Dear Hank & John - 332: As It Transpired
Episode Date: May 16, 2022What grade would we get as an alien's homework? Was your feud over YouTube comment signatures? How do you write an email? Can trees make clouds? How do I make it to the bathroom when the middle seater... sleeps? Is it okay to buy used books? Hank and John Green have answers!If you're in need of dubious advice, email us at hankandjohn@gmail.com.Join us for monthly livestreams and an exclusive weekly podcast at patreon.com/dearhankandjohn.Follow us on Twitter! twitter.com/dearhankandjohn
Transcript
Discussion (0)
Hello and welcome to Dear Hank and John.
I prefer to think of it dear John and Hank, Hank, Hank, Hank.
I hate to interrupt you.
This is not how it works.
Well, there is a flipping level one emergency in my basement right now.
Hank, there is a beetle.
Do you have to go with some kind of pincers on top of it that is just crawling through the basement
as if it is not an invader.
Just find out about this.
Holy snooze, I just found out about it because.
Are you in the basement?
I have a basement.
That's where we make the vlog brothers videos
every time you visit me.
Oh, it's kind of a basement.
Well, it's apparently basement to know
for this flippin' beetle with pincers. I mean, it looks, I can't tell you, I'm just gonna let it be.
I'm gonna let it go.
Okay, and I'm gonna assume that it's gonna find its way outside.
Okay, John, can I do the intro now for real?
Yeah, I can still see it, but go ahead.
Okay.
Hello, and welcome to Dear Hank and John.
Dang it. Or is I prefer to think of it Dear Hank and John.
Dang it.
Or is that for to think of it for John and Hank?
It's a podcast for two brothers.
And see your questions.
You can give you the advice.
I bring you all the weeks from both Mars and AFC Lumbleton.
John, I got this friend and he loves spring.
It's just like it's something he's very passionate about.
He just like the, it's almost spiritual experience for him.
Unfortunately, I was very bad allergies.
Spring really brings him to his sneeze.
That's...
I mean, that's pretty good.
Did you write that one yourself?
I adapted from an existing joke
about how Spring brings someone to their sneeze.
Yeah, well, that is the good part of the joke to be fair.
It is the joke.
Well, Hank, you may notice that the sound is a significant improvement over last
week. No. Yeah. Catherine, Catherine said to me this morning, I listened to
dear Hank, a John this week, it was an auditory experience.
I did not sound complimentary about it.
I had a lot of negative feedback from people who were like,
I'm trying to listen to this while I'm driving
and I keep hearing what sounds like an emergency.
Ha ha ha ha ha.
Yeah, that's tough.
That's tough.
That's a special struggle.
And I'm glad that you're home for a bit
both for your own sanity and also so that we can make a podcast that sounds nice only until tomorrow morning
All right, well, I'm God we're taking the chances we get it. Yes, but I love being on the set of turtles all the way down It is just an incredible experience. I this it's I'm having the time of my life
I'm also just a little bit tired
Let's answer some questions from our listeners.
Absolutely. This first one comes from Sadie who asks,
Dear Hankajan, imagine our planet is in a glass jar sitting on the desk of an alien child
as their science. Hey, hey, can I just interrupt you real quick and face time?
You can tell me if you think this is a real threat to my existence.
Okay. Yeah. Yeah. yeah, it's fine.
I can guarantee you that.
Well, I have never seen as intimidating a wicking.
It's connecting, it says.
Hold on.
Oh, okay.
I mean, this is it.
Okay, hold up.
All right, ready?
Yes.
Okay, how do I turn around the camera?
I'm not very sophisticated.
You hit the little turn around button
That's your floor. It's tiny. That's a box elder bug Jesus John and what is a box elder bug? Is that a threat to me?
No, are you sure?
Yeah, I'm positive you can put that in in your hand and walk it out of your house, and it would not hurt
harm you.
No, thank you.
He hung up on me.
He didn't believe me.
He just hung up on a hank in the middle of him saying, uh, and he was just because they
were totally unacceptable to me.
Hello, John.
I'm sorry to have hung up on you, but unfortunately you said something horrible.
Which is that I could put that beetle in my hand and walk it outside.
I mean, I can't, I cannot imagine a thing I would like to do less.
