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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. Or is that perfect of a dear John and Hank?
It's a podcast where two brothers answer your questions give you two pieces of advice and bring you all the weeks news from both Mars and AFC Whivild and John. Did you know and I'm not making this up I saw it on Twitter and then I fact checked it that according to Greek mythology there was a half horse half man named Chiron or possibly Chiron I don't know how to say Greeks words who did like helped heal people and was in charge of like bringing medicine to folks making this being the centaur for disease control. And it sounds like I made that up and just like convoluted to get to the joke but this is actually a thing. That's a great that Hank that's a great joke.
Did you write that? It's not a joke one and two no I didn't I found Melinda Howard tweeted about it and people sent it to me on Twitter. Okay that explains it so someone else wrote a great joke on Twitter that you then repeated and it is that is a great joke. The centaur for disease control makes me briefly wish that I had Twitter again.
Hank speaking of which you know what I would have tweeted this week? No nothing. That would have been a great call. I would have just stayed clear of the entire service which is indeed what I did.
Hank yeah we record this podcast in the past. We do yes and so it's probably for best for our emotional health for sure but people always think that we're responding to like a particular event when we express a level of discouragement or fear or whatever but we never are responding to that event because we recorded the podcast so distantly in the past that we don't know what happened that people think that we're referring to. Yeah so let me just say about whatever happened this week. Oh my god this is also horrible.
I feel very discouraged and I know that I'm not supposed to and I know that like the data tells me that life is getting better in every way but I can't help myself. I feel a little discouraged. I feel ya and there are a number of people who I wish would take your advice and maybe even me maybe but I've had the thought several times this week. How do I keep this person from tweeting?
But of course that's not my job and probably shouldn't be. Probably shouldn't have that responsibility but boy I saw a bunch of zingers recently and would rather not and also would rather people not call attention to them oftentimes and give them even broader audiences. People love bad hot takes but the only thing they love more than bad hot takes is the bad hot take takedown of the bad hot take. Yeah and it's true.
If you want to be the number one trending topic on Twitter your best strategy is to have a bad hot take that lots of people can then have bad hot takes on. Yeah that's so true. You're gonna hear more about my experience with that on last week's delete this. Great I also have a podcast it's not about Twitter it's called the Anthropocene Reviewed and the Daily Beast just called it I want to get this quote correctly because it hurt my feelings.
Perfect let me review some good reviews reviews in the meantime is that what we're doing? They called it deeply weird and nihilistic. I disagree. I think that I know I'm trying so hard not to be nihilistic.
Yeah all of my mental and emotional energy goes into not being a nihilist. One of your recent episodes was one of the one of the topics but but then you turned it around that's that was the whole thing that was the conceit of the episode. All right you don't have to you don't have to make me feel better about my deeply weird nihilism. This first question comes from Ola who writes Dear John and Hank the wheel is a superior way to get around yet evolution hasn't gotten to it yet animals move around with feet and fins there are no natural wheels.
Why? Sincerely maybe you're only Norwegian listener Ola not pronounced like cola. Oh crap. Oh la.
That message was from Lola give us more than that. I gotta leave it as bad o explorer. Okay, john you hit it right on the head there. I love it.
I forgot the question because we spent so much time talking about why they're no natural wheels. Oh so first at there are natural wheels in a sense. So there's two senses in which there are natural wheels. One is that when different animals run the movement of their feet actually Like when we like when a human runs the movement of the feet actually sort of replicate a piece of a wheel that is coming down and rolling We can't get the full wheel, but like our body has actually adapted to mechanically simulate a wheel without being a wheel Secondly, there are actual things that spin in the way that an engine spins.
