A Problem Squared - 045 = A minute of New Yorkin' and "Hey, I'm walkin'!"

Episode Date: October 24, 2022

In THIS episode... * Can we increase the chance of catching the subway by walking to the nearest stop in the direction of travel?  * How long is a New York Minute, really? * And some serious jet lag.  Thank you to everyone who sent in New York related questions! If you want to read more about Todd W. Schneider, you can find them on Twitter here: https://twitter.com/todd_schneider Here is the code and wait times graph referenced in Matt's problem: https://toddwschneider.com/posts/nyc-subway-data-analysis/  And the Github link is here if you'd like to rerun Todd’s code for yourself: https://github.com/toddwschneider/nyc-subway-data For recreated images of New York Minute, head on over to the APS Twitter or Instagram. And, as always, if you've got a problem or a solution hit us up on our website aproblemsquared.com.        

two hosts who just can't get along have to travel to new york city a series of mishaps compel the adversary bad but you know what they it compels the duo in order to accomplish their goals, to unite against the forces around them. Wow. Yeah. If anyone recognizes that short plot breakdown, shame on you. Because you've been picking way more well-known cultural reference points. Yes. To include Trapdoor in this.

Yes. For your introductions. Yes. That's niche. Yes. And I thought we got on great. We do. This is how I'm discovering.

What was the first line of that? Two hosts who just can't get along. Oh my goodness. I mean, we can't, sometimes. Sometimes. I know we get on really well.

Yeah. But we bicker. For the purposes of narrative. But yes, that comes from a film, which we'll be discussing later in the episode. No spoilers. In this episode...

I calculate the optimal direction to travel in to catch the subway. I'll be working out how long is a New York minute. And we may have any other business. We're not sure. We're on vacation. We're on vacation. Yeah. Give us a day. Give us not sure. We're on vacation. We're on vacation. Yeah. Yeah.

Give us a day. Give us a break. I'm so not with it. We're both very jet lagged. So Matt. Beck. What have you been up to? Oh my goodness.

You've seen everything I've been doing for the last three days. I've been to Disneyland. That is very true. I went to Orlando before I came up to New York. You didn't invite me to that part, did you? I didn't. I didn't. You're right.

I was in Italy. I knew you couldn't do it. Yeah. Went to Disney World. That was amazing. Yeah. For people who watch YouTube, there's a YouTube channel called Captain Disillusion who

which is run with the intern quote unquote intern on that channel is an individual named Alan and Alan the intern and I went to Disney World which was a ridiculous

amount of fun I know that there's a bunch of people listening who are losing their minds very excited right now yes yeah but for those who are

clueless some guy named Alan Alan works in VFX I'm not clueless, I'm with you. Some guy named Alan. Alan works in VFX. Oh, not clueless. No, I know of Alan. I know from you telling me about Alan. Correct. Yeah. But I didn't know about this fame. Oh, yeah. So, yeah, Alan, he's got

a YouTube channel where he works in VFX and he kind of debunks fake videos as well as doing educational videos about how VFX works. And so there's not that far from where I was going to be and we're like we should meet up in Orlando and we should go Disney World and we did not plan ahead which of the various Disney parks we were going to go to. There's more than one park?

There's more than one park. There's four parks. Oh my gosh. There's the good ones. There's like Magic Kingdom. That's the one with the castle. Yeah. All that jazz.

There's Epcot. That's like the cool futuristic from the one with the castle. Yeah. All that jazz. There's Epcot. That's like the cool futuristic from the 70s. Okay. Like a World of Tomorrow type thing. Yeah, like a World of Tomorrow. Yeah. There's Hollywood Studios. That's where they put like the Galaxy's Edge

Star Wars experience. And then there's Animal Kingdom. Which is like a zoo? No animals. Oh. No animals. Oh. No kingdom. Oh. Has got Avatar World. Right.

So we did that. We both realized neither of us had ever bothered doing Animal Kingdom. It sounds to me like James Cameron was like, I think Avatar should be in Disney World. And they're like, you can go in Animal Kingdom. Animal Kingdom. It's like that. There's a ride that's based on Everest, the mountain. Oh, right.

Do you know what? That makes sense though. Like if I was going to make like a roller coaster or something, I'd be like, what goes up and down real big? Everest. Himalayas. Job done. Yeah.

It is a roller coaster, right? It is a roller coaster. Okay. And then miscellaneous Lion King things. There's a ghost train or something. But we had a lot ofaster. Okay. And then miscellaneous Lion King things. It was a ghost train or something. I'd be a bit. But we had a lot of fun. So we did that.

And then we went over to Hollywood Studios to do like the Star Wars stuff, which is kind of fun. Even though neither of us are massive Star Wars fans. No. Great VFX. Yeah, well, that's it. That's what it's about, isn't it? I'm not really a massive Disney fan. Are you a rollercoaster person?

I love a rollercoaster. I'm not big on the upside down. I can do a couple of loop-a-dee-loops. Sorry, the technical phrase loop-a-dee-loops. Loop-a-dee-loops. Or inversions. I prefer loop-a-dee-loops. No, I love a roller coaster.

I can't do spinning rides. Can't do teacups or any of those. Oh, yeah, yeah. Not unless you want to see my lunch. We then met up in New York. I came up from Orlando. Yes. And we timed it so we both landed at the airport. And our good sound quality in this episode is because we've gone to a studio in New York. Oh, yeah.

Yeah. With like skyline views. Yeah. Well, I can see a crane building the skyline. And we've got a sound engineer, Jodie. Jodie. We never have a sound engineer. Yeah, I know.

And we've got Lauren normally when we're. Oh, yeah. Lauren's great. Yeah. We've got Lauren on Zoom. Yeah. Lauren's in the room. But Jodie's in real life. J when we're. Oh, yeah, Lauren's great. Yeah. We've got Lauren on Zoom. Yeah, Lauren's in the room. But Jodie's in real life. Jodie's here.

