403: Yeah Inflation

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Or as I prefer to think of it, Dear John and Hank. It's a podcast where two brothers answer your questions, give you advice and bring you all the weeks news from both Mars and AFC Wimbledon. John, my grandma passed. I know.

I'm sorry. She was my grandma too. Oh, no, that's it. We don't need that's fantastic.

They both passed. You did it, John. You did joke the dad joke. For three seconds.

It was nanny and that was very sad, especially for mom, but it was also sad for us. Our nanny was a huge force in our lives. She was a force. That's for sure.

That's what people say about people who were not always fun to deal with. Well, she was a force. I mean, listen, she was a lot harder than I was Hank, but she also had to be. I don't know what kind of person I would be if I'd had nanny's childhood.

I know that I'd be a lot harder than current me. So I'm a soft handed nymph compared to nanny. Because of her hard work. That's right.

That's right. Nanny was the first person in her family to go to college. She went to the University of Tennessee. She majored in sociology.

She was a force. I didn't know that she majored in sociology. I didn't know that sociology existed back then. There's a chance I made it up.

First off, I think sociology did exist, but there's a chance I made that up. She majored in something because she graduated. Or not. Maybe they had majors back then.

John, can I tell you something I feel? Yeah. I feel like I don't I'm having a feeling about the internet. Oh God.

I mean, Hank, do you think that we've spent enough time on this podcast? You know what? I don't miss, by the way, Twitter. I've been cured of my Twitter addiction.

Now it turns out it has to get real bad. I have. Also, you have to not know how to log in. Oh, yeah, I do try to log in four or five times a day before being reminded that I can't log in because Rosie Anna took away my privileges.

Hilariously, I can still log on as Leon Musk, but I can't log on as myself. And you can only be Leon. As long as you're Leon while you're Leon, I encourage you to do that every once in a while. No, no, no, I have no interest in it.

I'm cured. I'm cured. What were you going to tell me? You're brought up starvation about the internet.

So I mean, first of all, I'll say that we do talk about the internet, but I think that we very much of a large part of our lives is live on the internet. I think that we care about our states and our cities and our country. Yeah. And but yeah, I feel having spent a little bit of time on Blue Sky and I'm reminded of what it's like when the platform has less control over me.

Yeah. And that's it's actually very different. And I feel much more like much less like I'm playing a game when I am creating content. Like, I'm not feeling like I'm trying to figure out what's going to happen with this piece of the puzzle and this piece and like all the decisions the algorithms are going to make.

And I also feel like when I'm just being a person, I'm being I just feel like I have more agency, like I'm sort of moving around in the space without being as manipulated. I still think that I'm being manipulated. Right. But there's there's a freedom to it.

You're not posting for the algorithm. You're posting for the people, which is because the algorithm is less present as the algorithm isn't as good. Yeah. And I absolutely agree with you.

Today I had one of my favorite tweets of all time, which I haven't the last time I had one of my favorite tweets of all time was like literally 12 or 13 years ago. Wow. Because I have not enjoyed Twitter in that long. But yeah, I was on Blue Sky and you were talking about how in a couple years there are going to be a couple hundred years there will be a lot of things that are like the four humers the way we used to understand the machinations of the human body as the balance of these four blackbile and the other two.

Blood and phlegm. Blood and phlegm. And I responded to be fair, the four humers kind of ruled. I mean, what I wouldn't give to let out some blackbile and not be so sad all the time.

And I thought that was a great response to you. Yeah. And it was just like we were talking again. It was like us like it was like what Twitter used to be like for us where we would just kind of have fun together.

Yeah. I've had like relearned some activities like retweeting. You never retweet on Twitter anymore because you just like sort of expect the algorithm to do the work. You don't think anybody's going to be looking at what you post.

You think you're going to be looking at what you algorithm posts and what the algorithm posts. Yeah. We are not you're not so much the editor of of other people's feeds anymore. And you used to be that's how Twitter used to work.

So it's interesting but it just it broadly is waking me up to the fact that so much of my life is controlled by people who are trying to get me to do things usually so that I will watch ads which are further manipulative like the whole goal of this medication there. But the point is I'm not really deciding what I think about or how I feel. Yeah. In any given moment when I'm surfing the waves.

Yes. And that is distressing to me. It makes me feel like a dolphin in both the good ways and the smart and the bad ways. The smart ways and the dumb ways is what I was going to say because it's like I'm smart in the sense that I'm a dolphin and so I'm very smart.