It's very unusual and very cool It was actually some scientists thought that it was not real and it took a long time to prove and get scientific consensus around this But bacterial flagella like the little wiggly things that E. coli used to move around actually function as a rotary engine And it has like it's got all the parts that like mechanical rotary engines have and the flagella actually spins inside and it spins Perpetually at like 10,000 rpm so extremely quickly though. They're very small So it's easier to do it and that's how bacteria move around so there is that one example of a perpetually spinning engine in nature It's very hard to scale up of course because Twisting a body part you have to have all the nerves and the blood vessels and the things that sort of feed it to make that work Which is why the motor inside of bacteria like that thing that actually gets spun isn't connected in any way Except molecular like molecular bonds to the engine part that is doing the spinning That's pretty fascinating you can learn more about that while we're promoting our work journey to the microcosmos Hanks amazing extremely beautiful new YouTube series where he speaks to me calmly about the microcosmos while I get to look at Very small organisms and not think about the broader nightmare Yeah, just the very small nightmare that is the ocean of life that constantly surrounds us right but I'm used to thinking about that That's nothing new for me This next question is from Juliano who asks dear Hank and John but mostly Hank while we're doing me questions I work at a coffee shop and one of our regular customers is a conspiracy theorist Oh, great is constantly coming in and telling us about all the lies that the government is feeding us seems very like a healthy thing to do to a coffee shop Employees the one that makes me saddest is that he believes that space is a projection and that the stars and planets do not exist How do I help this man understand that space exists only if you have enough life jackets Juliano? You can't No, I think that it's pretty likely that this particularly conspiracy theorists is really excited about believing things that are outside of Reality and that that is empowering to them and so taking that away It would be perceived as a threat to their power.
Yep. I don't think there's much you can do in that situation except serve the coffee and wish that person the best and Yeah, in my experience anyway, unless it's somebody who's really close to the person. It's really difficult to make a meaningful impact Yeah, we get we've got an increasing number of messages about people who are dealing with conspiracy theorists who are more present in their lives Than someone who comes into their coffee shop and it is it's very hard and I don't really know how to confront that Yeah, even though if you're close with the person I don't know how to confront it Yeah, we get a lot of questions from kids from like 14 or 15 year old kids whose parents are you know Believe that space is a projection or that the stars aren't real or that or whatever or chemtrails, etc Anti-vax stuff we get a lot of messages about anti-vaccine Concerns from kids who are like how do I deal with this in my parent and I wish that I knew what to say to them It's really difficult because people's beliefs. It's one thing if you know like for instance I believe that the Federal Reserve probably should not cut interest rates next quarter, right?
Like that's a thing that I believe I think that I'm right But I also understand that I might be wrong and it's not something that I believe so strongly that it becomes part of my identity And if somebody disagrees with me I say to them like what's wrong with you you idiot, right? Like I understand that I might be wrong like this is complicated stuff There's lots of different cases to be made But there are some things that I believe that are so central to my identity that when people challenge them I do get really upset like that And when people make for instance the idea that vaccines You know the MMR vaccine is dangerous or is a threat to the species or whatever a central part of their identity It's really really hard to be able to talk to them about it because any threat to that idea becomes a threat to their understanding of themselves And of reality I think that a lot of these things come from like trying to make sense of reality and trying to make sense of you know Like if you are a person who has dealt with gloss and like like how it's sort of terrible and tragic like just you know The fact that we are all mortal is Sometimes people try to make sense of that by putting it on the like sort of medical establishment as they might call it and saying that there's some kind of conspiracy There and that like the people can't be trusted when in kind of a way is like seeing them as an authority and wanting to have like some Agency over that authority when really what they want to have agency over is more place like illness and mortality Like which we would all love to have agency over those things and so oftentimes It's like understanding where those things coming from can lead to enough understanding that will allow you to continue having a relationship with that person And maybe enough understanding to because I think that it is important to like if you can to keep you know Your family and your life But also maybe enough understanding to like see this problem in a way that allows you to speak about it without immediately having a People feel that they need to defend their beliefs and thus themselves which only makes those beliefs stronger Yeah, it's a complicated problem And I think when it's your parent or somebody who's really close to you That's a different challenge from when it's someone at the coffee shop who you just nothing have to wish well and hope that they do the right thing Which is always to leave at least a $1 tip I Guess probably It occurs to me like it probably seems very weird to our one Norwegian listener That you would tip coffee shop workers, but yeah, you should also I think coffee shops mean something else It's next question goes from Lauren who writes dear John and Hank I totally just put Norway in the same boat as the Netherlands and I have no regrets They both start with and in their both in Europe and whatever Lauren right we're American They don't pay us to know stuff Do they pay us to not know stuff is there a way that I could get paid to be ignorant? I mean other than cable news burn all right Let's get back at the podcast. We're in a rough spot.
