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Tickets go on sale to the general public June 30th at somethingworthknowing.com. So come build a better world with us on September 16th and experience something worth knowing you can get your ticket at Complexly.info slash something. Hello and welcome to Dear Hank and John. Where's that first thing with you John and Hank?
It's a comedy podcast where two brothers answer your questions, give you to be a survivor, bring you all the weeks news from both Mars and AFC Wimbledon and John. You know I recently thought about buying a Velcro hat but I decided not to. What made you decide not to Hank? I just thought it might be a rip-off.
Alright I'm gonna retell the joke but make it better. Hank. I recently was about to buy some Velcro shoes but at the last second I decided not to. You know why?
Why? I just like the tying. I'm here all week. This is the feel of us turning on my fingers.
Yeah I don't know it just makes me feel accomplished when I tie my shoes in the morning. I'm always like look what I did. I did something today at least. I did the whole shoe tying thing.
I feed her snug in their booties. Every time I tie my shoes I think about Mr. Rogers. I'm a 41 year old man and every single time I tie my shoes I think about Mr.
Rogers and I will for the rest of my life. That's well at this point definitely. So Hank it's not that long. You know what?
I know I got the joke I was just trying not to comment on it. What's up John? Here's what I would have tweeted this week. Oh great.
I'm sure that there's plenty of things. There was a lot of pressure on me to tweet this actually but I held firm. I would have tweeted one of the many amazing pictures I took of the Looking for Alaska Hulu TV show set. Oh okay.
Oh I thought I was expecting to hear. It was so surreal to walk through that place because the Culver Creek that they have built the people who are making Looking for Alaska show looks so much more like the Culver Creek of my imagination and indeed my actual high school memories than my current high school because of course like all the buildings at my current high school have been long since renovated and the place looks completely different and walking through Culver Creek with the cast of Looking for Alaska was definitely one of the weirdest experiences I have ever had. I was I was visiting the uncanny valley and it was it was beautiful and and weird and overwhelming and I'm very grateful to all the people who are making that show and I had an awesome time but now I'm back. That's longer than 280 characters that occurs to me.
It is but you I'm sure you would have had some very pithy things to say about the Mueller report. Would I have I mean I I really don't miss engaging with new stories in 280 character bits. Yeah I'm not saying it would have been good. Or helpful.
Yeah. Or for you or the world but I'm sure you would have had them to say. I'm sure I would have and I'm sure I would have found the whole thing irresistible. Fortunately I found it and find it utterly resistible.
This first question goes from Abigail writes here John and Hank what is the proper way to get your body into the bathtub? Also should you fill the water and then get in or get in and let the water run over you while the tub fills up bombs and bubbles Abigail? Do you fill the water or did I get in? No.
I think no wait oh god I I bath wrong I don't know how to do it John I've done it like 13 times. It is it doesn't matter how you get your body into the bath that is not relevant. Anyway you can Abigail the point is to get into the bath. Now you want to get into the bath when there's about an inch and a half of water in the bathtub and here's why.
You want to be able to change the temperature of the water as the bathtub fills in an extremely specific way right. Like because we all know a bath that is slightly too cold or slightly too hot is barely even a bath right. Like the whole benefit of the bath the relaxation benefits all come from it being the perfect temperature so that it feels like your body is almost floating in like a slightly warmer womb right. Right yeah it's it's all about the womb.
So you get in with about an inch and a half of water in the bathtub and then you're able to calibrate as you go if you want the water a little warmer or a little cooler. If you have a bath bomb or bath salts you're going to want to put those in like just before maybe like two minutes before the bath is done filling up so that they have time to dissolve or make some bubbles if you're a bubbly bubbly person. And then you're going to want to spend 10 minutes after you've turned off the water before you wash yourself just relaxing just making time for you every time you have a thought that's like an anxious thought that's a worry that's a fear whatever you just let that you just let that go right out into the bath. What if what if you have now created a situation where I'm having constant worry about whether it's the right temperature because apparently if it's too hot or too cold the whole situation is worthless.
I mean I've definitely been in that situation before I got into the bathtub and it was just and I waited too long to get in it was almost full when I got in it was a little too cold and I you sit there and you're just like well what is even the point why am I even bothering? This is not relaxing in addition it would be relaxing if I wasn't so upset about the fact that it's not relaxing. Yeah I might as well be in like a freezing cold swimming pool right now like I might might as well be like out in a snowstorm. That sounds way too complicated I'm just going to keep taking showers.