It was y'all, everyone listening, it's tiny.
It's not tiny.
It's smaller than your fingernail.
It's about the size of my fingernail.
It's about the length of your fingernail, maybe.
Oh God.
It's just still here is the thing.
What was the question?
Your walls and your body is a semi-permeable membrane.
There is not a way to define the outside as all outside
and the inside as all inside.
And we shouldn't be doing that
because we are a part of our world
and our world is sitting on the desk of an alien
as a science fair project.
You're making it much worse just so you know.
Well, yeah, I'm just telling you the reality of the situation
you're going to have to live with. I'm not trying to make it better.
If you're trying to calm someone's bug anxiety, don't tell them that
their body is a semi permeable membrane. It is.
That's fine. I'm not saying whether it's true. I'm saying
whether it's helpful. Okay. Well, I can hear you.
Anyway, so our beautiful, beautiful earth that contains many bugs is sitting in the room
of an alien child on their desk.
It's their science fair project.
What grade do you think the alien teachers would give to us as a science fair project?
Sadie asks.
A plus.
A plus. A plus. A plus. Are you kidding?
A plus.
I mean, I don't know, I don't see what it's being compared to,
but you can, we've got to hear on earth
that has both bats and octopuses,
which are about as different from each other
as I can imagine.
And they're both like thriving.
Well, we're.
Yeah, I mean, the only, I think maybe the only question mark
on this person's grade is letting humans become so dominant.
Like, why did they design a planet
where humans could just take over
and the course of like 200,000 years?
I could see the teacher being like,
wow, this is a beautiful, really interesting planet.
Now, these ones,
yeah.
Why did you,
why did you,
they,
now I can't say they're not interesting.
Yeah, it's like,
why did you go with this?
As the kids say.
And why did you give them so much bug anxiety?
As the kids say,
this one creature seems a little OP.
What, what does that mean? It means overpowered. as the kids say, this one creature seems a little OP.
What? What does that mean? It means overpowered. It's like a video game thing.
Yeah, yeah. You need to nerf them.
Yes, exactly.
Which does feel like it might be happening.
We're so young and promising with our slang.
That's exactly right.
That is actually what's happening.
Right now, there is a science class somewhere where the Hermione Granger of that class has
designed an earth that sits on her desk.
And the teacher is like, listen, I think this is great.
Obviously, it's very impressive.
Is there any way you can nerf the humans?
And the student is like, I got some ideas. Hermione, if you're listening, nerf us.
But the nicest way possible, please.
Can you nerf us in a chill way?
Is there any way that we can be chilly nerf?
Can you get us to nerf ourselves?
That would be dope.
If you could just get us to turn it down a little bit
from like an eight to a six.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
I would like for the progress to continue,
but I'd like to have a little bit better handle on it
from day to day.
Oh yeah, yeah.
You know what, yeah, but you know what,
whoever's science project this is,
I just wanna say one, thank you.
I wouldn't exist without you.
I like existing and two it's great but I still think it could be better. Yeah.
You know which has occurred to me Hank. Uh-huh. It is a science project and
increasingly it's our science project. Oh, well, but like, to what extent are we individuals?
To what extent are we a collective?
So is it my science project?
No.
Or am I in someone else's science project?
I think that we're all just bubbles on the tide of empire, but the thing is that the tide
is made out of us.
Like the tide is made out of bubbles. And the other tide, the tide of empire is made out of is that the tide is made out of us. Like the tide is made out of bubbles.
And to the other tide, the tide of empire is made out of little bubbles, and I'm a little
bubble, but I feel, I feel like I'm not affecting the tide, but I am. Yep. I am, but am I,
am I, because am I even in control of my own actions? Oh, he's starting to get there.
Um, you're only a couple of weeks away from being truly afraid of this bug.
Have you heard the theory that this that Speed of Light has a speed because the creators,
the alien who created our universe, doesn't want to have to maintain
the resolution very far away.
So it's like, well, let's slow it down so that stuff can't get to them yet.
That is distressing.
Well, it doesn't have to be John because the only reason we are here is to love and support
each other, and there's plenty of value
just in that.
And also to be grateful to the experience of existing, which in those bug free moments,
we can be.