Yeah, yeah. Well, I'm having a great time in New York. But actually, before I go into that. What? I wanted to tell you about something in Italy. So I was staying with friends in Castro Vallari or Castro Vallari, depending on where in Italy you live. It's very adversarial in that regard.

Just rub it in my face. This is why we can't get along, Matt. I'm just trying to set up the story that you've, anyway. So yeah, we were staying there. And I said to my friend Yaz, who lives there, what's your favorite thing about living here? And she said, billboard mountain. Billboard mountain.

And I was like, excuse me? And she's like, okay, I think it's called Mont San D'Angelo or something. There's a little mountain, little peak. Right. You know, just on the, on the very edge of town.

Like, right. You know, you hit the last road and boom, it's right there. Gotcha. It sort of reminded me of Arthur's Seat in Edinburgh. Oh,

like a very abrupt. Not like a cliff type. No, no, no, no. Rock suddenly. Yeah. Go up. And very abrupt. Not like a cliff type thing. No, no, no. A rock suddenly go up. And I thought it would be as easy to climb as Arthur's Seat. You can saunter up and down Arthur's Seat.

Yeah, it was not as easy. Oh. Yeah, it was anyway. Were you unprepared? It was a very, the last bit is very steep and it was a proper all fours. Oh my goodness. Like scrambling up. Yeah.

Proper scrambling. The reason it's called, it's nicknamed Billboard Mountain. Billboard Mountain. Is because there's this big old mountain. Yep. It's overlooking the whole town. You can see it from miles around. You know what would be great on this?

Couple of billboards. Right? Right on the top. Right on the top. Not even like leaning against it like the Hollywood sign. Oh, like raised above the mountain. Yeah. They're like, oh, I'll put two billboards up there.

Everyone will want to buy advertising space. Everyone in town will be able to see these billboards. And these are very decent sized billboards. People will abseil down them. They abseil down the billboard. They're like, this is a great idea. And they set them up and then they climbed out down to the bottom

and realized you cannot see what's on the billboards. No, no. As soon as you get to the bottom, you you cannot see what's on the billboards. No, no. As soon as you get to the bottom, you can't see. It's just a square. It's like this big.

It's so far away. Like, and it just, they must've been like, Oh, I bet the Hollywood sign is like, like each of those. Yeah. Like 12 foot tall.

Yeah. And, uh, it just made me laugh so much. Cause from miles and miles around, or you can see these two tiny little rectangles. You can buy a pixel worth of advertising. Yeah.

Yeah. You know what they could have used to check that in advance? Maths. Maths. Yeah. Yes. It must have cost so much money and it would have taken way more than one. It would have been a whole crew.

So what have they put on the billboards? Surprisingly, no one has bought any space on them. So they are just blank. on the billboards? Surprisingly, no one has bought any space on them. So they are just blank. There is a

pastel blue one with bits of rust showing through and pastel pink with bits of rust showing through. So you spent all day scrambling up a mountain

to look at two unused billboards? Yes. Is this why you are so dismissive of Times Square? Yeah. I was like, it's easy to get to.

You can read the signs. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There's lights. What? Nah climbed it all. It's easy to get to. You can read the signs. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There's lights. What? Nah. Nah.

We should get going. We should. This first problem is from Patrick from Manchester. Oh. They've said Patrick from, it's either Patrick from Manchester is their whole name. Or Patrick is from Manchester. Yes. And our good sound quality in this episode is because we've gone to a studio in New York.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. With like skyline views. Yeah. Well, I can see a crane building the skyline. And we've got a sound engineer, Jodie. Jodie. We never have a sound engineer.

Yeah, I know. And we've got Lauren normally when we're. Oh, yeah. Lauren's great. Yeah. We've got Lauren on Zoom. Yeah. Lauren's in the room.

But Jodie's in real life. Jodie's here. Yeah. We've got Lauren on Zoom. Yeah. Lauren's in the room. But Jodie's in real life. Jodie's here. Yeah. And Patrick says, how much do you increase your chance of catching the subway by walking to the nearest stop in the direction of travel? Where is the break even point? Right. So to set the scene, you're in a city.

Yeah. There are subway stops and you know the direction you want to go in. Yeah. And so Patrick provided a lot more information. They're going to or from their office or something, but they know direction you want to go in. Yeah. And so, perhaps you can provide a lot more information. They're going to or from their office or something, but they know where they got to go to. Yeah. And you're like, ah, I could walk in the direction I need to go

to catch the train to continue going in that direction. Or you could backtrack and get the train from a station behind you. Yeah. And then, well, why would you do that? Why would you walk in the reverse direction? Yeah. But what if you're really close? Well, this is the thing. We were talking about this before because I live slightly closer to Camden Town Tube than I do from King's Cross.

And King's Cross is one of the major stations in London. But only by a bit. And quite often I'm traveling in the direction of sort of King's Cross. Because that's going into London. Yeah. But when I put it into Google, it almost always sends me to Camden Town, Tube. And I think it's because it's like, well, it's closer. But in my head, I'm like...

It's less walking. Some of these things you can say, minimize walk time or minimize changes or just minimize time. And you're thinking minimize time. Yeah. You don't mind the extra walk. I don't mind an extra walk.

But potentially, counterintuitively, walking backwards and then getting the train forwards again could save you time. So we're going to solve this specifically for New York. Yes. Particularly a single subway line. Yes. Subway number one. We figured it out at the beginning. Yeah. They're not all numbered. I think like three are numbered. One, two, and three are numbered. And then they're like, this is boring. Let's mix up the names. Because the streets, like in New York, vertical lines are avenues, horizontal lines are numbered. And then they're like, this is boring. Let's mix up the names. Because the streets, like in New York, vertical lines are avenues, horizontal lines are streets, and they're numbered.