Yeah. But all I'm actually doing is surfing the waves. Yeah. Yeah.

I can't surf on a place where there's no waves. Yeah. Yeah. I'm just flying.

I'm just living. I'm literally surfacing and going under and surfacing and going under and surfacing metaphor because like it's more fun. It's more dangerous. You can only do it in certain areas and that's what people congregate in those areas but actually maybe there's like a lot more joy and peace to be found in spots that aren't so tumultuous.

Right. And and like you can't surf the waves if there are no waves but like maybe I should be sailing instead of surfing. Hank, I'm just going to tell you how I feel about Blue Sky right now which is how I felt about Tumblr in 2011. And if I learned one thing from Tumblr it's that everything is going to work out just fine.

Yeah. This is going to go great. It's the Trojan horse. It's the Trojan horse meme where it's just like it's like here's a social media platform that's actually good and then inside of it it's like everything you fear will be here in 18 months.

All of the stuff you don't like is also in here but we won't let you know about it for 18 months. I wonder if like on my deathbed I'm going to be like you know the weirdest and least pleasant thing that ever happened to me was Tumblr. I wouldn't be surprised. Well, I mean I would have been I had a pretty good way.

Yeah. No. I mean I think I hope I hope yeah I will say like you get in cancer was very bad for me but it wasn't as bad as Tom. Well yeah I mean it turned out okay.

I think I think it could have been worse. Tom turned out okay too. Tom would turn that fine in the end. It was what it was what Fal does trailed in the wake of Tumblr that temporarily aborted my interest in the short winded oations of man.

Tomorrow line from Scott Fitzgerald that I've butchered. Let's answer this question from Keegan who writes Dear John Nank. When I make loosely flack tea especially the delicious incredibly good I'm not kidding tea available at Keats and Co. and at Goodstore.

A place for holiday shopping needs and many self-care joys Keegan. I love you. Wow. Wow.

This is the wave I want to be surfing. Speaking of advertisements why right then when Keegan writes them so well for us. Uh huh. Go to Goodstore for all your holiday gifting needs Keegan recommends it.

Anyway Keegan says when I make loosely flack tea I often steep it twice before disposing the leaves. If I drink a cup of tea then make and drink another cup of tea using the same leaves. Am I ingesting twice the caffeine or does most of all the caffeine leech out into the first cup of tea. What a great question and then what a great sign off.

You reap what you steep Keegan. That depends. It's well always you're going to have more caffeine in the first cup. I actually have done a fair amount of research on this because I became obsessed with tea and so I know the answer to this question without even having the look.

So there's a bunch of stuff in tea and they are all different amounts of soluble in water. So there's a compound called ltheanine which is maybe or maybe not responsible for actually mitigating some of the effects of caffeine. So it takes it kind of maybe takes the edge off of the caffeine a little bit and it dampens anxiety maybe a little bit. No, no, I don't want that.

I like it when I just drink coffee and I feel anxious and then the solution to it is to drink more caffeine. And there's more ltheanine and green tea than black tea but there is in both. And ltheanine is extremely soluble in water so it's in the tea within seconds of putting some tea into hot water. Caffeine is less soluble in water and so it comes out more slowly which is why you want to steep for three to five minutes to get all of it out.

And then there's also all the flavors and there's a billion of them. Even in a pure black tea with nothing else in it, there's so many different compounds that your nose can smell and your tongue can taste. And those are different from tea to tea but I've made this more complicated than I need to because most of the caffeine is going to get out in the first three minutes. Almost all the ltheanine is and so your second cup is going to be less caffeinated and it's going to have more of the stuff that comes out slowest which is like the more bitter tannins from the tea.

So it's probably going to want to put a little more sugar in that second steep. I steep the tea twice too because Sarah and I usually make both of our cups in the morning with the same tea and I don't have it tastes good to me. I mean I don't have the incredibly sophisticated palette that you apparently have where you can taste billions of different flavonoids. I can only taste the 23 flavors that are available in diet Dr.

Pepper at one time more than that. 23 is the right number of flavors. You want a prime number of flavors. That's what Dr.

Charles Alderton was thinking back in the day. Anyway, point being it's interesting to know that it's a little less caffeinated but it's also it's also got a little bit less of that juice that makes you less anxious and takes the edge off the caffeine. I assume coffee has none of that juice based on my response. That's correct.

