Dear Hank & John - 33: Putting Water in Cereal?!

Episode Date: February 3, 2016

Why do we fall for clickbait? Why do smells become normal? Why do we call aluminum foil "tin foil?" Why do people always ask where I'm from? My name is boring! Are four-sided bananas safe to eat?! THESE AND OTHER QUESTIONS, ANSWERED FOR YOU TODAY!

Hello and welcome to Dear Hank and John! Or as I prefer to think of it Dear John and Hank. It's a comedy podcast about death where my brother and I, that's John and Hank, green, answer your questions, give you the advice and bring you all of the week's news from both Mars, a planet and AFC Wimbledon, a football team in the UK. Hello John? and a football team in the UK. Hello, John. I'm here. You didn't ask me how I'm doing. Usually you ask me how I'm doing, and then I answer.

How are you doing? Terrible. Oh, no. Oh, you were ready. Unfortunately, as you could probably hear, I've just gotten home from the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. And while I was there, I caught just a terrible,

terrible case of affluenza. Ah, yes. I imagine that that place is rife with this disease. I've never seen so much affluenza in one place. Hank, it turns out that no matter how rich or powerful you are, you can still get the common cold. So, unfortunately, I'm horribly sick and also somewhat jet lagged. But I did, you know, I did have a lot of interesting conversations at the World Economic Forum

and very grateful for the opportunity to have been there. I just wish that I had not come home with this horrific, horrific illness. I have a question for you, John. An important question that I am looking forward to the answer to, while you were there, why did you choose to touch other people? That's a great question.

So at the World Economic Forum, the, instead of like a currency of money, the currency seems to be business cards, and people just throw them at you, and they throw them at you right after they themselves have touched them. And so no matter how much I avoided handshakes or bathed myself in Puril, people just throw them at you. And they throw them at you right after they themselves have touched them. And so no matter how much I avoided handshakes

or bathed myself in Puril, I was stuck with these just toxic business cards covered in viruses and bacteria, as you well know, since we're half virus. Oh, hang on, I have great news. What? Research has just come out indicating that the number of human cells in a human body is not one-tenth of the number of microbial cells,

but in fact, approximately equal to the number of microbial cells. So I am half human. So so encouraging. It's a lot better than you thought, John. I have to say, the most fascinating thing about this story that I read was the line. I believe it was, it's close enough that a single defecation event can move the scale in the other direction. So, you can be a mostly bacteria before you poop.

And then mostly human after you poop. To which, in front of my non-face book said said that explains why I always feel more human after I poop I'm so so distressed by this research. I was frankly I was better off when I thought that it was an approximation than when we knew these details All right, John. I got another question for you. How many business guards does it take at the Davos world economic forum to purchase a Teriyaki say-ton sandwich? Well, as far as I could tell, there was no food for sale. You just had to show up at the right times, and then you ate it quickly before everyone else got to it. But it was a really, no, it was a really interesting conference. I did not print my own business cards because,

you know, I've never had business cards. It's something of a point of pride for me. And so I had essentially no way of exchanging myself or whatever approximation of myself a business card represents with anyone, which was a weird kind of powerlessness, but also a weird kind of power where people would be like, he doesn't have cards. Wow. Ha ha ha ha. Who we must be real important, just Google me. I'm John Greve. He's either really high up the chain or he's so far down the chain,

he doesn't even know about business cards. It turns out it's the latter, but what can you do? I know that we've been talking for a long time and haven't gotten to any of the normal parts of the podcast, but I wanna tell you the story of the one time I met a billionaire. Great, because I'm sure you met several this week, but I've met one.

I was in the Bloomberg building, where Bloomberg, the publication, is created with Emerson Electric. They were taking me around to talk to press about our thing that we do together. And the people we were talking to was like, oh, Michael Bloomberg is here. Do you want to say hi?

And we were like, yes, that sounds awesome. And so we stood in a little circle with the people from this engineering company and me. And we went around the circle, they all introduced themselves. And so it sort of started and they shook hands and then they talked about their business, what their market cap was, how many employees they had, where their offices were,

and then they got to me and I just like stuck my hand out and I said, hi, I'm Hank, nice to meet you. And Michael Bloomberg said to me, I think you may be the first man who has ever introduced himself to me with only his first name. Ha ha ha ha ha. Women do that all the time, but never men.

Well, so that was my interaction with Michael Bloomberg. It's very possible that you didn't just meet your first billionaire, Hank, but also the next president to the United States, at least if recent news reports are to be believed. Are you serious? This is a topic of hot conversation at the world economic forum.

Lots of people, of course, wanting Michael Bloomberg to run for president so that we can have a proper billionaire in office. Yeah, they're like, you know who really knows how to fix things? People like me. Hey, so speaking of billionaires, just one more story before we get to the proper podcast. While I was in Davos, I met someone who is currently a billionaire, but who is a festitiously working to no longer be one, Melinda Gates.

