A Problem Squared - 040 = Anniversary Crazes and Any Cursory Praises

Episode Date: August 15, 2022

In THIS episode... * What's the most appropriate gift for a couple’s -1 year anniversary? * How do you write a podcast review without Apple podcasts? * And Bec and Matt return to rather a lot of AOB. We would like to thank shittyflute on YouTube for letting us use their rendition of the A-Team theme tune. You can find more tunes you love, badly played here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCHMmLi8z1HbyhTEvfBgXpyg As always, if you've got a problem or a solution, hit us up on our website aproblemsquared.com. And if you want want even more from A Problem Squared, find us on Twitter and Instagram.  

in 2019 a crack joke making comedy unit was sent to a prison by a comedy court for a joke they didn't commit these people promptly escaped from the maximum security stockade to the nerd comedy underground. Today, still wanted by the mainstream comedy. Bad, I think we're in the quark there. They survive as soldiers of fortune. If you have a problem, if no one else can help, and if you can find them,

maybe you can hire the APS team. Play in the music. That's so embarrassing for you. Gah. I prepped this for everyone wondering at home. We record these two at a time. And so a little while ago, Bec went first and did her intro based on the A-team. And Matt had a whole lunchtime where he could have come up with a new intro.

Oh, no. No, no, no, no, no, no. I had prepped this. I was going to describe myself as B.A. Baracus. Oh, I see. Because I have a catchy real name, Mr. P. Oh, I see. Because I have a catchy real name, Mr. P. Oh, yeah. And, like Mr. T, it's slightly ambiguous where the character and the real person start and begin.

Nice. And I was going to describe you as Hannibal. Oh, interesting. Yes, yes, because you married a Scottish person. Right. And you're a big fan of healthy eating and fruit and wordplay, which is why you love it when a clan plums together. Yes, I've used the L twice. I don't care.

It sounds right. Do you know what? I think you deserve this for the fact that you sat through mine without saying anything. Did I? Didn't crack. You haven't said anything this whole time. If it was me, I wouldn't have been funny if I wait until we record

that episode, but I never would have made it. I did the comedy calculus in my head at the time and went, it's funniest if I wait. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I've just got to wait. Yeah, but now Lauren has to find like, you know that Jurassic Park video with the, I think we've talked about it before. Oh, the recorder.

Yeah, it's like a harmonica or something. Do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do. We need like the dodgy A-Team version for this one. What, for mine? Yeah, yeah. The honed. The honed second version like some of you just kept the entire part of the original intro yeah yeah well this is it i see you you actually script your new i just have the old one in front of me oh and you're like i'll just plan i look at i'm like yeah i'll do that i'll do that i'll do that i'll change that to that i think that'll work over here not as easy as it sounds is it it's not

and do you know what i love is that you didn't write it out still you just know the original words i stuck you know what that means you learned from the improv advice from last episode you know what i never feel nervous before these recordings i I could genuinely feel my nerves starting to. I was going to say, we can tell. Because I've got to stay. You're like, yeah, yeah, yeah. The laid back, relaxed, half-assed attitude tipped us off. We give ourselves permission not to be funny.

Well, they can be the judge. But honestly, it's like a magic trick. So with magicians, if you want to do a trick, a lot of the time it's just you set something up and then you've just got to wait. And half the challenge is just waiting a ridiculous amount of time. Yeah. Knowing. It's why I could never be a magician. If you're worth it.

But also, I find it nerve wracking. Any kind of magic stuff. Yeah, it's too fragile. So that aside, on this episode. I'll be helping a young couple about to embark on marriage. I solve a problem for everyone who has not got an Apple ID. And boy, oh boy, do we have any other business. Ooh, so much any other business.

Let's get on with it. Bec, how are you doing? I'm great. Good. I've had some adventures, some misadventures. Oh. One of them was I was trying to be a good person, a good wife, a good partner, a good friend by doing the dishes after I had lunch the other day.

You're really raising the bar on our catch-up stories. Well, quite often Gav gets back from work and the dishes are still there. And it's not, it's just a cup, it's usually like a bowl or something. Because you lunch at home. Yeah. And so, and then. Gav's out at work. Yeah.

And then when we have dinner, then, you know, we do them all. But I also know he likes coming home to it being as clean as it was when he left so I had my lunch I thought I'll do my dishes so I started running the sink and had my headphones on went and started cleaning my room oh I think it was at least half an hour half an hour I thought I'll have a glass of water and then went to get a cup and And it just took me a moment to, I took off my headphones. I was like, what's that noise? Why does it sound like this loud, like water rushing? Oh.

And I'd completely flooded the kitchen. Oh no. And I mean, properly flooded as in like about an inch or so of water, like enough to be like, oh, this is an issue. Whoa, whoa, whoa. So it's not like there's an overflow hole in the drain. There is one, and in the past it's worked. Oh.

Because it's not the first time. Not your first rodeo. But it's also not been that long. Right, okay, okay. And I suspect that overflowed. Well, that should just feed into the drain. It should, but it's so small. I think the veracity of the water.

The velocity of the water. Yeah. The flow rate. There was more coming out of the tap. Than could go in.. The velocity of the water. Yeah. The flow rate. There was more coming out of the tap. Than could go in. Than the tiny hole could handle. Yeah. Wow.

What do you do? Well, first thing I did is I took the bath mat out of the bathroom and chucked that on the floor. Okay. Which did nothing. So you dealt with 0.1% of the problem. It like floated away. Now you're down a bath mat. Yeah.

We keep all of our spare towels and mop and everything in the boiler cupboard, which is on the other side of the kitchen. On the far side of Lake Kitchen. Yeah. We keep all of our spare towels and mop and everything in the boiler cupboard, which is on the other side of the kitchen. On the far side of Lake Kitchen. Yeah. So basically, and I was wearing like track pants that are quite, all trousers are long on me. So short legs. So I had to take off my trousers.