We're gonna do it Yeah, this next question comes from Lauren who writes dear John and Hank as a frequent listener to the pod I'm also a frequent listener to the ads you run before and during the pod What are SEO tools are they side end option tools so yeah, really orange tools? No, you got it right first time side end option It's the it's the different options for what you put your book and lamp on yes side of your bed Yeah We want you to have all of the tools that you need to learn about all of the side end options that are available to you Lauren you would not believe how many side end tables you can get If only you follow all of the links yeah in our ads the other one that she listed that I really liked was shark Eliminating odor tools which I actually assumed that you had written these and so I added that one myself. Oh no I did it right them. I think it's more.
Oh, I see I see I see she also signed off simply extrapolating options Lauren Oh, it's very good. So John, you know how when you go to the beach Yeah, and you have a problem where your child comes back from the beach and has in every possible area very small rocks Right. Well that is when you need sand enriched offspring tools It's it's search engine optimization. So when you google something or Yahoo something, but let's face it more likely Google something The list comes up a certain way because of search engine optimization tools Which are a bit of a dark art in the world of the internet and I don't understand them very well But I think they are important Which is why like when you read for instance the show notes to Dear Hank and John It's always like Hank Green and John Green discuss because people search for our names more than they search for dear Hank and John Etc, but the weird thing about search engine optimization is that the idea is that you know You feed the algorithm the information that it wants But the algorithm is trying desperately to not respond only to information that it wants But it can't help itself and so we end up with an internet that's optimized for Google calm rather than an internet That's optimized for like the human users of Google calm Yes, you definitely see this with with YouTube where there was a certain period of time where it became really beneficial to not Respect your viewers time and to just drag out the length of your video as long as possible And YouTube would be like hey people are watching this longer and I'm like God could you just edit it at all?
Yeah, right me watching something longer doesn't necessarily mean that I like it more It just means that I'm willing to sit here It's one of a pet peeves as a person who has worked very hard to say a lot of stuff in four minutes I feel very old if you're very old you sound you sound like an old man yelling at the cloud right now I am and by the cloud. I don't mean the thing in the sky I mean the computer for that the computers that lives inside of a server somewhere not nearly as the centaur for disease control is dad jokes go All right, the next question comes from Ariella who asks dear Hank and John climate changes real They're green for all the same page as a nation and a species we've mobilized against many lesser issues in much larger ways Is this a marketing issue? Do we need to market climate change like an aggressive threat should all of the earth's graphic design and rhetorical resources be allocated to this? Glad I'm not under the sea Ariella, but if you were under the suit you'd have less to worry about except for the acidification You know just occurred to me no I don't in the little mermaid when they're like it's better down here where it's wetter under the sea Don't they mean in the sea like you if you're under the sea I see what you're saying aren't you in the dirt or whatever it is that's underneath The sea so like the sea ends at the sea for and then and then you're under the sea you don't want to be under the sea Yeah, cuz it's not better there.
It's not wetter It's less wet because it's muddier you want to be above under the sea, but below over the sea right? We're over the sea there's probably some worms in the stuff under the sea Ariel is in between those two places. Yeah, I just I just want to call attention to what I see as the greatest failure of our time Ariella, which is that super little mermaid doesn't use the right preposition when describing her relationship with the sea Question oh right. Yeah, so climate change is real and one of the challenges But I actually think not the major challenge one of the challenges is that lots of people don't think that it's an important Development in human history or that it's gonna cause big disruptions in the human story And I think some of that is because the future is unpredictable and people know the future is unpredictable And so yeah, that's an element of it I do think that some of it is a failure of marketing and if you look for instance at the way that we handle cigarette smoking in the United States it used to be that people just assumed that everyone was gonna smoke cigarettes and there was not much you could do to move the Smoking rate because people who smoked really liked smoking and it was really hard to quit because of the physical addiction But we had this incredible public information campaign that dramatically reduced the percentage of cigarettes smokers in the United States because of that public information campaign And I think we could do that with climate change I think we will do it eventually but we can't do it as like individuals or I don't think we can have as big an impact as individuals I think we need the support of big institutions like nation states Yeah, I often think about how we could like as like get more interest behind issues through good design and rhetoric that we use We use it mostly to like sell tics which are fine Yeah But like that's where most of that that energy and those resources go and and I often think like if you know There's a lot of resources that go to selling bottled water and like very little that goes to selling tap water Like no one markets tap water as like a good cool thing That's good And I think it's part of the reason why bottled water sells well is because tap water doesn't have a marketing budget No, absolutely The incentives are to increase the total amount of consumption which is good for economic growth in a narrow sense But is likely very very bad for the long long-term future of the species I do think that it's changing.
