A Problem Squared - 044 = Belts for Crime and Smells in Time

Episode Date: October 10, 2022

In THIS episode... * Which utility would be most useful on a utility belt?  * How fast is the speed of smell? * Matt comes one step closer to finding his stairs.  * And, when does a plate become a bowl...decided? IF you want to look as cool as Bec and Matt (and who doesn't) head on over to: https://a-problem-squared.teemill.com for merch.  The book Bec mentions in her problem is called 'End State: 9 Ways Society Is Broken & How We Fix It' by James Plunkett.  If you have a suggestion for what goes on the hope utility belt, or just have a better DJ name for Bec and Matt, head over to the APS Twitter page or comment on Patreon or Instagram. Find us on Twitter and Instagram. And, as always, if you've got a problem or a solution hit us up on our website aproblemsquared.com.

Hello, I'm Parker, Matt, and I'm joined by Hill, Beck, for this cast, pod, squared, a problem. My host, Hill, Beck is a comedian, stand up, comedian, TV, comedian, flip chart. Canadian, flip chart. And I am a mathematician, stand up, books, writer of, and intro, duo of. And on this cast, pod, we problems, solve. That's all I had. That was my bit for the. Maybe they can help with your grammar.

That works. That's a perfectly valid grammar. That's maneuver comma perfectly valid grammar i think you'll find that i was perfectly quoting holly from red dwarf then oh dang because there is an entire dang comma oh there's an entire opening and i believe it's the first series waiting for god i think so one way they're still on the big ship yeah no crichton and it when they used to do their little oh things at the beginning yeah little log update thing and rimmer does a whole log where it's loads of commas and he says hopefully we'll find alien life and then holly says maybe they can help you with your grammar. Hey. So. A lot. I somehow out geeked you. Hey, we all know you're here for the popular culture.

Yeah, that's true. Media references. I think we are brand comma 100% on. It's fun. It's fun. And in this, like in our friendship French relationship, work colleague thing. Whatever though. Whatever.

You are the rimmer and I'm the lister, arguably. Yes, yes. That comma, I can't argue with. Episode comma on this. Colon. I'm seeing which utility would be most useful on a utility belt I'm going to calculate the speed of smell And we'll have business, any other

Yeah, now you got it Hey So Beck, how have you been? Good Good? Yeah, I mean, I'm aware that this episode comes out on the 10th of october oh yeah so we'll be on our last day in new york oh we're leaving new york today yeah that's sad but i'm assuming i've had a great time great time i'm sure we will have had a great time

yes yeah it's gonna be really awkward when this comes out. And it's like, do you remember? This was the straw that broke the podcast's back. It's going to be in the storyline of our working relationship. It's the moment of conflict where we both go off on our separate ways. Oh, yes. Wow. Yeah, but I'm otherwise. Do you know what? Actually, there was one thing that I had totally forgotten to bring up in an earlier bit, which was I went to Edinburgh.

You went up for the Festival Fringe. Yeah, and I talked about that a few episodes ago. I went up a second time. What? Yeah. No. Couldn't get enough. Oh, my goodness.

Yeah, had to go again. It's not the Fringe unless you're there for too much. They say you go to the Fringe twice in one year. Oh, Matt, it's so interesting. You remember my energy the first time i was so excited and you know you were like oh who would have thought that you could go to the fringe without doing a show i know yeah and everyone was having a great time there and then i took a fellow beginning of the fringe yes yeah it was about like in the second week within the second week and then it was in the last week that I went up.

And Nat Latsima, who is a comic and author, she saw my pictures from the first time and went, oh, I wish I'd gone now. And I was like, guess what? Well, guess what? I'm going again. You're doing it again. Yeah, I had a great time. So I was up there. And what I wanted to say was a cool thing happened. My train back to London was at 6.50 in the in the morning well that's the only train i was out

late you were at the fringe last night at the fringe last night my last night at the fringe it was a friday night and you never chose to do no the first time i went up i kept saying i want to go and dance i want to go and dance do you remember patahus you and i were dancing there in 2019 yeah the word dancing is being translated very generously. I danced and you moved. I moved about. You moved. I was in the same location as music.

Music and I were in the same room together. We existed. No, do you know what? Look, I'm going along with you for that for comedic effect, but I am genuinely of the belief that everyone can dance. It's just that some people are judgy and so i was like i want to go to patahus kept saying to everyone we got to go to they're all in the artist bar being important but it was so full and there was one other friend

there who really wanted to go dancing who was disappointed we didn't the first time i was up and so i said you and i are gonna go and then we'll tell the others that we're gonna be there build it and they will come. So she and I headed there. Throw it down, they'll head over. And we got to Patahouse and it was quiet. And the music was fine. I liked the music, but it wasn't anything I recognized.

Right, right, right. And I leant over to one of the people in charge of the venue, who I know, and I said, oh, who's DJing right now? And they said, oh, it's a staff member or something. Yeah. And then they leaned over and they went, do you want to DJ from three? As in 3 a.m.? What?

You know, this is like 2.30 in the morning. Yep. And I was like, oh, heck yes, I do. Yes. Sent out the word. 3 a.m. Took over. Oh, my goodness.

Did we get the party started? Oh, it was great. I played Eiffel 65 oh there you are actually i opened with uh groove armada i see you baby because when we're at blue dot we missed groove armada doing i see you baby we caught the end of their set yes and so i was like we're gonna have to so i put that on everyone jumped to the dance floor had a great time basically did that for uh an hour and a half non-stop bangers i danced constantly the entire time while djing i did not take a break i didn't

stop i just danced constantly i've switched from alcohol to water as soon as i found out i'll be djing i have so much energy when i'm not drinking it's fantastic and then i was like there's no point going home to bed. Oh, no, you didn't. I was like, who wants to go see the sunrise on Carton Hill? You pushed right through. My initial thing was to go up Arthur's Seat. And then I realized actually allowing just over two hours to get up Arthur's Seat and back down and then home to pack and then down to the train set.