That's great. The thing about a shower there's so many things that disgust me about showers but I think the thing that I find the most disgusting about them is the way that the little pellets of water shoot you like BBs like shoot bang bang bang bang they just like shoot against your body versus just soaking in a tub. Oh it's so nice. John I have a question I want to ask you you didn't highlight it as a question you wanted to answer but I'm very curious.
Okay it's from me who asks here Hank and John why does my bottle of ketchup specify that it is tomato ketchup. Are there other kinds of ketchup? I've never seen any of them in the store. What hidden forces are keeping me from trying onion ketchup come what may.
Oh that's a great name specific sign off. There are non-tomato ketchup right like other fruits can be ketchuped. Yeah I think there's a Wikipedia page called fruit ketchup. I know that there's banana ketchup.
Banana ketchup was a replacement for tomato ketchup though when in the Philippines they couldn't get tomatoes during World War II so they started making banana ketchup but not they still make it they call it banana sauce now they don't call it maybe some people still call it banana ketchup. There's also other like I feel like there's a curry ketchup I've heard of but I probably also is sort of yeah there's apple ketchup which I've had before actually and oh yeah I mean it gets at some point it gets to be a fine line between being so distant from what I know is ketchup that it's inaccurate to call it ketchup. Right that's the thing like tomato ketchup won this battle so hard that you might as well not have other kinds of ketchup. Yeah yeah exactly like obviously there are other diet sodas but when you say I'd like a diet soda you mean I'd like a diet Dr.
Pepper. Of course sometimes I'm at a restaurant and I ask if they have Dr. Pepper and they look at me as if of course they don't and then I say do you have diet coke and they look at me as if of course they do and I'm like well that is the wrong way to go about running your restaurant. John I don't have any particular interest in your particular interest for Dr.
Pepper so I kind of feel like moving on to a different were you drinking Dr. Pepper right now? Yeah I was actually sorry you were just talking and it was kind of boring to me so I would just like to take Dr. Pepper.
The theory of where the word ketchup comes from shocked me a little bit because ketchup to me seems like a very American thing ketchup. It's like America I don't know why that seems American but like I don't know because french fries and ketchup right we like that it's a thing we do and I like it very much myself but it's probable that the word ketchup ketchup either comes from the Malay or Chinese the Malay being a word for various fermented savory sauces like soy sauce and the Chinese being from the brine of pickled fish so you pickle fish and then you take the the like leftover you take a fish out yeah and there now you sell those but then you got this leftover pickled fish brine people are like ketchup that's what that is. All of that is surprising to me because tomatoes are a new world food like tomatoes didn't exist in Malaysia or China until after the Colombian exchange which is just a reminder that everything is new including Dr. Pepper which always says it was established in 1885 but in fact didn't exist in its current form until the 1980s by the way Hank do you know what diet Dr.
Pepper's newest ad campaign is uh be a pepper no no all their all their cans these days say you deserve this which is not clear if it's like a punishment or a reward like if the Dr. Pepper's Snapple group is like you've been bad have a diet Dr. Pepper or you've been good have a back to pepper I think probably they think you've been good and apparently everyone thinks they've been good which may be a problem. Or maybe it's just the way of the universe this next question comes from Marissa who writes Dear John and Hank how do you stay focused on one story or project for so long I've been going through old vlogbrothers videos and when the Faulner's story came out John said he'd been trying to write that book since he was a hospital chaplain and Hank's first mention of his book was in late 2015 you both seem to keep the story going for so long and I can only stick with the story for a few months I have hundreds of pages of scenes and character descriptions and storylines is this just because I'm young I am only 20 and I will improve with age or do you have any tips on how to stick with a story?
