415: Bombarded by Space Frogs

Hey, so something worth knowing is a benefit for the nonprofit organization that makes Crash Course and SciShow Complexly. It's September 16th, 2026 in Los Angeles, California at the Wilshire Ebell Theater. Please join us. It's going to be incredible.

Friends have Complexly like Mark Rober, Katie Max, Simone Yech, and Moore will share inspiring talks about what makes them hopeful and join Hank Green on stage for fun, interactive discussions. Complexly has been creating free educational content like SciShow and PBS eons and Crash Course and Bizarre Beasts for nearly 15 years and 6 billion views. But this year, we have become a 501c3 nonprofit and we're doing something worth knowing as an in-person event that benefits Complexly and our impactful educational media. It's the first ever Complexly in-person event and it's a fundraiser to support our mission of inspiring curiosity and lowering barriers to knowledge building because curiosity builds understanding and understanding builds a better world.

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. You're listening to a Complexly podcast. Hello and welcome to Dear Hank and John!

Or as I prefer to think of a dear John and Hank. It's a podcast where two brothers answer your questions, give you to be a surprise and bring you all the weeks news from both Mars and AFC Wimbledon. John! Yeah.

This is Dog. It's barking like 500 times a day in my neighborhood. I mean I don't know exactly. That's just my rough estimate.

Ahhh because it's going rough rough rough. You know it's been barking 500 times a day and peeing in the house at least once a day is potato. Potato does not shy away from letting his opinion be known. Potato does not conform to the expectations of the social order.

That's not who he is as a dog. Can you ever escape the expectations of the social order a little bit here and there? What are you doing? Not really.

I mean to show that social order who's boss. God. I mean not much. You like to the airport.

You biked to the airport. That's showing the social order who's boss. There were a lot of questions in our inbox about how exactly I biked to the airport. From Alex for instance.

Can we have details on how John biked to the airport? Where did your luggage go? Where did you leave your bike? Did you lock it in the airport?

Did you have to collect it on the way back? All these are great questions Alex. Yeah you didn't just show the social order who's boss. You showed the infrastructure who's boss.

That's right. I'm not living with your infrastructure. No we pre-parked a car at the economy lot of the airport with our bags in it and then we biked to that car and then took the bags out and put the bikes in. You have raised way more questions.

I feel like that was more work. Nope. It wasn't more work. How does that how did this make things better?

Because we were escaping 400,000 human beings. The largest non-religious gathering of human beings on earth, the Indy 500 we were escaping on our bikes so that we didn't have to deal with traffic. Oh the traffic. That's right.

Specifically the Indy 500 traffic. Which is the worst literally the worst traffic, non-religious traffic in the world. Oh and so and that was literally you escaping the social order. Yes I refuse to conform to car culture and instead biked to a car.

To a car that I had previously drove to the airport. Which actually is not a bad summary of my relationship to the social order. Which is that even when I'm not conforming to it I am a little bit. Yeah for sure.

I don't want to but I do. Like I think of myself as this you know like I'm an artistic character and I'm a little bit depressive and forlorn and I'm critical of the social order and everything and I live outside of it because I'm an artiste but then I also have like exactly two kids and live in the suburbs and have a lawn and everything. Yeah you know how I defy it largely through foods. So do you know about reverse dacities?

No is that where the cheese is on the outside? What's it going to be on the inside? Tortilla? You'd think but that actually doesn't make any sense.

A reverse case idea is when you take a slice of Swiss cheese and you just grab with it a handful of instant mashed potatoes and then you eat that with with the instant mashed potatoes and the inside and the Swiss cheese has a role on the outside. That's what I call a reverse case idea. It's really good. Outside the social order if that's for sure.

Nobody ever thought that would be a thing people did. Yeah how do I resist the social orders expectations of me? I really don't. And the other thing is that even though I'm an artist and everything I want the social order to like me and think highly of me.

I want you know like my neighbors to think like well there's a standup guy who takes off the trash every Tuesday. Do you ever look at your you're like ranked quotes on like wiki quotes see where the best thing you've ever said is? Can I do that right now? You can't.

This is a very this is very I don't know if it's not maybe not wiki quote it's like just type in John Green quotes. The first one that comes up is people die. It's true in novels and it's true in life. Now it's one of the very few things we all do to deny or ignore the omnipresent reality of death seems to me a disservice to human beings.

Where are you? Are you on wiki quote? Yeah that's the first thing that it says. What I met was Goodreads.

Goodreads has them ranked by likes and with 46 000 likes. That's way more than mine. You know what it is? What?

As he read I fell in love the way you fall asleep slowly and then all at once. It's a banger. I go to see if my version of that quote shows up a mic quote. It's on Goodreads.

