Dear Hank & John - 356: Screaming in a Large Space

Episode Date: December 19, 2022

What can I do in an empty library? How fast do we make pee? Can a horse and a dinosaur have kids? Can I live in Milton Keynes as a Wimbledon fan? Could I drink Martian water through a filtered straw? Is the sun up there silently screaming for all eternity?  Hank and John Green have answers! If you're in need of dubious advice, email us at [e-mail] us for monthly livestreams and an exclusive weekly podcast at patreon.com/dearhankandjohn.Follow us on Twitter! twitter.com/dearhankandjohn

Hello and welcome to Dear Agen, John. Or is I prefer to think of it dear John and Hank. It's a podcast where two brothers answer your questions, give you to be a advice and bring you all the weeks news from both Mars and AFC Wimbledon John, I got a silver plate. Oh. I got a silver plate and on Christmas morning I'm going to wake up and I'm going to tell Catherine that she can stay in bed and I I'm gonna go downstairs and make eggs Benedict.

And I'll bring it up to her on that crystal plate. So I'm gonna say, cause there's no plate like chrome for the holidays. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. How are you doing, John? I'm good, Hank.

I took like 17 really intense gulps of late stage Twitter yesterday, right before signing off of the service from my verified account for good. It's now being run by our mutual friend, Peyton, who's having a great time with it. I did see the first tweet that she wrote as me. So for those who don't know, I stopped using Twitter as myself and became the awesome coffee club, our coffee subscription service for charity. Uh huh.

And then you couldn't change your name back because that's not allowed anymore on Twitter. Yeah, yeah, exactly. I can't change my name. So it was kind of a difficult situation that I was in. But Peyton's first tweet as me is so great. It was now that John is logged out of this account. You're just screaming your weird opinions

at a Harry Styles fan who's dressed up as a coffee company. That's it. And I feel free. I feel like my Twitter is in better hands than it ever has been. The least capable and qualified person to run my Twitter over the last several years has been me. And so finally, I've been ousted from the job I was never suited for. I just, uh, during the recording of Delete This, which is my podcast with Catherine, where we talk about my social media use, um, I, I deleted Twitter from my phone, and I have pledged to not use it during until January at the latest or at the earliest and, um, just see how that goes. Um, but, but immediately I noticed something, John, which is that people continued to have opinions about me,

but I couldn't do anything about it. I just have to let it happen. Well, or you could just not look, and then they have opinions that you don't know about. I'm just a soul whose intentions are good. Oh Lord, please don't let me be misunderstood. And that, and yet. Yes, yes, that is the issue. Twitter does want that.

Right, none of us want to be misunderstood and Twitter, especially right now, but I am constantly, constantly misunderstood. Twitter right now seems very eager to misunderstand me. I haven't actually been paying much attention to how it's understanding you. Yeah, me. I'm, I'm hyper focused on the center

of the observable universe, and I'll tell you what, they are not being nice to him. Ah. Ah. Ah. Oh, that's so funny. I have no idea what people are saying to you, but I know what they're saying to me.

It's, it's not nice. Um, after the first thing Peyton texted me, when she logged into my account was, oh, wow, people, people are not nice to you. Yeah, which I think, like she knows more like what gets tweeted at me. So which means that they treat you worse than they treat me. I don't know. It's okay.

People on Twitter are really angry and I don't blame them because when I'm on Twitter, I am also really angry. And so I understand why they would feel riled up and suspicious. Because when I'm on Twitter, I also feel riled up and suspicious. I do, however, I just want to say this for the record. I am not participating in a vast conspiracy to protect certain public health officials from prosecution. I have never phoned an FBI office on the topic. I've never phoned an FBI office hard stop. It's never come up. So it would be great. It'd be great if I could be excluded from that discourse, that particular discourse.

We are going into the end of the year here. I think this is actually our last podcast of 2022 together. What are your big, what, what, what, what would you like to make in 2023? I'll go first to give you a little bit of I would like to make abs. Abs? Yeah, yeah, I'd like to make you said ads. And I was like, we do that enough. We're good on ads. I just want to write policy genius ads. I don't know why they limit me to one a month. It doesn't seem fair. I love policy genius and I have a gift for advertising

for them and they only let me write one each month. I'd like to be a full-time policy genius ad writer. No. So you don't want to do that. You want to get into advertising. I want to. That's right. I want to become a fitness influencer. I want to become America's leading abvertiser. Yeah, that's it.

