one's super recent because takeaway number hyenas. Pliny the Elder thought a hyena's right foot. What? Helps a laboring human woman speed up birth. Ironic, given the hyena's own troubles with childbirth.

Right. Yeah, that is still wild. If folks heard last week's show, you know, you know what's up. Also, what are you supposed to do with the foot? Just kind of like beat beat the pregnant lady like come on faster go faster yeah yeah it's not clear uh i i assume it's like a severed foot i don't think they're bringing a live hyena in like a nurse i got that i got that i'm just saying what are you doing with the foot like are you like rubbing the foot on the pregnant lady?

It's implied just like a laying of hands, like putting the paw on their belly. And that helps somehow. Huh. Whenever Pliny the Elder comes up on this show, or especially our buddies Sawbones, their wonderful show about medical history, Pliny is just like the most wrong about everything. It's great. Like, he's very wrong all the time. He's like, if he lived in modern times, he'd be on Wikipedia sort of defacing every article he can with just the most wild and random misinformation. It's just the most wild and random misinformation. He was an ancient Roman scientist born around the year 23 AD, living for most of that first century. So didn't know a lot and made a lot of wild claims.

Right. I mean, you know, I guess a hyena foot isn't like the worst thing you could give a pregnant lady, right? a pregnant lady, right? Like if it was like lead and mercury pendant and also some rusty nails. Yeah, that might be worse. Yeah, he has a set of ideas here and the heinous what's kind of the best one, oddly. And our key source here, it's a piece for Atlas Obscura by Lakshmi Ramgopal. She says plenty is basically the worst OBGYN you could have. In general, he claimed that girls are more difficult to deliver than boys, just as a broad principle. It's not true. It's the same. You know how girls, women, women be shopping even when they're like a fetus coming out of the womb and we're like wait i left my purse in that womb let me go back to grab it right and a baby boy could get out of the womb by just

throwing on sneakers and a baseball hat like no time punches his way out like a small warrior warrior. And Pliny had really horrible medical intervention ideas. For example, he said if you need a painkiller, right? Like if you're feeling pain, perhaps from giving birth. Okay. Yeah. You should drink a beverage that combines honey with the feces

of a female pig. Did he just hate women? Was he just an incel who hated women? That's plausible. Yeah. Where he's just like, hope not, you know, just, well, you know what women should do. They should drink. They should drink, drink it right up. Yeah. It kind of doesn't get worse than that, huh? Yeah. That doesn't seem good. He then had two ideas for speeding up labor and delivery of a human baby. One is you just place the right foot of a hyena on the woman's body, which is just like gross.

Was there just any sort of reasoning behind that? Was it just like because like if you put OK, I'm not condoning this or advocating this, but if you put like a cheetah paw on the woman, I get it, right? Because cheetahs are fast. And you're like, let's speed up the pregnancy with a cheetah paw. There's a sort of twisted logic to that. That's still dumb, but the logic is there. I don't understand at all anything about like, why would the hyena of any animal be like, hey, this will help you with your pregnancy? Yeah, I guess we did talk about hyenas being like fast and disciplined runners.

They're not cheetah speed, but it would be interesting if his logic was based on a strong understanding of hyenas being cursorial hunters. That would be fun. Yeah. I mean, hyenas are fast, but yeah, it's just, I don't know. It's a, well, it's interesting, an interesting idea. Like let's stick a pin in that one plenty. Yeah. Cause he, he had a second suggestion for hastening birth, which is, and you want to use water to kind of stretch it of stretch it out. But his other idea was a beverage mixing water with a goose's semen. Like a goose. Right. No, no, I got that it's a goose.

The goose part. So just go acquire some semen from the goose. The goose part isn't what's bothering me as much, Alex. Oh, yeah? Isn't what's bothering me as much, Alex. Oh, yeah? You know, I mean, I feel like there should be a television show a la House where it's about Dr. Plinny and he has all these weird ideas and no one believes in them, right? They're like, are you sure, Dr. Plinny, like the mouse poop will help with the cancer? And he's like, you know, and he's like, yes, it will. He's also drunk.

But then it doesn't work. Nothing works. Right. Just completely incompetent. The dangerous house. No, but that's interesting. Goose semen wouldn't be my the first thing like I would think about. Yeah, I don't think it would be in my first thousand ideas if you locked me in a room and made me write down 1000 ideas.

I'm sure eventually it would cross my mind given millennia, but yeah, it's not, I just find that interesting. I don't know, like at least I guess there's some connection to fertility there, right? But still, it's also very specific, like a goose. Like it can't be any old waterfowl semen. It's got to be a goose. If you try it with duck semen, it's not going to work. Yeah. So that's, of all the myths about hyenas and misunderstandings of them, plenty leads the way once again, our main plenty.

Right. And flipping over to good research and so on, the next takeaway is takeaway number cursive. If you can read cursive, you can help the U.S. National Archives catalog American history. They are looking for volunteers who know cursive. But what's in it for me? Nothing. Glory to yourself. But yeah, no money.

Glory. Yeah, they won't pay you. So I guess not glory, but... Would they name like a filing cabinet after me? Ask them, you know? Like, yeah, you know... An endowed filing cabinet. I think they should start doing that.