Uh boy do I not know I guess I don't have any choice I'm too busy to mess about. I'm not I still write things that I abandon all the time I think that some of it is being 20 like when I was 20 I found it impossible to finish long stories or when I did finish long stories the length was like 20 or 25 pages I think that you do over time get better at living in a world for a long time without losing interest in it but I also think that the reason it took me 11 or 12 years to write the Fault in Our Stars isn't because I was writing the Fault in Our Stars every day it's because many days I had most days I had abandoned it you know like yeah but many months many even whole years yeah and then I'd come back to it and I'd write a bunch of things and a lot of I mean there were several times when I went and tried to write the story that eventually became the Fault in Our Stars and I'd work on it for a few months and I'd write you know 10 or 15,000 words and literally none of them ended up right the Fault in Our Stars so I don't think you can like judge yourself that much especially when you're young I think you have to follow your interests and your passions and part of learning to write is about learning to write fragments and then eventually you get better at stitching those fragments together. I found that the thing that that kept me with the story and still now keeps me with the story is like legitimate concern for the characters. I'm just worried about them and I want to know what happens and ultimately like I you know I have sort of a rough sketch but as I'm writing I often find that things take turns I don't expect them to take and sometimes like last night the stuff I wrote I as I was laying in bed I was like they wouldn't do that they would do this other thing and so tonight when I write I will change it so that they did the other thing and so it's like both trying to be true to the characters while also trying to like give them the freedom to move in their world and and and also to give them the structure to go to the place where they need to end up kind of keeps me driving solving the problem being interested in and being worried about what they're you know how they're going to do and if they're going to be okay and the thing you have brought up to me a lot and talked to me a lot is like how much value there is and and that maybe we didn't see in previous decades of our lives in just spending a lot of time examining one thing and I think that's a lot of what the Anthropocene Review is about.
Yeah. And that is really helpful for like like creating a fictional person or world or situations because like you have to spend the time understanding them and the world in greater detail than is going to be on the page because like so you have to like you know really get into the like the dirty work of imagining which is kind of a wonderful opportunity to get to be a professional daydreamer sometimes. Yeah at its best at its best there's also lots of other things that go into that process. Yeah.
This next question comes from Kristall who asked Dear Heikit-John I recently purchased a book on Amazon and I did not read the description very carefully and when it arrived it was a giant coffee table book. I have never owned a coffee table book before and now I feel like I am not going to let it live up to its life's purpose. Well I do in fact own a coffee table then what's the problem? I rarely have guests over to have it worth having a book constantly on the table.
Any help would be appreciated not a rock Kristall. You don't have coffee table books just to impress other people although that is one of the central reasons you have. You also have coffee table books to impress yourself so you'll sit down and like get ready to watch TV and you'll be like wow that is a beautiful coffee table book about the work of Kerry James Marshall. I am very sophisticated.
Now I am going to watch House Hunters International. Now I'm going to watch people make really bad choices about moving to Bolivia having never visited there before. I'm going to rent an apartment that is a single room without a window that is inside of a church that is itself inside of an office building. Fascinating.
Yeah I feel comfortable that this couple is going to stay together since they met on the internet nine hours ago. And I'm sure that all of this is not staged at all. I feel like when somebody pointed out to me that all of House Hunters International was staged I was so devastated. It ruined a large swath of my consciousness.
It ruined the part of you that's like how did I not notice that? Oh I know. I know. I know.
I know. Like I will occasionally say to Catherine when we're watching some reality television thing I'll be like well the camera was already in the house so they're not actually surprised that they showed up and Catherine's like oh man why did you say that? It's okay for me to live in the fiction. You don't want to never when you're watching any fictional content never think about where the camera is because it ruins everything.
But it's not supposed to be fiction but it is. This is about coffee table books John. I am a little bit on the fence about coffee table books. Like I feel like they're a little bit of like if you put art on the wall you put a carpet on the floor you put a book on the coffee table.
Like that's it's just like an object and I know that like carpets serve other purposes besides being decorative but you know that's one of the purposes they serve. I feel like it's like a it's just a way of constructing your space and I have not ever and I imagine that this is the case for most coffee table books like red one. Yeah I mean one of the things about being married to a curator is that I am married to somebody who has to read coffee table books because in a lot of cases books about art and artists are kind of coffee table shaped and so sometimes Sarah will be researching an artist I'm in video and she'll be in bed reading like a book that is two feet high and a foot and a half long and she often comments on how. Don't fall asleep while you're reading that book you could die.