I like that you're becoming the theologian.
You said the words to me enough times that it sunk in.
It's a big surprise to me that suddenly you're like, you know why our creator established
a speed limit for the universe?
And just to be clear, I understand that you're not actually making a religious statement.
I just like the way that you phrased that.
It made me happy.
Good.
I'm glad.
So, I'm very grateful to this kid at a science fair in an alien universe who made
our universe and just, you know, slowed things down so that it wouldn't be so weird for us and
so challenging a computational problem for them. Yeah, I know that they're a fan of the pod and I
just wanted to say thank you for your work and I appreciate you supporting us on Patreon.
Imagine if like instead of them finding the Voyager capsule, they just like somehow hear one episode.
And it says so much about me that I'm like, yeah, that'd be a good introduction.
I think that that's...
Oh my god, that does say a lot about you.
It tells me he still has some work to do as a team.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, totally.
You know, there's a lot of great media that's created by earth. This is up there.
I'm sorry. I can't. I'm sorry. I want to yes, Andrew, but I'm unable to. I just think Shakespeare
would be a bit much. Yeah. Yeah. It's like that Emily Dickinson poem tell all the truth,
but tell it slant like you don't want to
You don't want to overwhelm them with our beauty right away
Shakespeare first you want to sort of slow-row it by being like so we have banter podcasts
All right, this question comes from Ashley who writes dear John and not Hank
John you always sign your YouTube comments with Dash John
and Hank never signs his comments.
How do you feel about that?
Is that what led to your longstanding feud
or does John write all the comments
and only leave the controversial ones name
with Hawkins and Penguins?
Ashley, this is something that has evolved over the,
over 15 years we've been
making YouTube videos, but it's, it's a way for people who are within Nerdfighteria to
know who wrote the comment, right?
That's what I've always thought of it as.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, and I do sometimes sign mine and I sometimes, and it's only that I forget
when I don't do it.
Oh, I think that I'm not like, I'm not in the place where, or, or it's my that I forget when I don't do it. When I think to, I'm not in the place where,
or it's my video and I'm like, you assume that it's me.
Usually when I'm commenting on your videos,
I sign them.
And it may just be that I don't comment on your videos
that much and you comment more on mine,
which now I feel like I should learn from that.
No, you shouldn't feel any obligation
to write more YouTube comments than you currently
do.
But I like the fact that the way that we know it's you is that there's no signature.
That's kind of lovely to me.
Now occasionally, I will write a YouTube comment and not sign it, John.
And I did that recently and somebody replied, I can tell this is John because it doesn't
have any exclamation points.
Haha, yeah, I'm an excometer.
I have a... It's, I mean, it's the way any exclamation points. Yeah, I'm an exclamation. I have a...
It's the way of things these days.
We live in an exclamatory society.
Yeah, maybe there should be fewer exclamators,
but they seem like they have a pretty powerful faction
in the politics of the day.
Like maybe if they all got together,
they could be like a super PAC.
The exclamation point.
Yes.
Yeah, I mean, the other thing about an exclamation point though,
is that it's a way, almost,
of making it clear that you're being nice,
which is different from what it used to be.
It used to be a way of yelling,
and now it's almost a way of upspeak.
Like, glad you liked the video. Right. Yeah. Yeah. It's like, it's almost a way of upspeak. Like, glad you liked the video.
Right.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's like, it's almost like a moticon where you're just like trying to indicate to people
how the vibe and the very true fact that if you have a three sentence email and all three
sentences have exclamation points, you've crossed the line into being unhinged.
But if you just make one of those a period, then it's like, ah, what a good vibe.
Yeah, and if you know of them,
If you know of them,
A society this complex is so hard.
Well, I mean, not, not that well.
It's true. Speaking of, John, this next question comes from Anne, who asks,
Dear Hank and John, my boyfriend is currently on a ship in the middle of the ocean,
and will be for the next few months, at least.
Seeing as I'll be in Alaska on a fishing boat in a few days, this shouldn't be a problem.
I guess I have an exciting life.
However, he's currently only reachable by email, and my Gen Z self considers email mostly
as a place to reset passwords.
Not really a form of communication, which brings me to my question, how do you write
an email?