So in my pants, walk across the kitchen. Hot spring. Through the hot water and then grab all the towels out of the cupboard, chuck them on the floor. Did nothing. Like, you know when you put them down and there's still water above them and you're like, oh. The last time we had a leak at home, my first instinct,

I ran upstairs, got all the towels, brought them down, chucked them on and went, well, it didn't do anything. Didn't do anything. Nothing. But that's the first thing. I was like, what beats water? Yeah. No.

Also, the water was still so hot, I couldn't put my hand into the sink to take the plug out. Oh, right. So that was still full. That's still full of water. I had to wring the towels into the bucket. The mop was at the very back corner of the flooded boiler cupboard. Yeah.

Behind everything else. So I physically couldn't get it out. And whenever I tried to move anything else, it kept falling into the water on the floor. Pulled out the drawer to put some cutlery in. That wasn't useful. Entire drawer full of water. Drawers full of water. The cupboard was full of water.

All the pots and pans, every utensil full of water. So the water hadn't just cascaded off the worktop under the ground. So, yes, I think the overflow thing, that had backed up or something. And that was overflowing into the drawers underneath. Yeah. Yeah, the rug. We got a rug on the floor. That was completely soaked through.

Because weirdly, when things flood, it makes things dirty. What? I know. That should be the one silver lining. Should be it's washed the floor. Yeah. Well, the dye all came out from the red rug. So everything went a rusted color.

Oh, my God, yeah. And then also anything that was like any residue inside the cupboards or whatever. The cupboards of, yeah. Or the inside of the drawer. Yeah. Yeah. But it's not until you realise that towels do nothing,

the towels, they do nothing, that you're like, oh. Oh, this problem transcends towels. Yeah, it's not just the getting rid of the water part, it's everything afterwards. That is awful. Imagine having to do the dishes and it's every dish you own. Every fork, every chopstick that you've saved from a takeaway because you're trying to be environmentally helpful.

It all backfired. Wow. What an adventure. My heart goes out to you if you've ever been in that situation. What about you? I got nothing. Nothing on that. Haven't flooded anything.

I went to the European Robotics Forum. The ERF. Yep, that's the one. It was in the Earth. I went to the Earth. Their slogan is not what on Earth, which is. Should be. Should be welcome to Earth.

Yeah. Sadly, no. I was the light entertainment. Nice. Like a lot of my career, I'm what conference organizers think nerds will consider a treat. And they're correct. They were correct. Yeah.

Yeah, you are. Do you know what? There's so many times where people get booked for stuff and they're like, I don't know why we were booked for this. We are the wrong people for this. And you are the one performer where they nail it. It's very funny talking to people afterwards. Cause like it's a common problem.

You're organizing a tech conference. You've got lots of nerds, right? So it's, oh, it's just, it's a home gig. I will then consider it part of my responsibility to hang right afterwards and chat to people and do all that kind of stuff. Yeah. But then I realized, chatting to people, that in that situation, I am the Beck. You're flooded. No, no, no. Yeah. I mean, I am the Beck. You're flooded.

No, no, no. Yeah. I mean, I'm in hot water this time. No, because people just see me do my talk. Yeah. I mean, you know me, I'm a poly nerd. I know a little bit about a lot of different things. Yeah.

I would say, you know, a lot more than a little bit about a lot of things. That's relative. Very relative. That's why in this situation, you're the Beck. Yeah. True. Yeah. things that's relative very relative that's why in this situation you're the back yeah true yeah so but then people will come up and they'll be like they'll just launch into all right yeah the super detailed high level maths explanations of what they do or what they're thinking about what they're curious about and i'm there following along and then occasionally i'll be like so one one person was just like, oh, so we do this

thing. We use, obviously we're using quaternions for the orientation. This, that, and the other goes, because you've got the manifold here, you've got this, that, and he's like, and then I'm like, and I will try and every now and be like, oh, so a bit like this. And sometimes they're like, yeah, yeah. Kind of like, and then sometimes they're like, what's that going? That's what Beck feels like all the time when I'm talking at her.

Welcome to my world. Yeah, yes, I'm there. There's always a smarter mathematician than anyone. Yeah. And so I love these gigs, and it's the same as when I go to like mass conference kind of things. I'm way out of my depth mathematically, but I've still got the interest, and I'm just frantically trying to keep up.

And people assume I know way more than I do. And for me, I'm like, it's a good reminder because you don't want to lose touch of what it's like to learn maths and struggle with it and try and. Yeah. Yeah. I really enjoy that feeling of being out of my depth

and trying to keep up and understand it. Yeah. That's why often people who are very good at math don't make good teachers because they've forgotten what it's like. So anyway, I had a great time, but I do enjoy being out of my depth and desperately trying to follow along with some mathematics. Yeah, good. I'm glad. to follow along with some mathematics. Yeah. Good. I'm glad.

We both learned something this week. Yeah. You learned some more about us. Check the taps. Yeah. No, no. That's not the lesson I took away from it. It was never do the dishes.

Our first problem was sent in by Steve, who is engaged. Congratulations to Steve. That's not a problem. Steve and his fiancee, however, they're planning way in advance. So it's over a year until their wedding. And that means they've now realized, because their wedding is more than a year away, they know the date at which it will be exactly a year before the wedding, which is their negative one wedding anniversary.

Nice. So good. And so Steve's problem is, given that there are traditional kind of common standard gifts for the positive wedding anniversaries, they want to know what is the traditional gift for a negative wedding anniversary. It's a good problem. So good. I love it. I had a ball looking into this because

you know me you know i like oh yeah deep dive oh yeah yeah so first of all because i imagine you started with the positive ones yes i did start with the positive ones so you get real distracted researching the positive ones do you know what not as bad as i have been in the past what do you know about the main anniversary gifts? Here's what I know. I know that there are two sets. There's like the traditional and the modern set of gifts. Would you like to know more about that?

