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67: Feeling Home episode artwork

Oct 24, 2016 59 min

67: Feeling Home

from Dear Hank & John

Should I ghost out of my job? Are bubble baths a hobby or an interest? How do I not feel like a forever foreigner? And more! If you're in need of dubious advice, email us at [email protected]. Join us for monthly livestreams at patreon.com/dearhankandjohn. Follow us on Twitter! twitter.com/dearhankandjohn

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67: Feeling Home

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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 complexity 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. Hello and welcome to Dear Hank and John. Nor is I first think of the Dear John and Hank.

It's a comedy podcast for me and my brother John. We answer your question, give you the advice and bring you all the weeks news from both Mars and AOC Wimbledon. Hey John, how you doing? I'll tell you what Hank, I'm doing great and I'll tell you why.

It's because I have discovered a website that allows me to gamble on the outcome of the United States elections called predicted.org. Are you familiar with this website? No, I'm not because of how I don't want to think anymore about elections and I hate gambling. Well, I mean, this brings together two of your favorite things then.

There's an amazing podcast called Election Profit Making hosted by David Reese who you might remember as the person who made you an artisanally sharpened pencil one Christmas. Yes, yes. But also created a wonderful webcomic called Get Your War On back in 2001. A fascinating, strange, beautifully eccentric man and this podcast called Election Profit Making, I believe it's called, is devoted entirely to trying to make money on these predictive election markets.

And I have joined one and right now Hank, I'm up 98 cents. Do you want to know how I've made my 98 cents? How'd you do it? Mostly.

No one's been elected yet. What did you vote on? Mostly, I voted that in the final debate, the word rigged would be said by the debate moderator. But then when it went way up, I sold it.

So the debate hasn't even happened yet as we're recording this, but I already made 98 cents off of it. Boy, I hate this. This makes me sense like you take the thing that's making me most nervous in the world and you combine it with the other thing that makes me most nervous in the world. Oh man, it is a dark, dark time in American history, but I am making money like you wouldn't believe 98 cents here, 98 cents there, making money, making money.

I'm about to actually buy Willa Woman be the next United States president going to buy 10 shares of that right now while we're potting. I really feel like we need to make it clear that this is a bad idea and that no one should go to this website and they are not sponsoring us and we hate this. I wouldn't say that I hate it so much as I've been brought to such a dark and empty place by the election season that this is the only thing that makes me feel now. How are you doing?

I don't know. I just Google this and there's a Quora ask, is there a way to make money off of the election of Trump in 2016? Like I'm so sure that Trump is going to get elected that I should be betting on it however I can and everybody's going to believe that it's not going to happen but I am and so I need to get to this election market real fast. Oh my god.

I'm taking that guy's money as we speak. Did you ask me a question? I asked how you're doing. Oh I'm okay.

It's as we will hear in the Mars news section of the podcast it is a mixed day for Hank Green but I don't want to talk about that yet. I did get a haircut though and it looks fantastic and I just want to shout out to Brooke for giving me that super super great you know head shape it's just great. I'm really impressed with it. Well I'm thrilled that you got a great haircut.

America's in the toilet. All right you got a question for us, John? I just got a quick update. The markets have changed slightly in the last 45 seconds.

I just made another 32 cents. I'm up at $1.30. Oh god. Well I'm so glad that you could find new ways to make a living John.

Hank this question comes from tandra who asks dear John and Hank I really enjoyed bubble baths and I was discussing with a friend if having bubble baths was a hobby or an interest. I believe a hobby is something you do that you can get better at and an interest is something you simply enjoy. Is there a skill to bubble baths? Can it be my hobby or must I resign it to simply being an interest?

Can you imagine if you're like filling out an online dating profile and ask for your hobbies and you said bubble baths? I mean I would resonate with that person not because I even enjoy bubble baths but just because I like the idea of that like you know what I like my hobby is leisure. Right. It's just chilling out and letting my muscles not do anything.

I recently had to fill out a questionnaire for a therapy thing and one of the questions was if I had any hobbies and the more I thought about it I actually appreciate tandra's definition of hobby the more I thought like I don't know what a hobby is. Yeah because you don't necessarily have to be getting better. I mean that that is kind of an interesting approach to it and I haven't thought about this enough to like find all the potential exceptions but I like it. I like it as a definition and second arily I would say that you can absolutely get better at bubble baths.

Doing a good bubble bath is not something you're born knowing how to do. Yeah and I think that you could introduce you could introduce new elements to your bubble baths. There are all of these bath salts. You could be creating your own bath bomb type things.

Katherine has a whole shelf full of stuff that she puts in baths and sometimes she will have me put oatmeal into the food processor so that it will get into smaller pieces of oatmeal because that is good apparently. For me it's a little bit like how lots of people drink wine but only some people have wine as a hobby. You know what I mean like hobby wine people know a lot about wine. Right right and you can I'm sure that certainly people who like make these bath products like they probably started as just lovers of bathing and then wanted to continue making that making that a bigger part of their lives which I totally know you're headed down a very dangerous road here.

This is a very dangerous road because the last thing you want to do is turn your hobby into a job. That's like the number one mistake that Hank makes in every fast of his life is turning his hobbies into his job. It is something that I do make a mistake of. I want to tell you something that I was fascinated by when I recently bought oatmeal for Katherine's bath John.