Anything I write sounds weirdly formal and impersonal,
and I kind of love this guy, so that seems wrong.
Any advice is greatly appreciated currently,
and I love triangle with the ocean, and,
and your life sounds awesome.
Well, I don't know if it sounds awesome,
but it sounds very interesting.
Very interesting.
That's true.
I'm not sure that I'd want to necessarily switch places
with Anne, not least because our dad worked in a way,
has gone a fishing boat in his stories of it.
Did not make me want to try it.
I think that the people of the boat are also happy that we're not switching places with Anne.
Oh, so true, Hank.
Like, the last thing a group of commercial fishermen need on a boat is us.
group of commercial fishermen need on a boat is us.
Just like you being very worried and me vomiting like that.
You want to talk about a drain on resources.
You just got two guys in the whole of his ship vomiting for five days.
Oh,
they actually sponsored the podcast to keep us off their boat.
It's great. Sit, go cassam and shares get them today
Boy, we're giving out a lot of free promos
and
Writing an email now is like writing a letter in the 19th century and that is I think how you have to
There is something in here
And that is, I think, how you have to embrace it. Like, there is something in here
at the end of the book about it,
that you've got to treat it as,
this is my chance to write long love letters to my beloved.
And then someday, if things work out and,
and you end up having a life together,
you can look back on this period of writing emails back
and forth and see your correspondence,
and it'll be super lovely.
Yeah, I mean, you can try and read some old letters period of writing emails back and forth and see your correspondence and it'll be super lovely.
Yeah. I mean, you can try and read some old letters because they're available. Just look
up historical love letters or something. And you'll find some examples. And try and get
a sense of what that's like. But the main thing is you want to have a number of different
things to convey. And I think you want to try to do it as weird as possible.
I think that let go of the conventions that you might imagine on email contains.
Basically, what you're going to want to do is a bunch of text messages in a row that
you're not getting replies to.
Okay, I like that. I like to have a numbered email, which is similar to sort of text
messaging it, where I write about a series of topics, each one with a number, and then
if there are any interesting topics to the person who I'm emailing with, they can reply by number if they wish.
I also think that you have to remember that when you're writing an email as opposed to
when you're writing a text message, it's okay to have multiple fronts of conversation.
It's okay to move from what the situation is on your boat to what the situation is on
their boat.
Yeah, and also you're sort of thought,
like your frustrations with the word all that day,
it can really go everywhere.
Your thoughts about a tree,
I go listen to a podcast
and they talked about our letters to each other.
And that made me think about the time
that you fixed the faucet, it said.
By the way, you know what Ann won't be thinking about when she's out on the
great Alaskan ocean and what trees.
Maybe I'm thinking about how how I took trees for granted back when I could see the land.
Oh yes, right back when I was a land lover, I remember I would just look at a tree
and think nothing of it, but now here in the great open ocean,
I can't help but yearn for the trees.
This is exactly the way you need to write.
You need to be ridiculous about it.
I think like I love a long, weird email from someone I love.
My dear is the line of weird email from someone I love. Yeah, my dear, I love a live, weird email
from someone I don't know.
Those are not.
Well, that is such a great observation
about the complexity of living in a society.
I love a short, polite email from someone I don't know,
and I love a long, weird email from someone I do know,
but I don't really like the other way around.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, both of those ways.
I don't like them.
All right, Hank, speaking of couples on the move, we've got this email from Matt and
Alyssa who write, dear John and Hank, we're currently driving from Washington to Montana.
It is raining and cold and there are lots of mountains with lots of trees.
The trees appear to be creating clouds.
Are these clouds that they are creating?
Is it steam? Is mist cold steam? Are trees warm?
Will the trees mist you, Matt and Alyssa?
That's a very good ride.
Oh, yeah.
Well, more tree talk, Matt and Alyssa, here on land,
where the trees are.
It's a totally different vibe from the last question.
Well, first of all, we're all wrong about what steam is.
Okay, isn't it just water that is steamy?
So steam technically is water vapor.
So it is, it is water that is so hot that it's a gas.
And you cannot,
You cannot steam water vapor.
We all think that we can.
And this is the fault of both reality being confusing
and our educations.