Absolutely. Traditional ones started roughly in the sort of mid to late 1800s. Classic. That's, you know, peak weird etiquette era. Yeah. And the reason for that is because before that it was mainly arranged marriages that were done for uniting families and finances and property and. Or just you got to get married to survive. Yep. And I mean, that's in, that's in the cultures that probably us and most of our listeners are involved with, but obviously it's different around the world.

In some cultures, I think it was in Tibet, there's ones where the women in a community will go and get pregnant with some men in a neighboring community, but then go back to their community and have the children on their own with sort of the help of the community. There's tribes where the children don't necessarily have recognized parents it's once they're born the entire tribe raised them you know there are very different ways of i just recap what we've done so far yeah i said beck did you get distracted and do a bunch of research and you said no of course not allow me to explain the details of tibetan marriage traditions hey at least i'm still on marriages oh yeah oh right i'm never accusing you of going to a different topic just saying so uh you take a lot of detours so basically it was when like

somewhere between the french and american revolutions that and victoria era those sorts of things that is when love marriages became more popular. So during sort of the Enlightenment era, around the revolutionary times, there were the idea that you could work for your personal happiness. Oh, right. Rather than like your families or your countries or whatever. So wage labor and people being able to be more in charge of their finances, that's when it became more and more popular to marry for love

and became a point about trying to celebrate how long you can make a love marriage last because obviously with a lot of other marriages when they're arranged and stuff, there was no divorce or very much. Right, you're right. And that still was the case, but it was sort of more seen as like you'd achieved something because it's not like you're together because you have to be. It's like, yeah oh you've chosen to be together of your own but now you could choose to move yeah yeah yeah so it became more of a gift giving thing

so originally the gift giving thing started in germany they traced it back quite far the most early record i could find was from a play and they talked about a silver wreath being given to a couple who had been married for 25 years yep and uh gold wreath being given to someone who'd been together 50 years well you've just told me two of the ones i reckon i could guess yes yeah from the standing that's all i'm going to tell you. So those two. Yep. And then that slowly made its way into mainly the UK, basically. So there was sort of a European thing, started to shut more in the UK as the idea of giving these gifts.

That spread across to the States. And then it was in the early 1900s, basically just after World War I, that the American National Retail Jewelers Association discussed supplementing the common anniversaries in their 1922 meeting. Oh. Coming up to the anniversary. Happy anniversary. That's right. Yep.

September 6th, if you want to celebrate. What's the 100th anniversary? Oh, we're going to come around to that, Matt. Oh, sorry. Don't you worry. anniversary oh we're going to come around to that matt oh sorry don't you worry so one attendee at their meeting said they want to call attention to the fact that wooden and tin anniversaries oh i've just named two others fine i wouldn't have got them came far ahead of golden anniversaries and diamond anniversaries oh no i wouldn't have got that one and that the jeweler surely derived

very little profit until after he had waited 50 or 75 years for a golden or diamond anniversary. Too long. Right? So that is when you start to get the modern list. Because then basically after that. Schumerism. Yeah. A big old list came together. Now there were some other lists that came out before that,

but pretty much after that American National Retail Jewelers Association list came out, that's the modern equivalent. I feel like they're biased. They're the ones selling us the stuff and they're the ones choosing the list of what we have to buy absolutely and that was really hard to find like a correct list or an original list because basically it changes depending on who wants to sell what it's really hard yep i love it okay so so gold is 50 and silver is 25. Yeah. I wouldn't have guessed silver was 25, I have to admit.

What would you have thought? Like 40. Going off Royal Jubilees. I see. Because they go silver, gold, diamond, platinum in 10 year intervals. Right. So I would now guess that 60 years is going to be diamond and then 70 is platinum, basically ripping off the Jubilees.

I think you said that diamond was like 75 or something. Again, that's an interesting one. So originally 75th anniversary was diamond. Yep. That came up in a list I saw in 1877. But in 1880, Webster's Dictionary mentioned the list for some reason under wedding. And they said the 75th wedding anniversary gift is now a dictionary.

They're all dictionaries. Yeah, that's right. It's a different dictionary for each year. Yeah. So that came out just three years later and they listed the 60th anniversary as diamond. Oh, okay. And that sort of guessed because so few people would reach their 75th anniversary. So they brought it down a bit.

Yeah. Now I know famously the first wedding anniversary is paper. Yes. Correct. Because it's hilarious. Yes. And then I don't know any others. I could probably guess.

I did mention two. Well, you said wood and tin. Wood. Ridiculous. Are they all substances? Is there one that's like candles or cutlery? In the sort of. Oh, okay.

Wood, tin. So there's probably different stones. It's not like a ruby anniversary? But can you guess what year? You know wood and tin, but what year is it made for? Oh, wood's probably five. Correct. Because five sheets of paper make wood.

Yes, famously. That's what they say. And cardboard is all the ones in between. So that's anniversaries two through four. That's where you get cards. That's where you get cards. Makes sense. Yeah.

You pile them all up, stick them together. So tin's probably tan. Correct. Because it's got almost the same letters as tan. Yeah, exactly. So 10 is probably 10. Correct. Because it's got almost the same letters as 10. Yeah, exactly. It's a Kiwi. It's a Kiwi saying 10.