I was like, oh, I'm being a bit. Yeah. So we're at Carton Hill. Watch the sunrise. Beautiful. the train station i was like i'm being a bit yeah so we're not carton hill watch the sunrise beautiful so now what i'm saying is i need a dj name because obviously i've been bitten by the bug and i want to do that more so i think dj be chill is oh yeah that's oh be chill at last you can i can use the beach that's great i love it yep which is all i've got to do is move the space yeah there was also someone who recommended Dex Hill.

Dex Hill. DJ Dex Hill. That's good. But I wanted to put it out there and see if anyone else. The DJ name. Yeah. So if anyone has any DJ name suggestions for me, please send them over at Beck Hill Comedian or Be Chill Comedian.

What would your DJ name be? Oh, yeah. Algorhythm. Algorhythm. Algorhythm. Algorhythm. Algorhythm. Oh. DJ Algorhythm. It's precise mathematical beats.

I like that. We're going to have to call a truce right now, or we're going to spend the rest of the podcast thinking of DJ names. Well, I think you and I should DJ together. Oh, my goodness. And we could be bananas in dajamas, because I'm pretty sure DJ is short for dajamas, right? I think it's short for dajamas because i'm pretty sure dj is short for dajamas right i think it's yeah so i'll do a tweet asking for your suggestions make sure you reply to it if

you don't reply to that tweet i'll probably won't see your suggestion there you go love it what about you matt oh i've not dj'd anywhere no no what have you been up to oh oh you know what i did do and this is the power of podcasting i mentioned in the other podcast that i occasionally do oh yes unnecessary details we don't talk about obviously this podcast is my favorite in that i was talking about the sewers in london and how i love old Baseljet sewers from the 1800s. And I expressed an interest in seeing the new sewers, the Tideway development. Someone got in touch, Mark, who's a director of Orbit Architects, who were doing the kind of public-facing architecture that's sitting on top of the now reclaimed land. I say reclaimed land, built up sewer sewer sticky out into the Thames bits.

Yeah, yeah. Near Blackfriars. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Because there's actually a whole bunch of them up and down the Thames. But they're doing a couple of them, including the Blackfriars one. So, I got a tour of the Blackfriars Tideway site, which was very exciting. So, now, I couldn't go in the pipes.

There's a lot more paperwork. You've got to... I actually go into the sewers. Yeah, you got to be like Mario. Exactly. You got to find one. I could find one of the green ones. But there was plants coming out of them. Yeah, exactly.

And they were shooting fire or something. So I'm still keen to actually get in the pipe. There's more paperwork. There's still an ongoing project. Yep. One day I will get into the pipes. Get in the pipe. But I could tour the top of the site, which was amazing.

So I got to wander around. They showed me where they're putting in the different chambers, how the flow goes. Bits of the old sewers that were coming out, new bits going in. I got to see they had divers because they couldn't get rid of enough, all the water around where the fleet river empties into the thames which now has to be redirected into the new sewers oh so for people who aren't familiar with the sewers in london when the victorians invented flushing toilets they just repurposed the current sewers which were just the rainwater runoff systems yeah they basically dumped sewage into the rainwater system the old drain system

part of which was the old fleet river because there are a bunch of rivers that go into the thames that london is completely built over so the poor fleet once a fantastic mighty river is now an underground sewer oh wow and a bunch of these rivers they go through some basements like in the city like the rivers are there. They're just subterranean now. It's incredible. There's a city. It's just built over the rivers.

But a bunch of them still empty into the Thames. Some empty into the sewers. Fleet emptied into the old Victorian sewers. But now they've got to redirect it into the new sewers. So they showed me where the Fleet River comes out into the Thames and they're redirecting it and how it gets into the new sewers which was very exciting that is very exciting the highlight might have been and this shows you the difference between people like us who try and communicate things to other people and people who were just engineers because they were showing me one of the big vertical drop shafts which is how because you got all the

sewerage has got river level and you got to get it down real deep into the main pipe that gets out of the city when you fall in a bottomless pit you die of starvation the problem is if they're dumping sewage into this massive vertical tube which goes down i don't know like meters 10 meters let's say long way they don't know, like meters, 10 meters, let's say. Long way. They don't want the sewage to have too much kinetic energy. I just think we can all agree you don't want your sewage to have too much kinetic energy. What, because it comes alive? It comes, no, it's just a lot of impacts.

Oh, no, it's got too much kinetic energy. Whoa. It's a swamp monster. Have you seen Ghostbusters? Yeah. Yeah. So what they do, they're like, oh, so we have a vortex. Which I know what a vortex is, but that does sound incredible.

It sounds more exciting than what it is. They're really like, they didn't know why I kept asking questions about this. They're like, oh, yeah, there's a vortex. I'm like, well, hang on. Well, how does that work? They're like, oh, it's not active. It's just like the way you shape it. You can get it spinning. And I'm like, look, you can't gloss over.

You can't be like, oh, yeah. And here's where the 10 meter tall crapnado will be you don't want to know about the crapnado i'm like yes i do want to know about the crapnado so but when it's finished there's going to be this wonderful public space great architecture cafes people hanging out yeah direct like directly below their feet a meter down is a huge multi-meter high crapnado a vortex of swirling sewerage uh yeah wow so i'm very excited about this i'm gonna say there's two things i want to do now i'm gonna see if i can go back and find out more about this crapnado. Because what I really want to do is make a video in 2025,

once the park is finished, and just be like, beneath my feet is the world's biggest crapnado. I don't know if it's the world's biggest. It's going to be big. Yeah. But I also, the one thing I couldn't see, and I'm going to try some more paperwork to do this, is I want to see the original Baseljet sewers.