That's my, that's what I want to make in 2023. While I was making Twitter in 2022, I want to be making abs in 2023. Do you want people to be able to see them? Like you want them to be visible? Or do you want them to be in there? Oh, no, no. No, I don't need them to be visible. Like you want them to be visible? Or do you just want them to be in there? No, I don't need them to be visible. I just want them to do a good job of supporting my torso when it stands. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

This is where my abs are good at. I have got some after 10 years of Pilates. Yeah. I know they're in there. I can't see them, but I know they're in there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sock me in the stomach and no worries. That's great. As long as they're helping hold you up, that's all that matters.

That's right. What do I want to make? I want to, I've been thinking about this, John. Yeah. I've been thinking about the time that humanity has spent asking what stuff is made out of. I think it's a really interesting question. And we know quite a bit now and almost present that knowledge as if it is self-evident. It's not. You can't, atoms are so small that you would, you don't even believe it. Like you can't even. They're also very weird. They're small and weird. They're tiny and they're extremely weird. The fact that there are different

ones. They remain made out of other things. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. It's very weird. It's very weird that they have different numbers of electrons. That's weird. Yeah. And it's, yes.

It's very strange and figuring that out. Like if you pitched that to somebody 5,000 years ago, they would have been like, I don't know. That doesn't, that seems a little counterintuitive to me. Well, yeah. I mostly thought that there was solid stuff, there was wind or air and there was liquid, which was water and then there was fire,

which also seemed like a thing. Or maybe there was energy or maybe there's like metal versus wood, sometimes we both thought. Anyway, I think that we spend too much time sort of being told that there are atoms and not enough time being confronting the reality that there was no moment when we realized there were atoms. There were lots of people who argued for a long time and try and interrogated their beliefs

every way they could or their ideas until one day everybody woke up and was like, yeah, yeah, there's atoms. But nobody noticed that day. Right. It was a thing that occurred, but no one noticed it because it happened gradually and then we like sort of retroactively say, ah, we figured it out on this day when really we didn't we just kept on doing until we stopped arguing Right, we treat it as an event, but it's only an event in retrospect in the experience of it It was a process. And so if you can introduce people to that process, that historical process that led to us understanding, or having at least some understanding

of what stuff is made out of, you can actually help people understand what stuff is made out of on a deeper level. I think that's a really cool project. I think that would be a great thing for you to make in 2023. I'm gonna make an, I'm gonna make an abs, but you do that. Yeah. I also think it's valuable as we live through science

continuing to progress, which really happened a lot in the last few years. And I just have noticed a lot of ways that we did that badly because it was, because we had been sort of pitched a certain idea of what science is that isn't accurate, you know? Yeah. It's accurate to say we're in a process. We're in a process.

But man, do people love an event? Yeah. Almost everything is a process, but people love an event. It's like how almost everything is a spectrum, but people love a binary. It's like how almost everything is a spectrum, but people love a binary. People just love the idea that it can all be distilled down to zeros and ones, and I don't blame them. Wouldn't that be lovely?

Alas and Alac. Hank, let's answer some questions from our listeners beginning with this one from Catherine who writes, Do you know what I'm saying? Do do a quirk of scheduling every once in a while. I spend a couple hours working in a closed library by myself. By the way, Hank, have you noticed that I'm a little more present today?

What? Does it feel like I'm here in a way that I haven't been here in the last few weeks? I, you know, I didn't notice that much, honestly. But I'm glad, I'm glad. I'm back, baby. I'm here. The TV's not even on.

Of course I have work to do, but I feel like the opportunity should be taken advantage of being alone in this closed library while it's available. Any and all dubious advice in general, shenanigans are welcome, Pride and Prejudice Catherine. John, I think that the number one thing, first, I got to make sure there's no security cameras that are going to record me, but I do desperately want to just run around screaming. I think that it deserves it. I think that the walls need a little bit of noise. Yeah, and there's the whole thing where like, yes, yes.