Yes I like your version of that quote even more actually. The next one I did know when I was writing that I was going to be widely quoted. Sometimes you read a book and it fills you with this weird evangelical zeal and you become convinced that the shattered world will never be put back together unless and until all within humans read the book. That's like such a quote for book lovers that I knew I knew book lovers would like it.

My top one has 424 likes and I didn't even write it. Oh that's my favorite kind. Who wrote it? I don't know it's an internet meme behold the field in which I grow my f***s lay thine eyes upon it and see that it is barren.

Now we got now the editor has to use their magical bleep skills. Yes sure you do have to bleep that but I was quoting a quote. That was not even my quote. It's just it was a character in my book quoting an internet meme and everybody thinks I wrote it.

I wonder how many you have to go to me before you find one that I didn't say. My fifth one down is also something I didn't say. I had a very happy childhood. I just wasn't a very happy child.

I said that that's a John Green Quote. I said that to me in the car once and I was like I'm taking that and putting that in my book. And I was bummed because I kind of wanted to use it in one of my books because it is a banger of a line. I don't really see any that aren't me.

Lots of people quote me incorrectly on Tumblr but I don't see any of the most voted ones as as incorrect quotes. I found it here pretty far down my list. Their voice came out of the watch slow and then all at once like catch up. The people who knew that I was referencing John Green in that moment.

Thank you. Yeah a lot of people did. That was such an author wanting to conform to the social order thing to go to your page and see what what people liked about what you did. So that's exactly what you do.

Well I mean we're going to conform to the expectations of our podcast listeners because that's why we're answering questions from our listeners beginning with this one from B who writes hello frogs are quite small. Sadly this means that they would burn up on reentry if they were flying toward the earth at a great speed from outer space. They're quite small and would likely be too small for nastity even notice. How then do we know that earth is not constantly being bombarded by space frogs?

How many space frogs would there have to be for us to notice? Space pumpkins and space penguins? B. Well I don't know that we would.

How big is this frog? One of the frogs out. I think you might. I think the issue is that there's no way a frog could live in outer space.

Well that's an outlander statement. You say it now. Well I guess if the frog had a little frog space suit the frog space suit would live in outer space for a while. Yeah if it was like a hyper intelligent frog and like billions of them were headed to earth from outer space would we even know?

And I think the answer is probably not. I've gotten distracted by the fact that there's a spider on my monitor but he's going to live his life and I'm going to live his mind. Is that okay? That's why I think that we'd be able to see the frogs.

I think that when we see shooting stars they're smaller than many frogs. So really ones are quite small but some frogs are not that. Those are like baseball size. I think that if the baseball size frog in the atmosphere we would definitely see that baseball size frog.

Okay well but they might not look that different from a normal meteorite but I bet if we were getting hit by a lot of them and eventually we'd notice. But if there's like one a day. Yeah. No.

That's just background noise. Wow. So the space frog could be trying to reach out to us burning up on reentry over and over again and we would have no way of knowing. No way of knowing over and over again and also can you prove a negative?

Like is this happening? Is this not happening? It's very hard. Yeah it's hard to prove a negative.

The whole space could be filled with frogs and we wouldn't be able to detect them. Yeah. And by filled I mean you know like one for every couple square miles of space cubic miles. Well there's something sort of satisfying about knowing that at least if it was a bullfrog we'd see it as a shooting star.

Hank I gotta ask you this question. It's about our uncle Mike. You know uncle Mike. Yeah sure.

We got uncle Mike question. I did an event at uh in Birmingham and uncle Mike came and somebody said his uncle Mike here wanted a podcast listener who was there and said his uncle Mike there and I answered the question because he was there. Uh-huh. Uncle Mike I got to visit with uncle Mike.

It was great and two things about uncle Mike that we know of course long time listeners of the pod know is that uncle Mike does not use unnecessary words. Unlike us. Unlike us. He's the opposite of us in many ways but also when uncle Mike is done attending a meeting he leaves the meeting which is the most heroic behavior I've ever seen in my entire life.

When uncle Mike has decided the meeting is over that meeting is over for uncle Mike. It can't keep going for other people but it's over for uncle Mike. That's that's defying the social order right? That is defying the social order in the most beautiful heroic way I can personally imagine saying saying no to a meeting in the middle of a meeting is I mean it's all of all of my wishes and hopes and dreams for my future.

So anyway we got this great email from Emily who writes Dear John and Hank my husband and I live in Birmingham in a John's book event tonight for everything of St. Berkey Lewis's We're Long Time listeners of the pod and we did not put it together until now that we go to church with uncle Mike who I met somebody recently who knows uncle Mike. Well I mean lots of people know uncle Mike he's like he and our Aunt Gideon are wonderful wonderful people and like really important philanthropists in Birmingham. Can I actually I don't know if I've told you this story but it's kind of amazing.