There are a number of ways to buy oatmeal but if you're just getting it for bathing you just get the quicker ropes and they come in this big cylindrical cardboard and there's like 45 servings in it and it costs like four dollars. I don't know why anyone eats anything else. Like the whole all of the world's problems are solved. If only this stuff tasted good.

Yeah I mean I guess that's probably why people don't eat only oatmeal all the time is because oatmeal is delicious on occasion but it's not like a breakfast lunch and dinner kind of food it's not like pizza. Yeah it's gruel literally like that's that's what it I don't know if it's literally gruel. I don't know what gruel is let me google it. I don't think I've ever been so interested in something in my entire life.

Can we move on to another question? Anyway John this question is from Sarah. It's what edits for me so I'm going to read it. It says Dear Hank and John often in sci-fi television shows and films by opening an airlock.

The enemy has sucked into space and dies but the protagonists who are opening the airlock are buckled in so they aren't sucked out but I'm confused. How do they live? I have the impression ever since I first learned about space as a kid that as soon as a space suit or spacecraft is breached anyone occupying that space is almost immediately dead. Do you have any thoughts on this John?

No. You can how long would you say that you can live in the vacuum of space? I would say like four minutes. Yeah it's quite a long time.

You would think that's not a long time. That would be and also I bet it's not a fun four minutes. Well it's the vast majority of that four minutes you have no idea exist. You are unconscious at 15 seconds and this actually has happened not in space but thank goodness but it has happened with people on earth being exposed to near vacuum spaces and the one time that it happened in NASA training he was unconscious in 14 seconds but he survived and the main trick is to make sure that you blow all of the air out of your lungs because if your if your lungs stay like closed off the oxygen inside will expand and rupture your lungs forcing oxygen into your blood which will kill you for sure.

Wow that sounds terrible. But if you are out in the vacuum of space a bunch of nasty terrible things will happen to you but you can if you'll fall unconscious but if somebody brings you back in before your brain goes dead from lack of oxygen you you could totally survive. It's wonderful news. You know people say that this podcast contains no useful information but I'll tell you what for the rest of my life when I am in a near vacuum situation I'm gonna get that air out of my lungs.

That's right. You don't know what's gonna happen John you could become a total thrill-seeking adventurous in the future and find yourself on the surface of Mars by the time you're 85. You don't know what kind of person you're gonna become. You never know.

I don't know that I agree with that. I think by my age it's mostly set in stone but I do have a question on the subject of anxiety Hank it comes from Paul. He writes, Dear John and Hank, my wife and I are about to go on a vacation for several days leaving our two small children alone with their grandmother for the first time. In the days immediately preceding the trip my excitement for the time with my wife has switched to a very specific dread.

I am afraid that something will happen to my wife and I while we are away and thus we will abandon our children. My anxiety about the scenario has grown almost to the point I don't want to go anymore. What can I do to overcome this and this type of specific dread in my life? First thing I would say Paul is obviously it's very unlikely that you and your wife are going to die and if it did happen it would be a horrible tragedy.

On the other hand Harry Potter never would have happened if he wasn't an orphan. So if you get murdered by a dark wizard on your vacation everything will turn out okay. It'll be good for the world as a whole. Right.

Yeah. I mean it'll be bad in the short run but I would argue that in terms of the quality of entertainment that will be produced as a result of it it's almost goodness. I am dreading my future dread as the birth of my child approaches and I have no idea how I'm going to feel or what I'm going to do. I don't know what kind of person I'm going to be in a month and that is worrying to me.

Does that make sense? Yeah no I definitely think it changes things a little bit but I also think that you bring your personality to parenting. It's not like you are suddenly inhabiting a different consciousness so I wouldn't worry that much. I mean except in so far as your insufficiency and shortcomings will no doubt be highlighted as has been the case for me I think as a parent.

No but what I would say to Paul seriously is that's a very low probability outcome and it also constantly exists. Going on vacation does not make it significantly more likely that both you and your wife will die. It may you know and so what's really going on I suspect is that you have this deep down fear that like is extremely intense because it would be you know a terrible terrible thing and in those situations I try to do two things. One I try to remind myself that this is not a likely outcome and so that I'm not really thinking rationally about it and two I try to remember that I'm setting an example for my children and if I go through life afraid all the time they will notice that and I think it will make things probably more difficult for them rather than easier so I just try to remind myself of that and I try really hard to act as rationally as I can but it's really really hard it's hard to be a dad and you know those fears are real so I'm sorry but I also think you should have a great time on vacation and try not to worry about it and just enjoy it.