Well, if anyone here has access to the actual London sewers, and I know they're not going to be as clean as the new, as yet unused bit, but if there's any way to see an old Baseljet sewer line, let me know. I had no jokes. Except for crap parker beck yes we were discussing grappling hooks why were we discussing grappling hooks because i have

one because you have one that's why like i knew you always wanted one they just came up in conversation because they gave you one yes in edinburgh yeah grappling hook yeah my friend gus gave me one there you go that was episode 042 it has inspired a new problem we don't just solve problems we cause them so ben clifford put in a problem saying that he's been inspired by your grappling hook chat. But their issue is that while they'd like to be Batman, they are not a wealthy business person. So they haven't got the funds to just put any old grappling hook. Yeah.

You know, they've got budgetary limits. Yeah, they don't have a Batmobile. They haven't got a Batmobile. They haven't got access to military grade. They haven't got the Batfund. Yeah, or the Batcredit card from Batman and Robin. They haven't got the Bat Fund. Yeah, or the Bat Credit Card from Batman and Robin. They have not got the Bat Credit Card from Batman and Robin. Which I was recently talking about to some friends,

and I realized that, you know, when you get a credit card with like a picture or something, you can do that with debit cards. Oh, yeah, yeah. It's very funny. Like a custom one. Yep. You do that through your bank.

Yep. cards oh yeah it's very funny yeah like a custom one yep you do that through your bank yep that means that batman or alfred had to sort the bat logo on this card yeah like and also that means he's got a bank account under batman like i'm pretty sure that the bank are going to be like i think bruce wayne and batman are the same No. They would just walk in dressed as Batman and open a cash account. Okay. And I think they're pretty used to putting the Bat logo on things. That's like... At that stage.

That's their whole thing. I guess there were already two other Batman films that had come out by then. Was it the one with Schwarzenegger? It is, yeah. It's the one where... I could go about this all day, but they made the merch for it before they'd written the script. That's so good. The script was just to join all the merch together into a narrative.

Yeah, that's why it's so good. Forget Hero's Journey. It's Merch Journey. Merch Journey. Speaking of merch, we are wearing our ding shirts right now. We are wearing our ding shirts. Now, for the record, we are both wearing our ding shirts. There'll be a link in the show notes to the merch if anyone wants some.

You can look as cool as we do. We came up with the merch and then we came up with the podcast. That's true. But then we took two and a half years. Two and a half years to get to the merch and then it didn't arrive on time. Oh, anyway, back to, I don't know if you remember Ben Clifford. Oh, yeah, that guy. He wants to know what one utility they could strap to their belt

that would help them stop the most crime ideally under a hundred pounds okay which at the moment is about a hundred us dollars is about a hundred euros what's the best budget belt by ben says that would help me stop the most crime correct so I thought the place to start would be working out what type of crime is the most common. Oh. And then go about... You're right. Stopping it that way.

The criterion, other than cost, stop the most crime. Yeah. So I checked the Office for National Statistics. Yep. ONS, big fan of their work. Yep. The Office for National Statistics. Yep.

ONS, big fan of their work. Yep. Went to their most recent lease, which was March 2022. Sufficiently recent. And had a look at the most common crimes. And Ben is in the UK because all they've just quoted pounds. Yes. So we've got the 10 most common crimes. This is in the UK.

Gotcha. Would you like to have a guess at the most common crime the most common crime yeah so by crime something arrestable i guess or illegal illegal i bet it's something like uh most common crime is speeding that's not a crime is it that's just speeding a crime yeah yeah that would fall under vehicle offense oh vehicle offenses that is fifth on the list wow yeah 361,045 reports so there's four things that more than 360,000 people have done yeah or been arrested for actually it's a subtly different question isn't it because it's not it's not not who's done it. It's how many have been reported. It's which crimes are most enforced by police.

Or do people report? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. Probably just like theft or shoplifting in some category. Shoplifting is not, but theft is. Okay. Theft is theft. Theft is second.

Oh, so close. Yeah. I've been robbed. 2,605,000. Dang. That's a lot of theft. So we've got vehicle offenses at close. Yeah. I've been robbed. 2,605,000. Dang. That's a lot of theft. So we've got vehicle offenses at fifth. Yep.

Coming in at fourth, violence. So 1,507,000. It's all violent crime. Yeah. Wow. Yep. Okay. It's not top three.

Yeah, that's true. In a way, that's good. That's better. Still a lot. Yeah. Coming in at number three three computer misuse oh so it's like computer misuse yeah very specific that's like hacking data breaching ah right right right so that's 1 million 633 000 wow uh number one fraud fraud that's a good that's more enforcement of kind of white collary crime than i expect is it white collar though oh what was fraud fishing with ph so that's one of the main methods used to commit fraud that's not misuse of a computer it's yeah because it can

come in via email but also text uh all sorts of things, yeah. Yeah. And then it's basically ID. I don't know about you, I've been getting tons of them since the track and trace stuff from not the NHS has not been saying, oh, you've been in contact with someone. Yeah, a couple of days ago. And I always, one day I'm going to fall for one of these things because the most, I got one this week. I was like, oh, I wonder where that was. I went, wait a minute.

And it was something like NHS hyphen data hyphen portal dot dodgy something. And I'm like, wow, it's a suspicious phishing text. Yeah. So got to be really careful with those things. The advanced fee fraud and consumer and retail fraud was another big one. So that one, advanced fee fraud offenses include scams where victims transferred funds to fraudsters for postal deliveries. Right. There's loads of those where it's like, oh, you're shipping.