So I was having a meeting with the executive director of science museum and he found out that before he did like a little research on me and he was like we have something in common. I was also born in Birmingham and I worked there for a long time and worked at the science museum there. Great science museum. And then he said the most Birmingham sentence possible which is now I'm sorry for saying this but what's your mother's maiden name?

Oh yeah we get a lot of that. Get a lot of that in Birmingham. And I said my mother. Don't answer don't answer don't give away the clue to our credit cards.

So I said it and then he immediately named several members of our family. Oh yeah I mean all of our kids. That's how Birmingham works for you man. Yeah they're like they know our cousin Braxton they know our uncle Mike they know our uncle Bill they know our Aunt Fran they know everybody.

So anyway Emily also knows uncle Mike and says here's our question how can we all channel more of uncle Mike in our approach to life. We would ask him but we all know he's a man a few words sincerely Emily. Next time you're with uncle Mike and you just bust out your like voice memo on the iPhone and ask that question. Yeah whatever whatever three words we don't like we don't like uncle Mike surrounded by paparazzi at church you know like people coming up to him asking him for advice.

I don't know John how to live a good life but I know that I'm not doing it quite right. Oh same I mean I at least have an idea in my my quiver called forgiveness. You don't even have that. What?

Yeah I have forgiveness. People forgive. I forgive. What are you talking about?

Are you talking about forgiveness from on high though? Oh that sweet sweet unearned grace. Well I don't want that. That's too that's too much.

That's too much for you. Okay fair enough fair enough. Here's what we know we know from decades of research almost a hundred years at this point of happiness studies. We started studying happiness almost a hundred years ago in a scientific way and we know what delivers which is personal betterment and community.

Yeah we know that. Which uncle Mike is great at I mean that's the thing uncle Mike has never stopped by. He's a church. He's never stopped working on himself.

He's never stopped deepening his relationships with his family and he's never stopped going to those places that help him build community whether that's work or church or whatever. Yeah and I just I am particularly I don't know I think that there are lots of elements of our society as it currently exists. Yeah that alienate you from community that take you away from that thing that we know is the thing that delivers happiness. Yeah that's the sort of the weight that we ascribe to those interactions now or it is the sort of the value that we place on economic creation and all that stuff or if it's like how exposed we are always to every giant problem that the world contains and so how could my community matter when X and Y and Z are all happening at the same time.

Right right right can I tell you what I tweeted today? Oh is it going to be relevant? It's relevant I think. I think it might be my last tweet and it's not on Twitter of course it's on blue sky but I just I feel less and less drawn to tweeting at the moment.

Yeah but today I had a good tweet. I tweeted every day I got to remind myself that when Christ said to feed the hungry he wasn't talking about the algorithm. Yeah we're all hungry for the algorithm but it's not I don't think it's delivering John. No but I'm trying to feed it as much as I'm trying to be fed by it and I find myself feeding it in ways that are unfurfilling for me and also like getting fed in ways that are unfurfilling for me.

Yeah I don't know though. There are there are fulfilling parts but I totally and like this is something one of the questions I had in Birmingham that I thought was a really good question was how do you reconcile the fact that so much good advocacy and activism in community happens on the social internet with the fact that the social internet is a driving force in increasing loneliness, disconnection, polarization, etc. Yeah and I didn't have a good answer for that. People were asking you that question or you were asking it yourself.

That was one of the questions I got in Birmingham and I don't have a good answer for it. I asked myself that question all the time but I feel like no one ever asks me that question because it's too mean. Yeah right it's like saying like hey I think your life's work might have been bad. I have a long document of video ideas and one of them that's been on there for like over a year is called Am I Cigarettes?

Yeah Am I Cigarettes? It's a great video title for a vlogbrothers video. I'm worried about whether or not I'm cigarettes. Yeah I am also worried about whether I'm cigarettes or am I filtered cigarettes you know where people like well no cigarettes are bad but the guys will do it with the vlogbrothers.

Look at these guys they're not they're not so bad. Yeah it's definitely better than the alternative. Yeah maybe we're nicker at you know where people are still not great for you and like hopefully it's getting people off some of the hard stuff but we're not. I don't think we're nicker at yet but I think we're thinking about it.

We're thinking about becoming nicker at. We're on a journey of nicker at meaning. Yeah I'm like I'm making this like a prompts journal that's all about how do you connect with people and go outside yeah making maybe making a little less tick-tock a little more a little more long conversations with I really want to do a long conversations series. Oh yeah that's a good idea Hank there aren't any of those on the internet right now.