She and her husband Bill Gates co-founded the Gates Foundation, the largest nonprofit, I think, in the world right now. And I met her and we were talking, she's a genuine fan of our work, Hank, that was really cool. And then Sarah came into the room, my wife, because she had to grab me and we had to go to some place else. And Melinda Gates turned to my wife and said, you must be Sarah.

Wow. And that was so impressive to me. I was just, I was like, slack jawed. I was like, geez was like, slack jawed. I was like, jeez, I barely recognize you or your husband. I have the ability to remember about eight faces at any given time. Yeah, so that was very impressive to me. She was in general just crazy, smart and interesting to talk to. And so committed and passionate and one of the

highlights of the week for me. There was a lot of, frankly, there was a lot of like seeing the sausage being made and finding it a little unsettling, but both meeting her, meeting the CEO of Save the Children, was amazing and then meeting the undersec undersecretary of the UN Refugee Agency was really amazing. All three of those women were tremendously inspiring to me and really exciting. Almost as if yeah, so it was really, I don't know, that was the highlight for me. It was a weird week, obviously I got this illness, but it was those meetings were really interesting. Should we move on to some questions?

Oh, hey, I have one more thing I have to say. Oh, geez, wow, we're bad at this. You also have to do the poem. Don't forget about the poem. So sorry. In our last episode, I said that the United States dollar is only currency in the United States. That was a terrible, horrible lie. I apologize.

There's Ecuador. There's the United States minor outlying islands. There's the British Virgin Islands. I'm sorry. It was obviously a disgraceful mistake. John was just too caught up in being angry at pennies to believe that anyone else would choose to use them. That's right. All right. I did kind of want to call you on that as you said it, but you seemed so sure that I was like, I must be wrong. I have a great gift for sounding like I am right, especially when I am wrong.

I also, I have learned that from you. Yeah, it's a terrible, it's like a terrible, terrible gift. I also forgot that generally here in the beginning of the podcast, I read you a short poem. Do that. I feel so crappy. Uh, I was thinking recently, Hank, you know, we had, uh, two unexpected weeks of grieving David Bowie, uh, and then in the interim, lots of other people died.

I don't want to say that 2016 is the year of celebrity death, but, um, I don't know. It seems like, it seems like an unusual number of people are dying, but then again, January is the number one month for death in the world. Anyway, Alan Rickman died. And of course, just just earlier yesterday, as we're recording this, we heard about the death of the great character actor Abe Vagoda, who's 94 years old, lived a great long, complicated, interesting life. And reminded me of this poem by Robert Burns, the 18th century Scottish, very important to identify him as Scottish,

poet who was not English, and indeed was also not from England, and was not English. Okay, this poem is called Epitaph on a Friend by Robert Burns. An honest man here lies at rest, the friend of man, the friend of truth, the friend of age, and guide of youth. Few hearts like his with virtue warmed, few heads with knowledge so informed. If there's another world, he lives in bliss.

If there is none, he's made the best of this. Epitaph on a friend by Robert Burns. Lovely. John, do you know that interestingly, January is the number one month for death? Apparently, I didn't know that, but you did. But February is the last month for death. It is also last place in the amount of beer,

drinkin' per month, and last place in the amount of money spent per month because it has fewer days. I was going to say that's the least interesting statistic possible. The shortest month is also the least deadly month. But yes, no, January, partly because it has 31 days, but partly because there just seems to be something about winter that kills us. January is indeed the deadliest month. Also, there's some thought that people really like to get through the holidays. Mm-hmm.

At the end of their lives. Anyway, let's move on to a way from the darkness toward the questions from our beautiful listeners. There is also, I think, a, there may be a tax advantage to having people die in January rather than in December. And so occasionally, like occasionally doctors to having people die in January rather than in December. And so occasionally doctors who see their patients die

on the last day of December will just say that they died on January 1st. Yeah, because it's just like, it's a good thing for the taxes of the family, of the person. So that is an interesting thing as well. Oh God bless our tax policy. Can we move on to the questions of the person. So that is an interesting thing as well. Oh God bless our tax policy. Can we move on to the questions from the listeners? Yes we can.

That I think we had enough weird talk about death in months. But it wouldn't be dear Hank and John without a little bit of talk about death and months. We have a question this one is from Luisa who asks, dear Hank and John. A common question when meeting new people, both on the internet and in the meat space, is where are you from?

I find this a deceptively difficult question. What are they asking me? Where I was born, where did I grow up, where do I live, where did I just move from? For me, and a lot of people, I think, these are all different places. I also don't know how specific I'm supposed to be. Do they want my address or the planet I'm from?

What are these people asking and why must they give me such an emotional crisis when I'm only just meeting them? PSA love your podcast. It's actually kind of funny. Thanks Louise. That's very generous. I apologize for my earlier affluenza joke. That's very generous. I apologize for my earlier affluenza joke. Um, yeah, so I think what people are trying to do is put you in a category that makes sense to them. But they're also looking for a topic of conversation. I might have said this before on the podcast, but my Italian friend Enrico is enraged by

nothing in the world more than when people ask him if he's from Italy, because he has a very thick Italian accent. And as he says in his thick Italian accent, I won't attempt to recreate it. Of course, I'm from Italy. Why do you think I sound like this? And then when you ask him where he's from in Italy, he says, I'm from Rome. I bet you went there in college.