And also it's going to feel good for you, Catherine, like screaming in a large space that you're alone in feels so much better than you think it will. I remember I used to have to work sometimes. I wouldn't say I had to work. I used to volunteer to work over Christmas. Like somebody had to be in the offices and most people had kids and stuff when I worked at Bookless Magazine. And so I would volunteer to be there that week between Christmas and New Year's, especially in like Christmas Eve, Christmas day. And I would be utterly alone

in inside this building, just like doing the bare minimum, Catherine. I mean, I don't know if they can retroactively dock my pay, but I would say that I was quiet quitting way before quiet quitting on Christmas Eve. And so I just be in the office on Christmas Eve, making sure that nothing went wrong, making sure that like, you know, the printers did all the things that they were supposed to do that day and maybe laying out the last version or whatever. But like most of the day, I was just like walking around being like, I survived a zombie

apocalypse. Like, I am in a, I am in a post-apocalyptic world where the entire building belongs solely to me. And just that feeling was quite joyful. That's pretty cool. I have two suggestions for Catherine. I think that you should buy, you should try and buy a lot of small things. There's like, you can go on eBay and look for it just like if you can get like $20 of little plastic babies or something, something like that.

Not plastic babies, literally anything else. I think there's a plastic baby's thing. Oh, there is. I'm just opposed to it. Okay. Well, you get like some Pokemon maybe. People got too many Pokemon. They're gonna sell a bunch of money, you bet.

Love it. Inexpensively. Love it. And then let the Pokemon live in the library. And if people find one and bring the library. Oh, yes. If people find one and bring them to the desk, you say, oh, that's yours now. And or you can put it back.

It's found you as much as you found it. If you don't want it, you can put it back. You leave it for the next person, but it wants a home. And maybe you're that home. So I like this to you. And the only way you can, you can probably do this if you're not home. So I like this. So I totally have to. Yeah. And the only way you can, you can probably do this if you're not alone in the library.

It's easier to do if you're alone in the library. Otherwise, you're gonna be really be sneaking around and like, it's like your shoplifting, but you're doing the opposite. Second, I don't know when people are gonna come in, but I do wanna do an experiment on those people. So what I would do if I was alone in the library, but people are gonna show up soon, because I would, once a week, do a different scent, like the smell of oranges or vanilla,

and just sort of spray it around, and then everybody comes in, and they're, and like, you see what people notice, what they mention to you. And I like, so as a very nasally sensitive person, I feel like that's too much. Just some orange. Extremely low levels, like cutting oranges. If you're releasing a scent out into a public library, I would argue that's a form of attacking the other patrons of the library. You like the Pokemon though? But I love the idea of the Pokemon or related figurines or,

I was thinking Nerf Darts would be funny, like to imply that there was some kind of grand Nerf war that occurred, but it was like decades ago. So it's just like somehow we're still like digging up those. The Nerf Darts from the great Nerf War of 1982. Yeah, you can get 65 mini Pokemon's for $20 plus $5 shipping on eBay right now. Well, there you go.

I mean, that's not- That's not- That's not- That's not- It seems a little expensive, but like- That's not that cheap. No, I wanted it to be cheap. I bet if it was babies, it'd be cheaper. Oh, Hank. What? I can get you an entire Noah's Ark worth of small plastic animals for 12.95.

We're talking, and it's brand new. 54 brand new pieces, mini jungle animals, realistic, wild vinyl, plastic animal learning, party favors toys for boys, girls, kids, toddlers, forest, small animals, play set cupcake, toddler, man. These names of products on Amazon are really getting out of control. Well, how about this one, John? Many babies, 200 pieces, one inch mini plastic babies for baby shower, ice cube game, tiny babies baby party favor supplies decorations

for 1399. Okay, this is gonna be the word baby in there. One, two, three, four, five times. You are definitely getting this one first. Yeah. Okay, I mean, I like it, but, um, this baby's, I mean, I like it. I mean, I like these babies.

If this baby starts showing up in the library, people are going to be so freaked out. I like it, Hank, but not as much as I like 150 pieces, mini resin duck miniature figures, micro fairy garden landscape aquarium, dollhouse ornament, potted plants, decoration DIY slime charms for Christmas birthday party 100 yellow plus 50 multicolor rubber duckies for 1199. I think for a 1999 though, you can get jumping smile popper spring launcher toys, bouncy party favors for kids, unique mini toys, parties supplies and goodie bag stuffers, 24 figurines in a beautiful display box, fit his stocking stuffers.