I think they should be like, if you help us decipher these cursive things that we have in storage, we'll name a filing cabinet after you. Or even just a drawer, right? Like, I get that maybe there's not enough filing cabinets to go around. But if they're like, we'll name a drawer after you, I'd do it. Like, all right. Yeah. Okay. I could be convinced.

Take a drawer. Yeah. Sure, I'll take a drawer. There was a building on my college campus that was new and somebody like paid to end out a storage closet. I know. That's pretty dignified. Yeah. I feel like it's not worth it, but they went for it. I appreciate it. Thank you. I think I would want a cistern. I don't actually know what a cistern is, but I like the sound of it. I know it's like a part of a building. I think it holds water.

I think it does, too. It seems like it has something to do with water or plumbing, but it sounds mystical. So I'd want it to be Katie's cistern. Do buildings have multiple cisterns or just one? Katie's cistern. Do buildings have multiple cisterns or just one? Let's ask the U.S. National Archives when we hardball negotiate this. Listen, we may decode your cursive, but you got to sweeten the deal. Yeah, a little what's in it for us.

A little bit of honey and pig poop. Yeah. The key sources here are WTOP Radio News, Washington, D.C. That's reporting by Kate Ryan. And that source is a tip from listener Yoga Fuego on the Discord. Thank you, Yoga Fuego, for this story. Did they give you a cabinet, Yoga Fuego? They should because they're getting the word out.

Right. Yeah. Marketing. Fuego. They should because they're getting the word out. Right. Yeah. Marketing. And yeah, and it turns out you can volunteer for the U.S. National Archives as what they call a citizen archivist. And they started this in early 2024. Do you get a gun? Do you get a gun if you're a citizen archivist? Do you get a duty weapon? Or is it more like if you're a citizen archivist you get like a flail? Right, historical weapons, yeah. You're out of the citizen archiving.

Hand over your badge and trebuchet. Crush their desk. Gosh darn it. This is why we need more archivists. Because the trebuchet keeps messing up our filing system. Yeah, and they say that the model is sort of like Wikipedia, according to community manager Suzanne Isaacs. It's something where people... That'll get the kids on board. That'll get the kids on board.

Yeah, like you just do it for the enthusiasm of helping, like Wikipedians. And there's some volunteers going really all out. There's one who I swear is not me. His name is Alex Smith. It's not me, I swear. Okay. But he recently completed. That's a lot of swearing.

Sure, I doth protest too much. But, you, but forget it. Don't worry about it. He recently completed his 100,000th transcribed documents. Damn. He's apparently the lead citizen archivist on the leaderboard. Well, you know, we all have our hobbies. Yeah. He got interviewed by WTOP. He's a retired university registrar in Pennsylvania. He says that as he's done this volunteering, he's developed new heroes in the sense that he's gained huge respect for past historical figures who had very good penmanship. Wow. I mean, I guess it's true. You kind of get a new perspective on someone once you've seen their handwriting. That's true.

Yeah. Like imagine if Genghis Khan had like big loopy, like middle school girl with a gel pen writing. So me and the Huns were thinking about China. When guys build a great wall, that really means they're into you. Right. Like it's a way that they pretend to not be interested. It just feels to me like you're putting walls between us. And I just, you know, I don't know what's up with that.

And Alex Smith, his number one hero of cursive is Martin Van Buren. Okay. He says when he reads Van Buren's writing, he thinks, quote, yes, I can read what you're writing, end quote. And is very excited to transcribe Van Buren letters. The eighth president's Martin Van Buren. That's usually what I try to accomplish when I'm writing something, like to be able to have me or others read what I am writing. So good job, Martin Van Buren. You made it. We may not remember what you did as president, but one guy remembers how good you were at penmanship. you were at penmanship. That's true. Like writing legible letters is something everyone should be doing, right? Like my favorite thing about this recruitment of archivists is that pretty much all

these people wrote in English. U.S. history is not that long. Like it's not hieroglyphics. It's amazing that it's such a task to decode this stuff, partly because cursive has changed and fallen out of favor. And I feel like some of these guys, probably like Thomas Jefferson, I imagine his handwriting would be not super great. Benjamin Franklin, I bet it's barely legible. Yeah. I think John Adams, it is legible, but it's annoying in some way. It's just really small. He draws himself in the margins frowning or something like he just can't be fun. Yeah. George Washington, the greatest secret never told us that it's like the the cool ass. He wanted to sign the

Declaration of Independence with the cool ass, but they wouldn't let him. Like he wrote George Waugh and then said, now here's what I think for the next letter. Here's what I'm going to do. And they're like, nope, nope, nope. And like wrestling over the quill. True freedom died that day. We could have had a truly free country if that cool ass had made it in there.

And our next takeaway is about another old text because takeaway number purple. One amazing purple Bible preserved a dead language and mystified experts for centuries. A purple purple. A purple Bible. A purple Bible. A purple Bible. A purple Bible. Yeah. A purple Bible. A purple Bible. A purple Burble. A purple Burble.

Yeah. A purple Burble. It does sound like a Sesame Street character who is a Bible. Yeah. Like with eyes and arms and legs. Yeah. I'm the purple Burble. But yeah, this Bible is called the Codex Argentius.

That's a cool name. Yeah. I like that. Okay, so it sounds cool. It's either going to be magical in a good way or magical in a really, really bad way. Right. When you open it, something happens. Yeah, for sure.