Yeah, that makes sense because when I drink coffee I do not feel like anything's taking the edge off. I feel not good and I love coffee. That's the problem but I've been drinking more tea both because ketone is genuinely very good and because I am trying to take the edge off a little bit. So I have one big cup of coffee in the morning.

It's called a red eye. It's coffee with a shot of espresso in it. Oh my god. I use the ketone co-coffee for that.

It's very good. The dark roast. And then I have tea throughout the day which is much better for me than just if I keep drinking coffee coffee. Oh wow you're a coffee drinker all day.

I did not do that. I had one big cup of tea this morning where I added a double batch in a big cup and that was too much. It turns out I was not feeling right. But I made some mistakes on social media so there was that at least.

Did you tell me about your mistakes on social media or do you save that for your other podcast to eat this? I jumped in. I went on Twitter because I wanted to make it out to Twitter. I know.

And I immediately saw tweets where I was like I have to argue no Hank you jumped in on Twitter. I did and then I went back to Blue's guy and I was like going on Twitter and walking down the stairs into a fight club but except that would be the case if I ever did it but I'm not saying I do because you don't talk about the fight club. I can't believe you. What arguments did you get involved in?

Were they Trumpy? They were actually they were political. They were politics. Did you deal on Musk argument that I jumped into?

Did the people you disagree with come around to your position and what other than? Oh god not that's not what we need. I know. I think it empowered.

It worked. Well this one wasn't really an argument. Well first I wrote a snarky tweet and then I deleted it and then I wrote a nicer one and then he was like yes you're kind of fight about that. Okay so but like yeah you're right I shouldn't be doing that but I also tweeted some true all-out snark.

So I just accomplished it so little. I know. I know but it feeds the algorithm. This isn't from this morning but this person was tweeting about how wind turbines aren't actually good for the environment because they aren't carbon neutral and I said it's okay to admit that you don't know what words mean.

So that's the kind of thing you should not tweet. That does nothing good. Well if you're embarrassed about it you shouldn't share it. You're out here talking about fight club and I don't like it.

Let's answer another question comes from Seth. He writes to your John and Hank I'm 24. I came from the generation of students raised with a lot of crash course. Seth that generation continues.

Yeah people. It's autobrag. Just because you're not in school doesn't mean it doesn't mean anything. We're still out it.

Seth but thank you and he says thank you. Seth says thank you. I learned a lot but one of the main images that stuck with me was this machine kills fascist laptop sticker. It was the first one I bought from my computer several years ago and now I'm getting a new laptop recently.

I questioned whether I should get another sticker. I'm a massive believer in an open internet and informed public which is why the message really stuck with me back then. That's also why I had it on my computer. Seth now I'm not sure if our machines are still doing their job with killing fascists.

What do you think the relationship is between machines and fascism? Has it changed in the last 10 years? Thanks for all that you do. Pump in some penguins, Seth.

Can I add like a separate additional question on top of that question? Yeah let me just answer the question which is there. I love to sell goods at dftba.com but I cannot bring myself to recommend that sticker in 2024 despite my clear bias toward the company that prints them. Yeah yeah we it's very weird that now that sticker feels very political in a way that it did not back then.

I'm trying to just help you understand who to vote for. No it was just like fascism bad. I mean I stand by that. Yeah so that's been a that's just a sign of how much things have changed in that time and I worry so much about crash course becoming politicized.

I see a lot of folks grabbing stuff out of crash course and being like looking at what the liberals are teaching your children right out of context and the like the thought that like Prater U becomes like an official part of state curricula in the US and like I feel like there's an absolute chance that in the next four years crash course becomes explicitly not allowed in some places. Yeah for sure it's a worry it's a worry it keeps you up at night. And like me being political on Maine makes that worse you know and so part of me is like I just want to like I should just get out so that I can like leave the good in place but of course I cannot stop myself from doing this stuff. No I've noticed that about you.

Maybe I can maybe I'll be able to someday. If I ever do that's why that's part of why. Yeah I mean I think that there's a I go back and forth on where our responsibilities lie believe me I am tortured by it but I think the larger question of does the machine kill or which by which I'm discouraged. The actual question fascism I am not convinced the machine discourages fascism.