She often comments on how incredibly like unpleasant a reading experience it is because the columns of text are so long that by the time you get to the end of one it's like takes you forever to track back to the next column of text and and so you're right that they're not for reading they're for paging through right. Like I have a coffee table book about the history of Liverpool football club and it's not for reading it's not for you know you start on page one you end on page 652 it's for paging through and being like oh yeah Kenny Dalglish score in that goal that was amazing things like that and so I think having a coffee table book is great as long as you don't ask it to be a bunch of things that it's not which by the way is the same for all of us. It's also not just coffee table book not just coffee table books but also House Hunters International Individual Humans etc. Yeah Bolivia just yeah just ever yeah let's we're just we're all just doing our best whether we're a coffee table book a person or a nation's John why why haven't you written a coffee table book I don't see why not they don't sell that well and as you know Hank I love money okay all right do you want to answer that question a different way not really okay this next question comes from Paloma who writes Dear John and Hank I hate my co-workers ringtone I cannot freakin stand in is the most annoying song ever she receives like six calls a day and then takes forever to answer I mean what if you set a song as your ringtone yeah that's basically saying I'm the kind of person who always answers on the fourth ring because this is my jam should I have to change it should I get her fired so I don't have to listen to that horror daily oh my gosh I'm sorry to think the problem might not be with your co-workers ringtone or should I continue to live in despair forever okay I mean how bad is this song that I'm suspicious that Paloma hasn't named the song because it makes you think that maybe it's great maybe it's a good one maybe it's a baby Paloma just doesn't have good taste of music I understand how it's annoying to hear the same song no matter what the song is six times a day but I'm wondering so here's my suggestion Paloma go home listen to some of the artists other songs and you may find yourself over time kind of getting oh wow a little bit into that artist and then maybe it can be a place of empathy for you instead of a place of resentment that's bold John that's a bold that's yeah you hate this song so much go like exposure therapy go have more exactly well yeah or at least like try to find is there a song you like that's by a similar artist from like a different album and then you can go in and say like hey Joey I don't know if you've listened to the new 21 savage album but it's significantly better than the one you took your ringtone from I really like the song a lot I wonder if you could maybe listen to that see if it might be your jam is is it possible that in general music as ringtones is bad especially in a public setting where it's not great I agree that it's not great why don't you just put your phone on vibrate you're at the office it's not like you like you know need to be like awoken from a slumber yeah because because I just occurred to me like right before I went into the colonoscopy that the person in the little room next to me separated by curtain their ringtone was the game of thrones theme and if that plays I was entering the operating theater I would be very weird like very worried yeah you'd be like I guess this is it I've seen how this show goes yeah if I could go back just quickly to the 21 savage song a lot I've been trying to think like why do I like that song so much and I think it's because there's one line I find really relatable it's when 21 savage says how many lawyers you got a lot I also have a lot of lawyers and I find it to be really overwhelming at times and I just it's funny to me that he and I would have a point of connection because I feel like we've had vastly different life experiences right yeah that I know that I definitely know how it feels to like not know if things are good or bad so much is there a lot right right I think we all know that feeling but not particularly with lawyers so it's interesting that as a hashtag relatable moment for you yeah that's why you got to have a lot of words in your songs so that like some of them will be relatable like for specific yeah how many how many novels about conjoined twins you read a bunch like 18 it's weird yeah like more than most people might have a record I don't think I have the record but I think definitely the top half this next question comes from Maggie who writes here John and Hank do I tell the stranger next to me that he needs to examine his zipper what's the protocol with talking to strangers about their pants situations wake up Maggie I don't get that name specific side off but thank you for that Maggie I think I got some to say you oh oh it's late September I really should be back at school how many lawyers you've got a lot so I think with teeth with teeth stuff if I'm at the pharmacy and I got teeth stuff I don't mind the pharmacist going to stuff like you got a little something in your teeth I don't mind that with zipper I'm feeling a little bit different I feel like like I just got to live that life and assume that when I discovered on my own that nobody noticed because I want that's the world I want to live in even if it's not real yeah friends yes acquaintances maybe strangers know yeah I like if there was some way to broadcast information in a completely values neutral way like if I could just like have a text message come up on that person's phone and it says xyz I do that but I could not and I don't think you should say to their face I can see your boxers bro yeah I don't it's a complicated one but in general I try to pretend