Yeah. Then what are we missing? Then the 25 is silver. I feel like they wouldn't miss a chance to get 20 in there. Is that like aluminium or stainless steel? No. Bronze. So some of these came a bit later, but they came before the before the jewelers won so they can't they count as traditional steel is 11th steel 11 yeah or

aluminium is uh one of the alternatives to tin for the uh 10th that's true in in a few applications i guess yeah if you need extra corrosion resistance potentially yeah uh you mentioned candles uh wax wax 16th 16th anniversary on the old list now i only found it's on the old list Substance. Potentially. Yeah. You mentioned candles. Wax. Wax? 16th. 16th. Anniversary. On the old list? No, it's on the old list, but I only found it on one of them.

So I've put a question mark there because a lot of the others I cross-referenced to see if they came up. I think it's big wax. I think that's Yankee candle. I think, yeah, it's the candle cabal. 20th, so in 1877. And that list, China or porcelain. Oh. Substance.

In 1910, the second anniversary, straw. Straw. They've got candy as the third year anniversary, although on a lot of lists I saw it as paper first, cotton second, and then leather third. I just didn't find any years for them. Then sixth, either iron or sugar. And also some of these is like the difference between UK and US.

Oh, okay. That sort of stuff. Flowers for the seventh. Flower or flowers? Flowers. Flowers. Now, you just celebrated your eighth anniversary. Correct.

Two days ago. Two days ago. At the time of speaking. So I thought I would get you. Oh, really? A gift. Oh, that's a quick turnaround. Yeah, I know.

You only found out this morning. I didn't get time to wrap it up, though. That's okay. We've already had our first wedding anniversary. So there's two versions that I've seen. The traditional. This is traditional. Yep, yep.

Bronze or salt. So I got you some brown salt. Salt. Bronze salt. That's amazing. amazing oh that's great sea salt with chili flakes there you go i love it happy anniversary thank you oh i'll let lucy know we got some sea salt with chili flakes that's bronze salt salt yeah i mean the reason i'm a bit vague about our wedding anniversary is Lucy and I celebrate every 500 days. Yes, correct.

I've remembered that. Exactly. We only dip in to the Orbit anniversaries every five. We notice when they happen, we're like, oh, it's our wedding anniversary. Well, now you've got that. Now we know. Now we've got the salt. Yeah. Well, later this year will be the three-year anniversary of this podcast.

Ooh. And we missed the first two anniversaries. That's true. So either candy or leather. Oh, my. Wow, let's both bring a gift. We could also go for the modern option, which is crystal or glass. And some drinks.

Yeah. We missed first and second year anniversaries of the podcast. Yes. The Problem Squared that you're listening to right now. Yes. What are they? Modern. Yep.

Clock. Clock? Modern. Yep. Clock. Clock. Yep. Second China. A lot of the modern ones are moving them forward. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

No one's got time. What are you eating off until your 20th wedding anniversary? I know, right? Do you want to know what the fourth modern one is? Yes. Electrical appliance. Doesn't even say what. It's so cute. Just says electrical appliance. Oh,rical appliance. It doesn't even say what. It just says electrical appliance.

So we can buy a new kit for the podcast. Yeah. Are you up for four years to update the tech? That feels about right. So fifth is silverware. Okay. Remember wood is the fifth one. It was the old one, yeah.

An old one. So the sixth year one is just wood objects. Oh. Wood objects. They bumped wood back. Yeah. There's got to be an object one is just wood objects oh wood objects they bumped wood back yeah there's gonna be an object not just a piece of wood yeah uh so your modern one for eighth would be linens or lace wow 10 10 year anniversary guess what it is uh gold diamond they just skip gold they just go straight to diamond all the way up there you go that's amazing 11th is fashion jewelry you're not allowed if it's just normal joy now fashion ugly jewelry no

yeah did a whole like shopping mall worth of shops get together to do the modern one or was it like like a like a land rush like everyone's just racing out to try and grab yeah an anniversary now i couldn't find the original list that was put forward by the Jewelers Association. But apparently they did mix it up a bit so it wasn't just all jewelry. Okay. They threw a bone to the wood object. I reckon this was the original one because they're listing things

and they're running out of ideas. Can you imagine a writer's group, like a writer's team, sitting around a table? All right. So if guys guys we have a 17th 24th anniversary what do you reckon give me something no no no no no i think we've already done that of course we have uh yeah no i think i'm gonna cover that electrical appliance um shoe insoles uh shoe insoles probably under textiles and furs good point good point yeah yeah a bag you get a bag uh bags do you know what we don't have bags dvd box set oh no you should have done that but you know what it is musical instrument musical instruments so you've heard of the diamond

anniversary you've heard of the gold anniversary. You've heard of the gold anniversary. Try the musical instrument anniversary. They're too general. Now they could have, instruments could have covered several anniversaries. The trumpet anniversary. Yeah. The kazoo anniversary.

But no. No. They waste them all on the 24th. I mean, 29th is new furniture. Now they've already had furniture earlier. That's the 17th. Oh, wow. Seven years later.

Yeah, that's right. New furniture. Well, hang on. No, 29th is it? So 12 years later. Yeah. Yeah. You need some new furniture.

It's been 12 years. I was thinking 24. What's that? Musical instruments. They should just swap them over. Weirdly, if they're going to let you get new furniture, then I'm pretty sure they should have given you a 44 anniversary several times and much earlier, which is groceries. Groceries.

You don't get groceries until 44. They haven't eaten. This couple have not eaten for 44 years. Nah, they figured this is for old people who are forgetting to eat or go shopping. And some of them, they're just, I mean, okay. So the 15th modern anniversary, you get a watch. But I tell you, and obviously you had a clock for the first one.

31st anniversary, timepiece. Now you're just going through the thesaurus. There were a lot of watchmaking jewelers at this meeting. Absolutely. But what's the 100th? The 100th? Yeah. So obviously in the traditional one, there's no 100th because they're like, that's not happening.