I think more people are concerned correctly about climate change I don't know that it will change fast enough or I mean I think the biggest thing is that we've got to accept the reality that in the short run This is going to involve really significant sacrifice and yeah And that's a hard thing for people to accept especially when there are everyday problems like the problems that are all around us are real It's just that the climate change problem is also real and and has potentially catastrophic consequences Yeah And I think that there is sometimes a mistake that like the solution is easy But it does require you know a scaling back of economic growth to some extent and that has consequences But it's it's about whether or not we as a species kind of for the first time ever can look more than a few years down the road And that you know to the extent that we managed to do it I think that it will be a something that that we as a species have never done before and and it may be already to some extent Like we are working on a problem beyond the scale of any we have yet faced Which is somewhat inspiring and somewhat hopeful. It's just that like we have not gotten anywhere near the amount of action that is necessary Which is hard. Yeah, I don't think that despair is the correct response though. No, I think that's not continuing to work Is the correct response.
Yeah, sorry. I was starting to feel despair I was talking to myself not to you to be clear this next question comes from Stephen who writes to your John and Hank wire Car horn so primitive I have amazing adjustable super customizable car horns by now For example, shouldn't I be able to dial in my aggravation level before sounding my car horn similar the way I can dial in my sense Of how frequently the windshield wipers should do their thing. That's a great point like we have customizable windshield wipers Yeah, we only have one car horn imagine the possibilities even comma Stephen Hank Mm-hmm. This brings me to my million-dollar idea for the week.
Okay, it's time for a million dollar idea John brought a million dollar idea I got one from Twitter as well, but first we're gonna start with John. Okay, so you know how everybody has a blood type sure I think that along with the rest of your medical record You should register a favorite song and then when the day comes when you need an ambulance as the ambulance drives Instead of playing those horrible blaring sirens Ambulance plays your favorite song so like you don't have to like in this time of crisis be listening to the worst possible Instead you're just listening to a very loud version of Old Town Road You have to take my horse to the Old Town Road by which I mean my seriously incapacitated body to the hospital exactly You know like I just mean how is this not already happened? It is a clear unambiguous million-dollar idea So I love it so much. What's what is yours Old Town Road?
No, probably not although I mean so Sarah's argument when I told her this million-dollar idea she had a few concerns Uh-huh first she was concerned that people wouldn't update their favorite song and so they would like end up having the last song that they hear Be like their you know their their song with their x-y for something right sure Or though like the thing that they really loved when they set up their insurance card when they were 16 Totally but my counter argument to that argument is that like wouldn't it actually motivate you to go in and update your medical record more frequently yeah if you knew that you were also setting your awesome ambulance song yeah, it's it's I like it I also like it from the external perspective of like it humanizes the person in the ambulance exactly one out of the way because you're like Oh my god, it's another bar for Streisand fan. It's a it's a person in there. It's just a huge B-52 fan Yeah, exactly. I so anyway, Steven.