So like you see like, you know, when they show you
the three states of matter, they like show you ice
and liquid water and then like a steamy shower.
Unhungual team.
Yeah, like water boiling off the, yeah.
But like the steamy shower is not showing you steam.
It's showing you little droplets of water,
of liquid water in the air.
Tiny little droplets, mist clouds.
That's what clouds are. They're just tiny droplets of liquid water up in the air. Tiny little droplets, mist clouds. That's what clouds are.
They're just tiny droplets of liquid water up in the air.
You cannot see that stuff when it's water vapor.
And in fact, you can watch oftentimes
with like, cumulative clouds, the sort of like height at which
the entirely transparent water vapor
reaches a temperature where it then starts to condense out of the air
into water droplets, and that's what the cloud is.
Up until that point, there's still water in the air.
It's just that it's gaseous water that you cannot see.
So water vapor is entirely clear, a cloud,
and also what we see as the stuff coming out of the tea
kettle, that's the water starting to condense out of the steam.
That's the stuff that you can see, not the steam itself.
So there's a confusing thing about the world,
and I apologize for it.
Now, trees do create clouds,
but they are probably not creating these clouds
as my guests.
Trees create clouds because they transpire.
So the whole thing, one of the big things that plants do
is they bring water up from their roots
and then they evaporate it from their leaves.
That's a big part of how their metabolism works.
And that's how they live.
And that evaporates from their leaves,
and water vapor, it is then released into the environment
where it can then condense to form a cloud.
Now, the, yes, yes, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa I have no idea, John. I think that I'm sure that the words are related to each other, but it is.
That is so beautiful.
It's the biological term for when plants like exhale water vapor, it's transpiration.
And so when we say like, as it transpired, my grandma hit me in the face.
I don't know why I went there.
Could have picked any now in the verbin, any direct't know why I went there. Could have picked any now and any verb,
any direct object, and I went there. Let's try it again. As it transpired, the kitten ate
my finger. What is wrong with happening with me? As it transpired, the typewriter consumed my thoughts.
It's a thing that occurs.
It's just a thing that occurs.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, but I love the idea of its root,
of its core being in the way that something lives.
Yeah, I don't, let's look up the trick.
So it's from, oh wow.
John, it is from trans, which just means like
all the things that trans means,
so like a cross or beyond or through.
And then Spirare, which is to breathe.
Oh wow.
As it breathes through.
So it's very similar to, it's similar to Inspire.
Yeah.
It's similar to Conspire.
And it's also conspiracy.
Yes, and these all come from the root for the word spirit.
Oh boy.
Yeah. This is good.
This is very good.
The fact that conspiracy conspiracy inspiration and transpiring are all related words
with different sort of prepositions is very, very interesting. That reminds me actually that today's My a tree that transpires, a tree that transpires, the painting ate my face.
Wow.
This podcast is also brought to you by John's inability to have a sane thought.
Why is everything trying to eat me?
No, man.
It started.
I think it's because of the bug. I think it's because I know that that bug wants to eat me? I don't know, man. It started, I think it's because of the bug.
I think it's because I know that that bug wants to kill me
and it's just thinking about how to do it.
He's John's inability to have a same thought.
It's at least a little bit fun.
For some of us, today's podcast is also, of course, brought to you by that little kid
who made our stupid universe, the little kid who made our stupid universe to do a pretty
good job.
Definitely good in the A plus.
This podcast is also brought to you by the exclamators, the exclamators, the newest, most
popular political party in America.
We also have a project for us in message from Iwana and Dragosh to the entire world, including
future generations.
We would like to use this opportunity to clarify once and for all that raspberries are the
best fruit.
Screw you, bananas.
The tatos are the best vegetables and mushrooms are the worst things with non-zero nutritional
value.
Also, thanks Hank and John for all the good things you're doing for the world.
That's very kind, thank you.
Just so you know, the bug is still here.
It just is walking right across the floor, stressing me out.
But thank you for that clarity about raspberries.
It's apparently the smell of the universe.
We didn't finish answering the last question, John.
We took it with a break.
Oh, right, sorry.
We had to take one of those ad breaks that's in the middle
where you were like, it's like a big cliffhanger, you know?