that strangers don't exist especially their zippers yeah I just try not to like I just try to I just try to block out that there's all these other people at the target yeah oh that's really not how I live my life I am I have way too many conversations with strangers in the target I can't remember the last time I noticed that anyone zipper was down because I feel like I'm I'm a very like shoulders up looker partly because I'm tall you know right if you're sitting on the if you're sitting on the subway and the person standing on the subway then yes then it's an issue but I had the last time I was seated on the subway was literally 2006 oh wow yeah I like to stand on the subway because then it's easier to leave if there's an emergency which is not not unlikely people are like oh it's so polite of you to leave a seat for me and I'm like oh no no no I just in case something bad happened do you have any more subway safety procedures for us well yeah I mean the number the hardest thing is that obviously you have to be standing so that you can be one of the first people to get out when the emergency happens but then the hard part about that is that of course you don't want your fingers to touch any surfaces that's not safe because then if the subway suddenly stops then you're all up on other people yeah yeah well you just have to basically you have to develop like Alex Honnold level balance but instead of you know climbing up elkapitan without a rope you're just trying to make it to 86 street yeah I do like to try and stand without touching anything on subways which I generally find like I can put different parts of my body against the pole right including like the crook of my elbow which is usually enough which reminds me John that this podcast is brought to you by a little pamphlet that you've put together it's called John's Subway Safety Procedures it's available at dftba.com April Fools maybe I don't know what is this you can buy it as a coffee table book as well it's 800 pages long lots of diagrams today's podcast also brought to you by wrong temperature level bathing wrong temperature level bathing useless it's also brought to you by various non-tomato ketchup some of them got fish in it we've also got a project for awesome message somebody donated to the project for awesome to get us to read this message in fact it was many people in this particular case Diana the queen of microwaves Haggai the death doggo Alice Cath Lily Alex of the kukukru crocs maybe and yaboy geo to goose Meg of Katie Sky Rob Ali Glenn Allison Jake Mac Aaron Ly will bex Cody Haley Emily James Jack Ench and S.J.
are lovely to Ataria Modman's this is a call out post to tell you that we think you're pretty amazing thanks for modding the server real good and for dealing with us as we gnom the general and threaten to fondue your bots or burn down the discord so to all of our hard-working lotman yes even the Jonathan's thanks for being awesome we love you this message is cath approved yeet dab I don't know what any of those words mean but to ataria is an amazing community of Nerdfighters they have a great discord server you can just google to ataria if you want to join them and they make this episode of your Hank and John's Bromfield by Shopify there are a lot of things that stand between I have an idea and this is an idea that actually exists in the world and people are buying things from me and that is what Shopify makes easier when you start with Shopify the tools to design and launch and take payments they're all there from day one you don't have to build a whole machine before you can start building the business and this is important because you also have to like look good and with Shopify's templates you could get a site set up really quick that looks credible and professional without needing to code or duct tape a bunch of different tools together and when things look real that works on my brain to be like I'm doing a real thing it also works on other people's brains to be like this is legitimate Shopify also has one of the best checkout systems on the internet it's built to help customers finish the purchase effectively and efficiently without a bunch of roadblocks returning customers can check out with a single click that means less friction and fewer abandoned carts and a smoother experience for everybody that stuff gives you confidence early on and it gives other people confidence in what you're doing you're not wondering whether the payment system is going to work you're not wondering whether customers can get through the process Shopify handles that foundation so you can focus on the thing that you're actually trying to do it's really kind of amazing to me the Shopify is a tool that works from the first day your store launches when you're just starting to get customers all the way up to being the size of good.store or dftba.com or being the size of like Mattel and Gymshark when you build a Shopify you're building with tools that already work at every scale all you need is the idea Shopify handles the rest you can start your free trial at Shopify.com slash deer heck start your free trial Shopify.com slash deer heck with new subscription only while supplies last until September 27th 2026 see website for more details one thing I love about summer is how easy everything feels the days are a little more relaxed my kids don't have to wake up at five in the morning and I find myself reaching for the same comfortable go anywhere pieces again and again which is why I keep coming back to quince I often wear either a long sleeve or a short sleeve button down from quince and it fits well and I never have any complaints in fact sometimes I get compliments about it I was at the airport a couple days ago I often find myself in airports and someone said I like your shirt and I said thanks it's from quince quince is 100% European