All right that's good John good job I'm glad we take on some serious questions and some science questions questions that's what I feel like that's the spirit of your hand good John is what what do you got for me John while we're on the topic of serious questions I'm just wondering if we can address a question we've gotten numerous times but without reading a specific question because I don't want to make anybody's life harder yeah I actually I think I had this exact same thought and we didn't even discuss it before him but go and we'll see if I have the same thought if you are a man or really if you're anyone but especially if you're a man are we having the same thought I think we are and a woman tells you or anyone tells you that they are not interested in having a romantic relationship with you if they tell you that even once you must listen to that and you must listen to it forever period it's a pretty much a pretty much becomes a permanent state of affairs that usually that isn't taken lightly by the person being like hey this is the first thing that comes out of my mouth is that I'm not interested in that that that is a considered position and and continuing to push it is it can be very uncomfortable and even frightening and can make relationships much more difficult and we've gotten we've gotten a form of that question so many times yeah and feel strange about answering the specific question because it often has enough details that you could sort of pick out the situation but but yes if you think that you have ever made a woman uncomfortable because you have continued suggesting that you could be in a relationship and she's not been receptive to that and you're wondering if that has had a negative impact on your relationship with that person had a negative impact on that person themselves that's probably the case yeah and and I've done that I totally did that as a younger person and I just I wanted it I wanted to make it work and I wanted to see how I could do it and and my brain just kept being like well maybe maybe things have changed maybe now maybe it's different but but there's a lot of fish in the sea well it's not just that I don't think it's I don't think it's merely like uncomfortable I think ultimately it's a kind of form of abuse or harassment to go back to someone again and again and again and say has anything changed can we be a relationship now if someone has told you that they don't want to be in a relationship you have to honor that and if you are having trouble honoring that that that means that you are having a problem that you need to seek out hell for and you need to make sure that you do not push that relationship on that person because I think it's can become very scary and kind of dangerous so I just felt like we should say that good it's interesting that I had that exact same thought when reading that question because we have seen it so many times and yeah we've just seen different versions of that question so many times and it is I mean this is a constant it's a problem for lots of different people but I think especially for women and and it's something that we need to acknowledge goes on in our culture and as men I think we need to do something about yeah I had it happen once to me where somebody was continued to hit on me for a long long time and after I had made it where I wasn't interested in that and that I was in a relationship at the time and it was amazing how fast it felt like harassment I and I never yeah I had never I would never have thought like he thinks he's just being silly and fun but really he wants something from me and I keep saying no he keeps saying but this is silly fun time and I'm just I'm just you know trying to get you to do a thing that you don't want to do or the drunken confession or whatever there's many forms of it but it's always bad and indicative of of a real problem I think so yeah okay I'm glad we're on the same page about that Hank we are our advice often disagrees with each other but not on that topic however I do have a topic on which our advice is almost certain to disagree is it which is the best flavor of lachroy is that one of the questions no no I just I thought I just thought that we might disagree on that I didn't see that I didn't see that question but I certainly think that we will agree on the best flavor of lachroy because there is only one best flavor of lachroy I mean you could make a case for three or four but I think there's one overwhelming favorite let's just both say our favorites at the same time on three one two three pomomos oh no and I said pomomos which is my favorite flavor of lachroy and it is the best flavor of lachroy and I don't even think of her hattorange oh it's delicious it's delicious and the best part about it is nobody else in my family likes it so they don't steal mine oh well that's a definite definite sign that it's the objectively best is that no one else in your house likes it yep I know Hank I got a question for you this question comes from Sharon who asks dear john and Hank recently you answered a question about how to feel confident in yourself and your product slash work when surrounded by people much older than you I was wondering if you have any advice however dubious it may be don't worry Sharon it would be very dubious about how one can deal with the feeling of being crowded out by younger people especially in newer technology related fields imagining others complexly means that I can understand the fear of starting something new as a young person but in today's world I often feel like people on either side of that age spectrum are gunning for you they are Sharon and you have to take them out it's the only way yes is that your advice yeah don't you agree Hank like when it comes if you're an old person and you've got young people in a technology related field gunning for your job with their knowledge of the snapchat and the tinder and however else young people are getting their marketing these days you've just got to take that person out like like like hire a hit person no not literally I mean you just undermine them at work constantly like someone will say like who did this terrible thing at the office and you'll be like I bet it was trying to think of a good young person named caden Trent Trent Trent it was Trent and caden they were they're the worst they're so bad at snapchat on the one who knows how to snapchat I don't I feel like no one's been named Trent in ever it's like yeah well you're the one who came up with Trent I had caden it's a perfectly and then you delivered Trent which is very low quality apologize yeah all the Trent killed the bit other than that the bit was solid until that it was a solid bit oh man I've all the Trent out there I'm gonna be super unhappy right now if you're if you're Trent you can email us at Hank and John at gmail.com and let us know how many Trent's there are listening right now and don't you lie to us I was gonna say we're gonna get 99 fake Trent's and then maybe maybe one real Trent but even that real Trent it'll probably be like Trent's middle name you know yeah yeah yeah I actually I wanted to I wasn't gonna answer this question because I have no good answer for this it's interesting because I think a lot of young people are feeling like oh they're like these like people are staying in their jobs longer and longer they're putting our retirement so they're not making any space for me in the job market the way that space was made for them in the job market and then at the same time a lot of older people are like oh my god these younger people are have a lot of skills that I don't have