Yeah, money, yeah. For those who had received phishing messages, 54% have received messages from fraudsters pretending to be delivery companies, 32% from banks, building societies, or other financial institutions, and 29% from e-commerce companies. Where respondents had received phishing messages 11 provided personal information that could be used by fraudsters that's quite a high hit rate i can see why they do it yeah good scam yeah yeah and so i thought i'd actually ask about it because i think a lot of us feel very savvy when it comes to that stuff

yeah when some of the scam stuff i get sent, there's NHS texts and things like that. I can't help but think if I was older and a little less clued in, I would 100% fall for this. I'm terrified of the equivalent of me when I'm old. Because I'm like, because we grew up immersed in a bunch of this tech, I feel. But even then, it's still, you've got to keep your wits about you. I'm like, when I'm old and I'm sick of having my wits about me and the technology's new and I'm not fluent in it, I'm like, I'm totally going to get scammed.

So I asked if anyone who follows a podcast on Twitter has been scammed, especially if they don't imagine themselves to be in that position. We did have someone who works fixing computers and stuff who was telling me about an oap that they helped to have been scammed twice in a week yeah uh that was one where obviously they'd called saying we're microsoft we've noticed some activity blah blah basically they took her money and then also ended up like deleting all of her files or something oh that's just a jerk move on the way out but the worst one is that then she got a phone call the next day saying you know we've noticed some strange activity and she was like well yeah

these guys did this they took my money and now they've deleted all my images and they're like oh okay we can fix that it's just 300 pounds oh wow to go for the final dip twice in the same week, which is just heartbreaking. She was able to report it to the bank and they were able to return the money. But there is a surprising amount of onus on the banks to stop these things. And so if anyone has been scammed, you've got more chance to get your money back than I think most people expect. If you actually swallow your pride and report it and go to the bank, yeah, you're getting money back. So now we know fraud, number one, most common crime. What can you put on a utility bill to stop that?

At first I was thinking I'll be smart and say it's under £100 because the answer is common sense. You know, like, oh, you've got to know. You know, it's about a… The utility was inside us the whole time yeah or like a bunch of brochures you can give to people that explains more about fraud and what to look out for but then i realized that's not technically it's stopping crime but it's not preventing it's not stopping the crimes it's just lessening the effectiveness of the crime yes exactly so i was like what would stop this

so i i asked people have you ever committed a crime why oh okay because if we can understand why then we can work out how to stop it i'll read out some of my favorite responses first so zoe griffiths said they ran a red light it was because they got distracted by an unusual road sign and was busy worrying if they were following the road rule they said they were in brackets they were caught it was outside a police station and there was a police car behind terrible criminal that zoe they then tried to let the officer into the car but couldn't work out how because they'd left the lights on and the flat battery had knocked the central locking out that's correct the only reason they were driving was they were driving it around to charge the battery up which then led them to

answer both of the police officers questions where are you going and where have you come from with my house which didn't help the situation they said punished amazingly no but they would not do it again so obviously there were quite a few things like that where people were saying i broke the law but i didn't mean to yeah because of this so a lot of it was just mistakenness and i would argue that majority of crimes are not caused by people mistaken no there was another person who replied to say when i was a younger teenager i would often lie on the internet and say i was over the age of 18 i think everyone can work out why i did it they said they were caught by my dad once and afterwards i was allowed to move my computer to my room 10 out of 10 would do again so a lot of minor stuff things like that my personal favorite

was um dave bluestein australian comedian who said i used to break into the nursery in the park as in a gardening nursery yeah oh wow used to break into the nursery in the park across from their friend joel's house we didn't steal anything we just removed the panes from the orchid greenhouse sneak inside and look at the flowers for a bit actually quite a few responded to me to say that they had broken the law by purchasing marijuana, assumingly. Somewhere where it's not legal. Across the UK? Yes, or somewhere not legal, wherever they are.

Oh, wherever they are. I think in all cases, they weren't caught and happy to keep doing it. And I thought that's really interesting. So I actually went into a bunch of psychology papers where people have talked about the reasons why people commit crimes and there's so many factors but some of the bigger ones are things like where the outcome of the crime outweighs the negatives right yep yep yeah so a lot of times where if crime does pay but then you get more into the whole perception of the fact that people commit crimes either because they need to or feel that they need to so it

might be that they are in a position where they feel stuck in a cycle it might be that let's say you don't have enough money to have a nice suit to get a haircut to look presentable by society standards or maybe you don't have enough money to go for the type of education that you feel you need or something and also a lot of people can't get into education because they're on the poverty line or below it and don't have access to it because they're too busy worrying about whether they can eat they can't get a job because they wouldn't do well in a job interview from that, which then adds to the problem that they don't have any income. So they're stuck in this loop in a cycle that our current system of society doesn't

look after effectively. Someone committing fraud might feel that is the only option they have. I know that's not always the case, but that is one of the things that might play a role. So you've got direct factors like that. Then you've got indirect factors where, again, someone stuck in a position of hopelessness in society might start to get depressed by that. They might, because they can't see anything else changing around them or being able to change their situation, might as well change your mindset. So then you start taking substances that make you feel happier, that make you feel better or make you forget things. And then next thing you know, not only is the actual taking of the drugs or purchasing of the drugs illegal, but also then needing to fund yourself to do that usually means having to perform some sort of crime. So a lot of crime

actually really stems back to the fact that our system at the moment does not look after a lot of people efficiently enough that they feel like crime isn't an option. They're not being offered anything better. Or it's people in a society that feel like they don't need to respect other people or their property or their livelihoods because they feel disrespected yeah and not looked after in their livelihoods and things like that and i'm including like people who commit fraud shoplifting little small things some of the things that we're you know where people like oh i accidentally stole a suite from sainsbury's and do it again if I didn't mean to, whatever. A lot of people would be more inclined to follow rules