Something happens. Yeah, for sure. Something happens. Either you gain the ability to fly or all of your flesh melts from your bones. 50-50. And Indiana Jones says it belongs in a museum and OutDiana Jones says, no, it doesn't. And they wrestle. I can't believe you remembered OutDiana Jones. Deanna Jones, my character, that was just a really stupid joke about how out Deanna Jones wants things out of the museum. Return these stolen artifacts to their countries of origin. It had been a while since we brought up out Deanna Jones. Feels good. Out Deanna Jones, he's a good guy. He's like a really chill guy. You know, he's respectful to women. Right. He actually doesn't use violence and he publishes a lot of anthropology papers.

Whereas Indiana Jones is like not publishing because he's too busy killing people and using that whip. and using that whip, whereas out Deanna Jones, very well published, very well cited, also believes in returning national treasures to their origin countries. Anyways, the purple burble is telling you not to worship the durble. It must have been very expensive at the time to make, right? Because like purple ink seems pretty fancy. We talked about in the purple episode how expensive it was to create purple ink because you had to use a rare mollusk and pluck out a very small organ from the mollusk and then mix that up with piss and let that ferment into a rich and luxurious purple color. You know, yeah, Pliny did live in a gross time in some ways. That sort of explains his deal.

But yes, exactly. Only if you were rich. You can't afford the piss dye if you're poor. You have to be piss rich to get the purple piss dye to make your purple burble. And that's exactly right. It had purple pages because it was made by a king. Yeah. And it also had a silver cover, like the metal.

It's called Codex Argentius because Argentum is Latin for silver. And it's a silver and purple Bible. Yeah. That is cool. But I did think, I thought Jesus's whole deal was like, hey, don't be wealthy or something. I'm sorry. I am a heathen. But I thought Jesus was pretty clear about like, like flaunting your wealth, being luxurious

is kind of not what our thing is. And yet this Bible must have been like in modern money, I don't know, hundreds of thousands of dollars to make. It is. And it's from 526 AD. So it's at that prime time when the Eastern Orthodox Church and the Catholic Church are getting going and getting their hands on some wealth. Yeah. Right. So it makes sense. But this was a king, not a clergy member. So also it's king stuff.

It's just like, well, as a king, I can be Christian and also crazy rich. Makes sense. Right. What's that old saying? A rich man can get into heaven as easily as a camel can pass through the eye of a needle. But it's a really big needle. So it actually is fine. It's like a sightseeing attraction, a world's biggest needle, but it's a really big needle. So it actually is fine. It's like a sightseeing

attraction, a world's biggest needle, and a camel can get through there just fine. Right. And the king makes his family pile into the station wagon to drive and see it, even though they don't want to. It's clearly a tourist trap. Right. trap. Right. And yeah, this is the year 526 AD is the year of the death of a Gothic king who created this. He lived in the late 400s, early 500s. And he considered it to be part of his legacy. He was a Gothic ruler named Theodoric, who also declared himself a new Western Roman emperor. How do you just do that? Can I just do that? I declare myself a new Western Roman emperor. How do you just do that? Can I just do that? I declare myself a new Western Roman emperor. How about that? And you're in Italy. It counts. It works. It counts. I'm here.

I'm not in Rome, but you know. And that was kind of his logic. Yeah. Right. Yeah. There was a time, especially in the late 400s, where various peoples had sacked the city of Rome and kind of broken down the Western Roman Empire. And the East is becoming a Byzantine empire that will last longer. But shortly after the Western Empire falls, especially Gothic groups like the Ostrogoths take over that part of Italy. And then a new Ostrogoth king named Theodoric says, why don't I just say I'm the new Roman emperor and the empire never quite ended. It's just I'm the emperor now. That would be fun for me. So there's different types of Goths. There's the Ostrogoths, there's the Visigoths, There's the Ostrogoths, there's the Visigoths, there's the sort of Seengoths, there's Pastelgoths is one, actually.

Have you heard of Pastelgoths? That's a thing. They would have purple Bibles, if you like. Yeah, sure. They would have purple Burbles. And like Theodoric gets so into this that the Byzantines happily give him some old vestments of past Roman emperors. Because then like he can wear it as he does this thing. So he's just cosplaying. Like he declares some people Roman consuls.

Like he's doing Rome costumes and stuff. Yeah. Yeah. And because he's like trying to be Roman, but also weird. He says, hey, I'm going to commission the most luxurious Bible ever made. Right. Because later Roman emperors were Christian, you know, it like kind of fits, but also it's this weird new thing. Yeah.

Yeah. It's got cup holders. It's got like under lighting. This Bible is very luxe. It's very Gucci. Yeah. It is kind of Homer Simpson's car with all the features, yeah, that are awkward. Yeah. And so he commissions one with a silver cover and hundreds of pages that are dyed purple, because that's the nicest dye.

It's not even the text. Like the pages are purple, because it's like that's even more dye than just having like purple ink. Right. Like I think actual millions of mollusks died to dye this. Yeah. It was like a mollusk apocalypse. That was hard to say. Yeah.

You really put it together. First try. You do it. Do it. Molluskapurple Bible. Oh, man. Dang it. I have a feeling youcoparple Bible. Oh, man. Dang it. I have a feeling you're not being honest with me, Alex.