and they're cheap for people to hire and there are lots of them coming into the workforce right now and there must there must be you know I think that what might be happening John is that it's complicated yeah no I think all you can do is understand that yes there are things that young people are better at at your job that's true at my office by the way as well like the young people here are much better at large swaths of the internet than I am and that is intimidating in a way but you have a different set of skills you have like there is a set of skills that comes with having been in the workplace for a long time from you know understanding having the institutional knowledge of the company that you work for or the industry that you work in and that's valuable as well so I think mainly it's just focusing on the value that you have to give rather than focusing on the things that you aren't good at and then the other thing I would say is like it's not like you can't download Snapchat yeah yeah I mean depending on what depending on what this is I think that you definitely have to uh like do your best to consider continuing to develop your skills at the same time young people have more time to do that and if you have yeah as as usual I think that Hank is a great source of wisdom on this and every topic Hank do we have another question and do not do not have your fellow employees murdered by hit people good I'm glad that you got that in that's important advice and yes I do have another question it's from Kate who asks dear Hank and John I'm a teacher and have taught at the same school for 16 years I'm a department chair and a building leader it's in quotation marks so I assume it's some kind of official title my partner recently got a job in a different area and we will be moving at the end of the term would it be appropriate for me to just ghost out of my job I don't want to tell people I'm leaving because they will all want to talk about it non-stop I'm a fairly private person and I hate being the center of attention any to be a survivor appreciated this question made me a gate uh and I don't know exactly what you mean by ghosting any of your job but if you are in a position of leadership at your school you at the very least need to tell your supervisor that you're leaving before you leave do you uh I mean well maybe if it's like at the end of the semester and you're just like well the semester ended I won't be coming back uh after the summer break oh right that was my assumption that Kate was going to make it to the end of the school year and then just very quietly on the first day of summer tell Kate supervisor I will no longer be working and then they got school year not that Kate would just not show up okay everything's okay everything's all right if Kate if that is your plan then you could do that if you're gonna give people two months to find a replacement for you please please do whatever you would like I just don't want you to not show up one day which is how I read ghosting I love the idea of just not showing up on a Wednesday and then somebody somebody calls your cell phone and you're like hey and they're like hey um uh you teach us government and you're not here and you're just like yeah well no I moved I'm in Oregon I'm in Oregon right now in my new house so without my stuff so my kids are here okay can't come in how did you get this how did you get this number I changed my my number to my new Oregon number so weird that you were able to track me down anyway I don't work for you anymore um I don't ever need a reference ever again yeah there's a happy medium I think between I understand that urge not to want to have this like lengthy uh farewell with parties and conversations and cakes and whatnot but at the same time you do need to make sure that the school has the resources that they need to replace you because it sounds like you are a really significant part of it the only other thing I would say is that while it is uncomfortable to do the cakes and everything it's kind of nice if you can bear it to allow people to say goodbye and to say the reasons that they are grateful to have worked for you even if that's not fun for you it can be very rewarding for other people I think so if you can stomach it I do think that there's some uh there's some reason to gut it out but I totally empathize with not wanting to uh that's really great advice John and I think really thoughtful and I think that we can have another question now if you got one this question comes from Walker and he asks dear John and Hank why is there a single word for hungry and thirsty but not one for needing to use the restroom Walker I have no idea what you're talking about uh you don't you don't call that feeling poopy and bladderful there's two words there's poopy and bladderful and uh those words exist that I don't know what's wrong with you I'm poopy oh man excuse me I have to go I'm bladderful bladderful is an incredibly important word that has never existed before just this moment I bet it's on urban dictionary I don't think so I'm gonna google bladderful right now oh I did too I don't know that nothing came not only is bladderful not a word or should I say wasn't a word until 20 seconds ago when it became a word for the rest of human history uh oh wait there is bladderful is on urban dictionary I regret to inform you what is the definition it has an incredibly long uh long definition I can't read it to you because it's the length of a novel um oh bladderful according to urban dictionary is where you pee yourself I don't like that I think that that's terrible definition and I think that we need to change um I totally agree I totally agree bladderful yeah no we have established okay the second definition of bladderful is the feeling of needing to pee uh established by J Bennett back in February actually on valentine's day 2009 wait a spend your valentine's day doing something productive J Bennett uh bladderful the feeling of needing to pee so hank did not invent bladderful it was invented so far as we can tell by urban dictionary user J Bennett on valentine's day so romantic 2009 bladderful is it's a revelation for me hank I think we need everybody that are urban dictionary and it starts for bladderful with one L at the end not two L's and everybody can thumb up uh J Bennett's answer so that it can be the top listing instead of this uh novel about peeing in your pants because it is obviously the correct definition of bladderful hank while I was looking on the internet at bladderful I also glanced at my predicted org situation and I just want to update you that I have lost 25 cents uh from earlier oh man today I know uh apparently the chances that the US Senate race in North Carolina will go to the democrats have declined by about a quarter um I which is 1% to be clear I have $25 bet on that um that outcome what is wrong with me that I have devoted so much of my life and consciousness to this election cycle hank uh well I think that something that's wrong with a lot of people at the same time so it can't just be you it seems to be a pretty human thing and uh it's pretty remarkable the uh you know we forget that in like a normal time there's news all the time right so there's constant news but right now the top story on every thing is always about the election everywhere we go so all that other news is still happening and no one has any idea that it even exists it's amazing what other news are you referring to I don't really think I actually think that most of the time it's just that there is no news well I mean it's things like Netflix had a million more subscribers this