I think you're onto something with the car horn business But I don't think you've taken it far enough right exact I mean I don't know how much time Steven has between like when something occurs and when Steve would like to honk because for me that There's no time. It's an instant. I don't have time to adjust my windshield wipers in that moment No, but I would like my every honk to not be a honk sound like I would love it if instead of just a regular honking sound when I hit the car horn My car said something like hey get out of here Like well what I do need is a button that says the light is green Yes, that's 90% of times that I honk right no one in this town pays attention when they're stopping a light They just sit there okay, so my Chevrolet volt hank actually has that button So Chevrolet volts the perfect car I got a comb with an emergency honker that honks like a regular honker But there's also a button on the side that you can hit that's just like hey, oh hey So it's a green light I think my siren song would definitely be I'm alive by yellow So you could just like be going down the road and it's like it's most speaking to me in the ambulance in this moment I need an ambulance telling me that I'm alive But also everybody around like the person the ambulance is alive right also that song is so it rocks so hard I might go with that disco hit I will survive you know And first I was afraid I was petrified or hold on by Wilson Phillips. That's another good like yeah I'm glad hey, I'm really glad that you agree with me that my million dollar idea is a million dollar idea because it's so good Yeah, I love it.
I don't know how to monetize it. No idea how to monetize What's it about? Hey, could we ever know how to monetize anything? No, we'll figure it out.
What's a no idea you got off Twitter All right, so this is Ian's million dollar idea from Twitter and was posted earlier today You know what would be a good idea for a company you send them your favorite pair of pants Yeah, and they copy them exactly to make you your perfect pants. It's called pants clone That is the forget about ambulance songs. That is the best idea. I've ever heard in my entire life How has that already happened?
I know it sounds very expensive like to deconstruct and reconstruct a pair of pants But there are so many rich people in the world like look it can't cost more than $200 per pair of pants, right? I don't know I don't know how much labor goes into like doing a CT scan of your pants basically I would love that I'm wearing my favorite pants right now Which means that I won't be wearing them five days this week and it's such a bummer Ian I have a solution to that problem John which is wear your pants for five days in a row like everyone else Well, but then they start to get so baggy that they're not my favorite pair of pants anymore. They're a different here. Yes I like my pair of pants to just hug my legs in all the right ways and none of the wrong ones I love this idea for me and that is an actual million dollar idea I wish I knew how to like I would invest in that company tomorrow if somebody out there is making a Highly customized pants clone pants company hit me up pants clone calm isn't even taking John.
Oh my god Hank, maybe we should just do it. You know like maybe we should just do it John this next question comes from Sarah who asks dear Hank and John was cleaning up my fridge today I noticed that my jar of red curry paste doesn't expire for almost 700 years What make me think a lot about my own mortality as well as that of the earth Do you think that this red curry paste is going to to outlast the human race and most importantly how do I get rid of this? I don't want to have a jar of red curry paste until I die I'm gonna have to be queued to someone in my will. I'm very curious to hear your thoughts Sarah PS I'm looking forward to attending your mini-appellist John I think that there's a misprint.
Yeah I mean you don't think that there's a misprint there is a factual misprint But like more importantly, there's a very easy way to get rid of red curry paste and it is to use it in its desired fashion Make it into poop. Yeah. No, I mean you should eat the you should eat the curry paste. We all agree about that There's no question that you should eat the curry paste.
It's fine for years for as long as you need it Yeah, I mean sometimes I do I mean I'm guessing that it says that it goes bad in 27 19 Which means that it probably goes about a 2019 So he's probably scarf down that red curry paste not like with a spoon or anything But but even if it says it goes bad in 2019, it doesn't really go back until at least 2020. We're talking about curry paste We're not talking about milk, right? There's that a viral image of Himalayan sea salt that has an expiration date on it It's just like it's a rock. It's rock Yeah, it's millions of years old rock right I mean to be fair it was from when this Himalayas were in the ocean That's how it's gonna be okay.
Yeah, I think you can eat the curry paste And I don't think you need to worry about your own mortality happening before you finish the curry paste unless there's something that You know that we don't well it is it is all often I think that's something that people are a little freaked out by when they realize that like the plastic bottle that you drink your Diet Dr. Pepper out of is gonna be on the earth for longer than you that is a little bit upsetting But there it is yep, you're gonna die and plastic lasts forever. So use less of it It doesn't last forever. It just lasts for hundreds of thousands of years It will last much longer than our species That's for sure and at the moment where we're cycling very little of it Hank when you think about where we are in the human story Mm-hmm like to itara have been around for 250 million years.