linen pants and shirts are breathable easy to throw on in the summer upgrade your rotation needs starting at just 34 dollars their teas are soft enough to live in all day and the lightweight cotton sweaters are exactly what you want when those summer nights cool down so that's why I'm wearing quince this summer you can make your summer wardrobe easier by going to quince.com slash deer hank for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns now available in Canada too that's qunce.com slash deer hank for free shipping and 365 day returns quince.com slash deer hank this episode of deer hank and john is brought to you by factor imagine for a moment that you are absolutely immersed in some work where you're creating something beautiful or useful or useless and ugly but you love it anyway and you look up and suddenly you have a feeling and that feeling is that it is 2.30 pm and that you did not eat lunch what are you gonna do are you gonna get meal delivery that's gonna cost too much and maybe be a bit of a mistake or are you gonna go to the cupboard and just eat several fistfuls of peanuts those are my two choices unless I have a factor in the fridge you can get smoky barbecue chicken breast with potato mash cream corn and peppers you can get creamy lemon pepper chicken with veggie rice peel off broccoli and carrots this has the fiber I need it has the protein I need and it has the deliciousness I need what about garlic herb roasted barramundi with potato zucchini and burr blanc sauce I don't really know what that means but it sounds delicious what about a black bean taco bowl with corn salsa and cilantro crema a delicious high fiber high protein meal that no animals had to die for any of those can be ready in two minutes fresh never frozen over a hundred rotating weekly meals including globally inspired flavors like Mediterranean and Asian factor shops perhaps cooks and delivers straight to your door so you have more time for everything you love this spring head to factor meals calm slash deer hank 50 off and use the code deer hank 50 off to get 50% off and free daily greens per box with new subscription only wild supplies last until September 27th 2026 see website for more details do lovely projects together and also have a lot of inside jokes I don't understand john do you want to discuss paper clips oh boy we have never in the 72 year history of this podcast the 964 episodes we have made never have we started such a bonfire as when we announced to the world that paper clips should be long end in the front and short end in the back lots of people agree lots of people disagree I think we got over a thousand emails about this which is ludicrous this one is from amber marie who says I work for a judge I handle paperwork all day every day in our office uses tons of paper clips there isn't really any benefit to having a paperclip face a certain way sometimes the paperclip binds larger stacks and gets a little stretched out so in order to reuse it I actually have to flip it to face the other direction or bend it back in place also I have to just stop right there west we start another bonfire and say millions of people disagree with amber marie and have extremely strong opinions about whether the short end should be in the front or in the back and I'm pretty sure everybody is wrong I'm pretty sure that there are no right answers here yeah amber marie's email was my favorite because it basically argues for like a Brexit like approach to the paperclip problem like we don't like this so we're just quitting right as someone who works in an office that functions around paperwork binder clips are immensely superior they're more secure less prone to lose page less prone to lose pages due to slippage or snatch pages from an adjacent stack I wish that paper clips would be eliminated much like john wishes the penny would be I hope that this insight helps your paperclip dilemma hashtag use more binder clips a millennial who remembers clippy amber marie to be clear amber marie millennials are not young anymore when we talk about young people amber marie we mean you know young people the only the only paperclip thing I saw that made even a little bit of sense was don't put the big side in front because it might cover up some of the text I will however say that this can be solved in two ways one reading the line despite the fact that there is a very very very small amount of occlusion or two just move it over a little bit it's a paperclip it's not stuck there no the thing that made me realize is that so many of us in our jobs have these repetitive tasks that we build like you build a world view around it like I've signed my name four hundred seventy five thousand times while sitting in my basement and as a result of that like I have extremely strong opinions about sharpie sharpie color I believe in this conspiracy theory is it a conspiracy theory when you're the only person who believes it and you've never even mentioned it but I believe in this conspiracy theory where certain colors of sharpie last longer than other colors of sharpie no they do that's absolute like I have also signed in a bunch that is absolutely true yeah but but nobody talks about it and I'm like is nobody talking about it because I've made this up is nobody talking about it because it's not interesting it's probably that one or nobody talking about it because there's a massive conspiracy well the question is do they run out sooner yeah because there's something about the ink that's different or they run out the sooner because the ink is more expensive so they put less in exactly and I yeah and I don't I don't know the answer to that I've actually tried to do a bunch of research into the chemical composition of sharpies because there are people who are still alive who invented sharpies like it was at the time it was like a discovery and