And yeah, so Theodoric mints this Bible and he says, this is part of me really bringing back the Western Roman Empire. He fails. He dies 526 AD. Kingdom gets invaded by other people, falls apart. There's like people then calling themselves Holy Roman Emperors later, kind of the same deal. But the Roman Empire is over. Yeah. Stop trying to make it happen.

Yeah. And he also, his Bible is in his language. They take a Greek translation of the Bible and retranslate that into the Gothic language. There was a Gothic language. It's like crawling in my skin. Now, so were there different Gothic languages because there were different Gothics or just one Gothic language? That's a great question. So there was a family of languages that we now call East Germanic.

Okay. And one of them was Gothic. And all of those languages are dead now. That's not the origin of like German or something. Well, that's pretty goth. Yeah. That language is pretty goth. I feel like today's goths, I think every style and culture where you're just wearing cool stuff that you like and you're not hurting anyone is great.

But I do think that, like, there should be more dead languages in goth culture today. Right. It fits the vibe. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And so, like, as an entire language group, it's pretty much gone now. And the main remaining example of the Gothic language is this bizarre Bible. It is purple, little gel pin hearts in all the margins, silver filigree. No, that's cool, though. I mean, it's a fancy book that no one can read. So it's the perfect gift. Yeah, like part of why it's still around is that it's such a fancy book.

Like all the other Gothic writing was less valued and so it's just gone. Right. And then also there's an air of mystery around this purple verbal because according to Atlas Obscura, the Bible gets lost for more than a thousand years. Hmm. Bible gets lost for more than a thousand years. Like it gets made in the late 400s and then somebody finds it again in the mid 1500s on a bookshelf in a German monastery. Like some dusty bookshelf, somebody's like, hey, there's a silver purple Bible here. Right. I mean, I guess a bookshelf in a monastery would be a pretty logical place to find a Bible. in a monastery would be a pretty logical place to find a Bible. So hats off to Sherlock there for sniffing that one out. Yeah, it partly seems like it got lost because a monastery has so many

Bibles. You just kind of have extra Bibles. There's just a frazzled monk and he gets the fancy Bible mixed in with the regular Bibles and he's like stocking the Bibles on the shelves. And Monk Francis just spilled a bunch of wine somewhere. So he's running off and they just kind of forget about it. My Catholic kid experience is that with the sacrament of First Communion, several different relatives gift you a Bible and then you have too many Bibles. And you're like, I mean, I got to keep and then you have too many Bibles. And you're like, I mean, I got to keep them. And so I think that happened here.

So yeah, so this Bible, it turns back up. And then also somebody else finds some of the pages that had been removed. They're in the Netherlands. And everybody who finds this, the Gothic language is so dead that they think it's not just a Bible. They think it's some kind of magic book or sorcery book or some other special artifacts because it's in a scrawl that they don't understand. And it's purple and silver. Yeah. I mean, it does look like a magic book prop from any kind of fantasy franchise um but yeah it's just uh it's a bible that if you found it in a hotel you'd be very lucky because apparently it's worth a lot of

money uh because it's purple which yeah but i would find it extremely funny if it does get burned at some point by like angry religious people because they think it's witchcraft. So weirdly, it gets reassembled by a 1500s Holy Roman Emperor. Another one? Yeah, they had some of those still. And he assembles it because he's interested in the occult and thinks maybe it'll be a magic power if I reassemble the Codex Argentius. Mm-hmm. What happened? And it's just an interesting scholarly work. And so now it's in a university library in Sweden.

Okay. Because people study it to understand all kinds of dead languages. Because people study it to understand all kinds of dead languages. I just imagine him like he's like assembling it. He finally sort of carefully threads in the last page. He's like, I've done it. I feel the spirits entering me. I can fly.

And then he jumps down, flies stairs like, nope, nope, can't fly. That's not one of the things it does. Yeah. Just trying to cushion your landing like wiley coyote but with the codex argentius right and this book there's one last mysterious step because in the year 1995 hey i was alive then and stuff wow i think i was too. Yeah, pretty sure. And 1995, two thieves wearing gas masks and a bunch of tactical gear did a smash and grab in the Swedish University Library and stole the Codex Argentius. Jeez. That's not very polite. Yeah.

Yeah, like a very coordinated, these are pros theft. Right. If they'd read the purple burble, they'd know to treat your nurble as you would treat yourself. And a month later, the authorities found the Codex Argentius dropped off in a deposit box at the central train station in Stockholm. And to this day, nobody knows who stole it or why or what was going on or why they gave it back. I bet they thought it would make them fly. And then they read some passages and then they jumped down a flight of stairs. And they're like, no, that's not what it does. That's not one of the things this book does.

And then they returned it. Yeah. That is the end of that story. It's just so profoundly wild to me. And those are four of our stories. We have two more to come after a quick break about The Middle Finger and Microsoft Excel. Wow. So they're related, I would assume.

Grab bag. Fun. Random stuff. I'm Jesse Thorne. I just don't want to leave a mess. This week on Bullseye, Dan Aykroyd talks to me about the Blues Brothers, Ghostbusters, and his very detailed plans about how he'll spend his afterlife. I think I'm going to roam in a few places, yes.