In fact I think the machine the machine can be a tool of fascism and that is why I don't have to stick around I laughed out anymore. Yeah the it could be it could be that your individual machine and just it's just that true of guitars as well like you can there's lots of propaganda music. Sure of course. Nationalist propaganda music.

But my point yeah that's true so this the sticker came from Woody Guthrie's guitar that had this machine kills fascist painted on it back in the day and obviously Woody Guthrie and I don't line up politically 100 percent but there's some overlap in that diagram I think it's safe to say. Yeah but I used to believe so much that an open internet would solve totalitarianism that it would it would create democracy on its own without any kind of assistance that it would create strong governments with strong social safety nets and I was so wrong I was like so fascinatingly completely wrong and it's so weird I was also very wrong we were everyone was all wrong together and we all had this like tremendous amount of optimism and then like now that we're here I'm like oh this makes so much sense this is the exact of what would happen. I guess I still don't understand how we got here and it doesn't seem obvious to me and maybe that's the issue is that I'm still like wait a second this was good. Yeah I'm positive it was good and now I'm quite positive that it's kind of not.

Yeah I mean I mechanistically like each individual step on the path I don't really understand I don't understand how we could have done it better but I do feel like when you revolutionize media when you make information more accessible it is very unusual for that not to head off at least in a populist direction and you know populism often is part of nationalist movements that degrade faith institutions and increase faith and strongmen so like from that perspective like from a historical context perspective right yeah okay this makes sense I don't know why I don't know why no one thought of themselves oh every other time there was a new media that made information cheaper and more accessible and and more and like gave over the ability to broadcast to more people it was a it took a while for everybody to sort of wake up from the spell yeah oh and like waking up from the spell really sucks yeah at least it has in the past I hope we have a cheaper way to wake up from the spell then yeah they had after the printing press and the radio no those were expensive those were expensive but you know now we so one of this is this is my new frame and I have this sort of alluded to this in the beginning of the episode but I just like I want people to think about or I want me to think about and I want like to be upset about the ways in which these systems manipulate people and including me and and just to like point and be like like I tweeted about this and and people were like well how does twitter manipulate you and I'm like oh my I mean here's some like obvious ways well actually one way is responding how does twitter manipulate you which is a classic bait for a Hank response right I guess that's a response that needs to a response that person manipulating me which is fine like I think that it's okay for people to try and get like change people's minds and but those are but those those kind of gotcha posts are always going to be shown to more people precisely because they're gotcha posts and then you feel obligated to respond to them which which encourages more kinds of gotcha posts so like to me that's an example of how the algorithm works in the first place yeah but the good situation in that case is that the argument is very clear like there's lots of examples we've all experienced it directly of twitter manipulating us so can we talk about yeah inflation I don't know what that means we used to say yeah somebody would say something and you wanted to agree with it you'd say yeah but now I've noticed that you say yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah but I say yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah I'll say it seven times in a row what's wrong with me what's going on don't we out don't point it out is that the algorithm working to the algorithm who did that to me who gave me yeah inflation the other inflation I've seen lately Hank is I used to say 100 percent 100 percent I agree with you 100 percent now now John only exclusively says hundo p no I say a thousand percent a thousand I agree a thousand percent I've heard someone the other day I won't name names thousand colleague of ours a colleague of ours say I hear you and I agree a hundred thousand percent and I was like that's too many percent too much can't handle it yeah I I hundo thousand B you can't agree you know you can agree with me a thousand percent because I understand that that is classic exaggeration right you get to a hundred thousand percent you've gone all the way around the circle and now I don't I don't actually think you care anymore now this is absurdist I don't I don't think you agree with me. I think if you agreed with me, you would say, I 100, that's very specific, 100,000, maybe they were just like 100% and they were like, no, no, no. No, no, no, it's gotta be more than that. 100,000%.

But yeah, I'm saying, yeah a lot. I'm saying, yeah, more than I used to, and I wanna watch out for it. So I just wanna call out the yeah inflation. Yep, mm-hmm, yep, mm-hmm, yep, agreed.

Yeah, some of the things I'll say include agreed, and I hear you, and her, Jeff. Her, Jeff. What else, what else did we get, Jeff? Keep going.

I just, I needed to get you off of Twitter, and I felt like yeah inflation was my only path. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's happening, it's happening. All right, we got another question from Lennox, who writes, Dear John and Hank, my 11-year-old daughter recently had brain surgery, so she's home from school recovering and very bored and asking a lot of questions.