quarter of the people thought they were and like a US battleship firing on a radar installation in Yemen like this is a big deal and people know about it but it would be the top thing and just because every day it's the election the election is the only people are thinking about like you know we fired on a nation there's a very unstable situation in Yemen right now and uh and and also somewhat in Saudi Arabia and it's like that's freaky and what we can't think about that we have to think about the debate I appreciate your attempts to get me to think about something other than US electoral politics however can I ask you one more question about US electoral politics yeah okay can we just please ask our listeners to vote to vote even if they think their votes won't count to vote to pay attention not just to the presidential election but also to down ballot elections and to please go and please please please vote yes vote for us as you know it's not right Hank and John in I will be furious if anyone writes this in that's not what I meant don't vote for us do the thing for us just if not for you do it for me if you cannot think of a good reason to vote please think of how anxious I am every minute of every day waiting for this stupid election to be over and how much I personally need you personally to vote all right the other person I would say you should vote for is Rosie Ana because Rosie Ana is a British citizen who has been forced to live in the United States during this darkest of timelines uh so she had to watch Brexit from afar and now she is having to live with an American election cycle which is one of the worst things that can happen to a human being and uh she cannot even affect the election outcome because she is not allowed to vote so um please vote for Rosie Ana all right well we've also got a very important question that I need to get to from Rachel though John so this uh okay she asked your hand can John occasionally I will get a salad from the salad bar at the grocery store usually I put chicken or turkey on it but instead of turkey now they have these rubber looking crab chunks that I have learned are called imitation crab what even is imitation crab why is it a thing how much of imitation crab meat is crab and how much is quote unquote crab bums and bengwids and imitation crab are Rachel how much of imitation crab is crab I've always assumed that it was clans uh no imitation crab is zero percent crab it is uh it is mostly fish it's basically so you know how like when you get a chicken nugget at a fast food restaurant it's not like chicken it's chicken it's made of chicken but it's like ground up chicken that's got a bunch of other stuff in it to like make it into a chicken paste that then is sort of like like chit's like chicken foam that's basically what imitation crab is it's it's ground up fish with like binders in it so that it can be roughly the texture of crab and then they put flavor in it to make it taste a little more like crab it would color in it to make it look a little more like crab but it's uh it's mostly fish oh god it's fish product and and I don't know why it exists I I find it to be unpleasant I mean if your goal for the day was to make sure I never eat a california roll or a chicken nugget for the rest of my life then congratulations is there imitation crab in california rolls yeah that's what a california roll is man oh I feel sick to my stomach I do not I want to go back in time to the time before you answered that question first of all I looked at a california roll it has either crab meat or imitation crab so maybe you don't know maybe you've been eating just the one kind second it's all food it's just it's basically just imagine that someone cooked a recipe that was ground fish meat and some like cornstarch and a little bit of red food coloring that's that's the recipe that they prepared for you at an industrial factory with lots of stainless steel and factory workers okay we have to move on to another question because I'm starting to glimpse the darkness I'm becoming too aware of my microbiome as sometimes happens this question comes from daniel who asks dear john and hank my boyfriend and I were discussing the decision to send the song dark was the night cold was the ground by blind willy johnson is the only piece of music on the voyager into space it was my first I'm hearing it but it was oddly fitting when thinking of it floating in space endlessly my question to you too is if you could only send one song into the depths of space to hopefully be heard by aliens what would you send john what would it be if it weren't the mountain goats well that's not a fair question because it would be the mountain goats daniel I disagree with your premise are we living in some kind of alternate history where the mountain goats never existed and if so what else is different about american history is there no trump and if so can we make this happen no it wouldn't be worth it hank the mountain goats are too important um if it couldn't be the mountain goats if it couldn't be the mountain goats you know I don't know if you can I might send one of the songs from john coltrains a love supreme which is probably my favorite non-mountain goats piece of music um i'm not sure which one though hank what would you send well i think that if i was given the opportunity to send something into the depths of space on a on a golden record uh that would be pretty hard not to write my own song and be like this is the song for the golden record that's gonna go to the aliens yeah that's just that's so terrible that's borderline evil oh yeah I know oh man okay i'm gonna go with uh the last part of a love supreme which is called psalm i think that's what i'm gonna go with uh but they're also good there's no bad part of a love supreme it's kind of one piece of music so maybe i get to send the whole thing if i could set a song by the mountain goats that would also be extremely difficult because the mountain goats have several thousand songs and they're all truly excellent um but i guess in the end i would probably go with up the wolves no bad mountain goat songs it's one of the one of the great gifts they've even got a great song about a brand of peanuts which reminds me john this podcast is brought to you by a brand of peanuts that the mountain goats like i guess yeah it's golden boy peanuts actually this podcast was also brought to you by the vacuum of space the vacuum of space exhale podcast additionally was brought to you by the chances that a woman will be elected president the chances that will be elected president so far responsible for 30 cents of john's net worth no much closer to a dollar well there's been a huge change check i just made 60 cents hey sorry we'll get back to that in a second and lastly this podcast is brought to you by the word bladderful the word bladderful covering the feeling of needing to pee since valentine's day 2009 hey i've got to see why why was there this huge change in my net worth something extremely dramatic has happened people have discovered the election markets and they are excited to take the money of trump supporters no what happened hank is that the chances that uh one of the nominees will win at least 370 electoral votes in the electoral college has risen up to 36 percent i bought it 27 percent i'm a genius i should have put all my net worth into this market i want to vomit just thinking about this i got to get out of the stock market and this book writing business podcasting vlog brothers and this was all was all a preface hank it was all a preface for the great chapter of my life known as the