It's so good. And they started on the subway numbering them. And they're like, no, we shouldn't do that. And so they gave them other names. But the one we picked. Well, the names are just letters. A line, B line, C line. It could be.

I don't know if they're systematic. I don't think there are named lines. They're not named lines? Well, ask Jodie. Jodie. No, nothing. Are they all just letters? Letters and numbers.

Oh my goodness. Which is the name of Countdown in Australia. Whoa. That doesn't help. We chose the one line. Yep. And then we're going to generalize that across all other lines. Yeah, I can't see that being problematic at all.

And one of the great things about New York is it's very grid. Yes. Like Adelaide. Shout out to my South Australian brother and sister. New York is very similar to Adelaide City. Everyone always says that. In a lot of regards. Quite a few people I know.

I've never been to LA, but people say to me, oh, Adelaide's like a tiny LA. Not in terms of opportunities or people, but in terms of the way that's surrounded by the hills and the climate. Oh, okay. So it's a bit like LA in that it's a city. Shut up. Next to an ocean with some hills around.

That's why when people have ambitions of media success in Australia, they're like, I'm going to see if I can make it in Adelaide. Laugh it up, Perth boy. Good point. Good point. We both moved to London, so we're both hypocritical. But anyway, there must be an answer to this question because I was thinking if you were stood exactly between two stations

and so it's the same walk time either way, then you should definitely walk forward to safety of the station. On the flip side, the other extreme is if you were stood only like 10 meters down the road On the flip side, the other extreme is if you were stood only like 10 meters down the road from the reverse station, there's a point where it's definitely quicker just to go back a couple of steps, get that tube, go forward. And so there's our two extremes and they're different. And so somewhere in between, it must switch from one situation to the other. There's an intermediate value and that's a threshold point where if you're any further forward of that, you walk forward.

If you're any back of that, you walk back. Yeah. And so we set out to find out. Yeah, we did. Because you could just look up online, I'm sure. Like Google gives you walking times. Yeah, but we don't know if we can trust Google. I mean, Google got us stuck down an alleyway in a medieval city in Italy.

And so you being rescued by the Italian fire department, you deemed not as interesting as the billboard story. I agree with you. For you, Matt. For you and for us. Very true. Very, very true. And I appreciate that immensely.

So because we don't want to trust these navigation things, because they're the things we're testing, Becca and I thought we would choose six consecutive subway stops, which means there are five intervals. Yeah, little fence post. Little fence post problem there for you all. And we walked the whole thing and we timed it. We did.

Here is that audio. Yeah. All right, we're at 14th Street. Yep, yep, yep. On 7th Avenue. People who want to follow along on a map. And we're going to start the timer. So should I hit start and we'll start walking? Yeah. I'll count us in.

Ready? It's on the implied zero. Three, two, one, start. Okay. So I think first of all, the challenge that we're going to have with this is, um, we're coming up to one now. Already we've got the crossing. I feel like you don't get this as often. We went for 11 seconds. Yeah. And then we stopped. And then we had to stop.

And I guess it's because in the UK, we don't have the grid system. So there's a lot less intersections. There's just very, very regular stops. Yeah. With the grid system. Also, here the roads are big. Yes. They're wide roads and you're not allowed to jaywalk.

And this whole time we've been talking, there's been a red hand. And people are jaywalking as we speak. Oh people are yeah constantly crossing around us. Oh here we go we're on. Okay. But I worry about that in London because I know where the traffic is coming from how it moves all that jazz. I'll occasionally cross the street and I get nervous when tourists like follow my lead. Yeah yeah. I'm like no don't follow me. I'm you know cutting it fine but i reckon i can make it can i just say how incredibly new york this is there's like vapor coming out of a subway vent people walking their dogs i was going to say like i'm i'm not really paying attention to the paper i am paying attention to the puppy this is already you know i mean we're already at 15th

street we're walking to the the stop on 18th Street. Gotcha. And we have four streets. So they're quite close when you think about it. Here we go, we're off again. These stops, there's not a huge amount of distance between them, but we are getting stopped an awful amount of time by traffic lights. Okay, well, we will continue walking

and we will report back in once we have a time at the first stop. Yeah. We're coming up to 18th. Yeah, five minutes in, give or take. I think we need to find the subway entrance. Yeah, they're over there on the other side of the road. Oh, do we need to cross? I mean, we're not going down? There's one on this side too.

Actually, we've got a crossing person, so we're going to... We're going to make the most of this while we're here. Oh, and there's still cars cutting in front of us because they're allowed to do that while we're crossing. Yeah. And 526. All right. That's quite long, considering it was only a couple of blocks.

Yeah. One of the things I noticed, Matt, is that here there aren't buttons no you don't push your button across you just wait wait and go yeah which makes me wonder you know does that timing ever change in theory it could be in phase with the speed at which people walk from block to block well that's what i was thinking but then because this is a grid system you've got people also walking ah everywhere we're walking you south to north, but there's also people walking west to west. There's the same distance, yeah, yeah.

Good point. So, it'll be interesting to know whether people are more walking side to side or up and down. Side to side or up and down. I mean, there are fewer stops up and down. I mean, there are more stops up and down and fewer side to side. So, if you were to benefit anyone, the ups and downs, because they've got way more stops to go through. Yeah, you're right. But we've stopped at almost every pedestrian crossing here.

Most. But the other thing I need to say is that you and I are relatively fast walkers. Correct. That said, by New York standards, Pretty, pretty average. Yeah, we haven't really been stuck behind any door doors here, have we? No. Much like the roads here are much wider than they are in London, the sidewalks are much bigger.

That's true. Like this side we're walking on now must be what, four or five metres wide? Yeah, I would say these pavement slabs are about a metre. Yeah, a little over a metre. So about four metres. Yeah. You'd never get that in london and then and then of what let's say four lane road plus a lane of parking plus a bike lane i'm doing it i'm jaywalking she's going oh she's going for it

yeah at home 20th street because the way i see it is like yeah how would i walk this if it was me because the way I see it is like yeah how would I walk this if it was me yeah I think we just need to recreate our normal walking acceptable level of risk taking yeah all right coming to 23rd there was quicker I don't know if it was less distance I think we didn't have as many stops. That's true. I think we got more crosses. So we're coming up on almost four minutes and to the subway. Between the last one.