So I think it's a mix of people trying to find a topic says, I'm from Rome. I bet you went there in college. Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! So I think it's a mix of people trying to find a topic of conversation and also trying to like put you in a certain category that will be helpful to them for the rest of the conversation. But of course it's infuriating to you because this is not the first time that you've been asked if you're from Italy or indeed if you're from Rome or listen to someone's stories about being in college in Rome.

Yeah, I think that's accurate. And it's just a kind of way of asking about a person and asking about their background and a little bit more. Like people ask me, and I live in Montana, and I say that I'm from Florida. For me, I lived in Florida until I was, through my entire youngness, and I think that's true of the majority of people. So I think a lot of people are looking for that thing,

and they think that because they lived in one place, because the majority of people have, that everyone else is gonna be like that. But of course, then you have to say something like, oh, I moved around a lot. Um, and then it becomes a much longer conversation. I kind of want to tell you, and I kind of don't want to tell you my, uh, my surrogate question for this question.

And the reason I don't want to tell you is because I like it, and I don't people to steal it from me. Well, tell me anyway, what is it? I guess it's too late now. I ask people what their favorite bridge is. Ha ha ha, that's a terrible, terrible intro question. Well, it's not like the first question I ask is not like you walked to somebody

and you're like, where are you from? But like once like the conversation. Hi, my name's, hi, hi, I'm Mayor Bloomberg. My name's Hank. What's your favorite bridge? Ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah know, this is weird Hank, but nobody's ever introduced themselves to me that way. Only women, only women ever say that. Oh man, I liked that Michael Bloomberg feels so confident about putting people into just

the two buckets. And I liked that you at least complicated that a little bit for. Yeah. Well, I said to him after he said that I was like, well, I'm not expecting you to remember who I am. Yeah, no joke. He's not Melinda Gates or anything. Like, I'm sure this happens to you like eight times a day and has for the last 20 years, like, why would you, anyway?

Yeah, so I, but once into the conversation, if I want to know a little bit more about a person, I ask them what their favorite bridge is. And I think that that tells me more about them than where they're from. And oftentimes the bridge is in the place where they are from. Because sometimes you don't live in a place with lots of bridges. But I think a lot of people do. And so they tell me about a place that means something to them. Hey, what is your favorite bridge?

You know, now that I've asked the question enough, it's become kind of a complicated answer for me. But I think it's the California Street Bridge in Missoula, which is a pedestrian bridge. It's really not, it's like very far away from any main roads. It's kind of a, it can be a little bit of a ski-y part of town.

And I have friend there almost get mugged and buy like children. They like tried to mug him and he just kicked them and been bikeed away. But it's got lots of like stupid like high school or graffiti. And it's really pretty and you can just stand there and look at the river and it's nice. All right. That's an acceptable answer. Let's move on to another question, having established tank's favorite bridge, because that's really what you come to dear Hank and John for. This question's from Allison, who writes, dear John and Hank, on drinking cereal milk.

I think it's very important not to be wasteful. I don't like cereal without milk, but I also hate the taste of the milk after my cereal has been in it. I was just wondering, how do I reconcile these two things? Well, I, one, love the taste of my milk after it's had cereal in it. It's far better than the taste of just milk. So, I have never had this problem. I'm just like, I want as much of that at the bottom of the bowl as possible. But, for you, I've no suggestions. My suggestion would actually be to go ahead and send your cereal milk to Hank because he's

extremely enthusiastic about it, Allison. He lives in Missoula. And in my experience, if you just write a letter, or I guess it wouldn't be a letter, it would be a sealed package. If you just put it in a Ziploc bag there, put it in a box and just write Hank. Um, uh, then maybe in parentheses, uh, favorite, favorite bridge, uh, is, is the one in Missoula, the pedestrian one, and then beneath that Missoula Montana and a zip code in Missoula, it'll get to Hank. Yeah.

No, no, I think you just write Hank, Missoula, and it'll, it'll, it'll, it'll find its way to me. Uh, but I, I would suggest actually that you just put it in the zip lock and then write on the zip lock, Hank, Missoula, and then just put it in your mailbox and, and then right on the Ziploc, Hank Muzoula, and then just put it in your mailbox, and it'll get to know. No, you're gonna have to put some stamps on there. Listen, the United States Postal Service doesn't work for free. No, no, it's all about saving milk, John.

They understand that when it's about efficiency, they can go the extra mile. No, I feel like the carbon footprint of that milk would be much higher than just throwing away the milk actually. Alice and the right thing to do in this situation is to throw away the milk. I think probably John is correct. Or find a friend who really enjoys cereal. Have that friend come over to your house and drink your cereal milk, which is so much more intimate than anything that you can do.