We don't have any conversations between an internet celebrity and an expert. I don't even want to talk to experts. I just want to talk about interesting stuff but I don't know look I don't know. Well I would submit that you have a long conversation podcast where you talk about interesting stuff every week.

I know I know and we're doing it this is the second week in a row we've done it almost like it's a weekly podcast. I know I was going to say maybe make our weekly podcast weekly again maybe that's the main weekly weekly again. All right we got to get to this question from Violet. Okay.

Violet has an important question she's two. Okay she writes Dear John and Hank do fish have bums. Oh Violet I have I have great news. I guess great also no.

Oh I was going to say a hard no. Well this is the thing. What is a bum? What is a bum?

You take the yes I'll take the no. We'll treat it as a like a policy debate. I'm steel manning yes fish has bums. Correct.

I'm not saying that this is an actual personal opinion but I'm going to pretend that it is. A bum is where the poop comes from. Yeah and they got a place where the poop comes from. It's called a cloaca and it's a it's a hole that they got where the poop comes from and there's one fish.

Violet if you could believe this where the cloaca sits right up behind its head so it poops like right out of the back of its head and that's really weird. So you're saying that just to be clear that the bum is on the head of the fish. The bum is on the head and that's a bum. Even though it's on the head.

Because it's where the poop comes from. Now Violet this is a great example of how not to debate. When you're debating someone you don't offer up a example that definitely disproves your point. Bum okay Violet turn to your mom and ask well if a bum is where the poop comes from or not.

Well it is true that all human bums are where not all. Many human bums are where the poop comes from. Okay that is true Violet that is very very true. That doesn't mean that everywhere poop comes from is a bum.

That's the mistake that Hank has made. In fact lots of animals don't have bums instead they have different areas where the poop comes from including from their heads isn't that so silly. There's also animals and I am truly arguing it's myself now where the mouth hole and the food go in all is the same as the waste go out whole and in that case you would be hard pressed to call that a bum. Just because well you'd be hard pressed to and yet that's exactly what you're arguing.

That's what I have tied up to do. So what is your bum John? Is it the shape is it the two cheeks? Yeah it's the two cheeks it's the double cheeks.

Lots of animals have bums. Babs and bums. I would argue that like a squirrel has a tiny little bum. I would argue that dogs squirrels don't have bums.

Squirrels have tiny little bums. No they don't have butchicks they're almost invisible. They are invisible but they're still there and then dogs don't have bums. It's mostly now that I think about it Violet and this is a really good question because dogs don't have bums squirrels definitely don't have bums.

Horses have little bums. Horses have little bums. They have gigantic bums and I will take the I will strong in that argument. You know what I'm thinking here Violet I'm thinking that it's mostly primates and horses that have bums.

It's actually something it shows up really more prominently when you go upright so people have have more pronounced posterior than most animals. Yeah and then you've got like the vast majority of life which is insects Violet and you're going to be hard pressed convincing me that a mosquito has a bum. And if a mosquito doesn't have a bum then fish really don't either. Yeah though I actually don't know what happens at the end of a mosquito.

I just I'm not entirely sure what a bum is. I think that we know and I think that it's the end of the legs and I agree with you Hank that the more upright you are. The other end of the legs my man. Yes one thing that we all know for sure is that bum is like.

We're not getting into that Violet because you didn't ask about that we're not going to cause that trouble today. The part of the body that you sit on it says well then in that case like a mosquito it's bums would be it's feet because that's what it's supposed to be. And fish wouldn't definitely wouldn't have them because they're not like he's all a fish sit. No just like sit down reading a little book a little fish stool.

It must be tiring to be a fish. No it's not you get to float. I guess that's a good point. You get to float this is the thing about fish you could be as big as you want and not to worry about it.

I would want to be a fish but not for a whole day. I would want like an hour and a half of being a fish just to understand like do I have a bum? What do I think about? What do I feel?

What is the extent to which like I can suffer? What is the extent to which I can like contemplate the mysteries of existence? Is there is there a thing that it's like to be a fish is what I really want to know? Yeah I don't know and I can't know.

I know. Unless I become a fish. I know that there's a thing that it's like to be a dog. Yep.

I know that there isn't a thing that it's like to be a tree but I bet there's a thing that it's like to be a fish. I bet there's a thing that it's like to be a tree actually. You think so? Yeah.

Yeah. Do you think trees have like a kind of consciousness? I think they're really calm. Yeah.

Just chill. Yeah. There's a thing that's like to be a tree. I don't.

Well, that mean maybe we're on a journey of meaning and maybe you'll get there eventually. This is the kind of slow talky podcast where like the music doesn't have a recorder in the beginning of it and instead it's like just like sort of a slow thumping with like piano plinks and then at the end of it we're like, you know, I haven't deeply looked at whether or not I think fish have little bums. That's right. Yeah.