Four, exactly. From the last one. Right on, from the last one. Yeah, I'm doing them individually. And now we're carrying on from 23rd up to, I believe, 28th. And we're immediately at a pedestrian crossing. Yep. 12 seconds. It's getting dark now, isn't it?

Yeah, yeah. I don't know if the soundscape will change for the people listening at home. It's going to get louder I think. There might be a little less traffic. It's a Friday night. Yeah, that's true. It's a Friday night. That might be foolish. But I can, I believe I can already see the beginning of the lights of Times Square. Oh, that's not scary.

You're right. Just where we're heading. Oh, that's not that far, babe. It's not that far at all. No, we'll get there in no time. Why didn't you take the subway? Not this time. Alright, rough. If we can't dawdle, the lights change, we're off.

Yeah. Sorry. Matt said that and then immediately walked into someone. Walked into a bunch of people. So we're already coming up to 25th, corner 25th and 7th Avenue. And the next stop is 28th isn't it three we've just got three more blocks oh wait are we gonna run for the blinking crossing and the hand is blinking wow nearly friends and tourists by the wind here we go i thought we

picked up the speed of the air rushing over the mic as I was pelting down there. We just got to the other side as the hand stopped flashing. Another interesting thing I noticed, Matt, about the pedestrian crossings here, is that we have a green... When we say a man, we have a green figure. Green person. Generally. And the same in Australia, too.

Yeah. And then a red person. Green person. Generally. And the same in Australia, too. Yeah. And then a red person. Both times, full body people. Yeah. Block green, block red. Full body people. So, and then a red hand saying no. Just the hand.

No, it's just like, talk to the hand. Because I feel like in the UK and Australia, the crossing symbols, and other countries, you either see a person crossing or see a person not crossing. Yeah. and other countries, you either see a person crossing or see a person not crossing. Yeah. Whereas in America, you either see a person crossing or you see the representation of an authority figure telling you what to do. I do, if I was a taller person, I would high-five each of those signs as I walk past. So tell me a guy bit.

They high-fived the sign? Yep. With their hand on it? Yep. Oh man. Alright. Seth MacFarlane steals all my bits. All your best bits of? Yep. Oh man. Alright. Seth MacFarlane steals all my bits.

All your best bits of material. All my bits of material. All the worst ones are not mine. That's all on him. We are approaching 28th. It's five and a half minutes. This is a new record long amount of time. 5.40.

5.40. And? Marking it. Reset. Start. We're 5.40 and... Marking it. Reset. Start. We're off again. Guess what? We've been stopped at the... We haven't even moved yet. And there's a siren coming past, so that'll be fine. Is that a fire, ambulance, police? Or a toy gun? It's the police. Why do so many of them have different sirens?

Like, I've heard so many different sirens. That's a good point. There are a lot of different sirens. It's not like it's just different types of emergency vehicles. I swear, different police cars have different sirens. Maybe you get to choose your siren. Like, do some of the sirens mean different things? Like, I'm in a rush, but it's not an emergency. Yeah.

I'd like to get there quick, but but you know, do what you can. Yeah. Or get out of the way. This is important. Yeah. Oh, Bagel Pub. Yeah, we're at an intersection and we just noticed that there's a place called Bagel Pub which is sort of written in like ye olde bagel script yeah it's not entirely sure

what it is I kind of respect that also I don't know if we caught that on audio but it's a guy. Oh the person who spat on the sidewalk next to us. Yeah a couple of them actually. The bagel pub are now hiring people want to get into the bagel public house industry anyone's like how do I get you on the ground floor of this yeah yours the next stop 34th Street Penn Station is coming up okay coming up to the next one on 34th Street. 619. Okay. Between stops.

I think they're spacing out. So we've got another eight blocks before the next one. Yeah, before our final stop, Times Square. And as you may have noticed from the sound... Yep, it's getting busy. Yeah, so we're getting into proper tourist central now. We were so cocky before.

We were. We were talking about how we're up in pace. Yeah, so we're getting into proper tourist central now. We were so cocky before. We were talking about how we're the pace. We're up in the pace. Yeah, yeah. But I would argue that most of the people walking here aren't New Yorkers. No, now we're hitting people who don't have anywhere to be. They're here to see things, enjoy themselves. Yeah. Have a vacation.

Yeah, not walk between subway stations in time. Stuck at another light on... what street are we? 36. 36th Street. We can see the lights. We can see the lights. We're nearly there. Our pilgrimage is nearly over. A data collection journey. Yeah. And we'd actually walked to the point that we started as well from Brooklyn.

Oh, that's very true. So we've done alright. It's not like we hit the ground fresh, you know, and full of energy. This is a realistic, you've been out all day, you've got to make a navigation decision situation. Yeah. Oh, we're here. What stop's this? Oh, we're here.

Stop 728. Oof, log it. All right, we are on the corner of 40th and 7th. There's all five stops. Now what we have to do is catch the subway for comparison timings. Which I guess is hopefully faster. What I love most about that audio is how you can hear our energy disappearing as we go on. Oh, my goodness.

We were so tired by the end. It wasn't like it was a long walk, but we'd walked to that station from Brooklyn. And not even like just on the edge of Brooklyn, like quite deep. Yeah, it was a good hour and a half, two hour walk before we commenced the test. Before we actually started walking. But I feel like that adds a certain element of realism to it. Yeah. Like it's a long day.

That's true. That's when you want to pick the most efficient route. Yes. Yeah. Total walk time. Now this is just the segments we timed. 28 minutes, 53 seconds. And the average time between stations was five minutes, 46.6 seconds.