if they felt that they lived in a society that respected them or where the laws involved felt like they were being fairly applied. Yep. Because people at the moment, a lot of the laws are aimed at, what are laws, if anything, just society agreeing that, okay, that's okay to do and that's not okay to do. And there's a lot of laws that aren't in place that should be that would stop a lot of people from effectively stealing money from everyone else. Now, I could talk at length about all of this and there's so much more in it,

but I'm also aware that we want to know what can go on a utility bill yes so i'm doing some research i'm currently ever since trying to answer this problem i am now reading a brilliant book by james plunkett called end state nine ways society is broken and how we fix it which i'm really enjoying because it feels like it's actually providing answers and one thing we know about industrialization and its effects on civilization as a whole yeah we sort of had the problem we're in now just after industrialization because there was nothing in place looking after people yeah i blame the looms always blame the looms looms blame the looms it's new merch look it up yeah while i'm like capitalism is part of the problem we had that problem but then basically we ended up with social democracy where we started

forming all of these laws and rules to help regulate and look after society as a whole but then there's new markets opened up with the internet and all these other commerce sort of type things that aren't regulated and now we're having a similar problem where people being taken advantage of we're seeing the way that the old governmental system is being manipulated and used the answer though is hope if you don't hope you stop trying and you stop trying to change things do you know that they said that like if we got rid of child labor oh goodness destroy the economy every time limits have been trying to put on a free market situation people complain that's gonna destroy it every time the idea of an educate public education system that was deemed impossible

there's all these things where the people in power at the time said, this is impossible. It will never happen. And it was through just constant pushing and urging and people coming together and working on it that it became possible and that we have those things. So if we feel like having a society where people care about each other enough that they're not committing crimes, where people feel looked after enough, they don't feel like they need to commit crimes, then all we need to do is start believing that society could work then we can achieve it i know that what we want is an answer where it's a physical item you can put on a utility bill right so i've brought it upon myself to come up with something that represents that hope so that when you see other people with it you know that they likewise believe that there could possibly be a new future because hope breeds hope.

So I'm thinking maybe a badge. A hope belt. You know a belt buckle is a thing. A hope buckle. I'm just, I don't know. You're going for a real practical part of the belt. It needs to be something that everyone can either make or easily access because I don't want it to be something where people need to buy it.

Once it's on the belt, people aren't like, oh, that's my bit done. No, no, no, no, no. But I would argue that there is no one thing on Batman's belt that just means that Batman's job is done. Yeah, but the belt, you're like, job done, got my belt. No, but Batman's got a Batmobile. If Batman actually cared about stopping crime. he wouldn't be bruce wayne he'd be funding major political change yeah 100 i mean to be fair the problem here is batman the problem is the belt the answer

the grappling hook is that it's the shark repellent no that that's too much of funding of things that aren't necessary no okay you can have some unnecessary you get one batcopter yeah and that's it okay i tell you what though if anyone's got any i'm gonna open this up again because i know it's such a big one oh my god yeah i can't ding this but if anyone has an idea of something that could help people feel that there is hope and a way of creating change but i think that uh the apathy of there's nothing we can do is an issue yeah exactly that's why i'm saying we need something that everyone can recognize go oh we all recognize that there is something we can do there's so many things out there i know we're not normally a political

podcast and i'm fully aware that this is nowhere near as funny as the last episode but look it wouldn't be a problem squared without some real problems every now and then so if anyone has any ideas on how we could do that or indeed wants to share anything get us on at a problem squared on twitter comment on any of the images we put on instagram or you can get us up on the problem posing page but choose solution that's our problem square.com also if you hated this tell me I would I will avoid anything vaguely serious in the future team Matt it's a large expensive societal issue if you have ways of helping prevent crime or creating large structural societal change. There you go.

Yeah. Start talking about it. Get out there. You don't even have to tweet us. Donate a hundred pounds to a politician or political movement that aligns with the change you want to see in the world.

That is a very good piece of advice. That would be my best thing on the utility bill. And if you can't afford a belt, write that down on a piece of paper and tuck it in your pocket. best thing on the utility belt and if you can't afford a belt write that down on a piece of paper and tuck it in your pocket this problem comes from charlie who says what is the speed of smell wow it's a good question good question yeah because we have the speed of sound

yeah that's what we can hear there's no it's not a speed of touch well i guess you know what the speed of and actually i'm not going to go into i'm not going to go into nerves because it's not a speed of touch. I guess you know what the speed of touch is. And actually I'm not going to go into nerves because it's like speed of sound is the sound traveling to you. And when I did have a bit of a look online to see if people have already answered this question, a bunch of people did talk about how fast it takes to get to your brain and process and all that jazz. I'm not going to do that.

And again, I feel like in a previous episode, you and I talked about the slight delay that happens in processing information. I feel like, yes. So, or we might have just talked about it as friends. But essentially, we are both acting slightly in the past to something happening. Yeah, and human, we're sloshy messes. So, I'm not going to go into the biology of what's happening. It's the stimulus getting to what's happening it's the

stimulus getting to you yes and the speed of taste i guess is a ridiculous question yeah that's true how fast is the food delivery so i'm going to do speak to smell getting to the body so the smell starts somewhere else and gets to your nose yep now at this point people are probably expecting me to do like the diffusion of gases. And there's a bunch of physics and chemistry and mathematics calculating how the random walks, if you release a bunch of molecules into another bunch of molecules, they're all going to randomly bounce around. That's assuming there's no wind. Assuming there's no wind. Blah, blah, blah.

I don't even know the difference between standing behind someone when they fart and standing in front of them. That's assuming there's no wind. Assuming there's no wind. Blah, blah, blah. Brownian motion. The difference between standing behind someone when they fart and standing in front of them. That's not what I meant by brownian motion. So it's such a complex question. So a lot of people would dismiss it as a meaningless question because there are so many confounding factors. But I still want to find out the speed of a smell. So you're going to be the smelly. Okay.