I'm going to manifest and roam. All that and more on the next Bullseye from MaximumFun.org and NPR. Hello, teachers and faculty. This is Janet Varney. I'm here to remind you that listening to my podcast, The JV Club with Janet Varney, is part of the curriculum for the school year. Learning about the teenage years of such guests as Alison Brie, Vicki Peterson, John Hodgman, and so many more is a valuable and enriching experience. One you have no choice but to embrace because yes, listening is mandatory. The JV Club with Janet Varney is available every Thursday on Maximum Fun or wherever you get your podcasts. Thank you.

And remember, no running in the halls. And we are back. And again, this is a grab bag of additional amazing stories from recent episodes. One recent episode is about the middle finger. And takeaway number middle finger. is about the middle finger and takeaway number middle finger. The middle finger is a longtime artistic medium of the artist Ai Weiwei, and he wants you to make art with it too. So I want people to understand that Alex sends me images for podcast episodes. I usually just kind of, I don't know, my brain is just like this where I'll usually kind

of quickly scan the photos before I read the text of the email. So what I saw is just a bunch of middle fingers from Alex, which again is a typical weekday. Sure. Right. It was another normal email from me. Just very normal. Like, oh, again, Alex is just sending me rude gestures through the email. Another email from Alex with a bunch of little fingers and one magic purple book. Yeah. Yep. Normal.

Standard. Stop sending me these. I'll send them to my spam. Yeah, the key sources here are a write-up by Raya Nayar for an arts website called hyperallergic.com and also a page about this art project at publicdelivery.org. That's a nonprofit arts blog. Ai Weiwei is a contemporary artist. He was born 1957 in Beijing. Ai Weiwei is a contemporary artist. He was born 1957 in Beijing. And from 1995 all the way to 2017, he did an art project called Study of Perspective, where he did all sorts of photos of landmarks and institutions with his left hand giving those things the middle finger. So is it meant to be like a rude gesture or just like maybe kind of like using the gesture so much that it loses any meaning?

What is sort of the concept behind the gesture? I think all of the above because it's kind of everything famous and just all sorts of different places and definitely has appeal and catches the attention because the middle finger is rude right and wild like like that's why it's of interest to any of us but he's not specifically angry at these buildings in particular he's uh it's more like just just all buildings. He seems to kind of want to give the middle finger to. Is he anti building or is he pro middle finger? Yeah, I think it's like a pro personal expression thing more than anything. There's just sort of some landscapes he gives it to. But then also he's given it to.

I feel that, though. Sometimes I see a landscape and everyone's like, oh, nice landscape. I'm just like, who cares? Whatever. This is what I think of your landscape. Oh no, my landscape. Oh no.

My precious landscape. More like lamescape. Oh, got him. Got him. Take that yellow stone, I guess. I don't know. Whatever. Trees and the horizon. Because this has definitely been interpreted politically. The landmarks include the White House and also the gate of Tiananmen Square. But it also includes the Eiffel Tower, the Sydney Opera House, the Church La Sagrada Familia in Barcelona. Like it's not just political institutions or

things. It's sort of just everything known in the world receiving the middle finger. I mean, that's commitment. I like that attitude where it's like, just kind of being rude to everything because then once you're rude to everything, you're not rude to anything. Yeah, that that's kind of what I take away, too, is that like we shouldn't want anything too much. Like if you like things, that's great. And also nothing like automatically gets your respect. Yeah. My feeling about the meaning of this. And I like that. It's good. I will never give the middle finger to my dog though. That's the one thing.

Mainly because if I did, she would bite it because that is what she does. Yeah. No, she likes to bite fingies. What a nibbler. Oh, what a cutie. Yeah. So cute. And Ai Weiwei, in doing this project, has explored its political and speech limits. Because in 2011, police in China detained him for questioning. And they detained him for questions about the specific middle finger picture of the Tiananmen Square gate. Because they felt that was politically charged, right? Like there was the famous demonstration and killings there and it remains a landmark in Beijing. And so it's a big deal. And they said, whatever you're doing, giving this a middle finger, we are fully questioning you and detaining you.

And then when they did that, other people took similar pictures of the gate in solidarity with him. And now apparently that kind of picture is banned on social media in China by anybody. Wow. I mean, it's that's like a real Spartacus moment. That would have been great in Spartacus instead of saying I'm Spartacus. Just they all give like the Roman guards the middle finger and they all get creative with it. Like some of them are like, what's this in my pocket? Oh,

it's this middle finger. And other ones is like, what's this behind your ears? Centurion. Oh, look at that. It's a middle finger. Spartacus needed to do more bets.

That's what I think about Spartacus. Yeah. You know, just the name thing is not enough. You need to be, you need to be on the ball. New, new material. If you've seen the, what's his name? Charlton Heston or Charles Heston? Yeah. Charlton Heston. Charlton Heston. If you've seen the Charlton Heston Spartacus.

Oh no, it's Kirk Douglas though, I think. It's Kirk Douglas. They're the same guy. If you've seen that. Yeah, I think. It's Kirk Douglas. They're the same guy. If you've seen that. Yeah, pretty much. You know, the old Spartacus with the old guy in it and it's an old movie and they're all doing the scene with the I'm Spartacus. It is very funny because they don't bother to do any kind of consistent accent. So you just got guys from New Jersey going like, I'm Spartacus. I'm Spartacus. I'm Spartacus. Yeah, like most of them are smoking, you know, like whatever. What do you want to do about it?