Just shy of six minutes. Okay. Which all checks out. Five flags. Yep. Half an hour. We need to compare that to how fast the subway is. Yes.

So we caught the train back. We did. We did exactly the same stations. That was much nicer. And we timed them as well. Here's what that sounded like. We're now on the one line to Southbury. It's going from Times Square and we're taking it down to 14th Street.

And we're going to time each station. I'm going to time from doors closing to doors opening. Yeah. Closing the doors opening. Assuming you roll on at the last second. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, coming into... 33, 34... Street. Yeah, I'm going to stop the timer the moment you could step out. Okay.

Out. One and eight. You could step out. Okay. One and eight. Significantly faster. Yes. But that's not what we're timing. No. The real question is how often these trains come. Yes, that's going to be the big one. We've realized that this little journey that we're doing, it's actually three lines.

They run in the same way. Which significantly bolsters. Yeah, the more frequent trains. it's actually three lines that run in the same way yeah which significantly bolsters yeah the more frequent trains already at 28th Street 54 all right We are coming into the next station and again it's under a minute. I don't want to call it. We're now on the final leg. None of them have taken longer than a minute and eight seconds.

Yeah. Even the stations where people get on and off, we are not there anywhere near as long as we are at pedestrian crossings. No. Oh no, no, no. I think we get between stations faster than a single wait at a pedestrian crossing. I think you might be right. I think you might be right.

And the final one is 56 seconds. Now we're going to do some working out. We've already done some working out. That was a workout. Let's go home. I want some ice cream. The total amount of time, 4 minutes 56 seconds. For the whole journey. The whole journey.

Now I timed doors closing to doors opening. Yeah. And so I took out the in-between time. I just kind of wanted that one section. Yeah. Not the in-between bits. Average time, 59.2 seconds. Right.

Which is way less. Yeah. So then we have all the times it took us to walk. We have all the times it took the train. The train, by the way, way more consistent. Yeah. Because we were all over the place. Some legs took like seven and a half minutes.

Some we did in four minutes. The subway was almost always pretty much exactly a minute. At least in that stretch anyway. At least in that stretch. Yeah. But it seems that the subway arguably is maybe there are other factors at play than just the speed it can go. They might be regulating it one way or another.

Oh, possibly. But I'm ignoring that. But where we were, they were fairly equidistant from each other as well. Roughly. But I worked out how much faster the subway is than us walking. And on average, the subway is about 5.9 times faster. Yeah, that sounds about right. If it wasn't faster, we would all walk. We walked at 17% of the subway. Okay, yeah. So now you've got to think, how do you work out where that threshold point is? And one thing a lot of people mentioned when we told them what we were doing was how long you have to wait on the platform. Yeah. And at that time of day on that train line, the average wait is two and a half minutes. So longer than it takes to get to the next station. Yes. So I got that from someone who did an incredible research.

station. Yes. So I got that from someone who did an incredible research. Todd W. Schneider wrote some code to use the API to access the MTA, like the subway data, to get all the wait times for all the trains on every line and calculate the average wait per train around the, wow. Around the clock. Okay. And so the graph I want to show this episode is this fantastic little graph here. Oh, one train weight time by hour. Yeah, that's the changing average weight on the one line when you're standing on the platform waiting for the train. Depending on the time of day. Yeah. You see it's quite high overnight.

There's a big tick up, you know, at nighttime and then overnight it's quite high. And then during busy hours it drops down. And you can even see two little dips even further down for the morning rush hour and the afternoon rush hour. But during the normal working day zone, it's about two and a half minutes. And you can see they've actually plotted every single line and the distribution of wait times for that line. Wow.

It's really nice. This is 2018 data, but their code is all on GitHub if you want to rerun it for more up-to-date results. It's amazing. I think wait times don't matter. Oh. I think the time it takes you to get down to the platform doesn't matter because I timed those two.

Oh, yeah. The thing is you've got to wait either way. Yeah, that's true. You walk back, you've got to wait. You walk forward, you've got to wait. And you're waiting on the same line with the same average wait. So I think the wait time is constant. No matter which way you walk, the time to get down from the street to the platform. Obviously, different stations are different, but we're doing this on average. And the amount of time you wait on the platform is

the same if you went forwards or backwards. Yes. So I've decided just to rule that out. Oh, interesting. Gone. Okay. Out the door what if going backwards it because it's closer means that you're more likely to catch the train that's that like within that minute or whatever that you're not you're not on average it's not on average it's not it's not enough to factor in okay and you we're ruling out like if you look up when the train's coming,

like let's say they're infrequent enough that you can go, I want that specific train. And then you can work out if you're likely to catch it if you go forwards or backwards. But we're not factoring in. It's like when you get to a bus stop early and you're like, could I walk to the next one? Yeah, yeah. Before the bus overtakes me.

Which is weird because I do do that all the time. Like, well, I don't now. I don't catch the bus. But when I was a kid, I would always do that. And now that I think about it, I'm like, why did I think... I do that. I still do that. I think it's because you think, mate, I might eventually just get home. I'll get some exercise in, do a walk.

But you feel like you're doing something, don't you? Just standing around. I think all that matters here is just how much faster is the subway than you? And in theory, we should be able to use that to deduce the point at which it changes. Yeah. So I ran the math on it. In the US, I'm saying math now.

I know. I picked up on that. It takes effort to flip constantly. It takes very little effort just to flip completely. Yeah. You just go, I'm in the country. I'm in the country. I'm going to say this now. Yeah. I'm the same with crisps and chips. Yeah, exactly. So I ran the math and it's 41.5% of the way along for our data. What? Okay. Yeah. No good point. Okay. So in the situation where you're 17% of the speed of the train and you go to two stations, the point at which you should go forward or backwards is not exactly

in the middle. It's 40% of the way along the journey. So if you're anywhere in the first 40% of the distance between the stations, you go back. If you're anywhere in the remaining 60%, you go forwards. So the threshold is not 50-50 in the middle 60%, you go forwards. Okay. So the threshold's not 50-50 in the middle. It's I've done everything in how far through the journey between the two stations you are. And so it's roughly 40%, it's 41.5%. It's actually if you take the percentage of your walking speed compared to the train, which I suppose is 17%,

and then you work out the complementary percentage, so 100% minus that. So instead of 17%, down to 83% is the rest, and then you half that. Why? Math. You can't just say that. You can't just say math. Did.