Yeah, so it's like in a true crime podcast
when they're like,
I've got to find out.
Find out after the break.
What's up with this cloud?
Yeah.
So I don't know what's going on exactly with this cloud.
If you're in between Washington and Montana, you are in a wet place.
There's a lot of water vapor in the air.
And what's happening is probably as that water vapor is traveling up the
side of a mountain, it's getting colder and this is condensing out and forming fog slash
clouds. Would be, I guess, and that water vapor is coming from all over, but in part,
it's coming from the trees, but I think probably in a greater part, it's coming from just
it being a moist place where there's lots of water.
What's a moist place and you say it gets moist too?
Sorry.
It just can't.
Somebody says, A adjective place.
Yeah, you're stuck.
And then you're like, and the years keep dripping and they don't start dripping. That's lucky. That's it. Back to the rules, then I hit the ground slipping,
because it's so wet.
It's so, I mean, of all the things that could have, like,
kind of taken over a collective consciousness,
it had to be all star.
Could have been worse, could have been better.
I mean, it could have been better.
I would argue it would have been easier for it to be better than for it to be worse.
Dear green bros.
Uh-huh.
I accept, I suppose.
I'm sitting in the window seat of a plane and I need to beat this is from grace, by the way.
I'm sitting in the window seat of a plane and I need to be so bad. Wait, but the guy sitting next to me in the middle seat is asleep.
I've said excuse me five times and tapped his arm three times and he's still dead to the world.
What do I do?
Held back while holding it grace.
Now Hank, this is the kind of question that we specialize in because we are best at answering
questions within the 30 minutes timeframe.
That really needs to be answered.
Exactly.
Look, this problem is going to happen
to other people in the future.
And I have to tell you that there are a few different options
and they depend on how good you are at acrobatics.
Oh, no, I don't think you can,
I mean, I guess if you're like a pro gymnast,
you could probably just see like,
I'm gonna walk on my hands right out of here.
But I can't wait.
Can we talk?
Lori Hernandez follows me on TikTok.
And I feel like if we ask this question of Lori Hernandez,
she would have a way to get out of that seat
where that man had no idea that it happened.
And also everybody on the plane was like,
what just occurred?
Yeah, no.
This does not.
But that would be awesome if you are an elite gymnast.
Yes.
But if you are not an elite gymnast, you have two options.
Yes.
One of which is to shake the person until they are awake, which is your right.
And I would argue your obligation.
Yes.
The other option is to hit your flight attendant call button and
have the flight attendant come over and say to the flight attendant, I don't know how to
handle this situation. Do you have any advice? Just like, I panicked. You know what I did? Like literally I have done this before
where I'm like, okay, my goal,
my goal is to get out of this middle seat
without waking that man up.
I'm not going to achieve that goal,
but I'm going to attempt to.
And maybe this person is so asleep
that like literally in the process of like stepping over their
like glimps legs, you won't wake them up. But I have done that where like that person's
asleep, I've tried to wake them up, I give up, I don't want to pee on myself. And so I'm
just going to climb over that person and hope that I don't wake them up. Usually they wake
up. And they understand what's going on, which is that like the person next to them also has a body.
Right. I think that is the underlying reason why we find ourselves asking so many questions about plane etiquette is because it is rare
that we are in a situation of real intimacy and vulnerability with strangers, except on an airplane, we are always in that situation,
or at least almost always. And so it's an intense, strange thing. And right now, especially,
like, I feel like we didn't know that much about how to interact with strangers 10 years ago,
but like, I definitely know less about it now than I did 10 years ago.
Yeah. And so I think the thing to remember is that most people,
most of the time, are gonna understand that you need to be,
and are gonna wanna support you in that effort. Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha- I want to ask you this question from John Wukru writes to your John and Hank, I've listened to all the books that the two of you have ever published, except for the unicorn novellas.
What?
What are the unicorn novellas?
Uh, the zombie corn novellas?
Oh, I genuinely forgot about those.
That people, he, this person assumed that the zombie, that zombie
corn is about unicorn zombies, which is not, which is not.
It's about corn zombies.
It brings together two of my great areas of interest, free will, and the ubiquity of corn.
Anyway, I'd completely forgotten that I wrote two different zombie corn novelas, but here we go.