predicted org chapter okay can we just say to everybody out there who's feeling like there is a grain of truth in what john is saying and that there is a way to make money gambling that your brain is messing with you and never ever do that well i've got a dollar 81 that says otherwise hank but but to be clear uh yeah i i gamble with tens of cents this episode of your hank and john 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 like look good and with shopify's templates you could get a site set up really quick that looks credible and professional without needing to code or duct tape a bunch of different tools together and when things look real that works on my brain to be like i'm doing a real thing and 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 dot store or dftv.com or being the size of like matel 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 deerhank start your free trial shopify.com slash deerhank with new subscription only while supplies last until September 27th 2026 see website for more details one thing i love about summary is how easy everything feels the days are a little more relaxed my kids don't have to wake up at five in the morning and i find myself reaching for the same comfortable go anywhere pieces again and again which is why i keep coming back to quince. i often wear either a long sleeve or a short sleeve button down from quince and it fits well and i never have any complaints in fact sometimes i get compliments about it i was at the airport a couple days ago i often find myself in airports and someone said i like your shirt and i said thanks it's from quince quince's 100 european linen pants and shirts are breathable easy to throw on and the summer upgrade your rotation needs starting at just 34 dollars their teas are soft enough to live in all day and the lightweight cotton sweaters are exactly what you want when those summer nights cool down so that's why i'm wearing quince this summer and you can make your summer wardrobe easier by going to quince.com slash deerhank for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns now available in canada too that's qunce.com for free shipping and 365 day returns quince.com slash deerhank this episode of deerhank 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 gonna do are you gonna get meal delivery that's gonna cost too much and maybe be a bit of a mistake or are you gonna go to the cupboard and just eat several fistfuls of peanuts because those are my two choices unless i have a factor in the fridge you can get smoky barbecue chicken breast with potato mash cream corn and peppers you can get creamy lemon pepper chicken with veggie rice peel off broccoli and carrots this has the fiber I need it has the protein I need it has the deliciousness I need what about garlic herb roasted barramundi with potato zucchini and burr blanc sauce I don't really know what that means but it sounds delicious what about a black bean taco bowl with corn salsa and cilantro crema a delicious high fiber high protein meal that no animals had to die for any of those can be ready in two minutes fresh never frozen over a hundred rotating weekly meals including globally inspired flavors like Mediterranean and Asian factor shops perhaps cooks and delivers straight to your door so you have more time for everything you love this spring head to factor meals dot com slash deer hank 50 off and use the code deerhank 50 off to get 50 off and free daily greens per box with new subscription only wild supplies last until September 27th 2026 see website for more details we've got a got a question i would really want to get to it's a correction actually from krista who and i think this is important thing to talk about because we discussed earlier a lacuna in there's no word for needing to potty but this is another one that i really was fascinated to discover Krista says deerhank and john bullseaman comes from bulls and and cows are female so bullseaman cannot come from a cow no matter how awesome that cow is i don't know why being awesome would increase the chance that a female cow could create semen but i have to so john what is the word for a cow that is just a gender neutral term for a single animal of that species like you would say a dog or a cat or a pig what is that is it is it well the plural is cattle so i would guess perhaps it is catlam uh there is a de word for this oh well now there is catlam yes catlam there it is people sometimes someone will say a head of cattle so like one cow of indeterminate gender is a head of cattle but yeah so i so basically in english we use the word cow as a gender neutral term for a head of cattle and thus i have to say Krista you're wrong and i was right and until the word catlam comes into a you know regular use in english language then i can continue to wear the badge of not being wrong about that one thing which is all that's important to me catlam is now in regular english usage and also i'm very excited about our spin-off podcast uh deer john and hank the linguistics edition where we do nothing but invent words for uh what is it called lacuna are those places where there are no words for things that exist yes correct i love that there's a word for words that don't exist yeah that's a beautiful word we also have a correction from daniel terner who writes your john and hank my name is daniel don't try to ryan me daniel i see what you're doing and i'm an enrolled agent which means i'm licensed by the iris with their highest credential and then daniel points out that i was totally wrong about my statement that there is no advantage to dying on january first in fact there is a huge advantage at least if you are married because if your spouse dies and you are married filing jointly you can claim an extra exemption uh and also you can file the your claim married filing jointly even though you were only married for one day of the year this is the kind of darkness that our tax policy forces us to think about i don't want to think about it but the iris makes me uh daniel goes on to say that january first as far as he can tell is the best day to die and then he says i hope that i die on january first hopefully not this year though man oh man hold on daniel yeah just hold on daniel it's going to be okay uh what is that great line from that old bluegrass song um uh won't you spare me over for another year it's a beautiful line uh where the singer is asking god for for one more year of life uh i too want to have a long and happy life but i wouldn't mind if i got to skip about february to november every four years uh we we also have a uh just a just a note from uh mredgria who asks who just says i need to inform you that i've lifted the suburb with the with the half plane and the marquee in the yard for 14 years uh so we've got there's listeners all over the place uh my problem is that mredgria does not tell us what the marquee says go down there and tell us but they do say that i leave a loaf of banana bread by his front gate every year and on the holidays i imagine he probably throws this away but i hope he enjoys the thought so that's amazing i love this town okay i wanted to read one last uh email this one struck me as very important it came from pietro who wrote dear john and hank ipf all these people trying to ryan me ipf atro and the swiss citizen living in the united states and i just wanted to say thank you well mostly to john you're welcome pietro in the last episode uh you guys but mostly john mentioned switzerland and this brought joy to my heart as almost no one mentions switzerland in any context ever the last time someone mentioned switzerland