Why do those things help me calculate this? I could not find out. Like I couldn't come up with an intuitive explanation for why that's the case. Oh, okay. Because the complementary percentage, does it even make sense?

Like if we walk at 17% of the speed of the train, what is 83%? What is like, that's the... Well, the train is 83% faster than us. No, it's not. Is that how it works? It's not how it works.

No? No. It's like the 83% we're not as fast as the train. I don't think, listeners, if there is an, if my jet lag

has stopped me from seeing an obvious physical interpretation of why you should do one minus the speed and then half it. If we're 17% slower than a train. We are 17% of the speed of the train. Okay.

So why isn't the train 83%? Oh yeah, because that's still less. Yeah, because the train is 518. The train is 589% of our speed. Right. Because it's over five times faster. Does that have any link with 17 or 83? Can we reverse engineer this?

Maybe, but that's just for our particular numbers. So everyone else can work out their own percentage, subtract it from one, half it, and that's the threshold point. Why? I am impressed that there is a formula for this, but I feel like we're missing an integral thing, which is to explain why that formula works. There's a trick in math when you get something like that.

It's called not worrying about it. You're like, ah, it's just how the universe works. A good mathematician never reveals his formulas. I can show you the working out. Oh, no, I know that it's been worked out. Yeah. Yeah. I just don't know why. I don't know why. That's the answer.

If anyone knows. I even double checked it because I did the algebra to get that. I was like, that's weird. I don't know why it's that. And so I just, I went through manually in the spreadsheet to try and work out what the ratio is just by like calculating the times and balancing it around. I got exactly the same answer. So I'm confident it's the right answer. Well, that's a good answer. That's the answer. Yeah. So I think the next thing we need to do before the next episode

is test to see whether Google's advice is correct. What's interesting about 40% is several of the legs we did were five blocks. And so that 40% is right on a street. Oh yeah, yeah. And as we noticed when we were doing it, the bulk of the time is waiting to cross the street. Oh my gosh. It feels like that. So in that case, I suspect it's

whichever side of the street you're on. You go, walk away from the street. Oh yeah, because you don't want to get stuck at the pedestrian crossing. Should we ask Google Maps right now and see what it recommends? We'll just make a journey up. Yeah. And flip between them. Okay. Okay, I got Google Maps up. Let's say

we are exactly in between 23rd. Matt has chosen a point which is outside a shop apparently called Bye Bye Baby. But it's spelled B-U-Y-B-U-Y. That's just a baby. Yes. Okay, so right in the middle,

it says walk forward to 28th, get the subway. Yep. Makes sense. Drag the starting point back. It flipped. It flipped. It did that live.

Right on 40%. Right as Matt pulled the mouse past 40%. That's incredible. Live flip. Oh, that's so good. Okay, I'm going to do a screen recording, everyone, so you can see. Yeah.

That is really exciting. Okay, I'm picking up the dot. It's right in the middle. Mm-hmm. Obviously, if I go forward with the dot, it continues to say go forward. If I come back, the moment I hit 40% here, flip. Look at that.

Yep. That's amazing. That is actually really impressive. Thank you. You weren't impressed by my algebra. I show you a fancy Google map. And I never asked Google why. I never said, what made you think of this?

It must be doing exactly the same calculation in the background somewhere. Or it's just collected so much data, it's discovered the same result a different way. Because this may just be something that's dropped out of it, logging loads and loads of journeys people have done. That's right on 40%. Oh, I'm so pleased. That's very, very satisfying. So at an average walking pace,

so it turns out we must be reasonably average at walking because Google's also got 40%. 40%? Matt, I'm impressed. Now that I've seen a visual representation of your workings. That's what it takes. I'm going to give it a ding. Oh, thank it takes. I'm going to give it a ding. Oh, thank you. And I'm going to give myself a ding because I did

some walking as well. We walked a long way, yeah. We're going to ding ding. All aboard. Our next problem was sent in on the problem posing page at a problemsquared.com and in the what is your name box, they put R10 P-E-Z or Z, 10. It might be elite speak. It might be Lopez Lo.

Strikes me as a fake name. They say, how long is a New York minute really? And they mentioned that people say it's the time between when a traffic light turns green and a driver starts to honk their horn. But they've asked us to get to the bottom of what is a New York minute. They then do add, is Lauren Armstrong Carter the best producer of all time? Which is suspicious. Yeah.

But we did check and Lauren categorically denies that she. Is this you, Lauren? No comment. My theory is that R10 Pez thinks that Lauren goes through all the problems, which is true. Yes. What happens is Lauren suggests some problems and then we go uh or it's like we're little kids.

I don't want to. I'll pick my own problem. It's true. Lauren goes through them all and so flattery for Lauren will increase the odds that she suggests we do it. That's true. Yeah. Yeah. So I did what I normally do when I come across a problem like this and I immediately Googled it just to see.

Good work. I should say, this is not an ad for Google. We've been mentioning Google a lot. Oh, other search engines are available. Yes. Like AltaVista. Yeah. So I had a look to find out what it is.

Basically, it's just to mean like, it's quick. It's a flash. I think originally it came from the suggestion that it takes a New Yorker a minute to do what it would take someone in Texas an hour to do or something like that. Right. But not like as a diss towards Texans. It was the other way around. It was like something in Texan would take an hour.