How can chat GPT be so good and those descriptions be so bad? Because these, these people know what they're doing more than chat GPT does for sure. I mean, by the way, you're welcome for solving all of your Christmas needs, people. Ha ha ha. Yeah. Just head on, head on to Amazon and get 26 pack mini animal plush choice set, cute, small stuffed animal keychain set, goodie bag fillers, carnival prizes for kids assortment,

kid Valentine, and get Easter egg party filter filter party, Easter egg filter party favors. What else do we got a filter in there? Yeah. I think I was trying to make sure that it filters out the bad results. It's just hacking the system. Yeah, I'm sure there's a reason it's there.

I do feel like we should mention that we have actual great Christmas presents available that aren't from like the lowest rung of Amazon, which is itself the lowest rung of e-commerce. We have, for instance, a subscription to the awesome coffee club at awesomecoffeeclub.com with 100% of the proceeds going to support lower maternal mortality and Sierra Leone. So go to awesomecoffeeclub.com. You say you got to say, you got to say awesome coffee, coffee from the coffee awesome. Oh.

Coffee for party favors for dad, Christmas present, birthday present, every present, good for filter, Easter egg, coffee. Thank you, that was much better. I hope to learn a lot more from you in 2023 about writing advertising. I don't know why you're writing about why, I don't know why you're writing about why I don't know why you're writing about what stuff is made of when you could be writing the true opus of our time, how to write ads,

fun birthday party, happy kids, children, toddlers, four-year-olds, eight-year-olds, mini-games, Barbie dolls. John, this next question comes from anonymous who asks, Dear Hank and John, how fast do we make P? So fast. I'll tell you why I know that it's fast. Yeah. And this is what they call good science. If I drink, if I drink 32 ounces of Gatorade. Yeah.

I need to pee in like 12 minutes. I think we make pee in 12 minutes. If it seems like we make pee pretty dang fast, John. Water can be absorbed through your stomach and as fast as five minutes. And then it is in your blood and then your kidneys immediately take that blood. So some of that water you drink is in your bladder within, I'd say, at least within 10

minutes, for sure. Wow. Wow. But I also, you pee about 2,000, and at most, you pee 2,000 milliliters per day. So that would be, if you're drinking two liters a day, you pee 2000 milliliters per day. So that would be, if you're drinking two liters a day, you probably are producing about two liters of P a day. And they actually sometimes doctors want to make sure that you're producing the right amount of P,

and they will have you collect all of the PUP in a day to make sure that you're doing all the good peeing. And so 2000 liters in a day, that's gonna give you an average of how much, you can, how much pee you can make per minute. But if you drink more than two liters a day, which is probably gonna be a little tricky. You can really, I think you should really crank out some pee.

And I, I, I, I, from what I can tell, no one has ever done research on like how fast the kidneys can make. I imagine a sponge, if I squeezed it, it'd just come pouring out. How fast could it if it had to? Somebody must know this, but I couldn't find it in my research. I feel like there's no way that I drink more than two liters of water a day. And I'm including diet Dr. Pepper in water, as you should.

So basically the diet Dr. Pepper that I've been drinking during this podcast, some of this probably already in my bladder. Yeah, great. Well, I think so, yes. Beautiful. Pretty amazing. It's a beautiful thing that we have access to our bodies.

So I wanna head into talk for you. So I wanna head into talk for you. So I wanna head into talk for you. So I wanna head into talk for you. So I wanna head into talk for you. So I wanna head into talk for you. So I wanna head into talk for you. So I wanna head into talk for you. to our bodies. I want to talk with a sense of collaboration between myself and my body, as if we are working together for the same goals, which I think that broadly we are. Not only a sense of collaboration, perhaps, if I could take it a step further, what about if we go into 2023 with a sense of integration into our bodies, that ourselves and our bodies are are inextricable from one another. I believe it is not too far for you, but I don't know if I can believe it in my soul. I get it.

I've been I've been I've been acculturated too much. Wow. Hey green, emerging from 2022 with the belief in the soul. What a what a journey he's been on. I don't know that that's what I said. That's literally what you said. I said, I don't know if I believe it in my soul and you can't believe something in your soul unless you have a soul. Yeah, you know what I mean.