But the hundredth in the modern one is a 10 carat diamond. A 10 carat diamond. Yeah. That is a big old diamond. It weighs two grams, I believe. What I was thinking is it's the hundredth anniversary of the list. So we should buy the list. Well, the list, actually, the list didn't come out

until a bit later. It's just that 1922 is when someone said we should marketing, yeah. You, me, and all our clock selling buddies should get together. Yeah. Make a list. I believe the listing come out until 37.

Oh. Quite some time later. Yeah, ages to save up for that. They're probably just fighting over how many times. They had to clock for every one. Every third one was different words for clock. Managed to talk them down to three. That was an achievement.

So, Beck. Yes. The problem that Steve and their fiance have, though. Yes. What do they buy each other? Right. For their negative one wedding anniversary so i know that you're a big fan of rollover stuff correct the idea that it all resets oh my god yes

so i was thinking if diamond or diamond equivalent is like the most that you can get in the traditional and modern ones yeah then it should be the opposite of diamond once it rolls over. So I think it should be graphite. Oh, it's the carbon? Yeah. It's like the opposite of a diamond. It's the softest carbon. Yeah, because if the difference between the way that it cools when

Yeah, you get a pencil. when that pressure comes Or a ring. I was going to say, because, because the carbon, yeah, it's like one slight difference in the way it cools and you get graphite versus diamond. That's great because you start with graphite at the beginning of your marriage and then a lot of pressure later.

That's right. Diamonds. Yeah. So I went to the art shop around the corner here in Godalming. Right. And I bought. Oh, you bought a graphite gift? This is to send.

I know we don't normally send our list. No, we don't. But I thought to celebrate. Look at that. I've got them a little. You bought a slab of graphite. A little chunk of drawing graphite. That's amazing.

Let's pass it over. It's actually medium strength because I didn't want it to fall apart. Graphite. It's like proper like England. Like artists. fall apart graphite it's like proper like england something like artists so for people listening along it's like a square cross-section crayon that's all graphite so i got a little gift bag for them so we'll try and find their address and we'll send that to them in time for their minus one year anniversary and you're gonna wait two years to have something to write

on that's right exactly, this is the thing. I realise there's a minus one. Where's the zero? Where's zero? When you actually get married. Yep. I think it should be ink. Oh. Because you sign your... Because you sign your wedding certificate. That's the contract. So, for anyone who's

getting married, I think you should ask for ink or an ink product as your zero-th anniversary gift. It's like you're getting a pencil licence before you should ask for ink or an ink product as your 0th anniversary gift. It's like you're getting a pencil license before you get your pen license. Do you have that? Yes. Oh, yeah. I was the last student in my class

to get my pen license. I don't think I ever got my pen license. Oh, really? I've been using them illegally this whole time. I'm going to dub you in. So, yeah. There you go. There's my answer. Do you know what? I'm very proud of it in. So, yeah, there you go. There's my answer. And I, do you know what? I'm very proud of it. And considering that the lists.

You bought a prop. The lists are basically, even on Wikipedia, the list is different to the sources. There's no agreement. There's no like original sources on there. So with that in mind, now that this is out there and there's so many wonderful people out there who are good at the internet yep we need to get the negative one year anniversary and the zeroth anniversary graphite and ink it feels like it's a free-for-all so we can definitely and then you can cite this podcast as the source oh my goodness we are a definitive source yeah done so there you go that

i mean i've got nothing to add that's incredible you've done it all i think i can speak on behalf of steve and their fiancee and gift you a ding thank you ding i'll put that ding into my wed thing hey this problem comes from breresendrack. I think so. Bresendrack. Bresendrack. Who says, how do I write a review for the podcast that helps you in any way if I do not have any Apple products?

Google Podcast does not have this option and I don't have an Apple ID. And that is a good point because I don't have an Apple ID, so I have never given someone a review on Apple music. You hypocrite. I know. You stand here every podcast. I'm usually sitting, actually. You lounge here every podcast, imploring our listeners to leave us a review on Apple Podcasts. As do I.

I've never left a review on Apple Podcasts. No. You have Apple stuff, too. Yeah, I have Apple stuff. You're a bad Apple. I should As do I. I've never left a review on Apple Podcasts. No. You have Apple stuff too. Yeah, I have Apple stuff. You're a bad Apple. I should. I am. I've ruined the whole podcast environment.

We tell people to leave a review on Apple Podcasts, but a lot of people either don't use it. Like they have to go out of their way to do it. It's not how they normally get their podcasts or they can't do it. And so I thought I'd have a quick look at our stats to see what percentage of listeners actually listen to this podcast via Apple podcasts. And it is 13.4%. Arguably that's because no one finds us because not enough people are giving us nice reviews. That could be it. Podcasting is like, it's a very fragmented

market as such. Like there's lots of places you can get podcasts from because it's such an open standard, I guess. Yeah. Like 0.3% of our audience use Python requests. What does that mean? lots of places you can get podcasts from because it's such an open standard i guess yeah like 0.3 percent of our audience use python requests what does that mean i think that's the name of i think it's i think it's the name of probably a library or something you can import into python code to get your own or they're using something built out of python what percentage was that 0.3 percent congratulations you point isn.3%. Isn't that great? I mean, that says everything about our audience. It does. That is the 22nd most common way for people to listen to our podcast.

Okay. What are the others? Tell you what, I'm going to name three podcast providers. Podkicker. Okay. Pod Soup. Oh, yeah. Pod Bean. i made one of them up pod soup correct so uh yes there's a lot out there and all of them bar the top the top 11 have more than one percent each and then the rest are just tiny

fractions to people per method because there's just so many. However, Apple Podcasts is only the second top. The number one way people listen to this podcast in fact more than 1 in 5 of you listening right now are listening on Spotify. Huh.