to me was three weeks ago as a footnote at the end of a lesson on the congress of vianna in my history class it sucks that switzerland is mentioned so little because it is such an interesting country like did you know that we don't have a president but instead a council of seven people that act like the executive branch and we're the only country with a square flag okay can i make a couple of comments on patris ask so far yeah please do um first of all switzerland being mentioned once every three weeks in a place that is in switzerland it seems like quite a lot seems like more than the average country on earth i'm sure that there are absolutely tripping from libiri yeah lots of fascinating things about switzerland uh and and that we should all know them and i would love to know them and i'd love to have read a whole book about that though probably i would not love uh the actual process of reading it also i will say that switzerland in america is is literally a cliche like we will you will say i'm switzerland if you want to say like i'm not involved i want to be removed from this debate that i never asked to be a part of in the first place uh i'm switzerland that's it's a thing that people say it's like it's a word that means something aside from the name of the country people mention switzerland all the time i feel like switzerland gets a lot of play john hey do you know the only other country not to have a rectangular flag uh it's a triangle isn't it don't google it no cheating but it's a triangle right it's kind of two triangles oh tell me more in the flag of napal oh yeah it is two triangles yep crimson red is the color of the rhododendra in the country's national flower and red is also the sign of victory in war oh red the blue border is the color of peace oh that's nice so the peace is surrounding the war that's good news until 1962 the flag's emblems the sun and the crescent moon had human faces wow that was awesome then they were removed to modernize the flag which was incredibly unfortunate basically pizza john was of national flag another another amazing thing about the flag when appal john is a number fell video about this in the constitution of napal there is a mathematical equation that uh is the flag so like there's a mathematical representation of how to create the flag so you can use the constitution with the words to create the flag with math that's very beautiful and it somehow fills me with tremendous hope napal has had a fascinating history the last 20 years i think it's one of the most interesting countries on earth right now um and i feel like we're really rubbing this in peter's face right now like you want to talk about switzerland here's napal facts i told you about how interested i am in napal no switzerland is a lovely country and look everybody wishes they were from switzerland obviously they have an extremely strong currency uh you know they don't ever have to fight in wars it seems like it's a very good life there but um i appreciate peter coming to the united states uh and i'm grateful that uh peter is here and i hope that you are happy uh and that the united states has welcomed you and i apologize for all of the terrible things that have been said about immigrants in the united states uh in the last several months and also really for the last like hundred and fifty years oh hank it's a darkness i cannot i cannot regal myself out of this darkness but i will say that i have made another 20 cents on predicted or while we've been recording this podcast since i last updated you i uh that's terrible news uh the more you win the more i worry uh i do want to get to this question since you brought up immigration i i want to get to this question from imman which i felt like yeah great question this was my question of the week i think this is the best question of the last whole week and i figured you were gonna want to answer it so i it's imman says dear hankan john i'm an 18 year old nerd fighter of african is on my descent who lives in norway and has been doing that for the last seven years before that i used to live in the middle east i came here as a refugee and have adjusted well to the society since but i still struggle with identifying myself as a member of the society especially since a lot of people seem to have problems with accepting me as part of it norwegians are very nice and kind people but whenever the topic of norwegianness is under discussion i feel immediately excluded from the majority how do i accept my reality as the forever foreigner especially as my chances of getting back to my so-called homeland are near zero i think this is a great question and really important and the first thing that i would say is that imman is not your fault uh that people's definition of nationhood in a lot of cases is ultimately racist i would argue like i think that if you define norwegianness as whiteness that's racist and so it falls to all of us no matter our national identity to come up with definitions of that national identity that do not depend on race you have to come up with them and to actually like really incorporate them into our understanding of the world which is the harder part yeah absolutely it is hard but i think we will link at the patreon to a wonderful episode of invisibility uh that was that was about this uh it is not set in norweg but it was about a young muslim man who felt like he was not part of uh his community in europe and the tragedies that unfolded and almost unfolded because of that and the eventual wonderful uh reintegration uh into his country that was made possible by people opening themselves up and making themselves vulnerable and being honest about these very difficult topics so i'm really really sorry that you don't feel uh norwegian and i wish that i could promise you that someday you will um but unfortunately it's going to be part of your job i'm afraid uh to open people's uh open people's minds up and it's it's hard and it's not something that you chose and i'm sorry that it's something that you're gonna have to live with uh but i do think that you have the opportunity uh to make a real difference in in people's lives and in the lives of the people who will come after you too the other thing that i would say is that just because you aren't necessarily going to feel like you know you never maybe never feel like a norwegian person that doesn't mean that you won't ever feel home in the place where you live now right and there are lots of different ways to feel home and uh and and it got some different ways to be a part of a place and that you aren't you know that you weren't born there um can you know and that you weren't born there doesn't you know will always be a part of your identity um that you don't look like all the rest of the people around will always be a part of your identity but that doesn't mean that you won't find a way to be at home in the place where you now live and to be a part of the place where you now live. Yeah i think that's a really important point i also think it's really important just to have these conversations and to have these discussions uh and ultimately you know Hank and i are never gonna be able to give as good advice on this topic as people who are experiencing what you're experiencing so the other thing that i would say is you know talk to your friends uh both your friends who are uh muslims and who may be refugees but also talking to your friends who are meet more traditional definitions of norwegianness because i think by being open about these conversations we can make progress on them. Alright uh John do you have news from me from AFC Wimbledon?