And this... What did you call me? And this will vary smelly to smelly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You're the smeller. We're going to do an experiment and we're going to find out how fast smell moves. Something over here will be the smelly. Yeah, you're the smelly.

I'm the smelly. You're the smeller. Yeah. I'm going to put it a certain distance from you and you're going to tell me when you can smell it and then we'll calculate what the speed was i thought what's going to be the smell in my bag here i've got all the things we need for this experiment i've got three uh these are solo cups like plastic oh they look like the beer pong type i you know i bought a whole pack of these in the states because whenever i have a u.s themed evening i drink beer out of a solo cup and how often States because whenever I have a US themed evening,

I drink beer out of a solo cup. And how often do you have a US themed evening? Approximately one and a quarter times a year. And is that like around Super Bowl or? It's every Super Bowl and every US election. Although I might do the midterms. So that's now one and a half. Now I would call this glad wrap.

Yes, I did. Clean film. Yeah. Saffron wrap. What do you want to call that? midterms so that's now one and a half now i would call this glad wrap yes i did cling film yeah saffron wrap whatever you want to call that uh so what i can do is i'm going to add these three cups i'm going to put something smelly in one or more of them you won't know which ones smell and which ones don't uh-huh i will then break the cling film holding them down yeah and then you will have to wait to see because you won't know if there's a smell or not until you can say you can definitely smell something yeah and then we set the clock and we know the distance and we know how long the smell took to get to you okay yeah cuz I feel like if you knew it was definitely gonna smell like you convince yourself you can

smell it potentially sooner because I'm sure that will make a difference. If our brains know we're meant to smell something, I think we will. Are you going to do it outside the room then? Yes, outside the room. I'm going to one and a half blind it. So I'm going to number these underneath. Actually, I'll get a Sharpie now. Matt is out of his chair and picking up a permanent marker.

Other permanent markers are available. So this is going to be cup b and this is going to be cup c is that numbering or lettering it's numbering and so what i'm going to do mathematicians everything so we got cup a cup one and cup alpha oh no okay so we got a b. Yeah. I will know which ones I do or don't put smell in outside. Then I will shuffle them around. So then I, in theory, won't know. Okay. The smell is going to be Lynx deodorant. Oh, classic.

We got the limited edition artificial intelligence. Lynx AI. Lynx AI. I got this completely out of curiosity fragrance powered by ai what does that even mean by you what does that even mean what decoded by you it's links linear algebra lynxia algebra so we're gonna call it uh three people are laughing right now okay uh 46 terabytes of data. 6,000 ingredients. 3.5 million possible combinations.

Now I'm going to have to check that. One fragrance. So somehow they used artificial intelligence to come up with a Lynx or Axe, if you're in the US. Yes. Branded as Axe body spray. a lynx or axe if you're in the u.s yes branded as axe body spray if you think obnoxious teenage deodorant yeah this is it so i'm gonna go load these okay you're gonna relax now i feel like i have to go a reasonable distance from the office yeah because when you're actually gonna go outside amazing otherwise i'll come back in i'll be smelling of it smell of it i'm going to try

and get out middle of nowhere load these up okay i'll see you the room i brought the cups i'm gonna get my tape measure out okay so i'm gonna put you a meter away all right i've backed myself do you want to come against the wall do you want to come a meter okay now i don't know which cup is which so i shuffle them around so i don't know if i don't know if there's smell in this or not. Okay, here we go. Okay. Stopwatch. What do you want me to do when I smell it?

Just say smell or yes. Okay. Or just say yes. Have a response. Yeah, have some kind of response. Okay, I'm going to open it on 10 seconds so I get the exact timing. Okay, here we go. I'm not getting any change. Nothing yet?

No. Nothing? No change. I don't know how long we leave it before we deem this one... I think I would have smelt it. Empty. Let's have a look. Empty.

That was all good. Okay, so system works. Okay, I'm measuring out the second one. Okay, that's a meter. Okay. Are you ready? Three, two, one, open. are you ready three two one open not getting anything yet still nothing still nothing

still nothing i forget how long we left it for nothing no i think i would have smelled it by now Still nothing. I forget how long we left it for nothing. I think I would have smelled it by now. Yeah, nothing. Okay, that one had smell in it. Did it? Yeah, I can smell it.

Hold the cup like you did just then so it's facing me. Like I'm blasting it at you. I'm not getting it. Nothing. Okay, we'll do the last one. For this one, should we half the distance? Weirdly, I just started smelling something. Ah!

43 seconds. Wow. Wow. Yeah, I'm really smelling it now. Okay. We were just impatient. Yeah. Wow.

Okay. That was 43 seconds. Let's do this one. But is it the same smell, this one?? It's gonna be the same smell. Yeah, so would I know we need a palate cleanser smell It's a lovely sunset Okay, we've slightly aired the office out. Okay. Put that in your nose. It's on my nose? That's a meter.

Okay. Got it. Okay. I'm going to open this. I'm lining it up with the timer. In three, two, one, released. 50-50 chance there's a smell. And now we have to wait until 43 seconds. Now we know. Last time it took 43 seconds.

Try and do some... Deep breathing is allowed, I think. I think you can deliberately try and... I'm not trying to not smell it, am I? Yeah. No. trying to not smell it am i yeah no how are we going for time no i don't want to influence i'm still not getting anything okay all right that's been one minute that one did have some smell on it interesting i got it after 16 seconds you're sitting right next to it but i'm sitting

now and you're upwind from it. And I, yeah. Because the cups are facing upwards. 40. I'm 42. Oh, that's not far off. Did you get it from the last one or did you not time yourself? I did get it from the last one, but I didn't, annoyingly, I didn't time myself.