22.2% of the audience. That's quite a big chunk. It is a big audience. That's quite a big chunk. It is a big chunk. That's one and a half times what was happening with Apple Podcasts. Ah. So if you want to give advice for what people should do if they can't use Apple Podcasts, it's obviously, I mean, Spotify is the one we should be asking people to leave nice comments on.

And it turns out as of, I think, December last year, Spotify rolled out the ability to give ratings to podcasts. Oh, well, actually, I listen to some, not all, but I listen to some podcasts on Spotify. Let's have a look. Okay, so there's a star rating. Yep. I'm going to go into one of them. You want to bring out one of the ones you listen to? Oh, my gosh.

It's so easy. All right. So one of them is called Crime Show. It's by Gimlet. Crime Show. Yep. Okay. So there's a star rating. Yep. When I go into one of them. You want to bring up one of the ones you listen to? Oh my gosh. What have you got there? It's so easy. All right. So one of them is called Crime Show. It's by Gimlet. Crime Show. Yep. Nice. Specific name right there.

Yeah. I know. It stands out from the podcast crowd. Can you guess what it's about? Shows. And it has a little star rating. It's got 4.9 as an average. And if I press that, it just says, how do you rate the show out of five stars?

And does it tell you how many reviews have gone into that? I'll go with five stars because I do enjoy it. There you go. Submit. Now one more.

Done. Done. That was so quick. Oh my goodness. Do you want to know what our star rating is on? We have a star rating? Yep.

Yes, I do want to know. It's two significant figures. And what was, what was Crime Show? 4.9. Oh, that's going to be tough to beat. But I got some great news. What? 5.9. Oh, that's going to be tough to beat. But I got some great news.

What? 5.0. Oh, that's why you said figures and not numbers. Yeah. Yeah, it's not 50. Right. So, yeah, 5.0. We are averaging five out of five.

Awesome. Rounded to the nearest 0.1 of a star. Wow. 326 reviews. Oh, that's quite nice. Thank you, everyone. What's that compared to other ones that's a great question who would you compare us to uh a podcast of unnecessary detail oh my god

yeah my other my sidecast the other one that you're well is the podcast i do with helen arnie and steve mold oh okay how many reviews did i say we had? I said three, two, six. Three, two, seven now. Did you just rate us, Lauren? No. Oh, really? That's so funny. I think that's against the terms of service.

Keep that on there. But you listen to it and you enjoy it. I tried to rate it. I tried to rate our own. I'm not allowed because I haven't listened to our show on Spotify. I listen to it on a different app. Okay. So we're now up to 327 on spotify i listen to a different app okay so

we're now up to to 327 reviews yeah thanks to wait are we still 5.0 yes thank goodness because if you drag us down so uh my other podcast was spoken nerd 4.9 oh who's not giving them five yeah well that was 399 people 399 oh they've got more than us so more reviewers but but less the lower average good so we need humble listeners yeah i think we need to get a problem squared above 399 oh we I don't know. That's kind of competing with myself. You know what? I'm going to search. Okay. For, you know, no such thing as a fish.

Okay. Let's go right to the top. And one of whom is an Aussie. There you are. Well, Aussie, international Aussie. Aussie enough.

Oh, 5.0. Oh, they're as good as we are. They are as good as we are. On 6.7 thousand reviews. Oh, that's quite a lot of reviews. That's too many. Oh, 5.0. Oh. They're as good as we are. They are as good as we are. On 6.7 thousand reviews. Oh, that's quite a lot of reviews. That's too many.

Oh, okay. 6.7 thousand. Yeah. We have enough listeners that we could beat them if everyone who listens on Spotify. That's true. Gave us five stars. Yeah. Podcast.

Yeah. Don't tell the nerds. That's easy enough. Yeah. We've got two weeks for every single person who listens to this on Spotify to to give us five stars come on we're coming for fish yeah we're not saying we are better we just want to appear better yeah yeah oh yeah we we want if you approximate our podcast to two numbers the review which we've already got we got five and the number of reviews on on that very approximated metric.

We want to beat everyone. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, I think we've well and truly dinged that problem. Yes, that's what you can do, and it's so easy. Yeah. There you go, Brad. Please don't take down our reviews because I can't pronounce your name. This is the part of the show where we tie up

any loose threads from previous episodes. We think we leave every section of every episode neatly tied up with a bow. Unless stated otherwise. Exactly. Unless stated otherwise, occasionally listeners will tug at the loose threads. We got more tidying up to do. And often, they're just trying to provide more solutions to problems, which we can only applaud. For example, a lot of people, like you, Beck, got addicted to trying to find better solutions to the segment display problem. Oh, my gosh.

Oh, yeah. So now, to recap for everyone, this was the classic, like like microwave numbers that are made up of seven little lines, which people don't think about it, but there's seven little segments. They turn on and off, different combinations of them give you different digits. Someone sent a problem in that I dealt with and I deliberately did not tell you about it because I knew it would take over your life. Yeah.

And I was in a very busy period of my life. You were very busy. So I didn't tell you, but obviously I had to tell you during the course of recording that episode. Yes. Which was about a month ago. Yeah. And what has happened with your life since?

Well, as soon as we recorded that episode, we went to the pub. Correct. And I spent- It's not far from where we were recording. The entire time trying to come up with four segment versions you did you took some paper

yep you took a sharpie yep you sat down yep you got going yep you sat there with your pint

and I did not talk I sat there me and the dog watched me draw I brought my dog with me yeah we sat there chilled out

and I just you were in the zone I did it the whole train ride back hyper focused oh wow yep I got home do we go on i showed it to my husband oh no i said gav you should have a go at this it's like he gave

it a little bit and then went no no really yeah i thought he was gonna do yeah i think like the movie the ring yeah i thought it would too turns out just me just you well in my life at the time not just you i have some friends that definitely would have got addicted to it, but I just didn't see them around that time. Right. Lucky. And I honestly, Matt, I for about three or four days afterwards woke up thinking about it.