Yeah humans have been around for 250 thousand years Yep, where do you think we are percentage wise like are we in the first quarter? We actually did a special video about this. So there's a number of different ways of looking at it But like the way that you're asking is just like my opinion Gosh, I really want to be hopeful. I think it's hopeful to say that we're in the third quarter We might have different definitions of hope yeah, I you know I want us to be around for 250 million years John if we're in the third quarter that would mean that I there are like a thousand Generations of humans to come after me Yeah, it's true But I want I'd be great if we have the lifespan of a tootara, but like we are a lot more complicated than tootara In terms of like what we can't accomplish so I think it's really hard It's just really hard to know like nothing on earth has ever happened like us We are a unique thing a unique occurrence in the history of earth and so we have no idea There's no way to get that data This is like when I asked President Barack Obama if I should name my daughter Eleanor or Alice and he wouldn't bite Yeah, no, I just ah gosh.
Ah, I hope that there is less and less suffering every year forever. Well Oh, God, good news and that's how I answer every question from now on that be a great That'd be a great like presidential answer to if somebody were like what's your policy on health care spending? You'd be like you don't we need to do reduce the overall amount of human suffering and that's what I'm gonna be when I'm president I'm gonna reduce human suffering. I've only got one platform and it's I like hi Alright, we have another question this was from Abby who writes dear John.
Hey, I caught a frog just for fun And now it's in my mom's car and I can't find it. What do I do Abby? Abby I just want to say how much I appreciate the fact that your question was short it contained no extraneous information But it also didn't contain like too little information. You didn't read anything out.
It's the perfect question Yeah, because my first question would be why did you catch a frog and if you say just for fun? Yeah, which is I guess the only reason oh, I mean you might you might for instance be trying to generate a prince You might write yes, there's that you remember when we were kids that people believed if you licked the back of a certain toad You could have a loose and a genetic experience. That is actually true. They're just those toes don't live in for oh Boy, I looked a lot of toads for no reason then Yeah, only only one of them turned into a man.
That's not you were going for it all Yeah, it could be like post apocalypse and you are really hungry. That's another reason to catch it Yeah, there's a bunch of reasons to catch a frog But we know why Abby caught that frog which was just for fun and now it's in Abby's mom's car and she can't find it What do I do? I would like to know how big the frog is because there are some very small frogs in the world some are so small that they could get Into a place in a car that a human cannot get to but also so small that when that frog dies there it will not be of consequence So here's my theory Abby There's a 99% chance that this frog is gonna get out of that car and let me tell you how I know I know because just today a mouse ate some of my peanut M&M's out of my car So I know for a fact that mice can get into and out of cars. So some good frogs.
That's the end of the story Yeah, that's how you lost the frog the frog is gone the frog is out the frog is like I was just caught just for fun I am not being a party to this nonsense anymore By the way, you know who wasn't just having fun the frog. Yeah the frog. Yes Well frog goes back to like its frog family and is like so I've had a day I mean what so the only with the only other thing that you can do here is like sneak out at two o'clock in the morning with your iPhone fully charged Turn on that flashlight and go through every inch of this car trying to find a frog I don't think that there are frog traps that like are good like have a good outcome for the frog So you don't want that I think you have to search the frog And then your mom comes out like what are you doing with your iPhone in the car? And you're like you got to say that you're like out there smoking marijuana or something incriminating the actual situation I'm just looking at the back of some hallucinogenic toads mom no big deal Definitely not with your frog in your car.
That wouldn't be like me at all Yeah, I just like it to be a big deal Here's what's gonna eventually happen Abby your mom's either gonna find a frog or a frog carcass and your mom will be like Oh my god I found a toad in the car today and you'll be like mom pretty sure it was a frog actually and then that was your mistake And that's how you're gonna get found out. It's like a boo-bo moment where your mom's gonna be like hmm well well then oh God John which reminds me that this podcast is brought to you by secret cartoons You got that secret cartoon you're hoping it gets out of the car But maybe it doesn't now it's just a secret you have to keep for your whole life pretty good name for a band secret cartoons I'd listen today's podcast is also brought to you by personalized ambulance songs personalized ambulance songs John's first proper million dollar idea And this podcast of course is also brought to you by space space it definitely exists It does not only do we have a bunch of satellites up there. We've sent persons yeah human beings and chimpanzees a number of species Do they think that there's no rover on Mars? I guess they don't think that there's a Mars Yeah, they know I mean there are people who think that the earth is flat but the other planets aren't John Oh well that doesn't hold up to scrutiny I don't know how else to respond about it And today's podcast is brought to you by super experimental orchid tools super experimental orchid tools the most important SEO tools available today Yeah, I mean how else are you gonna get your super experimental orchids happy?