Here's a selection of just a few of those questions, and we'd love it if you could answer one. Two of the questions Hank are, were starlings around when you were a kid, and when did starlings show up in America? Oh, well, starlings were around when I was a kid. In fact, there were many of them.

So many. So many. And it was number. Yeah, but if we were born in like the 1870s, then there wouldn't have been starlings around when you were a kid, because a group of 100 European starlings were released in Central Park in the 1890s, by some people who wanted America to have all the birds that Shakespeare ever mentioned.

That's a real story. Now, wait a second, wait a second. I have spent an inordinate amount of time, Lennox, researching this question. Oh, no, is it not a real story?

So it may be a real story. It is a very, very good story. And there are starlings mentioned in Shakespeare, and the main person who is responsible for the release of starlings into the United States did do it in Central Park. And I think there was another independent group of starlings that was released in the Northwest.

Yeah, I do not doubt that starlings would have got here one way or the other. But, but, but most starlings trace back to that group of most starlings in the US trace back to that group from that were released from in Central Park. So that's real. The Shakespeare thing, I've never been able to confirm with a contemporaneous source.

And I've looked into it because that would be an incredible fact. Yeah, that's an incredible story. And it's actually a beautiful novel, right? Like one mad dreamer of an ornithologist and thinks that he is doing the birds of the world of favor by giving this beautiful bird a new place to live, and then it becomes the most invasive.

It becomes so invasive that they don't even call it the European Starling anymore on Wikipedia. They now call it the common starling. Wow. Can I tell you the last sentence of the common starling article on Wikipedia?

Yes. It's about starling meat. Even when correctly prepared, it may still be seen as an acquired taste. Oh my god, that's a great one.

That's a sentence right out of Shakespeare. I mean, that's like as good as sentences get. And it's right there in Wikipedia. Someone wrote that for free.

All right, I'm going to try to view the version of this history and find out who wrote that sentence. You know the other thing you need to know, Lennox, a group of starlings is called a murmuration of starlings. I believe that is the name for any large flock of birds that does that thing. That thing where they become these beautiful shapes?

Those look like they, somehow, are intentionally making weird, blobby shapes in this guy. It's beautiful. Yeah. Hank, the sentence goes back to the earliest versions of the Starling Wikipedia page.

I'm telling you that this has been in the Wikipedia article for at least 10 years. When the Wikipedia article was much shorter. But everybody who's edited the Wikipedia article for all time has been like, well, we can't take that sentence out because it is a great work of art. I'm very biased toward really good responses.

Are there three sources? It doesn't. Yeah, there are three sources. OK.

Well, for the three sources, then I tell you, there's been an argument about it in the talk page. I'm sure somebody was like, hey, this might not be true, to which everyone else said, well, it doesn't matter if it's true. It's an incredibly beautiful sentence. One thing I know about almost every sentence on Wikipedia, especially of page like Starlings, which I'm sure has been gone over a lot of times, is that every sentence has been fought over.

There has been a fight about all of it. I love it. And I have to say, I find it very beautiful that we live in this world where Wikipedia is very good, despite being full of disagreement. Yeah.

Which reminds me that today's podcast is brought to you by Wikipedia. Wikipedia out of Discord comes Concord. Ooh, if only. Was that too?

Maybe you've been on Twitter. I've been on Blue Sky. That's the difference vibe-wise. The podcast is also brought to you by the foul dust, the trail in the wake of Tumblr.

The foul dust, the trail in the wake of Tumblr. Fowl, stinky dust. All right, I think I can get the line right now. Let me close my eyes and get it.

Tumblr turned out all right in the end. It was what prayed on Tumblr, what foul dust trailed in the wake of its dreams that temporarily aborted my interest in the short-winded oations and something of men. I was close. I was close.

You're doing great. Today's podcast, of course, is also brought to you by John's Obsessive Search for which Wikipedia user wrote that beautiful sentence. I've currently narrowed it down to sometime in 2011. Wow.

This podcast is also brought to you by L. Theanine. L. Theanine.

It may or may not somewhat dampen the effects of the caffeine in your tea. And it comes out real fast. So if you want less caffeinated tea, you can steep for less time. And it's available at good.store, where we have Keats and Co, Coffee and Tea.

We have some based in soap. We got awesome socks. And you can do all your holiday shopping in one place. And of course, today's podcast is brought to you by Jan Flation.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Of course. Yeah. Yeah, 100,000 times.