I'm Spartacus. Howdy, y'all. I too am a Spartacus. Like, you know. Also with Tiananmen Square in general, a link to the past long ago, Sif, about rubber ducks. We talk about how those are used in posting about the June 4th, 1989 Tiananmen Square incident in a fun way. Yeah. Because it's just hard to talk about that incident.

And this simply putting a metal finger toward the square became another way to do that. Simply putting a middle finger toward the square became another way to do that. And Weiwei sort of capped off this project by making a metal sculpture of his hand, making the middle finger gesture in 2017. So the project is many photos and then one sculpture. And that kind of completed it, in his opinion. How big is this middle finger? It's apparently the size of his hand. Like it's a life size. So it's not a public square thing or something.

Yeah. That would be a cool paperweight. It would be. Screw you documents. Or I guess screw you wind for trying to disrupt my documents. Yeah. Let's disrespect wind. You know?

Respect wood. Disrespect wind. Wind has become way too complacent, just blowing everywhere. You know, we used to have windmills to kind of like kick their butts a little bit. And then, I mean, I guess we do still have windmills. We did an episode about it. We need more wind. You know what?

I bet that like people in the U.S. would become much more green energy if we were like the windmills are to wage war. It's a war on wind and we need the windmills. We must win the war on wind. To like, yeah, like the windmills are essentially karate chopping the wind a bunch of times. So we need to win the war on wind. We need to build wind mills, right? That's right. W for victory.

Yeah. W for wick-tory. Wick-tory. Like I'm Chekhov in old Star Trek. Yeah. Oh, man. Yeah, no, but that's great. I think that's, in all seriousness, that's a cool art project. I think that also if we feel let's not be too smug in America, because like I have seen videos of people like giving middle fingers to cops and then the cops stop and they're like, well, I'm going to make your day bad because you gave me a middle finger using my authority.

bad because you gave me a middle finger using my authority. So I think we should be able to flip everything off, even babies. I think I should be able to give a baby a middle finger. I wouldn't, but I think it should be legal. Yeah, it pretty much is, I think, too. But it's like when we talked about cops reacting poorly to it. It's legal, but not. Right. The baby's going to abuse its authority to like hurt me. I won't give a middle finger to a baby. Although if I did, I don't think the baby would even know that it's meant to be rude. Yeah. They're dumb. They don't get it. I think the baby might just be delighted, but you know. They just think you're paying attention. It's just contrast visually, you know. You give one baby the middle finger

and then suddenly everyone's calling you anti-baby. And I'm like, thank you, I am. Right. You're labeling me properly. What about my side of the story? You haven't asked my side of the story, which is that I'm anti-baby. I like babies. They're sweet and they poop a lot, but that's not their fault.

And we all do poop. We just poop in different places. So what's the big deal? And if you do want to give the middle finger to things, there's been one extension of this Ai Weiwei project, which is after 2017, he collaborated with a tech startup. And I'll put a link in the research sources. It's still available. Is this going to NFTs, Alex? Am I getting, is this Bitcoin? No, it's for everybody. Okay.

This is another non-NFT. I guess we're anti-NFT and that's fine. I mean, I literally am. I pretty much am. It's ecologically devastating as I understand it. This Ai Weiwei thing, he, he had a project called Avant Art, which is avantart.com. They made a project called Middle Finger where they just used the image of his hand and you can overlay it on Google Maps and Google Street View. That's fantastic. And so you can give anything the middle finger by

finding it on Google Street View. I tried it. It works. It's great. Nice. What did you pick? I picked the office of a company I dislike. Oh, interesting. I wonder if it's the same one that I would do as well. So it was fun. It was nice to do. And I use the wonderful artist Ai Weiwei's hand. That's good. Yeah. That's great. He did that now. So it's his fault now. He's implicated. Run. But, and we have one more story for this Grab Bag episode, because takeaway number Microsoft Excel. Now I'm excited. A recent landmark scholarly study of dishonesty got accused of being a dishonest study based on its Microsoft Excel metadata. Oh, I know this one, actually. Yeah, and we were going to talk about this on the Excel episode with Jason Pargin.

There was just not enough time for everything. That's Jason, always being interesting. Yeah, doing that on TikTok and on podcasts and on novels and on a podcast he also does about the Bigfoot show with Robert and Sean. I'm tired of it. Oh, geez. Can we have a short and boring podcast for once? And yeah, and this involves a researcher at the Harvard Business School named Francesca Gino.

It's wild. She specifically professionally studies honesty and dishonesty and then was accused of falsifying data. And this is a real long-running dragnet kind of thing. It wasn't just one study was weird. It seems like many years of rumor and concern added up to a giant four-part project on the blog of what's called Data Kalada. And Data Kalada is a collaboration of three business professors named Yuri Simonson, Leif Nelson, and Joe Simmons, all working together to do a gigantic... It seems like people are pretty hesitant to accuse this kind of thing unless they're very sure. And these guys became very sure and put it out.