Horrifyingly intimate thing. I wouldn't even drink the cereal milk of my children. Can I make a terrible confession to you that you already know about? Sure, yes. So I do not like milk in my cereal. And one day, I would say maybe three or four years into our marriage. I had a bowl of raisin bran and I did what I always do, which is I went over to the refrigerator and I stuck the bowl of raisin brand up against the water thing so that water would come out and then it would water my raisin brand, which is how I like to eat my raisin brand. What?

And my... I do not know this about you, that is disgusting. And my wife, I mean, you know, we were married. I think we didn't have children yet, so she still could have gotten out of it. My wife, I mean, she's never looked at looked at me before like that with just pure disgust and I have to say I think that eating your cereal with water is the best way to eat it You don't add calories. You don't unnecessarily use an animal product and you get all the soggyness and crunchiness of a good wet cereal Oh my god. Oh my god, oh my god.

Oh my, oh my god, John. Oh my god. It's delicious, you should try it. You don't know, you've never tried it, it's great. I haven't. It just seems, it seems, it seems inhuman. It seems, it seems not of this world. If you told me a space alien put water on their cereal,

I would be like, okay, I guess. But a human being on the planet earth. Oh my goodness. I'll try it, I'll try it tonight. When I have my 11 o'clock bowl of frosted mini-weats, I'll put some water on there and waste some frosted mini-weats for you. Just make them awful and destroy them.

Let me know how it tastes on the next episode of Dear Hank and John. In the meantime, I think that we have adequately plummet the depths of Allison's question and it is time to answer a new one. All right, this question is from Logan who asks, dear Hank and John, so I was gonna eat a banana for breakfast, but I noticed that it is neither hexagonical or hexagonal.

There are only four sides to this quote on quote banana. Should I trust it? Should I eat it? No. No. Yeah, I mean. No, you cannot eat a banana with less than five sides. Five sided bananas are okay,-sided bananas are okay.

Six-sided bananas are okay. Four, I would even argue that a three-sided banana is okay, because there's probably three tiny little sides that you're not noticing. A four-sided banana is caused for concern. No, yeah. I mean, a square banana. Did they make it? It could also be rectangular, but it's still upset.

Or trapezoidal or, youidal or a number of different shapes. But I wanna know, do you live in a place where they make square watermelons because it's more pleasing? They do that in some places. Yeah. Or they're like, bind the, maybe you live in a place where they bind bananas to be square

because there's a cultural interest in squareness or hexa or like a trapezoidleness. I think a parallelogram banana would be pretty interesting looking. Is it a parallelogram banana because I actually might eat that. That sounds kind of delicious to me. So hey, can I earn agreement on this one? You cannot eat a square or rectangular banana. If it's a parallelogram, I think more research

is needed into the question. Yeah, I would like to see a picture of this banana, because I'm curious if it's rounded four sides, I'm sure it is somewhat rounded. And so maybe there are sides hiding in there, but I want to see a picture. If you Logan still have that banana, tweet us, Hank Green, and John Green on Twitter,

and we wanna take a look at this thing, because I kind of don't even believe it exists. It seems. Yeah, I think you might be missing a side, although at this point, it's very possible that the banana will no longer be ripe enough to establish its sadness. But if you ever see a four-sided banana,

just send it our way for sure. Yes, I mean, the question for Logan is, how familiar are you with counting? Are you new to counting? As I should have been our first question. But if you're an experienced counter, then I wanna see a picture of this banana. Yeah, that's a great point Hank

All right, I think we have another question. This one comes from Matt who writes dear John and Hank I recently got into competitive Pokemon. Congratulations, Matt. That's so exciting. I couldn't be oh wait I forgot he said no, I didn't I did recently get married And that's also exciting. It's not as cool as getting into competitive Pokemon though Let me submit that these things are not mutually exclusive, Matt. It's not too late to get into competitive Pokemon. Anyway, I had the pleasure of marrying my husband in my home state of Oklahoma,

something I thought might never happen in my lifetime because I am gay. I was wondering what is something that has happened in your lifetime that you never imagined could or would happen? I mean, just the legalization of gay marriage in America, I don't know if I never thought that that could or would happen, but it happened so fast that I remember thinking at one moment like, wow, it's really ridiculous that that hasn't happened. But that was only a year after thinking that like, this is an intractable problem that we're not going to solve very quickly.

But then we solved it very quickly. Well, I mean, we didn't solve it that quickly to be fair. And there were decades. Right. No, but like from the moment when I thought that we, from the moment, like, there was a moment when I thought that we could not do it. And then, and then the moment when we did do it was very close to that moment. Yeah.