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All right, Hank, let's answer another question. This one comes from Annabeth. He writes, you're John and Hank, I love the little chocolate parfait desserts that you can buy from Costco, but as a result, I have a couple dozen of the cute little glass cups they come in and I don't wanna throw them away, but they're taking up a lot of space in the cupboard. What should I do with all these little glasses?

Any suggestion, super welcome? Problems in parfait is Annabeth. The problem isn't that you have too many, it's that you don't have enough. I agree, you don't have a collection yet.

Sue, you'll have a collection. Yeah, but then you'll figure out how to make clothes out of them. No, I think, play the thing. The other thing that makes me think, is that maybe you should use them as little wine glasses, and when people come over to your house, just be like, this is how we drink wine at my house in little tiny parfait glasses.

You can make them into candles. Maybe you could get really into the candle, maybe I don't know how little these things are, but they seem like they'd be good candles. Also, you can paint them into just a variety of ladybugs. Yes, ladybug, ladybug art.

I think the key is to make some kind of art out of them that you then sell for just more than the parfait's cost. So you're in a revenue positive situation. Hey, can I love to make businesses out of things that are not good business ideas, but I think this might be our best idea yet. I don't know about taking supplies from Costco and turning them into art that's just slightly more valuable than the supply from Costco.

I actually don't know how big these, I'm trying to find them, but I can't tell. They look bigger than I was expecting them to be. And if this is just a cup, take them to a thrift store, they're cups, but it might be like these ones, in which case, that's just waiting to become a candle. Oh, I was waiting to be candles.

I'm looking at them too, and I'm seeing candles. I'm seeing candles in your future that you sell for $1 or more than the parfait's cost. Here's the situation, if you can eat enough parfait, we can make a bunch of candles that we can sell at good.store. Oh, that's just what we need.

We need to start a parfait candle business. One that's really supply limited. It's so hard to get into. It's like, you need to eat more parfait.

People want to buy the candle. We're coming up. You're just like, I stop. We got a supply and demand problem.

We're calling Antibeth, we're begging her to eat parfait's. Antibeth's doing the best that you can, but it's not enough. We're starting to eat parfait's. We're eating the parfait's.

And then I'm forcing the parfait's upon my children. I'm trying to make it a family business. Suddenly I'm a family vlogger, but for parfait cups, it's a bit bad. It's just doing live streams.

You're counting every bite like you Mr. V is a hundred thousand five. And then, and I finish my stream on my stream. I sell that particular parfait cup candle to one particular person who's eating it.

Oh, yes. Yes. And then like 500 bucks a piece. That's right.

That's right. Because you saw me eat it. If you saw me eat it, then it's 500 bucks. That's the deal.

You got to pay extra if you want to see me eat your parfait cup candle on it and be like, I put my anxiety in this candle. Now you can burn it and feel the anxiety yourself. We have a special kind of candle that gives you anxiety. It's like opposite candles.

Opposite candle. It's got everybody's talking about aromatherapy that makes you calm, that makes you wealthy, that makes you whatever. We've got a aromatherapy that makes you feel real anxious. It's like you ever wake up in the morning and get one of those emails?

It's like that anxious. Yeah. First thing, you're not even dressed yet. You haven't brushed your teeth and you've got that even.

They always have those like cute little names too. They could be like, the first email of the day was a bad one. That's the name of the candle. The first email of the day was a bad one.

I love it. They're coming to Good Dog Store shortly. They'll be panic wicks. Panic wicks.

It's an aground. We got Keats and Coe, we got Sun, Bays and Soap, and we got panic wicks, the candles that make you anxious. It's like a rough doom. Yes, exactly.

Rumination rosemary. Yeah. Like, you know, it's got some fragrance to it. But boy, does it make you worried.

Yeah. Well, I think we solved your parfait problem. You're welcome. Yeah.

I didn't expect that to go where it went. Never do. Hank, before we get to the all important news for Mars and AFC Wimbledon, we should answer one more question from our listeners. OK.

I would like to do that. Mr. Malia. And I thought this was an important one to read, because it reflects an opinion that I have that I've been nervous to share with you.

And so I really appreciate Leah reaching out and expressing this so succinctly. Dear John and Hank, I would like to say in defense of hard pretzels that Hank is incorrect. Hard pretzels are a top three snack food any day of the week. Also, fun fact.