I would say I'm 40 centimeters from the cup. I'm going to run the numbers. I'm still not getting it. I wonder if you moved that cup, if I'll start smelling it. Because would say I'm 40 centimeters from the cup. I'm going to run the numbers. I'm still not getting it. I wonder if you move that cup if I'll start smelling it because you moved the other one around a bit. Yeah, I did move the other one around. I'm agitating it now. Maybe that releases more.

Maybe it's the AI. Maybe it's the AI. It's detected and neutralized you as a threat. Or maybe my... I just started to smell it. Oh. And I think it is because you did a gesture with your hand and I think it wafted it yeah we should wait for all the air in the room to stop moving

which would take a very long time but i just ran the numbers on so it took you 43 seconds at a meter took me 16 seconds at 0.4 meters by your measurement the smell was moving at 2.3 centimeters a second by my measurement the smell was moving at 2.5 centimeters per second so they are scarily close and actually you know what let's multiply that by 60 so that's about one. You got 1.4 meters a minute. I got 1.5 meters a minute. Wow. To the degree of accuracy of this ridiculous experiment, that is very good. So smell in your office, provided it is in a cup receptacle.

Okay. So smell moves at around about between 0.08 and 0.09 kilometers an hour. Not very fast. In your office. In my office. Lynx AI. Yeah. At this temperature and this level of wafting.

In a cup. In a cup. So your mileage may vary. But to answer the question, what is the speed of smell? The speed of this particular smell on this occasion, 0.09 kilometers an hour. Wow, that gets a ding from me. There's a rule of a meter and a half every minute. There you go.

I'm impressed. Thanks for that. I'll smell you later. I thought you were going to go a ding pong. Oh, nice. I think you're gonna go with ding pong oh nice and now it's time for business comma any other on a wait now it's time for business comma other comma any I didn't even realize I could break it down further okay Beck yeah we had a discussion about when a plate becomes a bowl and when a bowl is a plate.

Yes. And we got a variety of responses from people. Look, honestly, some of them just people's opinions. That's true. We got a lot of opinions. Yeah. Not necessarily ones worth commenting on. I would say what I did like was Marcel.

Marcel's response was the solution to the bowl slash plate debate is clearly the same solution as the ballroom problem which was on a previous episode when does a room become a hall and when is the hall a room yes yeah and so it depends what you put in it so if you put a soup in it it's a bowl yeah so if you put soup on a plate it's a bowl and if you put a slice of pizza in a bowl it's a plate oh oh i wanted to disagree with that, but I think I might agree. Oh, that's terrifying. What?

You reckon if you have a bowl of pizza, that's a plate? I would say if I wanted to eat pizza and I had to put it down somewhere and there's only a bowl, I would say, and Lucy's like, what are you doing? I'd say I'm just using this bowl as a plate. Yeah. So it's a plate. I'm using it as a plate.

But does that make it a plate? I guess temporarily it does. i'm using it as a plate but does that make it a plate i guess temporarily it does i'm using this bowl it is a bowl that i'm using as a plate no i've gone back to my first instinct i don't buy that oh it's still a bowl interestingly lubit it's spelt leet speak so l zero zero nitic said if you wish to sort crockery into two categories i think a decent distinguisher for plates versus bowls is that if you consider yourself to be putting something on it, then it's a plate. Whereas if you're putting something in it, then it's a bowl. So if you said I'm putting this slice of pizza in this receptacle,

it's a bowl. But if you said I'm putting a slice of pizza on this. That's like the difference between a bus and a van. You get into a van, but you get onto a bus. I think that's interesting because that's the sort of thing where just your natural instinct might lead the way. Because if I put a piece of slice of pizza, I'm already saying it. I put a slice of pizza in a bowl. To use it as a plate.

If I was using the bowl as a plate plate i would still say it's in there i wouldn't say is it how much of the food appears outside of the receptacle i don't know if the answer can be ask your subconscious why not we should be you already know the answer was in you the whole time yeah yeah on you am i a plate oh they also said bonus third category would be cups. And I think the line from bowl to cup is crossed when you can no longer put a spoon in all the way to the bottom at such an angle for it to scoop out liquid while the remaining is level. Oh. Yeah. There was some really interesting stuff there. Nicole said it's definitely on Patreon said it's definitely a plate, but one for catching messy good.

I think they meant messy food, but I like to think it's messy good. It's a bit like chaotic good. So, yes, it's chaotic neutral bowl. Yeah. Now, they said if you tried soup in that, I think referring to the picture of the dish that I held up in the image when I was in the cupboard, they said you'd be scraping the bottom the whole time. Incorrect, Nicole. In fact, we have and do sometimes use those dishes for soup because I like to rest my toast on the rim. I've never known you to scrape the bottle of anything.

Also on Patreon, someone said, and other people agree with them, Christ van Willingen, I think. I mispronounced that. I'm very sorry. They say in Dutch, they call it a deep plate. Oh. Which I commented is just refusing to pick a side. Also, then what- A deep plate. Oh. Which I commented is just refusing to pick a side. Also, then what- A deep plate.

Then I want to know what's the crossover there. It's a shallow bowl. Come on. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. A deep plate. What's the difference between a shallow bowl and a deep plate? A deep board.

But we did do the bowl poll. The bowl poll? The bowl poll on Twitter. Roll on the bowl poll. We asked you, our listeners and followers. It's the the bowl poll. The bowl poll? The bowl poll on Twitter. Roll on the bowl poll. We asked you, our listeners and followers. It's the sole bowl poll. Based on the things that we were discussing in the episode, when does a plate become a bowl,

which was the amount of central surface with curves rim discounted. Yep. The amount of central surface with curves rim counted when the depression is the depth of a spoon. Spoon test. Spoon test. Turns out the people are wrong. Did you not agree?