the reason sharpie is sharpie and other permanent markers aren't is because like sharpie made a better mousetrap in this case of permanent marker but anyway it just it reminded me of that because like I think so much about sharpies and like the thickness of lines and like the kinds of paper and whether the paper sticks together and how the paper gets bound into books and yada yada and there are a lot of people who feel that way about paper clips I want very badly to make a video that tests sharpies in many different ways and we'll see if that is ever gonna work I think it's gonna work I need to work with like Mark Rober Simone Gertz on a way to test sharpies yeah no I love that idea I I mean I'll tell you I'll tell you one person who's gonna be a super fan of that video your brother that's it's not about having a bunch of people like it it's about having one or two people like it a lot that's the future of youtube I I actually agree with that like I know you know make stuff make stuff for people who will love it not for people who will like agree to watch it begrudgingly speaking of witch ink yeah I just love dr. Benji's football manager series question I know you like dr. Benji John we share a youtube account I'm aware yes and I know that you like looking at microscopic life I do in a rich high definition I actually gotten into that too so you've YouTube's algorithm says like in your YouTube algorithm has infected my brain beautiful way everyone should share a YouTube algorithm with someone else like maybe this is the actual problem with YouTube is that like you only focus on what you're into you like you like it's not good at it YouTube needs to be like okay here's this person we're gonna like pick a rando to be their YouTube sibling and start to infect their recommendations from this rando right and then at the end of it YouTube can be like congratulations you're now married you like you'll be like all the same things and YouTube will be like no no no no the algorithm has told us that this is the person for you and you could be like well no I'm pretty sure I don't really want to be married to this person and then YouTube will just continue to tell you that you're gonna marry that person the way that they continue to show me the same six videos over and over and over again every time I refresh the page you'll be like I'm pretty sure you want to watch this one and I'm like I know that I don't want to watch this video that's about like how alt-right people are misunderstood and totally correct like I'm sure I don't want to watch it I'm gonna hundred hundred hundred don't pee uh what in the eventually Google's just like actually we have merged your bank accounts you're the same person you have one so you're never now you don't have to be married if you don't want but you do have the same last name and you do have a shared bank account so good luck and Godspeed this next question comes from Tara who asks dear Hank and John my good friend recently gave me a plant for my birthday which is really lovely I like giving plants this is one of my favorite presents I however have a lot of plants in my home already I this is the thing they only gave you a plant because you already had a bunch I recently started a new job and I was already thinking about getting office plans is it rude of me to take the plant my friend gave to me to my office I'm pretty sure they would notice when they come visit but the sad truth is that I'd probably spend more time with it at the office than I would at my home not a spinoza Tara it's a gift it's a gift it's a gift you could do whatever you want with it it's not their plant it's your plant they gave it to you and if they come over and they say where's my plant the right response to that is oh I'm sorry it's not your plant it was a gift no I mean the you could say you don't you don't have to wait for them to say that you can say oh thank you for the plant and then like two days later take a picture of it on snapchat and snap it to them with a heart and say thank you so much look how nice it looks at my office desk like yeah or yeah or you could just say what you said to us which is like unfortunately I spend more time at the office than I do at home so I thought I take the plant to the office where it brings me so much joy that I don't want to think so much about paper clips and like other people's ringtones yeah like it's it's hard out there in the office life and this plant brings me so much joy and happiness and it's bringing happiness and joy to all of my coworkers as well we need more plants at our office John I've been recently thinking about this it's a good idea I feel feel like we are a bit of a bit sterile not a lot of stuff on the walls need to get the action on start all my employees we need some plants up in this business yeah I actually I agree with you I think you're correct this yeah it's not a joke it's something I actually want to do for our office yeah I don't really want to have plants in our office but I do want to have better art oh no art doesn't make oxygen Hank it's time to get to the on port news from ours and AFC one is it already that time and I have one I have wonderful news that's a bit of a surprise AFC Wimbledon continue to not be last in league one despite a fairly infuriating for two lost to jilling ham what made it particularly heartbreaking is that AFC Wimbledon's longtime captain and my personal hero Barry Fuller now plays for jilling ham is he's just so good I mean he's 33 34 years old he doesn't have the pace he one side but he's just such an intelligent footballer and such a hard worker and it was it was a little bit heartbreaking to see him playing for a different team Wimbledon went one-nil up and then gave up one good goal one really really bad goal the one kind of medium-sized goal we went for the whole boldilocks bod at which