It was, you know, it's interesting because there were all of those, you know, over decades, really, votes, usually in non-presidential election years to bring out a conservative base. There were all those votes to insert into state party, to insert into state constitutions that, you know, marriage was only between one man and one woman and all of that stuff. And then it did fall apart quickly. And of course, all of those state constitutions, many of which also contain lots of other discriminatory language were rendered irrelevant by the US Supreme Court. I mean, certainly, if you told me in high school that, I mean, I was really in the first, in my high school, you know, there were two kids in our class,

we had a class of 53 kids who came out as gay during high school, and they were the first kids I think in the history of the school to come out. And it seemed extremely both brave and scary to me that they were doing that. Like it seemed like something that I could never do. And I do think the landscape of that has changed tremendously and like way more than I ever would have thought possible in 1994, 1995. has changed tremendously and way more than I ever would have thought possible. In 1994, 1995, that said, when I look at what,

I mean, we grew up in, when Hank and I were kids in the 1980s, there were all of these famines, especially in East Africa. Millions of people died. And there was like live aid concerts and all of these attempts to raise money to address the famine. And it wasn't done very effectively or efficiently. And to see rates, I don't think I could have predicted then that rates of malnutrition, that rates of infant mortality, that the number

of people who die because of lack of access to nutrition would be so dramatically lower in just 25 years. I think like, maybe I didn't internalize it because I didn't understand the scope of the problem, but the problem seemed natural. It seemed to me as a child natural that some people were hungry and others were fed. And it no longer, I think one thing that's changed is that at least for me, it no longer seems natural. And that seems like a big, big change in my lifetime.

But I also would definitely cite LGBT rights as it, like, just a tremendous change that I didn't see coming. There's also a number of, ones that I just astounded by, the things that catch on, and one of the top songs of the last 10 years is Gangnam Style. That's not the thing that the former existence of the world would have allowed. And the fact that Kim and Kanye got married, I would never have expected that.

That is just... That didn't come as a huge surprise to me. I think Kanye and Kim are both geniuses, actually. Well, I... Underappreciated geniuses of a very new kind. And of course, they were going to come together. It's like stars and space that form double supernova. I don't know anything about astronomy. The other one that I would cite is I don't think that 20 years

ago I would have had any way of knowing or internalizing the extent to which the internet would be part of my life. The internet was a thing when I was a teenager and when Hank was a kid, the internet was a thing that a very small number of people made a very active choice to be on. And now there is no such thing as an internet person really anymore. There are just, you know, the people who have access to the internet and the people who don't. And I could never have anticipated, like, or I would have bought six shares of Yahoo Star

in the 2016, you know. Yeah, yeah. Or like, the domain name, cars.com. Oh, we could have killed it with cars.com, Hank, back when our website was called like CRS.org slash IAG slash 1774256 slash A. Yeah, dot HTML. Okay. All right, Hank, here's another question. It's from Delaney who asks, dear, John and Hank, why do smells become normal? For example, my boyfriend's mother smokes in their house,

and when I would go over to their house, I would smell smoke like anyone would, but recently, I don't smell the smoke. She still smokes in the house. Why don't I notice it? Because your body is really good at ignoring things. You can't have too many things, like too many senses happening all at once, and so your

body has to figure out which one of those things are important. And if you have constant stimulus, then you will basically lose the ability to feel that thing. Like, I cannot feel my glasses on my face. I also, like, basically, unless I try to, like, pay attention, I do not see them. I can always see them. They're always there, but I do not have any idea that they're there unless I try to pay attention, I do not see them. I can always see them. They're always there, but I do not have any idea that they're there unless I look for them. This is also true.

If you chew, this is a gross example. If you chew mint gum, you will chew mint gum and then it will stop tasting like mint to you. But if you give that mint gum to someone else, it will still taste like mint to them. We think that all the flavor is going away, but in fact, the flavor is still there, we're just adapting to it. This is called sensory adaptation or neural adaptation, and there's lots of different versions of it,

lots of different experiences of it, and smell is nearly adaptive, which is why mint is the same thing. You don't taste mint, you smell it. So, yeah, there's lots of research on how this works and how your nervous system adapts to things so that if it's like, I don't need that sensation anymore. And like if I put my wallet in my left pocket,

I'm like, there's the giant thing in my pocket. But if it's my right pocket, where it always is, I have no idea it's there. That's weird. My wallet is always in my left pocket. Really? Yep. That's weird. That's super weird. That's almost as weird as you drinking Alice and cereal milk or asking people what your favorite, what their favorite bridge is. Today has been a, today has been an episode of Dear Hankajon where we both reveal

our deep ex-intercities. All right John, this one is from Nicole, who asks, Dear Hank and John, I just had a horrifying realization. Everyone everywhere has been lied to. Is that foil that you wrap food and other things with made of tin or aluminum? It's called both tin foil and aluminum foil, as far as I know, but tin and aluminum are very different and it can't be both. I am extremely buffuddled, please help. I can help.

I can help because I googled it. Um. Tin foil used to be a thing. Ah, I see. However, now, since World War II, it has almost always been aluminum foil because aluminum or aluminum, if we are British, or probably Scottish. Not sure. I'm so scared now.

Ever since Robert Burns, I was so scared of accidentally calling him English. Anyway, aluminum foil or aluminum foil, because it's both cheaper and more durable, sort of rose in popularity in World War II, but the word tinfoil just kind of like hung around because they look about the same. So that is your answer.