One thing about this podcast is that it kind of covers all podcasts genres because it depends on the vibe. Like some days even we have a somewhat silly question from Violet age two. There are some days that we can't help but take it seriously. And then other days somebody asks us a very serious question and we'll be like, have you heard this bit about Alvin and the Chipmunks we've got?

I forgot about the Alvin and the Chipmunks bit. And so we kind of cover most of the major genres. I think that's why we're a hit podcast for teens and a sleep podcast and an exercise podcast is because we contain multitudes. Why don't you ask this question from Ignatius?

This next question comes from Ignatius who asks, you're a heck of John. I hope you are well. I was wondering what your experience of beef days has been in a year since you first talked about it. If you are still continuing with it, what has been the moments of stretch or comfort?

Oh, that's a nice way of asking that. Has the introduction of a new ritual made the time pass differently? What is the experience of introducing and sharing something new like this into a larger group? And you know, insights are appreciated.

Pumpkin's in Pingland's Ignatius. Yeah, it's a big one, Hank. That's a good question. And also like, honestly, I felt like when we introduced beef days, we ran up against the limits of our power.

Oh, yeah, because you can't change in norm. That's what I learned. Except you can change in norm for yourself and I've done these days. So here's what I've done.

Here's what I've learned. One, this thing where you celebrate certain holidays as beef days doesn't work for me because it just doesn't work for me. It doesn't work for me to say like, oh, July 19 is going to be a beef day. Instead, once every like two months, I'll be like, oh, I think I'm going to have a beef day today.

And that has worked much better for me than like, because like my first beef day was July 4th. And I was like, oh, it's July 4th. Like we'll make it a beef day. And then at the end of the day, honestly, I kind of felt sort of bad because I didn't eat in a bunch of beef.

It doesn't make you necessarily feel very good. So what I've noticed is one, I just eat much less meat overall because every time I have a choice, I'm like, well, I'll just get like an impossible burger or something. Or I just make a vegetarian meal like we'll make a vegetarian chili or whatever. So that's one thing I've noticed.

The second thing I've noticed is that I probably I don't eat more of any other meat because it's been about a year now, hasn't it? Oh, yeah, it's been a year since beef day started. I don't eat more of any other meat. I just eat less meat overall.

And then I have probably eaten beef on, I would say between five and seven days. I've had five to seven beef days this year. And it's been great. It has not been hard.

It has not been an inconvenience. The times I've had beef, like I remember one time we were at a steak house and we were at a casino in St. Louis when I was on tour and we went to a steak house, Elise, my publicist and Sarah and me. And I was like, I'm at a steak house.

I think I'll have some beef. And so I had a beef day then. And I've had a few other beef days throughout the year, but not that many. And I haven't missed beef.

Yeah, I think I had been not eating a lot of beef before beef days. I know. I also had the curve. We still we still sometimes there a beef will happen, you know, usually when there's some kind of recipe that's a lot easier with beef.

If you have a rule, it reminds I probably have beef more than seven days because we have a rule that if beef is being served at like a place where like if something were going to be housed in these houses and beef is being served, we're not going to turn it down. Yeah. Yeah. But I haven't maybe happened once or twice this year.

To be honest, I felt a little disillusioned by beef days. Like when I feel like when we had the idea, we're like, this is going to start it on the podcast. Like this is going to be, people are going to be excited about this. This is going to make sense.

It's going to be like a way to add ritual to our lives that are more increasingly devoid of rituals. And maybe there will be a community aspect of to it. And it just seemed like the reception was a mix of like people who were just like, eh, and then a bunch of people who are like kind of mad at us for not seeing a complexity with beef that they saw, which I honestly, having looked at the data, think that those all like those arguments that were presented to me were not good arguments. They're like, Oh, but if you do beef this way, like, no, not really.

Like all beef is like a huge problem for climate change. If we can reduce the amount of methane being produced right now in any way possible, that that would be great. And we're doing way too much and cows in particular are a really inefficient way to create protein. There are arguments you can make.

I just don't think any of them are that good. And I, but I didn't feel like having the arguments. And especially because like a lot of people were from in places where their livelihoods are tied up in totally in ranching, which are totally good. So the, yeah, I mean, as somebody who makes cigarettes for a living, we get it.

Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's no fun to need the question, the overall impacts of your professional world of your work, believe us. And yeah, so I just kind of like, I put it in the category of failures and didn't want to think about it.

I put it in the category of failures from the perspective of building a community around it, because what we've learned is, of course, what we already knew, which is that it's incredibly hard to change behavioral norms of the social order. It's smart. And what you can do is opt out a little bit and not meet the social order expectations, which takes us back to the beginning of the pod. And in that sense, I actually think that we've done a pretty good job.