Now I want to go back and thoroughly read all of your books again.
I was able to get the Fauna Stars from my library resale, but I can't find any of the others used.
I was on eBay and found hard covers for $3.50 plus shipping.
And I was thinking that must be illegal or that you can't be getting the proceeds for that.
But are you okay if I buy them off eBay like that?
PS I'm so excited for the turtles all the way down movie trying to be Ryan.
John Luke.
John.
Yeah.
Yeah, you're not going to make any money when people buy your books used, but you are going
to make the thing that you actually wanted, which is another person who has read your book.
Totally.
That's how I feel.
Like somebody somewhere bought the book,
which I appreciate, and then it's theirs.
It's really interesting,
like the world's perception of ownership
has changed dramatically when John Luke says to us,
it feels like it must be illegal
to sell a piece of property that I own, a book.
Yeah, but I also think it's complicated
when it's media, right?
Because.
Yeah, no, I mean, but like that,
it used to be that we sort of like,
didn't, weren't gonna solve that problem
because the VHS tape contains Jurassic Park.
And so you can transfer,
you can like take that physical thing
and say, do you want this?
And now you oftentimes can't.
Like you own Jurassic Park for you,
but not for anyone else.
Or access to it, rather than you don't even own it,
you own access to it.
Right, you can't sell your downloaded copy of Jurassic Park when you buy it from
Xfinity or Apple TV or whatever.
Yeah.
Yes, and we live in a weird time in terms of ownership, and I do not know how to
navigate it entirely, but I do know that if you buy a used book off of eBay, I'm good with it.
I don't get the 80 cents,
but I'm okay with not getting that 80 cents.
Yeah.
And also, like,
especially it seems like you've already bought it.
Yeah, that's what I was gonna say.
You got him on Audible.
So.
That's what I was gonna say.
Like to me, if you've already bought it,
buying it a second time,
I mean, if you want to give us 80 cents,
just go to patreon.com slash deerhankajon and we'll spend the money on
Complexly's
Mission, right. Yeah, but hankajon I think what you said is really important
Which is that what we really want is for people to read the stories and more than that for people to care about the stories and to
Let them in and give them a seat at the table in their lives.
That's what we want.
We want to be able to do that in a way that supports our publishers and our editors and
ourselves, but what we really want, like the core desire is to share the stories.
Yeah.
And people readers like John Luke, who are are going deeper who are saying like that so much
I want to experience it in a different format a second time. Yeah, really amazing. Yeah, that's my favorite thing when people
Get the Anthropocene reviewed audiobook and then want to get the print books so that they can go through it
That like that's just so lovely
But it's also lovely when people just listen to the audio book or just listen to the podcast
because that's what we're trying to do.
That's why we make stuff.
We make it for people.
John, hit me with some of that, I have to remember the news.
Oh, well, I mean, we're still relegated.
So that's it.
So no miracle occurred.
Like actual miracle or like one of the teams was like,
actually we wanna go down. Can you go up instead? Yeah, was like, actually, we want to go down.
Can you go up instead?
Yeah, it have to be, it have to be two or three of the teams.
But yeah, so I mean, that's, that's just the way that, that's the way that it worked out
for us.
There has not been an announcement on the manager front except that our caretaker manager who saw us through the end of the season
will not be the full-time manager next season.
And we're gonna have to,
we're gonna have to try to figure out what to do from here.
How to be a League 2 club and who the manager is gonna be.
That's the, I think the first big decision
who's gonna lead the club through this first season
in League Two, and then from there,
we'll have to figure out all the player stuff.
John, do you think I'd be good at that?
I have thought about, well, first off, no.
If I don't think.
I agree.
I don't think you'd be good at it. I don't think you'd be good at it.
I don't think I'd be good at it.
I don't think Ted Lasso in real life would be good at it.
But I have thought at times, gosh, that would be a fun job.
I know nothing about football, which I think is probably a pretty big problem.
I recently watched some people doing something on TikTok where they were kicking soccer balls,
and I was like, wow, they seem like the best in the world, and I don't think they were.
Yeah, yeah, no, you can be really, really good and still not be a professional footballer.
So, all right, well, keep us up to date.