This next question comes from Diva, who writes, dear John and Hank, is Hank on a journey of meaning? No, that's not the question. Um, I love that I said that you're on a journey of meaning and now everyone else thinks that you're on a journey of a very specific kind of meaning and I'm just leaning into it, man.

I was walking through the hallway at school and I heard a girl saying, can a horse and a dinosaur have children? And my immediate thought was, yes, of course. But now I'm not so sure. I mean, for Diba, was your immediate thought was, yes, of course. Of course. Okay.

Can we have a horse, a sore or a dinosaur, not afraid of brain eating amoeba? Diba. Well, first off, so many things are wrong with this. First of all, you need to be terrified of brain eating amoeba, Deba. It should be the first thing you worry about when you wake up and the last thing you worry about

before you go to sleep. How you're doing in school does not matter if a brain eating amoeba comes for you. Whether or not your friends really like you, they do, doesn't matter if a brain eating amoeba comes for you. Oh, God, Whether or not your friends really like you, they do. Doesn't matter if a brain eating a bee becomes for you. Oh, God, I'm so scared of brain eating a bee by. Oh, here's why. There are a couple reasons why a horse and a dinosaur can't have a baby, Deba.

Yeah. Biggest reason. I don't want to handle this delicately because I know little kids listen to the podcast, but the biggest reason is that they did not live at the same time. Right. Well, I mean, that seems like something that all people of all ages should be well aware of. Well, I don't know. I mean, nobody's born knowing anything, but yeah, you can't. That's true. I'm not worried about that knowledge getting out, is all. Yeah, you can't. But if we can make a dinosaur,

something that doesn't exist can't have a child with something that does exist. Is that accurate? Yes, I think so I guess it depends on the definition of some of your words, but Things with the soul and only have babies with things with the soul So oh my god, so things with the soul, and only have babies with things with the soul. So, oh my God. So, there's a bunch of problems, but they're definitely, they're so far apart, even if they did exist at the same place in the same time,

there's very far apart genetically, and would not be, it'd be like a horse trying to have a baby with an ostrich. Or a turtle. Maybe, closer to an ostrich. Or a turtle. Maybe. It's closer to an ostrich, honestly. Yeah, I know that ostriches are technically dinosaurs, but what I'm saying, like, because all the,

like birds are what's left of dinosaurs, isn't that a basically right? Yeah. But turtles give off more of a dinosaur vibe. I feel like, and I know we're not trying to get too deep into soul discussion, saying, but I feel like turtles and I know we're not trying to get too deep into soul discussion, saying, but I feel like turtles have way more of a dinosaur soul than say an ostrich does.

Well, I feel like the thing to look at is the DNA. I mean, it's interesting to think about like what, and I don't know that like a lot of research has actually been done on this, but like what are the things that actually make it not possible for different species? We have the lines. Yeah, because it is fuzzy. They're lines and tigers can have babies. Yeah, but they're not fertile, but polar bears and grizzly bears can have babies and they are fertile. You get a perfectly fertile Groller bear is what they call them. And they do exist.

Coyotes in German shepherds. In fact, there's one in my backyard. Do you want to know the weirdest version of this? This is a sort of a science digression. But there is, there is, there are several species of South American salinder. I don't know how many? Let's say eight or 10. And each of them can enter breathe, breed with each other.

And they're sort of geographically distributed from the north to the south. But the ones from the very far south cannot interbreed with the ones from the very far north, because they're too different. But each of the steps in between, they can all interbreed. So the ones all the way to the south

can with a little bit north and a little bit north and a little bit north, they can make fertile babies. But all the way if you go from the very far south to the very far north, you can't anymore. So super weird. So Diva, it actually is really complicated and we can't be totally sure, but we're pretty sure dinosaurs and horses could not make a dinosaur. Yeah, I don't want to get into the physical how it would happen. But it seems like that's irrelevant because I don't want to get into like the physical how it would happen. But it seems like that's irrelevant because I don't think it's genetically it would be very challenging. Yes. We have a question from David that's critically important for us to answer Hank. David

writes, dear John and Hank, I received an offer for a job in the United Kingdom. I'm from the US. Congratulations, David, in advance on your healthcare. It's a good job. It pays well. And they're happy to sponsor me for immigration. I'm excited and a bit nervous, but there is a problem. Hank, without reading the question, can you guess what the problem is? Does it have to do with what would it have to do with love, John, the problem is love. The problem is way more serious than that, unfortunately. The problem is that the job is in Milton Keynes. If I moved to Milton Keynes, well, I'd become a fan of the franchise.