It's the rare question that I actually have a definitive answer to. Look at you. And now I'm going to ask one that I don't have a definitive answer to. All right. All right, Hank, this question came in from Naomi with the subject line, this question will leave you speechless. All right, Hank, this question came in from Naomi with the subject line, this question will leave you speechless.

Dear John and Hank, what's the deal with clickbait? Why did we fall for it? And should we be protecting ourselves from this contagious social media epidemic? Oh my goodness. Well, the question is, do we fall for it or is it designed to make us fall for it? Because of course, that's do we fall for it or is it designed to make us fall for it?

Because of course, that's like we fall for it because it's designed to trick our brains. It's not, yeah, I mean, like the number one thing is, in the internet world, the currency is the click, the share, you have to get people to look at your stuff in a world of infinite content that's very difficult. And so you have to create really good, sticky, attractive headlines. And that has become more and more important in the world of online media to the point where I think we are having a rebellion to it. And eventually I'm really interested to see, sort of long-term what happens with the idea of the headline, and also with the idea of content, with there being so much created so fast that of course it's impossible to consume all of the

content that exists. And in fact it's almost as if there's more content than there is people to consume it. So, but like, as far as why we fall for it, it's because, you know, we want to know. We want to know why that adorable thing is the most adorable thing. Like, you read the headline and you're like, yes, that is what I want to know.

And in fact, I often now find myself saying that the headline will be a question, and I will want to know the answer to that question. And I legitimately do want to know the answer to that question. And then there will be an article. And in that article, there is one sentence that is the answer to the question. And I have to find that sentence,

and it's very frustrating. And then I find the sentence, and I'm like, okay, now I know the answer, and then I move on. Yeah, it creates an itch that needs to be scratched. I actually wrote a blog post with no headline for the World Economic Forum, and they gave it a headline. And it was such a good headline in terms of its stickiness that I myself clicked on the headline to find my own answer to the question asked in the headline, which was why the word millennial makes me cringe.

And I was like, why does the word millennial make me cringe? And then I remembered while reading the article. So, yeah, I think it's this very powerful thing. I also think that ultimately I'm not sure it leads to a deeper comprehension, but hey, I just wanted to jump on one thing that you said that I thought was really interesting, which is that we live in a world of infinite content, and it feels like there isn't enough, there aren't enough people to consume all the content that's being made.

I was in a, one of the most interesting meetings that I was in at the World Economic Forum was about the future of the internet, and people who live outside of the rich world where the lingua franca is English, or Spanish, or Portuguese, or German, like one of the sort of big rich world languages, we're actually saying in this meeting that there isn't nearly enough good content, and that nothing is being translated, and when it is translated, it's translated so poorly

that you'd much rather read a book or read a print magazine. And because the business models in the US as well, the business models of content creation haven't quite caught up with where they were in the in the print world But that's that's a much bigger problem in places that don't have the kind of like capital and and investment that we have in the in the states or in Europe and I thought that was really Interesting because I feel the same way. I feel like gosh, there's plenty You know, there's more than enough, but then you think about the 4.5 billion people

who don't have regular access to the internet, and when they do get access to the internet, there isn't the kind of, the content that will be most useful to them or most helpful to them isn't in their language, isn't easy to access, and it's similar to the problem that we had on the internet, you know, back in the 90s,

when everything was indexed so poorly, that it was incredibly difficult to find anything, it was incredibly difficult to find sources. And, you know, then companies started solving that problem, I think Wikipedia helps solve that problem, Google helps solve that problem. And it was a really interesting idea that like this problem has only been solved for slightly less than half the world.

Yeah, yeah, that is a really great point. idea that like this problem has only been solved for slightly less than half the world. Yeah, yeah, that is a really great point. And it's also very true of when I see YouTube things happening, like I pay a lot of attention to YouTube more than I do to the rest of the internet. And watching YouTube content happening in native languages in India, in Russia, in Brazil, in Venezuela, and like you see these, like it's so interesting to see the smaller, like independent YouTubers making it there because there isn't the what we have in America, which is so much content that it's basically impossible to get noticed.

And so you see a very similar trajectory to the early days of YouTube back in like 2006 and 2007 when there was just not a lot of people doing it. And so people were craving this kind of content. Now, no one craves more content on YouTube. It is just so much of it that there's always something good to watch in English. All right, we have another question.

This one's from Sean, who writes, Dear John and Hank, are you satisfied with your names? I always thought I was satisfied with mine, but that was before I knew I could have been named autobiocconfenwa. And autobiocconfenwa is surely the finest name that's ever been given. Now I feel dissatisfied. How do I cope with this? No, Sean. Well, I mean, you know, Hank has a pretty good name.

Hank Green, like he can get Hank Green.com, for instance. I mean, my name's John Green. That's been owned by a realtor in Southern Mississippi for like 150 years. Before there was even an internet, John Green and Southern Mississippi had John Green.com. So I think, I always felt like Hank was easier, it was easier for him to Google himself,

which I guess is a bit of a poison to challenge. But, but yeah, I don't know, I was always a little bit jealous of Hank growing up because he had a proper, proper good name. You know, there's lots of good hanks in American history, he got Hank Williams. Historical hanks, Hank Aaron. Hank Aaron, Hank Aaron. Hank Aaron.