So I'm kind of proud of us, which reminds me, of course, today's podcast is brought to you by defying the expectations of the social order, not always a good thing. Sometimes the social order has really good norms, like don't kill people. That's a good one. But then sometimes you have to defy the norms of the social order occasionally.

Right. And speaking of this podcast is brought to you by the reverse quesadilla. The reverse quesadilla. Do you want to try cold or hot?

And of course, today's podcast is brought to you by Violet's Fish Bums. Violet's Fish Bums. They don't exist. And there's something on the wheels to all freedom of book, whether it's fans.

And also this podcast is brought to you by frogs in space. They're extraordinarily advanced technological civilization of space frogs, surrounding everything in the solar system constantly bombarding into planets just for fun. That's how they do it. They don't care about their lives.

They're they're free, free to do whatever they want, including violently crashing into an atmosphere and creating a fiery ball for us to observe from land down here on Earth. This is really, really great outro, Hank. It felt really strong. It didn't have anything.

It didn't all feel like you kept the voice right, but you lost the plot. This episode of your Hank and John's Bronte is brought to you 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 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 that 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 Dear Hank. Start your free trial at Shopify.com slash Dear Hank 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, and the summer upgrade your rotation needs starting at just $34. Their teas are soft enough to leave 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 Dear Hank for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. Now available in Canada too, that's Q-U-I-N-C-E dot com slash Dear Hank for free shipping and 365 day returns, quince.com slash Dear 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 that you did not eat lunch. What are you going to do?

Are you going to get meal delivery that's going to cost too much and maybe be a bit of a mistake or are you going to 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 verimun tea 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 100 rotating weekly meals including globally inspired flavors like Mediterranean and Asian, factor shops, preps, cooks and delivers straight to your door so you have more time for everything you love this spring.

Head to factormeals.com slash deer hank 50 off and use the code deerhank50off 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. All right, we got another question. It's from Ann and writes, Dear John and Hank, does the earth, I've always wondered this and I have no idea what the answer is?

Does the earth receive a uniform amount of energy from the Sun at all times? Like our hot days hot because of weather patterns here on the planet or is there a heat wave because the sun sent over more energy that day? It is very hot today, really quite hot and I am on comfy. Please advise sweltering and oh boy, it's a big messy mess.

And it's a mess. It's very complicated. And so as you have no doubt noticed, you get less energy from the sun in the winter and more on the summer. Now if you're new, well, is that way?

But is that a earth thing or a sun thing? Well, the sun is emitting the same amount of energy roughly at the middle of times. There are long term fluctuations that but they are not. But I'm a little further from the sun during winter.

Is that it? You know, you were not further from the sun during winter. The sun is hitting the earth at an increased angle. So if you hold up your hands to a light source and it's perpendicular, all that light is going to be hitting your hand at the maximum amount of light per minute.

If you tilt it, then the same amount of light is going to be hitting across that whole hand. But a lot of the light that would normally be hitting the hand is going to get passed. So it's going to get less of the light and the earth is a sphere. And so right when it hits at 90 degrees is the maximum amount.

But as it curves up to the pole, at the pole basically, if you were right on, the pole would basically get no light because it fly right over the top. And then, you know, it meant halfway down, you're about at a 45 degree angle to the sun and you're getting roughly half as much energy per square foot of the earth's surface. Okay. And that angle changes throughout the year as the earth goes around the sun.

And so where that point at which the 90 degree angle is happening moves around the surface of the earth and it moves northward during the summer. So that's the biggest thing. You also noticed that the sun for these reasons goes down earlier in the day. And so you're going to get less because it's going to be up for less time in the winter.

But then also, you have the atmosphere, which is doing all kinds of crazy things. It's carrying heat around, it's moving heat from one place to another. They're all these currents that are both on a macro scale, very predictable and on a micro scale, very chaotic. And so you end up in a situation where you're going to have a day in the middle of the winter when it's, you know, surprisingly warm, unseasonably warm, or during the summer, it's unseasonably cold.

And so the amount of heat that is being released by the sun is very consistent. The amount that is being absorbed by the earth, depending on where you are, is going to be very inconsistent, both because of the seasons and also because of the weather and like clouds. Obviously, we know that it's going to be less warm on a day when the clouds are reflecting away all the light. Right.

It's always fascinated me that they aren't reflecting away all of the light, right? Because it's still daytime, but like darker clouds reflect more of the light and lighter clouds reflect less of the light and it's weird. Earth is weird. Yes.

Earth is weird situation that we found ourselves in that we're just a bit tilted, you know, that we happen to be this, of course, it doesn't happen this way because this was the only way it could have happened. I understand that. But it's still weird. It still blows my mind.