Did you know that the play Annie debuted at the Good Speed Opera House in Connecticut as a nut megger? I have taken many a field trip to this theater, and it is absolutely one of my favorite things to tell a group of nine-year-olds. Now, I do not know what a nut megger is, and I do not wish to find out. But what I also, I think you need to know that Leah's specific sign off is epic.

Sincere Lee. Oh, great. Can I tell you what I've decided about hard pretzels? They're delicious, man.

They're like nanny. They are a force. They're a force. And if you had a childhood like a hard pretzel, you would also be a hard pretzel.

I mean, I guess I did have a childhood like a hard pretzel, because I love hard pretzels. Those hard pretzels, they worked so hard, so that we could have a warm, soft pretzel at anti-annies today or whatever that was called. Listen, man, if there's, of course, a soft pretzel is better than a hard pretzel. The issue is you can't walk into a gas station and walk out with a bag of soft pretzels.

And so you can't get a soft pretzel. Hard pretzels. That's why Leah helpfully says it's a top three snack food, because number one is soft pretzel. Number two, Doritos.

Number three, hard pretzels. I think that hard pretzels are a top 100 snack food. I like them. I appreciate Leah pointing out what I didn't have the courage to point out.

Look, I'm not saying that I didn't like nanny. Good. Because mom was in this podcast. And I think Uncle Mike does sometimes, too.

Oh, yeah, that is terrifying. I know. I know. I hate the fact that Uncle Mike sometimes listens.

Well, Uncle Mike says so few unnecessary words that he says so many. He says so many words. We're just like truly opposite Uncle Mike's. You know who has never engaged in, yeah, inflation in his entire life is a man.

Oh, man. Yeah, I don't know if my Uncle Mike probably says, has said, yeah, fewer times in his life than we have in this podcast. His podcast, absolutely. Totally agree.

100%, 1,000%. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. He's not even sure if he's actually yang. But it wasn't a no. It's not total agreement, but it's also not disagreement.

And he will. He'll give a good nod. I mean, I don't think Uncle Mike doesn't speak. Uncle Mike speaks when it's necessary.

That's right. Unlike us. Exactly. We're not all the time.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, whatever. Any interest in the **** we piece P1. Hey, we can't say that.

Lennox is listening. I'm sorry. I'll get that. I'll get bleached.

All right. The news from AFC Wimbledon is good. Good. AFC Wimbledon won a football game.

We beat Tranmere Rovers, the rovers who crossed the mirror. Tranmere Rovers, applying their trade in the north of England. We were only able to bring 150 fans up there on a Tuesday night. But those 150 fans were treated to a show as Matty Stevens and Omar Bougiel, our two forward players, both scored.

Omar Bougiel scored on a fascinating kind of header that looked like a matter. Well, it was kind of a header. It might have been a head with a soccer ball. It looked to me like he got hit in the head with a soccer ball and a ball dribbled into the goal.

But then when I watched it again, I was like, dang, dang, dang. Did he do that on purpose? So maybe he did it on purpose. Matty Stevens had a nice goal as well.

And AFC Wimbledon, having played most or all of their games in hand depending on your perspective. So now we've played about as many games as the other teams around us. We're in seventh place, which is the last playoff spot right now. So we are in the playoffs if the season were to end tomorrow, which it won't.

There's still 30 games left. That's a lot more. It's a lot more games. It's a lot more opportunities to move up in the playoffs.

Did I tell you that thanks to my live streams at John's Channel, we're going to be able to support the purchase of a player in January. So that should help. You told me three quarters of a player. Well, I said support the purchase of a player.

Yeah, OK. Three quarters of a player has a necessary word. Somewhere, somewhere more than half and less than all of a player, unless they're really young, in which case, maybe all of them. We'll see what Craig Cope is cooking up, the director of football over at AFC Wimbledon.

But great to see the boys in seventh place after 16 games. It's your this weekend taking on Dagenham and Redbridge, Dagen Red in the FA Cup. Hell yeah. Well, and news from Mars.

One thing you know is that we can't study any Martian rocks. Because that's right. We can't get them back. That's wrong.

Because we can study Martian rocks because sometimes they come to Earth. They get brought off by asteroids or by meteorites that hit the surface of Mars. And then they go into space. And some of them land on Earth.

We have Martian rocks. Which is really cool. So we can study the pieces of Mars that are on Earth with great, much more detail than we can study the pieces of Mars that are on Mars. Sure.