We also have a project cross a message from Dan for ettford. Hey dad. I'm on the pod well vicariously anyway I just wanted to say how glad I am to have the chance to bring you into this weird subculture It's not often that we share similar tastes but having this between us has been an amazing experience And I don't think I say that often enough. Thank you for being the absolute best dad with love Dan Dan I'm just gonna rewrite the end of your project cross a message real quick.
I love you dad Dan It's so hard to say that to our dad sometimes Dan, but it's really important So I thought that I would just do it that was really sweet That was very I liked it a lot this episode of your hand cajon is brought to you by Shopify There are a lot of things if 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 it 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 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 check out 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 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 as 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 dot store or devtv.com or being the size of like Mattel and Jim Shark 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 Hank start your free trial Shopify.com slash deer Hank with new subscription only while supplies last until September 27th, 2026. See website for more details One thing I love about summary 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 and the summer upgrade your rotation needs Starting at just $34 their tees 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 and 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 to that's Q U I N C E Dot com slash deer Hank for free shipping and 365 day returns quince.com slash deer Hank This episode of Dear 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 p.m And 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 smokey barbecue chicken breasts 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 a 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 Deerhank 50 off to get 50% off and free daily greens per box with new subscription only while supplies last until September 27th 2026 see website for more details That is sweet. Thank you both for being part of this community and for sharing it with each other John I have another question for you comes from Claire who asks deer hank and John I was just at Hank's paperback release show in Austin Thank you for coming it was super fun And while waiting for the show to start the mother of a friend of mine that I made in line offered me tic-tacs Only she mentioned that she had to sneak them in since the venue didn't allow food This seemed wrong to me as I do not consider tic-tacs to be food They have calories, but like so does dirt.
However, everyone there seems to disagree with me. Please settle this our tic-tacs food fly me to the moon Claire Yes, thanks for the tic-tac tier knees, mom. I think the ps was very important. Sorry.
Yes, it's good Hank I think that you will agree with me that tic-tacs are not food Altoid mints are not food and gum is not food and so you can bring in fact you must bring all of those things into events like for Instance our mini tour on August 16th and August 18th in respectively Madison and Minneapolis because they are not food Hmm. I see where you're going here want them during the show. You will have no other way to acquire them I have to posit that mint tic-tacs are not food, but orange tic-tacs are that is the kind of BS that is destroying this country Yeah, cuz like a mint you can just have mints in your in your pocket and that's fine But an orange tic-tac is basically an orange. Hey, do you want to know how many calories are in an orange flavored tic-tac?
It's gonna blow your mind one none. That's not food end of story They're rounding. Yeah, they're not food. They're a rounding error So I think that like tic-tacs are food in that if you eat them they are died.
They are metabolized like food They are not always to I was wrong. It's to it's to probably should have researched that before sounding so yeah, they have this 2019 I don't know if I can do things to say them Hank before we get to the all important news for Mars and AFC Wimbledon and I mean our great national nightmare is over and AFC Wimbledon season has begun again, but before we get there I need to read you this very important email that we received from Kelly Hello, brothers green just to help alleviate your grossed-out And as it's saying Ralph Lauren you were right the first time his name is actually pronounced Lauren like the woman's name So I was an executive assistant at our lhq for a while when I first moved to New York and worked with the CFO as well As the EVP of women's design and met Ralph on a number of occasions mostly regarding bringing him food in lunch meetings I have not to date Ben in an elevator with him I'm also getting the doctor who photographed both of you in San Francisco on the turtles all the way down to her Thanks, we had Kelly Well, thanks for the photo next time you are in the same room as Ralph Ralph Lauren Can you ask him what the joke that Rachel made was? Also Kelly I have to say that I very rarely remember anything that happens in my life But I do remember being photographed by you in San Francisco because you did such a great job and made both Hank and me feel so at ease and happy So thank you. It is a really wonderful memory.