Yeah, I was talking to a stellar physicist once and... As you do. It's a good job. One of the things that they had discovered that was a big surprise, because when you only have one sun to study close up, one star to study close up, like you'd assume that all stars like the sun are like the sun.

But one thing that they have found is that most stars that are like the sun have much more fluctuation in the amount of energy that they give off over periods of time. And so the sun appears to be an unusually stable, sun-like star. And so far. Well, for billions of years.

Yeah. Great. That could have had a very positive impact on the ability of life to keep doing its life thing for a long period. Yeah, I would imagine if the amount of energy coming out of the sun was radically different week to week or year to year or century to century, it would be a real problem for the film.

It could be a real problem. Yeah, it could also be a real problem for water to stay as a lot of water on the planet. One of my chief beliefs about the earth being special is that we have both a lot of water and a lot of land, which right, some folks have done some research indicating that might be pretty unusual. Yeah, it is nice to have a lot of water and a lot of land.

There's a lot to recommend earth, as I've said before. I think it's a really extraordinary planet. If we had like 20% more water, there would be no land. Wow, that's fascinating.

That's so weird. Yeah. You know what else is weird? What?

Oh, in Goodman leaving AFC Wimbledon. Why do you do it, Hank? Is that what Simon is now? He was playing for the best team on earth.

It's time to transition to the news from Mars and AFC Wimbledon. Oh, in Goodman, already playing for the world's best football club, somehow got his head turned by a different football club. It's so fascinating and problematic. He was my favorite goalkeeper we've had since Owen Ramsdale.

No, he was my favorite goalkeeper we've had since Aaron Ramsdale. And now he's gone. Oh, and Goodman. Sorry.

Gone. Just signed a contract for some other team. Whatever. Goals easy.

Just how can you even bring their hands? He signed for Hunter's Field Town. Hey, Hunter's Field Town. Come on now.

Are they in the week that AFC Wimbledon is now in? I don't know, according to, yeah, they're in League One, but they're like a very ambitious League One team. I'll tell you what his Wikipedia says right now. And this probably will be edited at some point.

He places a goalkeeper for League One club, Hunter's Field Town, the home of Northern football ups and toffees. Do believe, do believe to this episode. That's wild. A little Wikipedia of vandalism for you.

Owen Goodman's gone. Josh Noithill has gone. James Tilly has gone. So both of our wing backs are gone.

Marcus Brown, it's not looking great. How are your wing fronts? Our wing fronts. I would say we got half our wing fronts at the moment.

Mattie Stevens is staying. Marcus Brown looks likely to leave. And so the Nerdfighteria zone, Marcus Brown, it was six months signing looks to have been a six month signing. And yeah, so we've got some rebuilding to do.

And as of recording this podcast, we have signed, and I think this is a bold decision, zero players for our League One season. Oh boy, that's interesting considering that a bunch of your players have been signed to other teams. Yeah, but it's okay. Craig Coke, our director of football, he's working on it.

He's doing stuff behind the scenes. He's got his mojo going and he's going to find the right solution for us. And he's not going to abide by the social norms of signing players right away. No, that's just a norm.

Yeah, that is a norm. And the fact that our preseason trip to Spain starts in eight days is fine. We will have 11 players and a goalkeeper for that preseason trip. I'm confident.

We currently have no worry. That's very worrying. Yeah, I mean, we have to just revel in the fact that we got promoted and understand. And everyone's like, I got on that promotion team.

It feels really good. And I'm going to go get a bigger, better job. Yeah, I'm going to go take my big opportunity since I'm from a promoted team. And I totally understand that.

We can't. Not like a swivel is going to get promoted next year. Well, no, but maybe. But no, no, probably not.

But you never know. We think we're things happen. Lester won the Premier League. Anything's possible.

What's the news from Mars? Hey, I have a suggestion from Mars news based on some recent feedback we've gotten in the inbox. Okay, hit me. Fewer bombers, please.

Oh, well, here's oh. So there was a period of time. Here's how I'll pitch it. There was a period of time when the social internet was a place of joy and weirdness.

And one of the things about that period of time is that we give every mission. It's on a little cute little Twitter account. And they're like the curiosity rover would tweet and the insight landing tweet and the orbiters would tweet and they'd all tweet at each other. They would reply to each other.

It was adorable. Yes. And it felt like we were in a special moment in time. And that special moment in time has passed.

It has passed in two different ways, one in which maybe we just don't feel the same sort of joy in seeing these things tweeting, especially maybe a lot of the more science focused people have just left Twitter, gone to Mastodon or Blue Sky or whatever, just maybe realized it was all cigarettes the whole time. So there's maybe a little less demand for that kind of thing. And then in addition to that, there's maybe a lot of people who are losing their jobs over there. So we are closing down all of these cute little mission.