Slow down, New York. Yeah, exactly. I was like something in Texan would take an hour. Slow down, New York. Yeah, exactly. I was like, okay, there's the answer. That's kind of it. But, I mean, when have I ever not done a ding? When did you ever stop there? When have I ever stopped where I should have? There's no ding in it if you just bing in it.

Oh, nice. Thank you. That's a new T-shirt. It took a second to work out the format of that joke. If there's no bing in it. If you just bing in it. Because bing, that's the search engine. Yes, of course.

It is. Yeah. I thought you were talking about Chandler. So during my research, I was reminded. That's the recording we do now. Yes. I was reminded there was a film in 2004. Yep.

Called A New York Minute. You just put in New York Minute and one of the responses was a 2004 film. Yep. Called a New York Minute. You just put in New York Minute and one of the responses was a 2004 film. Yes. With Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen. The twins. The famous twins. Wow.

Yep. And look, I'm going to be honest. You and I were in a bar. We were in a bar. When we saw this. Two nights ago. And we both went, oh, we should watch this.

We should watch that. We should watch this film. We went home. We went back to the flat. Yep. We watched, we saw this. Two nights ago. And we both went, ah, we should watch this. We should watch that. We should watch this film. We went home. We went back to the flat. Yep. We watched, we put on. We put on just New York Minute. Yep.

Now the first thing that sprang to mind when we were watching it, and I think we time stamped it as well. It didn't take long. It was about 20 minutes into the film. We went and got paper. No, it was six minutes. Oh, really, really?

It was six minutes that I wrote this down, which was the realization that I think one of the sisters died. Yes. Early on. You were like, this looks like one person playing both roles. Yeah. One of them died. Then the other.

This is the weirdest conspiracy theory. Both of them. And then that's why they kept bringing out twin films. Cause it's like the, they're bluffing. It's like, well, they wouldn't bring out twin films if there was only one of them left yeah

so then they just had to keep doing and that's why eventually they had to stop my theory is they were never twins

it's always been one person or just no people no well because they started on Full House in the 80s yeah

when they were like less than a year old yeah and famously TV they used twins to play kids ah well why, they use twins to play kids. Ah. Well, why do they use twins to play kids? Two reasons.

One, because if one kid is in a bad mood, they can use the other one. Oh, they can pop into the, yep, yep. And the other, I think, is like child labor laws or something, isn't it? Exactly. Well, I think it happened. If someone showed up on set going, hey, we're just here from the child labor department or whatever.

We're just checking the hours that your child actors are working. And they realized they've been, the baby had been doing way too many hours. They were way over the line. Yeah. And they're like, it looks like this child's doing way too many. They're like, no, no, no. It's a twin.

Yeah. And on the fly, someone on the fly, on set, no. It's a twin. Yeah. On the fly. Someone on the fly on set had to make up an excuse. Yeah. And they're like, Oh no, no, no.

There's more than one Olsen. Yeah. As well as Ashley. That's why we call them the Olsens. The Olsens. There's also Mary. Kate. Yeah.

Let's just add it there. Just as a backup. Cause they're thinking. Maybe triplets. If I'm going to push this out to triplets, because they hadn't done the math in their head, they're like, oh, if I'm still over if there's two of them, I'm going to need to have a third one.

Yeah. So they're like, oh, no, I said there were triplets. So that's why Mary-Kate has two names. That's right. That is right. If there's only ever been one, it was to skirt labor laws. That's a solid theory. I like your theory better than mine actually

ironically Lindsay Lohan actually twins then a reverse Olsen yeah so yeah it didn't take us long to come to that conclusion

and decide that and look I'm going to be honest with you before we go any further it is a problematic film it wasn't good when it came out yeah

it hasn't got it's gotten more not good. I mean, it's always been not good, but now we're super aware of how not good it is. Yeah, it is quite ritually insensitive. In more than one, like in several ways at once. Depressive.

Look, we watched it so you don't have to. We watched some bad films that are fun to watch. This one did not fall into that category. No, and you know what? Don't give them views. This film doesn't need any more money. And we've got a solution. If you want to enjoy the New York cinematography of New York Minute without watching the film, we've recreated all of it.

Yeah. Actually, do you know what? For a film that is called New York Minute, surprisingly few shots of them in sort of recognizable New York. About a minute of the runtime. I suspect. Not much at all. Also, we found out afterwards, did a little bit of research,

half of the film shot in Ontario. Ontario, yeah. Yeah. Not even the same country. Cheaper country. Yeah. They often call Ontario the twin of New York. Yes, they do, don't they?

That was for city labor laws, wasn't it? Yes, yeah, exactly. Tell the listeners what our solution was. I don't know why. Maybe between us we can work out how we got to this. You suggested it. Did I? I think so.

Feels like me. I suggested that we visit the locations. We definitely said we should visit the locations. And then I probably said we should dress up as the Olsen twins. Yeah. And go and recreate shots from the film. Yes. In New York.

And then we went through all of our limited wardrobe that we've brought with us. All our clothes that way, which of their outfits can we recreate from what we already have? Realized with great embarrassment that we could kind of do it. A decent amount of it. Yeah. So there's a few moments where we've had to swap clothes. Yeah, one of them is wearing a band t-shirt, like a Metallica t-shirt. Yes, and I've got my Magic Sword t-shirt with me,

which is slightly on the snug side for Matt. I think you pulled it off. I said it yesterday. It shows up on your shoulders. I was you pulled it off. I said it yesterday. It shows up on your shoulders. When I was pulling it off, I had to be very careful it didn't take everything else I was wearing with it. There's one point that I had to hold down

the t-shirt underneath for you. Like a toddler getting dressed. It was snug. So, yeah, we went to four locations that we could find for the film. Where they cross the road in Chinatown. Where they cross the road at Madisonatown. Where they cross the road at Madison Park.

That iron building. That iron building. And Times Square. Times Square. Yeah. Unfortunately, by the time we reached

Times Square, because we did do this at the same time as calculating our last problem. Same day as the subway walk. Yeah. It was night time.