Can I still wear my Wimbledon scarf available now at dftba.com? David really wrote that. Good job, David. Nothing rhymes with comma, David. I wouldn't wear my Wimbledon scarf, David. I would, I might keep that one in the dresser for really is that the deal. Is it that wouldn't wear it? Yeah. Is there worries? Oh, I would have a little bit of a worry

wearing it. I definitely, you know, you go to a sports game. There's always fans of the other team. It's not like that, Hank. It's really not like that. Okay. fans of the other team. It's not like that Hank. It's really not like that. Oh, okay. It's really not like that. Like just when you're walking around town, can you not wear it? Could you go to a game where it's AFC Wimbledon versus Milton Keynes and where are your AFC Wimbledon scarf there?

In the Milton Keynes section? No, you could not. But in the stadium you could. If you are in the Wimbledon section of the stadium, which has a police escort that brings them in and out of the stadium, yes. Yeah. Oh boy. I don't know how I feel.

I don't know how I thought that this was all fun on games. It feels less like fun on games now. Well Hank, I don't want to rehash the history here, but they stole a community's football club. The institution itself. Well, but then rent it. Then for all the Wimbledon community. they stole a community's football club, the institution itself. They were wrenched. It then robs the community. They have to win the community.

It can be mad at Milton Keynes, but they shouldn't be mean to us back. Oh, I think you're confused about Milton Keynes fans. I am. They like it. Like, they choose to identify with that. They like that. They're like, yeah, they are.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, they do that. Yeah, that's why they always sing because they're officially known as MK Donz. You know, they have nothing to do with Wimbledon. And that's why they always sing at the games were keeping the Donz. Who boy? Keeping the Donz.

And that's all I did. But that's just the very, that's the beginning of the songs, not the end of them. Um, yeah, don't wear your scarf is what we're getting at. I mean, the truth is, David, 99% of people aren't going to care that you're wearing a scarf. But the one percent of people might not be that great to hang out with anyway.

So don't, don't wear the scarf, but you don't have become an MK fan. That's not a, that's not a car. Thanks for putting yourself off before you said the don't. I learned something. I really appreciate that. Yeah, you can take the job. I mean, I will say, I'm a little biased on this front, David, but ask yourself if it's possible for you to live outside the city limits of Milton Keynes.

It can't be that big. It can't be hard to commute in. Just take the train, man. That's very small. Oh, it just got official city status like a year ago. Just moved to Bledchley. Yeah, we're living beautiful Bledchley. Or Gufford.

English place names. You just cannot make them up Bledchley. So-a-whole. Grimsby. Who names? Who's sitting in a town? Like who? Biggleswad.

This one's got Biggleswad. Who's like, who's sitting in a pub? You, and the town's just getting started and it's the Six families who are in the town and one lady says to another. What do you think we should call it? Well my name's Bigel and your name is Swad. Maybe we should call a bigel swad I don't know In big old swad and Keen's you could get there? Do you think people in big swat, like, no? You know what I mean? Do people in Grimsby know, or do they just say,

like, I live in Grimsby the way I used to say, like, I live at 86th and ditch without ever thinking about it, and then people would be like, ditch. And I'd be like, yeah, no, ditch road, you've never been on ditch road. You know what I mean about ditch? It just becomes part of your vocabulary. And I assume if you live in Bigel, Swad,

it doesn't seem like a weird place. They've it doesn't seem like a place where hobbits live. Yeah. Oh God, that reminds me actually, that's it is podcast is brought to you by Bigel Swad England, Bigel Swad England. It's happening up the Bigel's. Up the Bigel's.

I just so chuffed as they would say. This podcast is also brought to you by the dinors. The dinors. They do have a team. It's not possible, but yet. Biggleswad does have a team, by the way. Biggleswad FC, they play in the seventh tier of English football.

And if Milton Keynes wanted to have a team, they could have just taken Bigel Swat FC and risen them up through the ranks like Wimbledon had to after our team was stolen from us. Today's podcast is also brought to you by Hank Sol. He denies that it exists, but then often refers to it. And this podcast is brought to you by 54 pieces, mini bear toy, 4.7 inch mini plush bear soft, tiny bear doll stuffed tiny bear 14s girls boys adults, DIY keychain birthday wedding Christmas party favors. It's really hard.