Right. So was it, is there like, they were specifically, uh, investigating this set of studies, uh, by, um, what was her name? Gina? Francesca Gino. Francesca Gino. Or is this a general project to kind of suss out suspicious papers in general? They were looking at her work specifically. Okay. And I think they look at a lot of different just academic work in general and whether it's being done well or not. But there were four different papers across many years. four different papers across many years. And as they started to publish what they thought on their blog, Harvard received a second anonymous tip saying, hey, she's falsifying data and has been for a long time. So she was placed on unpaid leave and has now sued Harvard. And there's

ongoing litigation. In March 2024, a judge unsealed 1,300 pages of documents filed by Harvard's team to defend against Gino suing them. Like this is a whole, it was called a cluster fake by Data Colada. Like this is a massive thousands and thousands of pages of academic and legal stuff. They've got someone there who really loves the corny puns. Yes, they do. But so how was... Yeah, they should be arraigned for puns. That's their crime. Yeah. But you were saying that like there were in the spreadsheets, they found like kind of evidence of this data falsification. Like what was in the spreadsheet that was sort of the red flag? Yeah, it turns out it's a specific function of the Microsoft Excel software.

The super brief gist is that all the participant information had IDs that make no sense or were duplicates. If you look closely at what's in Excel, and in particular, if you break out the suspicious lines of data, suddenly the effects of these studies are a lot smaller and a lot less interesting. And the most damning thing is a part of Excel called CalcChain. And CalcChain is a metadata file for an Excel bigger file. And you can download the calc chain specifically. Calc chain is just something that keeps track of how your formulas are running. Like it just keeps a record of this formula ran

and then that and then that and then that. And so they pulled the calc chain and found that there were differences between the first running of the formulas and then the final presentation of the formulas, which indicates that they probably calculated their real data, said, this isn't that interesting, and then put in fake additional data to make it interesting. Yeah. Yeah, that's...

So that's bad news. That doesn't seem great. And there's a bunch of other stuff like participants whose statements are duplicated. And then with that Excel evidence, they could get additional records from a system called Qualtrics, which is used by researchers to solicit responses from study participants. And then there was weird stuff in the Qualtrics. And whether this is true or not, because it's still in litigation, they really took their time. They did a lot of digging. Yeah, I think it's okay to have an opinion on whether this seems

suspicious. And it does seem suspicious. Like it's not usually like you get your data together, you press a button, you analyze it, and then you're just like done. Because like there can be a bunch of errors, there could be something that's like completely unexpected. And so it is actually good research to go through and like see like, well, why is this unexpected? Or why is there an error? Or why am I not getting any good results on this? And the key is to try to like sort of fix whatever problem you have with your model or your data. But like if you're going through, like it sounds like they found systematic evidence of them going through and manipulating the data so that they would get that result.

And that's what the problem is. Not necessarily having to like do sort of a back and forth of like, you know, running your program and then checking to see if everything's okay. But like the intentional manipulation and guiding of the data to make it fit what they want to see. Exactly. And it's so interesting that on that Excel episode, we talk a bunch about Excel documents having a bunch of accidental errors and that people need to really diligently fix their Excel documents. And then also these parts of the Excel software can tell you if somebody faked stuff in it, right? Like it's good if researchers are going back over their Excel documents, but not to add fake stuff. And this professor, Francesca Gino,

she tried two different defenses for how this happens. That's usually not good. I just want to say, usually you have one defense. You don't change your defense. But anyways, go for it. Yeah, it's a big issue here. Because one defense is that maybe her research assistant screwed up. Oh, dear.

maybe her research assistant screwed up. Oh, dear. But the falsification was in papers published in 2012, 2014, 2015, and 2020. And that's kind of too long of a period for just one bad assistant to be in the lab. Like assistants kind of come and go. And so... Well, you should be able to check that because they should be listed. Yeah. And like there should be a record of who is working on your

paper. And if there isn't, that's also a problem. So you should be able to see like, well, is there evidence of like consistent research assistant errors? But I mean, I don't like that in general, because that seems kind of scummy to just like throw your research assistants under the bus. Like, it's true that a research assistant could make some kind of error, but this does not seem like an error. This seems like systematic manipulation. So what she's actually doing is accusing a research assistant of systematic manipulation. And that seems more like, I don't know, if you're so uninvolved with your project that

you're not realizing that your research assistants are manipulating the data. I mean, that is a problem. Exactly. Yeah. And that relates to her other defense, which is that she said this could be a professional rival sabotaging her career and her life. And she even pointed to one collaborator on the 2012 paper as having the means and motive. But what about the other papers that you mentioned? Right. And so according to what Data Colada thinks, and also according to the legal defense being presented by Harvard, they both say that's impossible and that the only person with access to the Excel stuff and the Qualtrics stuff across all of the years is Francesca Gino. There's no other person who actually has the means. That's the real Columbo, Miss Marple, Poirot moment where it's like, you know,

if you're the only one that's had access to those things over all of the papers that have this issue. Yeah, that seems pretty suspicious. Yeah. And all four of these papers have been retracted by their journals. And also one had already been retracted because of different data falsification accusations against a different professor who was also contributing, a Duke professor named Dan Ariely. Oh, wow. The other thing going on here is that there's still hearings and legal processes going on. There's also a crowdfunding campaign that's raised over $400,000 for the legal defense of Data Colada, who Gino also sued. Because people seem really convinced by the Microsoft Excel part. They're like, I really understand. Microsoft Excel, it's a really