point it was 3-1 then it was 4-1 on you know like a goal that was all right and then it was 4-2 we scored in like the 97th minute a pure consolation goal so now Wimbledon are pretty much where they were when we last spoke after their incredibly good run of form we'll see if this is the beginning of the end or if it's merely a blip in Wimbledon's great escape but Wimbledon after 39 games have 39 points they probably need to win four of their last seven games which not easy yeah no that's the end of the sentence they've won three of their last five they have they have um we need to win four of our last seven which is possible but you know are you playing Bradford City in all of those games we are playing Bradford City in the last game of the season and I think Bradford will be relegated by then so hopefully they will have nothing to play for so one way of thinking about it in fact the way I've been thinking about it in my head is Bradford City's currently in last and that's our last game of the season so if we win three of our next six games right then we just really probably have to win that last one um so you need even odds you need to be as good as like Oxford United yeah we need to yeah we need to win three of our last six games um you need to be like exactly as good as Gillingham which you've just shown you are not we're not not at the moment but I mean we'll see I still think it's possible it's not likely but lots of things that aren't likely happen so I'm not giving up hope what is the news from Mars well in News for Mars John did you know that uh Jeff Bezos has an invitation only conference called Mars does he really he does it stands for uh machine learning automation robotics and space okay and I read a uh a little op-ed newsletter post from somebody who was at the Mars uh conference event thing that Jeff Bezos does which uh he refers to um moments that are particularly stressful for uh for engineers who are doing pitches to Jeff Bezos and I'm just like oh gosh wow ah that makes me that makes me feel away um but anyway a fair amount of that happens but ultimately this this take um from Jonathan Vanian who writes a lot about artificial intelligence was that mostly the event was like we don't really know how to do any of the things we need to do and artificial intelligence is not smart enough to solve these problems yet good I guess um yeah but they sure did have a lot of really cool people come together to hang out with Jeff Bezos um and uh it looks like probably AI is not going to get us to Mars by 2028 right how what what was the big plan for AI getting us to Mars by 2028 like it gets really good at reading stop signs and then eventually takes us to Mars the the sort of artificial intelligence robotics thing is you you launch up robots that are really smart and they are able to go to an asteroid mine that asteroid for materials and fuel and then you need to shoot far less stuff into space you can also send intelligent like you'll cause all the hydrogen and oxygen that you need will already be on there and you won't have to like haul your fuel into space and also send those things to Mars and they could be on the surface of Mars digging up you know oxygen for the colonists to use digging up water for them to use and that's the idea and like sure um I think that that is probably going to be the thing that actually makes space travel uh something that people do frequently like if it's ever a more commonplace thing like if if we are ever able to have like not sustainable but like permanent colonies on other planets in the solar system which will start with Mars is the guess then we're gonna start out then we're gonna need that infrastructure of smart robots doing a lot of the work for us yeah but first they've got to like figure out when a stoplight is green and with yellow which they still also can't do yeah first they gotta they gotta be able to tell the difference between like a jersey barrier and an empty lane right yeah I just to say that it's like not close I think is an understatement maybe I'm wrong yeah and obviously the pace of change does you know consistently surprise people right but oftentimes with stuff like this it's very easy to come out on a stage and say like imagine what the possibilities could be if we if like if this were possible and it's like yes agree but also to say that like self-driving cars is an insignificant problem like it's not it's very hard it's easy to do when the road conditions are perfect it's very hard to do when there's snow everywhere and like the whole system breaks in a way that humans don't because humans can adapt in a way that computers can't right it reminds me of the great onion TED talk about how in the future all cars will run on garbage imagine a world where all cars run on garbage we have lots of garbage and we have lots of cars it's the perfect match how will it work that's for the technologists to figure out yeah yeah well like I hope we get to mars soon but not by 2028 I hope we get there in 2029 and by the time we get there the artificial intelligence has made us swimming pools and hot baths and everything else we'll need to survive thank you for potting with me thanks everybody for writing in thanks for your questions sorry we didn't answer more of them you can email us your questions or your comments or your paperclip concerns but please no more paper clip things at hank and john at gmail.com this podcast is produced by rosiana hoss and shared in gibson it's edited by Nicholas Jenkins our head of community and communications is Victoria Bonjourno we're off now to record our patreon only podcast this weekend ryan's which you can get at patreon.com slash dear hank and john it's really bad music if you're hearing now and at the beginning of the episode is by the great gunnarolla and as they say in our hometown don't forget to be awesome