Yeah. So. That one doesn't match as well. No, it doesn't we are in position we're in the same place but the lighting is somewhat different

I think it counts yeah so if you'd like to see the shots where we've recreated guess where you'll find them on the socials at problemsquared

on Twitter and Instagram and as you look at them see if you can guess the one article of clothing we had to purchase specially yes we did have to purchase one. One item.

Yeah. And we found it as well. You had to make a dog puppet out of a t-shirt. Yes, I did. So after we went around New York recreating those scenes and confusing many tourists. Oh my goodness. Because it's just us two as well. We weren't with anyone else.

So to take the photos, we had to set up tripods. Yeah, put a GoPro on a tripod. Yeah, we had a lovely dad who came over and he was like, oh, do you want me to take the photo for you? And we're like, oh, we kind of need it to be in a really precise angle. I'm trying to work out where my head is compared to the one way sign. Yeah. And we just take it exactly when a taxi drives behind us. Yes. So he looked so hurt. I know. And we're like, no, we don't need to help you're welcome dad go away so uh to answer the problem what is a new york minute i mean for us it was a whole day

oh yeah yeah a whole day of misadventures and adversary adversarial but the actual runtime of the film yes yeah is uh hour, 30 minutes and 47 seconds. So that's it. That's what a New York minute is. 5,437 seconds. 5,437 seconds. 90.61 times. That's the ratio of a standard minute to a New York minute.

There you go. So it's actually the opposite of a very brief thing. A quick flash. It's actually very long. Long and drawn out and has not aged well. Sorry, New York. Well done. You're negging it.

I mean, Bec, you've gone from bing to ding. Thank you. I've seen the photos and I'm going to give us a ding. Ding. Thank you very much. Now is the time where we would normally do any other business but because matt and i have been very busy while here in new york we've not had the time to go through some of those things but what i will say is that we recorded our bonus podcast that we do for for patreon supporters

yes while we were doing on the street. On our walk before we reached 14th Street and 7th Avenue. So if anyone would like to hear us being wizards and posing hypothetical problems to each other. If you're a big fan of low sound quality.

It actually sounds really good. It sounds really good. You know what? The recording came out way better than I expected. Yeah, and you got recognized by someone. During the podcast. During... As we The recording came out way better than I expected. Yeah, and you got recognized by someone. During the podcast.

As we were recording. If you ever want to experience a live, hey, are you Matt Parker? Yeah. We captured one on the streets of New York. Sign up to the Patreon. You can set your own price. You can do it for a pound a month. Don't tell people that. Or a dollar a month, I think it is. It's in dollars. Actually, there's never been a better time to give us dollars.

Oh, yeah, of course. It's in dollars. Actually, there's never been a better time to give us dollars. Oh, yeah, right. Yeah, of course. Speaking of Patreon supporters, we like to thank three of our supporters at random. Completely at random. Completely at random. I think we might have had our first repeat. Today?

Yeah. Oh, that's exciting. Third name down. I recognize that because I think we've discussed how to pronounce it before. I think you're right. Okay. I just heard in a producer has checked the third name in today's three random Patreon names came up a mere three episodes ago.

Whoa. And a lot of people write in and say, is it really random? Will names come up more often than once? Yes. It's absolutely random. Yeah. And I get the list of supporters right before we start recording.

So it's completely up to date. Absolutely up to date. And then completely at random, I take three names. And there you are. We had a match. I'm so excited. Look at that.

So we should thank them. Who is it? Ready? Ready. Aaron Cadigan. Jacob Heiss. And you may remember them from their work in the credits of

episode 042. Anders Ort. Anders. Anders! It's a repeat. Well done, Anders. I think that may be our first repeat. Maybe we should have said Anders a postcard. You get a postcard of us and you. Not of us.

Not of us. We're not going to get one made. We'll buy a postcard. Beck will draw us into the picture on the front. Okay, done. Deal. We'll send it off. Okay.

We'll have to find Anders a dress. I know. Finally, we'd like to thank everyone who has made this podcast possible. My co-host, Matt Parker. Thank you. Myself, Beck Hill. Well done. like to thank everyone who has made this podcast possible my co-host matt parker at myself back here our producer lauren armstrong carter and guest sound engineer for the day wavy boy jody this has been a problem squared Matt, we forgot to pick up Twisty's Substitute.

Oh, we did. Oh, we're here. What are we going to do now? Well, we'll have to buy those. We'll get something. And then we'll have them on the next. But in the meantime, I realized we went through the whole

what have you been up to? Yep. We talked about Disney World. Yep. Neither of us mentioned the fact that we went to a... Oh, yeah. We had backstage access. Hanging out with Seth Meyers. Yep. Neither of us mentioned the fact that we went to a Oh yeah. We had backstage access.

Hanging out with Seth Meyers. Yeah. With your BFF. That's for our listeners. Captain Disillusion is a bigger celebrity than Seth Meyers. So me hanging out with

Captain D at Disney World I think they'll find that more impressive. Really? Yeah. Wow. I don't know. I think the Seth find that more impressive really yeah wow I don't know

I think the Seth Meyers thing was pretty cool we got to sit backstage it was all suites and stuff we got to chill out in the green room Fred Armisen was playing with his band

Tony Howell was on from Arrested Development it was very exciting it was a great show you got a shout out incredibly nice we got to hang out with Seth the important thing is

we got to hang out together well you and me solve our adversarial do you know what I've got a I've got a conspiracy theory That would be nice. We got to hang out with Seth. The important thing is we got to hang out together. Well, you and me. Solve our adversarial... Do you know what? I've got a conspiracy theory that it's only one of us. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Other one's been having to be both voices. Yeah, and the one of us who it is isn't even Australian. We've been doing a misguided Australian accent.

It's a labour laws thing. Yeah. Yeah.