Hank Hill. Uh, thank you. Yeah, I mean, whereas there's, you know, there's surprisingly few good John's in American history. What are you talking about? Um, and John itself is used as both a, uh, both a word for people who go to prostitutes and a word for toilets. So, I don't know, it could have been made easier for me,

but I would argue that actually it's not easier to go through the world named Autobiooc Confendewa. Obviously, that's a great name to have once you're successful, but I think that probably, you know, you get teased a lot, which might be why Autobiooc Confendewa is 250 pound, you know, just the strongest man alive. Yeah, the certainly the largest professional football player in league two. Oh, or, or any other league. Yeah. Really? Yeah. And soon he's going to be the largest

professional football player in league one. But yes, no, he is the, he is the strongest player in all of FIFA 16, Hank. So he is at least according to FIFA, the strongest professional footballer on earth. All right. Uh, well, John, this podcast is brought to you by autobioccurinfenwa, the strongest professional football player on earth. So strong that he brings physically brings dear Hank and John to your ears every week. And of course this podcast is brought to you by four-sided bananas, four-sided bananas I've caused for concern.

This podcast is also brought to you by Mayor Michael Bloomberg, the choice of billionaires everywhere. Oh man, Hank, all of our billionaire listeners are gonna take this so personally. It's hard out there for a billionaire. I can't tell you how many of them complained to me about their various woes last week. And of course, this podcast is brought to you by Hank's favorite bridge.

Hank's favorite bridge. In Hank's opinion, a way of understanding something deep and important about you. Basically, yeah. That's what I'm trying to get at. All right, John. Do you want to do one last question? Yeah, let's do one last question, Hank.

That's a great idea. Do you want a question about chemistry? Oh, I guess. I hope I know the answer. This question comes from Terry who writes, dear John and Hank, I know this question is more science than advice, but I've always wondered this and expect you might know.

I know that cooking, especially baking, involves lots of chemistry, but I've always wondered this and expect you might know. I know that cooking, especially baking, involves lots of chemistry, but I've never completely understood why, if something says it should be baked at 250 degrees for an hour, you can't just bake it at 500 degrees for half an hour. My burnt cake and I need your help. So heat is a, as a transfer of energy.

So what you're doing is, but energy does not transfer uniformly. So if you cook something at 250 degrees for an hour versus 500 degrees at half an hour, you may in fact be adding the same amount of energy to your cake, but you are not adding it evenly. Also there are certain things like chemical bonds that will not break at 250 degrees, but will break at 500. So there are a number of different reasons for this. One, it was not going to cook evenly.

Two, there are lots of different physical and chemical properties of all of the atoms and molecules in your cake that are going to behave very differently at 500 degrees versus 250 degrees. So just because you're putting the same amount of energy into something does not mean that you are, they were going to have the same effect. So like, I could put my hand on, like, in front of a fireplace and like, warm it up, and that would be nice, and I could do that for like an hour, and I would receive the same amount of energy as if I stuck my hand in the fireplace for five minutes, or five seconds. And that would not have the same effect. It would

be the same amount of heat entering my body, but it would not feel the same to me. Well, I think what's most encouraging about this answer, Hank, is that now, at last, we know how to bake your hand into a cake. Don't do that. Very slowly. Very slowly. Very slowly. Don't make, don't make Hank's hand. No, if you want to make anything into a cake, it should be a hot dog, that cake should be made out of cornmeal, and it should be a corn dog. Oh, Hank, what's the news from Mars?

Actually, if anybody, if, if, no, I want to say, if anybody wants to try, I don't know if this is a thing, but if anybody wants to try to make a corn dog cake, I wanna see a picture of that. I'll pay you $5 to the first person who posts a corn dog cake on Twitter. What is a corn dog cake?

It's like a cake with lots of people. I don't know. I don't know. All I'm saying is corn dog cake. And then go with that. I think that's a terrible, terrible idea. Can we move on to the news from Mars and AFC Wimbledon? Please, I'm very excited to share with you the news

from AFC Wimbledon. Do you want to go first? Or do you want me to go first so that people can skip just the last bit and not also the first part where I talk about Mars? You go first. All right. The...

John exceptionally weirdly, NASA's opportunity rover, which was supposed to last for three months, has just had its 12th anniversary on the surface of Mars. Wow. It has been there for 12 years. They are still operating it, it's still moving around, it's still doing science, it's powered by solar panels, which can be, you know, not the best source of power in a place where it can be windy and covered in dust, and it can be dark for a lot of the time, especially in the Martian winter. But they have

developed cleaning protocols that allow opportunity to clean off its solar panels, which was not something that they expected would be possible. But basically, the solar panels on opportunity to get covered in dust, and that was what they thought was going to be the limiting factor in the mission of this rover. But they have figured out how to continue cleaning it off and it is even stayed active this whole winter because the solar panels Have been much cleaner this winter than the last few winters because the wind has actually blown the dust off so It's it's fantastic that this thing that we thought you know

We spent a lot of money getting it there and we thought we were gonna get three months of science out of we are now we spent a lot of money getting it there and we thought we were going to get three months of science out of. We are now 12 years into the opportunity's mission and it continues to operate, which is just wonderful and fills me with joy. Well, I couldn't be, I certainly couldn't be any happier with this whole situation that we still have a rover on Mars. In addition to, I believe another rover that is also on Mars in addition to, I believe, another rover that is also on Mars. It's true. And spirit, which landed at a very similar time to opportunity, and it was basically the same rover, twin rover, stopped talking to Earth back in 2010. And for whatever reason, opportunity is just much more long lived. It's gone for more than about twice the amount of time that spirit did. Crazy.