And instead, we'll sort of consolidate under the main NASA accounts. Oh man, that's such bad news. It really is like the end of a kind of internet. It's like, it's a huge bummer.

It's like the end of a certain sort of internet. It's like the world saying, like, hey, remember the fun internet? That's dead now. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, we haven't said the fun internet. I guess just have a conversation with an AI by yourself.

Yeah. No, just talk to, I watched a video recently about a person who's in a relationship with an AI and feels very warmed by that relationship. And I didn't know how to conclude. I didn't know what to conclude from that.

I didn't know whether to feel good or bad or somewhere in between. I do know that humans are great. And the more we can talk about our problems to other humans in real space, the better we feel, there is a lot of evidence for this. Humans are great and get out there and talk to some.

Can I hit you with something for the people who stuck around this long? Yeah, please. So just for you all, because I know a lot of people maybe don't stick around for all the news and also because I had to deliver you more Mars Bumbers. I will try.

I will try my best to dig up some less memory in Mars in the future. For years, I'd say I was for a year, I was working very hard on a novel that takes place on a space station. And the space station is run by an artificial intelligence. That is an important character in the story.

The people who live on the space station, one of the tropes of the novel, there's a bunch of weird things about the space station that are ostensibly it trying to solve problems about humans being sort of often in non-ideal situations that they weren't sort of weren't well set up for by modern society. When you live on Earth, you can kind of have any AI you want to be like your guide through the world. And also you can have none, but most people choose to in this future world. When you go to this new space station, you have to like discard any AI you have lived with, which is a very difficult and personal decision that these people have to meet.

And then you get a collective AI that everybody has the same one and it is, you know, ostensibly because the space station is a less safe place, there has to be some kind of central authority. Anyway, I had this whole thing set up. It's a murder mystery. The just sounds great.

Why aren't you? Why aren't why aren't I reading it? I'm gonna tell you. I set this little world up.

I mean, a number of things happened. I got cancer. That was a lot of stuff that happened since I was working on this book actively. And what happened was AI happened.

So this was all written before GPT-4. And then I was like, oh, this like, if this book is published on the sort of speed at which books get published, by the time it comes out, it will be wrong about a lot of things that I didn't currently understand. But I have recently started working on it again because I feel like I might have enough of a grip on what AI might end up looking like or being like for people that I can at least like, or like I have a like, it's at least a lens through which I can say things that I think are interesting. But the sort of the central premise of the book is that someone on this like space station where the same AI is basically monitoring every person on the space station, someone manages to do a murder, which starts to drive the AI kind of insane because it can't solve the murder.

And so it brings up three people from Earth to try and solve the murder because it feels like nobody, there's no way that people from the space station can do it. Wow, that sounds really cool. I'm in. It's a little murder mystery.

But murder, it turns out murder mysteries are hard, but I'm not. Very hard. Very hard. I won an Edgar award once.

And I'll tell you what, the biggest surprise of it was that I'd successfully written a murder, a mystery novel. Yeah, well, it turns out there wasn't even a murder. There wasn't a murder, but there wasn't hopefully a mystery and I wanted it to be a mystery novel, but I always thought that I'd kind of failed at that. You know, one thing just in hearing you talk about this, one thing that I've noticed is a difference between you and me, and I'm not sure which of us is more in line with the social orders, norms and expectations here.

But when you're talking about a story that you're working on, you always refer to it as a book, which I've always felt like is so bold, because like, how do you know it's going to end up a book? How do you know it's going to be between covers? Whereas like, when I talk about a story, I'm working on, I always call it a story, because I'm terrified to call it a book until it's like, until my editor says that she will publish it, I'm terrified to call it a book. Well, I'll tell you what, if it's not a book, it's a good short story.

I publish what I have right now as a short story, but it would not have a solution to the murder. People do like that when they read mysteries. People do like that. Well, I look forward to reading it, but I know you're working on lots of stuff, but I hope you find time to write because I love your writing.

Yeah, it's fun. It was interesting to go back and read what I had written three years ago and be like, well, some of this is good. One last leap for you at the end. Yeah, that was just Hank's calendar telling him that he has to go, so why don't you read the credits?

All right, this podcast is edited by Chaitin Waley. It's mixed by Joseph Tuna Medish. Our marketing specialist is Brooke Shoppo. It's produced by Rosie Anna Halzer-Ohasan, Hannah West.

Our executive producer is Seth Radley. Our editorial assistant is Deboki Chakravarti, and the music you're hearing now and at the beginning of the podcast is by the great Danarola. Thank you, John, and as they say in our hometown, don't forget to be awesome.