I hope that we did okay as subjects All right, Hank all start all start all start. I'll start. No more AFC Wimbledon are back in league one Yeah, the third year of English football We survived on goal difference last season our season has started and you know what Hank Yeah, on the morning of August first I woke up and I saw that AFC Wimbledon was at the tippy tippy top of the league one table in first place And you know why alphabetical order alphabetical order we played our first game against Rotherham and we lost We did score a goal would you encouraging and it was a good it was a good goal? Joe Pickett scored it which is encouraging too because it means he still plays for AFC Wimbledon has not been been sold yet to a club at a higher division we gave up a really dumb annoying goal in the 29th minute and then we Scored a kind of beautiful goldmouth scramble goal at the start of the second half and it looked like AFC Wimbledon We're on their way to a opening day draw But then in the 84th minute we gave up a goal Clark Robertson scored at four Rotherham and they won two one now You recall that last season two one was the exact score line that we lost like 30 games by hopefully that is not going to be a Tradition moving forward this weekend or in the past as people are listening to it We will be playing Fleetwood a game that is theoretically much more winnable than our first game Okay, even though Fleetwood is currently standing atop League one is only after one game played I think we can win this one We are going to have to start winning games at some point But Hank but despite the fact that we did not win our first game We are out of the relegation zone in 16th place because several teams lost their games by more points Oh, all right middle of the pack.
There you go. Is that right? Is it the middle of the pack middle of the pack? Okay, I was right well John and news from Mars at the end of July SpaceX got its starhopper to hop You don't think about the starhopper John.
Yeah, it is a prototype version of the starship the tall stainless steel rocket that SpaceX continuously renders on the surface of Mars looking very cool and the SpaceX hopes to use it to send humans to Mars one day before 2028 so scientists at SpaceX wanted to see if the starhopper could actually fly So they've been trying to make those tests happen that that has been a rocky start to the whole plan Was to get the rocket to gently lift off the ground about 60 feet and then to gently put back down first There was a weird fireball on the launch pad that they laid the test a few days And then the first test ended extremely quickly when the rocket shot flames out of the tip Oh boy And then finally when they tested it again at the next day the SpaceX team was able to get the starhopper to do it 60 foot hop all these tests are just in preparation for the actual rocket that SpaceX hopes to send up So they've also been working in Florida to create more space for a launch pad that will be used when the starship is ready for lift off So SpaceX starhopper has hopped One hop closer to the starship being a real thing with real humans into it really taking people really safely to Mars That would be really cool after 2028 It doesn't matter what the podcast is called John it matters that we're brothers and that we love each other Do you think if you had to make a bet today? Do you think that it will be a private company SpaceX or other that gets the first human to Mars or do you think it will be a national government? Um, no, I think it's gonna be a national government. Yeah, I think that of course There will be many private subcontractors which there were you know have always been a space program Right and SpaceX I'm sure will be involved in that one way or another But no, I don't think that that Elon Musk is gonna come up with trillion dollars to send people to Mars You know what I just found out I just found out that two of the teams in league one the third-tier of English football for being naughty or having debt or something I can't really follow it are starting out with negative 12 points Wow, that's great news and obviously you never root against anyone for any reason Is any of the any of the what kind of teams are they it's Bolton and Barry I mean do they are they gonna like dig out of that whole pretty easily not based on the results of their first games All right, so wow we'll see 12 points.
Maybe that'll make it a smidge easier for us to hang around but who knows who knows? Who knows life is full of life is full of twists and turns in the 2019 2020 efl league one season will be no exception John, thank you for making a podcast with me It's always good to have you there in my life when the world is a little tattered around the edges So thank you same and thank you everybody for listening this podcast is edited by Joseph Tuna Manish It's produced by Rosie on a house rohan and Sheridan Gibson our editorial assistant is Deboki Chakra Vardy Which is a new name to add to the list Thanks for helping us find cool stuff to think about and talk about our head of community and communications Victoria Bonjourno The music you're hearing now and the beginning of the podcast is by the great gonna roll up and as they say in our hometown Don't forget to be awesome