Like it was in my head when I woke up thinking, is there a better way to do this? Yeah. It genuinely consumed me and i had to say to gab at one point i can't stop thinking about it i had to we burnt the notes that i did last night a little ceremony no your fire last night oh yeah because every time i looked at them i kept thinking oh what if i thought of a and then i managed to finally reach yourself you need to shake it off had my uh my uh uh got it out my system and then the episode ad and then everyone started everyone came flooding and then i started to get back into it and was

like no because we tweeted what Because we tweeted your inventions. Yes. Which meant that people wanted to show you theirs. Yes, yeah. And then we're right back where we started. And thank you. And also lots of people complimented mine and I really appreciate it. It was very good. It took me time.

The consensus is better than mine. Thank you. I hate the people who have spoken. You know, I'm just saying what the people have said. And there were some where there were good attempts but they i don't think they counted for various reasons ah that's true so there was one that was sent that looked really good but it was because the lines crossed over yeah we had a no lines crossing over policy just because that's how old school lcds and i'm sure someone's like, well. Well, it's like Ghostbusters, isn't it?

You don't cross the beams. Yeah. And I'm sure someone's like, well, technically this display could. Well, no, just in general. So it works on everything. The lines don't cross. Because someone took what I did and extended one of the lines, which arguably, I mean, definitely looks better.

But that means you've now got two lines crossing. Yeah. And so now you've got extra segments. It doesn't count. Yeah. Then there were some versions where, like, people came up with really good ideas, but they basically just invented new symbols for numbers. They look nothing like the numbers. Oh, yeah.

And you basically, you've rediscovered binary at that point. Yeah. Oh, and a lot of people, not a lot of people lot of people i saw people say oh it won't work with three because there aren't enough combinations to do all 10 digits and that's when i realized this had spread outside the listener base because in the podcast we talked about that yeah how the four is the minimum yeah people and then people were re-explaining that back to us. Yes. And I was like, this is obviously a very infectious challenge. There's one that I have to give an honorable mention.

Right. Which was Leo. This is the best. Leo said, I think I found a perfectly serviceable four segment display. What I like about it is that the four looks like a four. Because that was the big. Four is a tough one. That was a tough one I had four looks like a four because that was the big. Four was a tough one. That was a tough one I had was getting a four.

They've done it on gridded paper, but they haven't done it sort of exactly as it is on each one. See, this is the issue. When you're trying to sketch these, it's the human nature. You subtly distort them to look more like the digit you know it's meant to look like. Yeah, like you're still like your brain goes, well, that's the same line in the same place at the same angle, but it drifts.

But what I want to say is, so Leo's one, I checked against it on a grid and it didn't look as nice, but I still think it was a really nice one. And that's four segment. Four segment. It's really lovely. I think that definitely gets a very honorable mention. Then I thought, ooh, can I take what I've done and what Leo's done and improve it? You know, get them working together.

Yeah. And after several hours realized that I'm doing it again. No, yeah. Get back out. Stop. Just when you think you're out. Oh my goodness. Exactly.

You got to go cold turkey. You can't. I do. So I can't. I just can't. Don't, don't walk back in.. Oh, my goodness. Exactly. You've got to go cold turkey. You can't. I do. So I can't. I just can't. Don't walk back in. It's so tempting, though. No, it's closed.

I really enjoyed it. Yeah. So well done, Leo. And well done, everyone who's... I mean, other people sent in really nice five-segment ones, but, I mean... Five, please. I'm going to say we could all do a nice five-segment one.

We can all knock out a five. Four's where it's at yeah we also got a lot of people commenting on the menu ordering system that i covered yes in the previous episode but the idea was if you assigned a number to each dish could you order from a menu by just adding up the total of all the dishes you want, all the assigned numbers. And then can the wait staff perfectly decode that to work out what your order was? And I said you could do it with binary, but you end up with very big numbers. And I kind of ruled binary out because it was a bit too close to being a list. Because it's just a bunch of ones and zeros for which one you do or don't

have like yeah it's a very just say the meal you may as well just say the meals it's a very generous version of of adding you actually people come up with other solutions some clever ways of doing it but you're basically concatenating which is just running numbers one after the other so you just it's very clever how you would work out where you split it apart, but you're still just writing the menu one thing after the other. People come up with some matrices. What's a matricy? A matrix is just a grid of numbers. So matrices is a plural of matrix.

Yes, plural of matrix. When you have a sequel. Yeah, I was going to say, why don't they call the box set that? And you can use a matrix to revolve things as well. Wow. Nerds found that deeply hilarious. Yeah. So a lot of the suggestions people sent in were variations on just binary,

binary in disguise in various forms, much like the segment display thing. Yeah. And they were glorified lists. But then some people pointed out a solution that I totally missed. And, and I got to take my hat off to these people that I absolutely missed a possible solution. I got so focused on the fact that if you're allowed to have multiple dishes, so like it works if people can only have up to one of each dish,

but if you want to have multiple dishes, then you might have to add the same menu item on multiple times. Yeah. And that becomes indistinguishable from other ones. And the very quick example, we had something like, how would you know the difference between ordering five multiples of dish number seven or seven multiples of dish number five? People pointed out that you cannot order an irrational number of dishes.

So you can order a whole dish or multiples, two dishes, three dishes. Maybe you could order half a dish or a third of a dish. I mean, no, you can't. But no one ever says, can I have half of a curry? I'm sure people have. And those people laughed out the restaurant. Yeah, but they do it. Customers.

Watch them. They wouldn't get it. But you cannot order like. But you can order a half portion of chips. So I'll give them that. See, there you are. There you go. Uh-huh.