I'm glad that you're back on Plow Lane and that's going to carry forward into a lot of
the future.
Yeah.
That's the most important thing.
All right, John, in Mars news, so you may or may not be aware that there are glaciers
on Mars that are made not of water but of dry ice.
So of carbon dioxide that has solidified out of the atmosphere, because it's cold. So those dry glaciers are at the South Polar Cap, they're more than a half a billion years old.
And for the most part, they've been steadily increasing in volume and mass,
except for a few places where the carbon dioxide actually evaporates off of the glacier,
or sublimates.
Would it want to be technical about it?
Good word.
Another great word.
But we've been wondering if these glaciers
move around the way the glaciers do on Earth,
or if they're just sort of like build
and stay in exactly the same place.
If they build and stay in the same place,
the ice would be around 45 meters thick,
whereas if they flowed, they would flow into deeper areas
and then sort of like pile on top of itself.
So you could have like inside of basins or troughs, you could have like a thick kilometer of pure dry ice.
And the researchers used NASA's Ice Sheet and Sea Level System model, which is used to watch polar ice caps on our planet in Greenland and Antarctica. And they adapted it to study Mars and found that the pattern of glacier distribution
means that they have indeed been flowing.
Wow.
It suggests that the glaciers have been moving for around 600,000 years and that they
flowed the most around 400,000 years ago, but can continue to flow to this day just
less than they did at that point.
So there may be these like deep, deep pockets of dry ice.
Yeah, in fact, I think that that's sort of what they figured out as they can like see the
places where it has flowed into and like away from and into.
And I mean, maybe this is me not totally understanding geology, but at those deep, deep levels wouldn't
the ice be a little bit warmer?
Uh, not really.
I don't think because it's probably pretty insulated that the, the, the, well, that's
what I was just thinking like on earth, you know, there's, there's, there's a, if you go
deep enough, you usually find water like liquid water.
Right. Well, first of all, these are not water ice.
Right. So there's no like, there's the only thing that would be melting down there would be,
it would be melting into a gas that would then be bubbling out. But down there, it's probably not
that warm because it's not deep enough inside of Mars to get to any warm spot,
because it's not like Mars is not particularly.
Particularly geologically active.
So it probably is that there,
like down deep enough you would get to magma,
but it's much deeper than it is on the earth.
So not a great place for doing chemistry, as you like to say?
No, yeah, that's not a good place for chemistry to happen.
There are probably places on Mars in which there might be a good place for chemistry to happen.
And for those who don't know, that's Hank's euphemism for life.
But interestingly, it occurs to me that maybe the phrase
interesting chemistry is the universe's euphemism for life.
Yeah, I mean, there is no doubt, like if you look at it through the eyes of a chemist,
that there are two kinds of chemistry. There's boring chemistry, no offense,
inorganic chemists, and all of that junk, and organic chemists as well. And then there's interesting chemistry,
which is the life kind, which is just far, like, it is far weirder and more complex and cool.
Well, this little bit of interesting chemistry is going to go pick up his son from school.
Oh, I thought you were going to go get the bug.
Oh, no, no, no.
You don't understand. I can never come into contact with that bug.
Not now, not ever.
I can't kill it, I can't move it.
It is a permanent resident of this home.
Okay.
But nonetheless, thank you for potting with me.
And most importantly, thank you for face timing
with me and telling me that the bug was not dangerous.
You are safe.
You're a safe man.
Not in the long run.
Ah.
It's like that, that tombstone.
I told you I was sick.
Right, exactly.
Right.
We're off to record our Patreon Only podcast.
This weekend stuff where we talk about things that are bringing us happiness in these times.
Thank you so much for everybody
for sending in your questions.
The email address to do that is hank and johnatgmail.com.
This podcast is edited by Joseph Tuna Meticch.
It's produced by Rosiana Halls-Rohas.
Our communications coordinator is Julia Blum.
Our editorial assistant is Deboki Troc-Ravardi.
The music you're hearing now at the beginning of the podcast
is by the great gunorola,
and as they say in our hometown.
Don't forget to be awesome.
The music you're hearing now at the beginning of the podcast is by the great gunna roll
out and as they say in our hometown.
Don't forget to be awesome.