faulty program, but we really understand the functions of it. And so all of us can kind of see what you guys at the blog are getting at here. You guys seem right. The motives for publishing seems to be like you want to publish in good journals. And so, and like the incentive for the good journals is like they like to see interesting novel and strong results. And if you have, say you have a really well-designed study, you have good data, you have a really interesting-designed study. You have good data. You, uh, you have a really interesting and good model for like, uh, processing that data. And, and your result is just basically like, well, our hypothesis, you know, was not correct. And so the result is kind of boring, but that the study was really good. Uh, then there's not, it may not get into a top journal. And so

like the, the incentive for something like this for academic fraud, pretty strong because it's like, well, you know, definitely a lot of papers just want sort of the, like the cool results. There's, can I, can I tell, can I tell a joke on the podcast, Alex? A joke? Can I tell a joke on the podcast, Alex? A joke? Huff, huff, huff, huff, huff. Can I tell a joke about academics? Katie, my monocle fell out. Right.

My monocle. So you got two academics. I won't pick on any particular field. And they're in a prison in the middle of a desert. What crime did they do? We don't know. But they're sitting there and it's terrible. It's terrible in this desert

prison, Alex. It's not great. And so one of the prisoners, this younger guy tells the older guy, he's like, that's it. I'm breaking out. And so he breaks out. He uses a spoon to drill a tunnel, puts like a poster of, I don't know.

Rita Hayworth, yeah. Yeah, Frida Hayworth. And then he goes through the tunnel, gets out into the desert, like snipers snipe at him. And he finally gets out. And there's nothing but desert for Miles. And he's dying of thirst. And then there's snakes and there's scorpions. And so he's like, fine, I'm going to turn back.

He turns himself back in because he couldn't do it. He could not escape. This is just inescapable. Tells the guy, I tried. And the old guy says, yeah, you probably ran into all the snipers and the snakes and the scorpions. He's like, you knew all along? Why didn't you tell me? He's like, you never publish negative results.

Anyways, that's my joke. That's my joke about academia, guys. How did you like it? It's very good. I like it. I have just lost a hundred percent of our audience. No, there's one, there's one academic clapping really loud right now, actually. Cause we, there was one episode you joked about IRB approval and somebody on the discord was

like, I love IRB approval joke. So there's people who know academia stuff. You know what? That's not right of me. 100% of our audience is clapping loudly for that joke. The very last joke about this is Jason had heard about this story from a gag tweet because there was a tweet about Francesca Gino filing a defamation lawsuit against Harvard and against Ada Collada. Professor Keith Humphries quote tweeted it with, if she subpoenas Collada, she'll be caught and arraigned. Which you can do to the song, the Pina Collada song. If she subpoenas Collada, she'll be caught and arraigned.

Nice. Oh, that's so good. That's great. I'll never, you know, sometimes I read tweets where it's like, I'm never going to do a banger like that one. I just have to accept it. Yeah, it's great. Folks, that's the main episode for this week. And this is a fast outro because it's a unique episode. Please check out our bonus show, which is the second episode of our fun TV recap podcast, The Inspectors Inspectors. It's truly fun to watch such a bad show with my buddy Katie,

and I hope you enjoy that show. Also, I do like to do a run back through the big takeaways. It truly helps people remember our podcast. I think we're one of the only podcasts people remember information from. And so let's run back through those big extra stories. Takeaway number paprika, Katie and our listener Chris G both enjoyed the paprika pringles, and Chris brought them to a cliff in Iceland. Takeaway number hyenas, Pliny the Elder thought a hyena's right foot helps a laboring pregnant human woman speed up birth.

Takeaway number cursive, if you can read cursive, you can help the U.S. National Archives catalog American history. If you can read cursive, you can help the U.S. National Archives catalog American history. Takeaway number purple, one amazing silver and purple Bible called the Codex Argentius preserved a dead language and mystified people for centuries. Takeaway number middle finger, the middle finger is a longtime artistic medium for the artist Ai Weiwei and a potential artistic medium for you right now. And our last takeaway about Microsoft Excel, recent landmark scholarly studies of dishonesty got accused of being dishonest based on their Microsoft Excel metadata. Those are the takeaways. The source

links are on this episode's page at MaximumFun.org. That page also features resources such as native-land.ca. I'm using those to acknowledge that I recorded this in Lenapehoking, the traditional land of the Munsee Lenape people and the Wappinger people, as well as the Mohican people, Skadagoke people, and others. Also, Katie taped this in the country of Italy, and I want to acknowledge that in my location, in many other locations in the Americas and elsewhere, Native people are very much still here. That feels worth doing on each episode, and there's a link in this episode's description to join our Discord, where we are sharing stories and resources about Native people and life, all the time. Our theme music is Unbroken Unshaven by the Budos Band. Show logo is by

artist Burton Durand. He also did the logo for The Inspectors Inspectors, which is new with the new episode. Special thanks to Chris Souza for audio mastering on this episode. Special thanks to the Beacon Music Factory for taping support. Extra, extra special thanks go to our members, and thank you to all our

listeners. Truly, I'm thrilled to say we will be back next week with the 200th episode of Secretly Incredibly Fascinating. So how about that? Talk to you then. Maximum Fun. A worker-owned network of artist-owned shows supported directly

by you.