We have giant roving labs there that are not humans. Oh, yes. But it's up. Although I would argue that all of the rovers currently on Mars dream of being human.

I wouldn't argue. Well, we have different ways of thinking about this stuff. Do of us. Yes.

There's a famous Martian meteorite that is often called Black Beauty. It is officially called NWA 734. And it has a bunch of different stuff going on. And one of the things that it has is Zircon.

And Zircon is a big deal because it's very hard. And also we can tell because there's a bunch of reasons I'm not going to get into it. But it's very cool. There's a way that we can tell how old Zircon is.

And this Zircon is around 4 and 1 half billion years old. So that's real old. That's like age of the solar system. So it's a really old piece of rock.

Whoa. Older than I think maybe any rock on Earth that we've ever found. But that's not that unusual for Mars, which has a lot less geologic turnover. But there was a weird pattern.

And I'm not going to pretend like I understand this. There's a weird pattern in the Zircon. It's called oscillatory zoning. And that's, I hate giving you a term without explaining it.

But I do not understand it. But there is a reason why this kind of pattern in the Zircon could not have been created unless there were some very specific circumstances that include water and magma. So it appears to be proof that this Martian meteorite was created in circumstance. That was like what they call magmatic hydrothermal systems.

So there's both magma and there's water. And it's like a hydrothermal vent, basically. Or it's like a water volcano. There's hot and there's wet.

And that is a very good combination for chemistry to happen. And life is an advanced form of chemistry. That's right. It's a very weird form of chemistry.

There's some people who are trying to get to the bottom of the kind of chemistry that life is. And I find this very cool and fascinating. But it does feel out of my reach in terms of actually understanding it. Yeah.

That's really mind blowing, though. I would like to. Wow. Yeah.

I think that's a good thing. I think that we can only distantly glimpse. Yeah. But we can see it.

Thanks to the fact that a lot of rocks outside of Earth are pretty old. Yeah. But that's seeing, but it's not the same thing as seeing. You know what I mean?

Yeah. You've got to do a lot of science to be able to see. Yeah. It's amazing the extent to which we can have consequences of the past and of.

I think if I could go into the past, like I think if I had a time machine, I wouldn't go to like the 1960s, like they did in Back to the Future or whatever, I would go to like 400 million years ago. Yeah. You know, one reason why you'd love that, John, this is very huge for you. So few viruses.

No human pathogens. I guess I could be the first person to spread them. That'd be kind of fun. I would be able to spread them too.

I know. I'd like cough in a shark somewhere would be like, is that? Do I have the smallpox? What's this?

No. I guess you don't carry the smallpox virus, luckily. That's not what I mean. If I do, the whole world's in trouble.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean viruses have to evolve to infect people and because there wouldn't have been anybody who's anything like you back then. There would be nothing to infect you.

There may be some parasites that would be able to get you just how they could get anything else. Yeah. Malaria maybe still back then. Right.

I'm a mosquito's 400 million years ago. That's a good point. You're talking earlier. I want to go early.

Yeah, that's a long time. I want to go like where we just got ferns. Mm hmm. You know, it's a fern planet with a lot of water life.

I don't want to bring my scuba gear. Yeah, you're right. Mosquitoes were 200 million years ago. That's 400 million.

There wasn't much around back then. God, I would love to predate the mosquito. Just for a day. Yeah.

Was there life? Was there like plants yet on land? Yeah, there was life. There was life.

Yes. I don't know if there was plants. There were plants. I think there were ferns.

Yeah. I think there were just starting to be trees. I mean, that's perfect. Like early, I want to go to early tree days where the trees are like the way that we feel now.

Where they're like, man, we're new. We are messing this place up. Somebody eat our oxygen. Let's figure this out.

We have done it. We have done it. We have done it weird. That's a good summary of humans.

We have done it weird. Well, thank you for pausing with me. Thanks everybody for listening. Thank you for emailing us your questions at hankandjohn at gmail.com.

This podcast is edited by Linus Obenhaus. It's mixed by Joseph Tuna Nettish. Our communication coordinator is Brooke Shotwell. It's just by Rosie on a Hoss and Hannah West.

Our executive producer is Seth Radley. Our editorial assistant is Deboki Trucker-Vardy. The music you're hearing now and the podcast is by the great Gunnarolla. They stay in our hometown.

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