Oh god i have Hank what if i told you at the start of the season that the smallest team in league two that has just become the smallest team in league one might next year be the smallest team in the history of the championship uh i would say that that is not a possible thing that could possibly happen in a possible universe i also would have thought that it was impossible but AFC Wimbledon beat Barry possibly Barry i don't know it's spelled b-u-r-y nobody knows how to pronounce any of these league one teams um it's all it's all pure speculation port vale port peter burrow these are all made up places in England it's all it's all right out of narnia anyway um AFC Wimbledon was taking on eighth place berry over uh just yesterday actually and they were down one nil and that looked like it was going to be the result but then they scored a tangle by lyle taylor the messy for mozzarrat the mozzaradian ranaldo scored a tangle and then in the dying moments of stoppage time hank john medes the left back for AFC Wimbledon meadsy scored a header on a corner kick they won two won the donns have played fourteen games they're sitting on twenty points in ninth place just one point out of the playoff spots that just what points one point out of a playoff spot oh my goodness that is something else John it's obviously still a long way to go there's still 32 games left in the season a lot can happen and will um and it should also be noted that in addition to being one point out of a playoff spot they're only five points clear of the relegation zone so uh it's an extremely tight table but oh man what a great victory for Wimbledon congratulations to all the boys and to Neil Ardeley our wonderful manager it's just it's what a time to be alive i mean if you just if it weren't the american election hank this would be like one of the best possible timelines uh 2016 at least for me in terms of what's going on with AFC Wimbledon which is basically how i judge the quality of the universe well uh john as of the recording of this podcast the mars news is mixed uh the exo mars orbiter and lander it's a it's a two-part mission uh they went together but they split apart um has arrived at mars and we are not entirely sure of the result and i am sorry that i that i will update if there is news uh but it's looking like at the moment that the lander entered the atmosphere of mars uh and then after entering and firing its retro rockets to land it something went wrong and it did not land correctly and has not been able to establish contact with back with oh no the uh so the this lander is mostly designed as a way to test out a new system for landing heavy payloads on mars so it wasn't a super expensive scientific experiment or anything it was only going to be an experiment that would run for a week or two just measuring you know the uh measuring wid speed and and like dust and basically doing some measurements just to uh have data to make sure that future uh missions would be safer um so it's bad news on that front the orbiter however which is the bulk of the science experiment of this mission is fine and it's in orbit and it's uh it's got another day before it's going to start uh maybe it may be more than a day before it starts uh it's actual science mission maybe some weeks but it looks like it entered orbit just fine and it's uh it's there and it's doing good so uh so the european space agency now has has another orbiter around mars but it looks like its landing system may still need to be developed uh we're not sure yet if there is any news uh and i'm able to i'll record an update and uh but i've just been like it's literally just happening right now so i'm following uh my two emily's on twitter emily lakdewalla who is the uh senior editor at the planetary society and emily calendrelly who is uh also just a space fan and it's correspondent for a new bill nichow and uh and i'm getting the news in as it comes in and so far uh that the uh that the lander survived reentry but uh we're not sure whether it landed safely uh and surviving reentry on its own is is a significant achievement uh but doesn't look like it probably at this point the chances like if i was a betting man i would not bet on this thing waking up okay well i'm going to go to predict it dot org right now i don't mean to take advantage of what is obviously a difficult time for you but if you don't mind i'm going to go to predict it or right now and bet that that lander is not going to be landing safely oh man uh this is this is this is my life now hank i'm a full-time predicted dot org user uh i'm sorry about your somewhat good somewhat bad mars news why is this a dot org website oh because it's just an educational project it's not a commercial project it's uh it's just for research purposes only but can you do you actually make money oh yeah and do they make money um yeah yeah probably i guess so so it doesn't sound like it's educational purposes only to me well yeah i mean hank would you please stop trying to harsh on my buzz the only thing that's brought me a single ray of sunshine this entire election cycle i just don't i don't think it's ultimately a healthy decision john what did we learn today um well gosh what did we learn today uh we learned some really upsetting and terrible things about imitation crab meat that i desperately wish i could forget we learned that the single of a gender non-specific cow is a catlam uh and of course we learned that if hank could send one song into space it would be a song that he just wrote just now about his song going into space and of course we learned that you absolutely can get better at bubble baths in fact you almost must because otherwise it's not a hobby that's right right oh hank it's always a pleasure podcasting with you but of course this is probably the last time that we will be or it is definitely right the last time that we will be podding together for a number of weeks yes it is i'm gonna go on leave i don't know it when exactly the baby will come but i'm gonna even if it doesn't come i'm gonna go on leave because that is a thing that i feel like uh cathryne's support now as well as in the future i think that is the right call so we will miss you in your absence there will be lots of wonderful guests playing the role of hank which i'm excited about and uh so listeners you will be able to enjoy uh deer hank and john without the hank uh for several weeks and then hank will make his glorious return uh you know after Thanksgiving-ish sometime in yeah so um hank uh congratulations i'm very excited and happy for you guys i hope you have a wonderful time off i hope you actually take time off i know that it's hard for you to do but um yeah i hope that you take your first proper vacation in ten years i don't know that i had a proper vacation before that either thank you john and uh this podcast is edited by Nicholas Jenkins uh our theme music is from gonna roll the rosion house rosion house helps out with questions victoria bongiorno helps out with all of our social media and getting these things online you can email us at hankajonajemills.com our uh twitters are hank green and john green and you can do the hashtag deer hankajon if you would like to see your hankajon related things and as they say in our hometown don't forget to be awesome

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