I did not agree. We've had surface curves with rim, 19.9%. Surface curves with no rim, 29.7%. But winning with a staggering majority of 50.4%. An absolute majority. Ridiculous. The spoon test. Wow. Yeah.

Fair enough. Now, as we know the polls, it can- The listeners have spoken. Yeah, but they might be wrong. If there is a professional out there, look, we settled it with a dentist in the last one. Yep. If anyone can come in with an argument by authority, let us know.

But until then. Any cockery experts? Yeah. Until then, it's the spoon test. I'm okay with that. I've made peace with the spoon test. I still want to know at what point it becomes a hat. In terms of any other AOB, I mentioned my ongoing project to break the world record for the most steps the slinky has gone down.

Yes. And I said I'd found some candidate steps in Finland, which were fine, but not great. We've had two types of help come in. A lot of people have suggested other sets of stairs. Yeah. When you say two kinds of help, do you mean the ones that are actually useful and the ones where they have not listened to the specifications you require? Let me rephrase.

Three types of help. The zeroth type not help the first type people suggesting other sets of stairs several people mentioned ski slopes having stairs to go up them like artificial ski slopes but the ones i looked at online and specifically they're gonna be quite deep aren't they to allow for skis this is it but often they're like the access repair steps oh okay go alongside but they are often very deep and the ones i looked at vary and so there was a ski jumping hill in norway which apparently has around 600 steps but when i looked online they're varying depth so irish and there's no landings though but they're not consistent and so a few

people pitch different variations on that some people mentioned other like castles with nearly 100 steps for example Adam on the problem posing page put through the solution of Thetford castle mound has around 90 steps depends how you count the first or last step. Classic problem. However, I think the winning suggestion is the Lion's Mound Monument in Belgium. This is where the Battle of Waterloo happened. This was built in the early 1800s. So post-battle. I think it was like in the 1820s. So it's new enough to have well-engineered steps, but old enough they didn't care about health and safety.

226 steps. Okay. Which is good. Yeah. And looking at them in photos, they look very regular. And I think they're going to be like a nice, generous gradient. So what I really need now is if someone's prepared to go there and measure the steps and have a look at them i need

an eyewitness account i could go to belgium but that we're in belgium again i'm not sure it's wherever waterloo took place okay because i might be in belgium at the end of october oh that's relevant information yeah okay so we'll check if that's going to be close if anyone is in belgium happens to be there before the end of october yeah and can go and measure these steps let us know we don't want to duplicate effort so if you want to get in touch or just do it yeah what i want to know is the average height the average run and how much variation are we talking like what's the smallest what's the biggest you don't have to measure all 226 a sample of a couple in different places is enough and eyeball the rest so that would be great i feel like that's a good candidate and it's close enough to the uk i can

get there the other type of help is someone got in touch with a company that can make custom slinkies oh so that's very exciting. They normally manufacture car parts. They're an auto manufacturer, but they have made custom slinkies as like a swag giveaway. Right. And so one of the people who use them as a supplier told me about them and put me in touch. And they said, yes, they can't guarantee they'll do it. But if I work out the specs I need, they'll see if they can manufacture that slinky for me. Oh, wow.

So if we end up with a set of stairs where an off-the-shelf slinky is not going to do it, we'll get a custom one made. So good job, listeners. But your job is not yet done. Let's measure those steps. Measure those steps. Thank you all very much for listening. And don't forget there is a hierarchy to our listeners. Our absolute favorites are the ones who measure steps for us in Belgium.

Yeah. Closely followed by all of you. We love you all, but particularly the people who support us on Patreon because they make this whole thing happen. We pick three of our Patreon supporters at random and truly at random. So people will reappear in this list if we wait long enough. This time we would like to thank... James Haim or Higgum.

Johannes or Johannes Orland. And Steve Charlewood. Charlewood? Charliewood. Charlewood. Charlewood. We love you all. We do. Thiswood. Shallowood. Shallowood. We love you all.

We do. This cast, comma, pod. Oh, gosh. Still doing it. Doing that on the way out. I've got to bookend it. Squared, comma, a problem. It was brought to you by me, Parker, comma, Matt. My host, comma, Co.

Hill, comma, Matt, my host, Co, Hill, Beck, producer, Carter, Armstrong, Lauren, you, thank, listening, four. so matt back we ran out of thankfully we got thank goodness all the stale all the stale snacks have been cleared out snacks we do know your card i may have found oh no what no for the record beck is now walking across the room to her rucksack she's pulling out a pack of oh my goodness what's it's crunchy really cheesy so it's a large pack of walkers what'sits. We haven't done these yet, have we? No. Really cheesy flavor corn puffs. Corn puffs. Best before November this year. Yeah. They're in date. They're in date.

Should we go in? And we tend to say to people like twisties are like knickknacks, but Wotsits mixed together. But these appear from the packet to be knickknack shaped. I'm going in. They smell. I'm trying to see if I can smell them. Like Lynx AI. Hasn't reached it.

Does everything in the room right now. Hang on. If I bury my face in this, that's very twisty. Oh, is it? Yeah. Smells oily. Wait, twisties smell oily or do they smell oily? I can can tell you mate twisty's have a real strong okay i've got i've got a wee handful here you go oh you're already going for oh his face his eyes

just went very wide that's close it is close it's got a sort of muted flavor more i feel like twisties are very salty this is a bit more They'll hit you much harder. This introduces itself first. Yeah. And doesn't hang around for long. Yeah, whereas twisties is like, I'm here! Yeah, these are a little more powdery.

These are more British. On the end, these are more British. It's like twisties, but they've been living here for 17 years. I want to keep eating these. Yeah.

All right. Well, we'll keep doing that and we'll let the listeners have some time off. Who knows what we found in America.