All right. But you can't have a pie or portion of chips or the square root of two. There's a whole field of numbers that are irrational numbers, which cannot be written as a fraction. These are the non-fraction, non-ratio, irrational numbers. Okay. And I'm pretty safe to say, apart from probably me as a joke, no one's ever tried to order an irrational multiple of a meal in a restaurant.

So what you can do is assume that all the multiplying numbers are going to be rational numbers. You then give irrational numbers to the menu items, and that works. The assumption I was missing, I got so fixated on multiplying the numbers, I didn't stop to think that the multiples are a strict type of number. And if you make the menu numbers a different type of number, so one's rational and one's irrational, then you can reverse no matter how many you have in each dish backwards. Can you give me an example, or is this all in theory? And actually, it was right in front of my eyes the whole time.

You will get your example because there is an idea in maths about logs and logarithms and exponentials. And what you're doing with those is it's a fancy way of turning multiplication into addition. And if you're a member from the podcast, I said you could do this if you gave every dish a prime number value, and then you get people to multiply them all together. And that would work. That's perfectly reversible. They can have as many as they want of each dish. That works. But I said, multiplying, I don't think that counts. It's got to be addition.

Logarithms turn multiplication into addition. So instead of giving every single dish a prime number, you give them a logarithm of a prime number. And that absolutely works. So you know what, I'm just going to very quickly bring up a spreadsheet here to give you an example. You know how you talk about that convention you went to? Yeah, yeah. See, this is why I need those. So I've just made a quick menu where the items are 2, 3, 5, 7, 11. They're the prime numbers. They have no factors. So the natural log of 2 is 0.30103. Then it keeps going and going and going and going and going.

These rational numbers never end. Got it. Okay. Then the log of 3 is 0.47712125, and then that keeps going. Right. And then the next one, 0.698 and so on. Yeah. So now the only snag is the numbers never end.

Yeah. Which takes a very long time to write down the order. So at some point you're going to have to round them. And now you hit back. Here's the problem now. As soon as you round it, you can get, it's a rational number. Yes. It's a rational number all of a sudden. But what you'd need to do is just round them past, so they're big enough for the number of dishes people might be ordering. So you're back to the,

there's an upper bound to how many dishes people can order based on the precision you've written down these irrational numbers. What you'd have to do on the menu is write natural log of two, natural log of three, et cetera. And then say, please calculate these to whatever precision is required to make your order unambiguous. And then that would work. And then you're like, where did all the customers go? Yeah, exactly.

Out of business on the first day. Yeah, yeah. But you know that you had, the system would have worked if anyone had bothered to put the effort in. Yeah. To order. And the very, I forget who sent this in. I'm very sorry. If you did, congratulations.

This is amazing. Someone then said you could pick your irrational numbers so that they are the price of each meal. So you work out what you want to charge for a meal. You find an irrational number that's very close to that. And you set that as its number. And so then not only do you add them up and that gives you the order, it also gives you the total you have to pay. So you don't even have to write the number for the menu item number and the price you

just give it one number yeah that's the order and it's the bill and it's everything that's nice but you're gonna have to specify it to fractions of a fraction you're not saving any time oh no no no but you are adding up yeah you're just adding the numbers together and the whole system works minor precision issues but they are so i apologize to everyone forget for forgetting about logarithms we were so close and i apologize to no one no i think i think once you get to giving things irrational numbers you might as well just give it other names nah oh this is gonna cost two unicorns oh there we go i wonder what they've ordered well there's no other unicorns on the list yeah okay valid point well made you can't you can't times two by unicorn so

it's got to be the other way around doesn't it but they're great suggestions everyone genius no it's good yeah well done i like these moments it's humbling thank you very much to listening to the APS team. We'd also like to thank our Patreon supporters who keep us in business. There are now 400 of you. Yeah. That's great. And this time we'd like to thank Nicole Mad Dog Maddock. That's a nickname from the A team.

It is. It is. Yeah. Murdoch, I know, but Maddock is pretty close. Kel Mad Dog Manson. And Dan, Mad Dog, Settle.

I've been Matt Parker, joined, of course, by Beck Hill and our producer, which is the iconic van, which holds us all together as we go about our adventures, Lauren Armstrong Carter. See you all next adventure. Okay. So you know how we needed sting stuff? Yep.

And you know how my kitchen flooded? Yes. So while I was cleaning out the cupboards, I found stuff that I'd forgotten about in the back of the cupboard that survived the water. Behind the mop. It was in a plastic tub. Oh, you brought it. Yep. I was holding onto these

for ages. And we never did anything with them. Which means it is definitely, like, way past when we should have used them. Right. I still have no idea what is in this bag. There's rustling.

No! Oh my goodness. You still got these. Oh, it's sticky. Is that flood damage? I think that's just age. So Beck is pulling out a variety of snacks from around the world, which are claimed alternatives to the Aussie snack that is Twisties.

I do not know how safe these are. Should we open them now? I think we should open them now. Because actually we had Twisties last time and Lauren wasn't here. Yeah. So I thought I'd bring the flood logs. They have lost all the air from inside the packets. Yeah, the vacuum pack themselves.

Wow. I guess it's leaked out. So Fonzies are like the Italian ones and even the packet looks like Twisties. It does. This is a deliberate Twisties attempt. I'm in. What's it smell like?

Death. His face. Oh, they're pretty white. I don't think they're meant to be that way. Give them a whiff. They're fine. Oh my gosh. Don't give them back. Oh my give them a whiff they're fine oh my gosh don't give them back you know oh my god i'm gonna i'm gonna break one to see if it's oh it's not still quite i was not expecting a snap i've just put it on my tongue yeah you she's gone in

no it's pretty stale yeah it's not gross the smell is just cheese smell oh that's that's what they i mean that's what oh my gosh now it's inside me oh i can't um yeah don't try those see you all next time