Well, you know what else is crazy, Hank? What? If you Google League 2 table right now. Okay, I'm going to do it. So when last we left the exploits of the AFC Wimbledon grown-up team, not the under 18s that beat Newcastle, but when last we left the grown up AFC Wimbledon, they had just beaten Cambridge United 4-1. That was their second win in a row. Then they went on to beat Man's Field 3-1, coming from 1-0 down, you know what they sing, 1-0 down to 3-1 up, that's the way

that we're gonna win the league. Is there no cup at the end of this league. Sadly, there's no cup at the end of this league. What is the trophy long like? Is it a good trophy? I guess actually it is rather cup-sized now that I think about it and cup shaped. So I guess we can sing one-nil down to three one up, that's the way we're gonna win the cup.

So, Mansfield went one nil up, and then Montserratian International, our hero, Lyle Taylor, scored a goal to tie it. Then there was a goal from Calum Kennedy, who you might know from my FIFA playing, and then a third goal from Otobio Aziz, the other Otobio. Then, then, a week later, we played Nott's County

and we won two nil with goals from Tom Elliott, underappreciated Tom Elliott and Andy Barchum, which means in the last two games, Hank, AFC Wimbledon have scored five goals via five different players. And I think if you go back further, that street continues. It's just an incredibly productive time in the history of AFC Wimbledon. It's an amazing, amazing moment. And if you look at the League 2 table right now, Hank, you will see that AFC Wimbledon are eighth

on 42 points. The top three teams in League 2 automatically go up to League 1. Teams 4 through 7 then play in a playoff. Ah, okay. So, AFC Wimbledon is only one point away. In fact, you are tied in points with Stanley. So you both have 42 points, but I imagine Stanley has a higher goal differential. Right, it's only Ackrington Stanley. It's only goal difference that's standing It's only Ackrington Stanley. It's only goal difference that's standing between us and Ackrington Stanley.

And we actually have a better goal difference than the team currently in six late in the Orient. So, Hank. Yeah. Suddenly, I am starting to properly dream. I will tell you how far from that time when time when the when the finals begin are you well Hank There are 46 game. I'm glad you asked there are 46 games in the season different teams have played a different number of games Currently, so some some teams have a game in hand or two games in hand We've played 27 which means we have 19 games to go This is how close I am to properly dreaming Hank. I went ahead and looked up the day of the Playoff Final. And then I went ahead and looked up plane tickets to figure out can I

drive directly from the Indy 500 to the airport to get on an airplane and then arrive in London in time for the game. As you know, Hank, I'm not a regular drinker, but I do enjoy the ND500. So potentially, that would mean 30 to 35 straight hours of good times. All right. All right, that's, that's, we're gonna go straight from the N 8500 to the playoff final. It's gonna be amazing.

I'm starting to dream, Hank. Starting to dream. We've won four straight games. We've just gotta keep this up. I appreciate the dream. You know, if I could fly to Mars in 35 hours, I'd do it. So.

Well, imagine if instead of arriving in Mars and immediately dying, you instead arrived in South London and got to see the most exciting football match imaginable. Then I will, I will imagine that. I will imagine it right now and have a lovely imagining. And I will imagine mostly what it will be like for you, which is important. Well, good news and bad news.

If they make it to the play of final, you're coming. We can do a live episode of Dear Ackon John from the AFC Wimbledon Stands from the John Reed State. Oh my God, it'll be great. I'll cry through the whole thing. Yeah, well, maybe we can do it remotely. What have we learned today, John? Well, we learned never to trust a banana

with less than five sides. We learned that John is astounded by the state of the internet and cannot believe how relevant it has become to his daily life. And of course, we learned that water is an underrated cereal topping. Mmm, I don't know, we learned that. Uh, I'm pretty sure we didn't learn that. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha joining me and thank you to all of the other people for joining us on this episode of Dear Hank and John. This podcast is edited by Nicholas Jenkins. Our theme music is by Gunnarola. Thank you all for listening. You can send your questions via email to Hank and John at gmail.com or you can use the hashtag

Dear Hank and John on Twitter. I'm John Green. On Twitter Hank is Hank Green. On Hank's preferred method of communication Snapchat. He is Hank GRE and on Instagram, I'm John Green writes books. Thanks again for listening and as we say in my hometown. Don't forget to be awesome.