It's such a, it's just, it's just such a good brand name, you know? We also have a project for all of the message to read from Jessica from Minnesota to Hank John and Nerdfighteria. I'm so proud to have been part of this community for the past decade. I've learned so much about the world and myself because of it. Thank you to each and every one of you for creating a space for growth and truth. I can't wait for the next decade. DFTBA. Thank you so much. Yeah, it's so nice. Thank you, Jessica. And thanks for donating to the P for A.

Woo. John, I just got a giant clock. I'd say it's a little. Is this a dad joke? No, it's a little more than three feet long. It's currently got the wrong time on it, but I got it so I could have a countdown to the project for awesome

and a countdown during the project for awesome. It's so big. Oh, nice. That's cool. I'm excited for this year's P4A. I've been making a lot of pottery. Ooh, that's smart. Yeah.

P4A pottery. I've been doing a lot of hangular fish art. That's great too. I'm almost done. The problem is I can only do it at the end of the day because the paint that I'm using kind of need to a little loopy. So I can't got to let it air out overnight. You got like a 60 minute window before you need to get out of there. Yeah, yep.

All right, Hank, I have a question that's about one of your areas of interest, but I find interesting. It's from Madison who writes, dear John and Hank, I know you said that the water on Mars is not drinkable, but do you think I could drink it through a life straw? Really thirsty, Madison. This is a great question. So for those who don't know a life straw, like I could stick a life straw into the white river, which as far as I know is the dirtiest body of water possible,

and drink the water through the life straw, and I would be okay, because it filters out all of the toxins and parasites and what nots. So could you drink Martian water through a life straw? No, you're not worried about, so there's not, probably you're not straw? No, you're not worried about, so there's not, probably you're not worried about talks, you're not worried about parasites.

You are worried about toxins. And the life straw will not filter out a bunch of stuff that could be pretty dangerous for you. Like lead, like you can't, I stick it in the ocean and drink it because it's gonna have just as much salt. Those like little sodium and chloride ions that make up the salt and drink it, because it's gonna have just as much salt. Those like little sodium and chloride ions that make up the saltiness of water,

they're so tiny, they're just gonna go right through. And same for the stuff on Mars. Like we're talking about like dangerous perclerate salts. I don't think a live star would filter out, but like you can, I just wanna be clear, you can absolutely distill Martian water and drink it. You just have to boil off the water, leave all of the whatever behind, just the same way that you would distill sea water and be able to drink it. So it would sort of be a desalination plant where

you boil the water, the water goes up as water vapor and that is pure distilled sweet, sweet water, and then all the gross stuff is just like literally left behind to solids. Yep. Correct. That would be cool. I would love, I have no desire to go to Mars. None. West. There is no amount of money you could pay me to go to Mars, but I would love to drink the first glass of Martian water. Wow. I feel like they're putting yourself way up on a pedestal there. You can't. You got to have somebody else. Got to have a better choice. Well, of course, I don't think that I'm qualified to drink the first glass of Martian water. I've not imagined a world where

people fly to Mars, capture a little bit of varshered water, fly back to Earth, and then distill it and hand it to me, Hank. I'm not Louis the 14th. I'm just proposing a hypothetical in which I would be willing to do that in a way that I would not be willing to, for instance, go to Mars. Well, it's gonna be physically identical to distilled water anywhere else. So I could just pretend next time I'm in Indianapolis

if you want. John, I want you to taste this. It tastes exactly like distilled Martial Water. We have to use distilled water when we make our secret family hot sauce. And it's, I don't like it. I don't like the way it tastes. It definitely has a different taste.

Yeah, but it is essential for hot sauce making. So if you believe it, if you say so, like, I'm not trying to discount your opinion, which is what that sounded like. I didn't, I would not have known that. Well, because if you're gonna ferment stuff for a long time, you can't have any weird misses. Okay, you can't have anything in there. You wanna make sure it's real muffin.

Yeah. This is making me hungry. Well, I'm gonna have for lunch. I don't know. What do I have after this? I don't know, but we're sending you some of our hot sauce for Christmas, so hopefully you'll enjoy it.

I'll just do that. It's called societal collapses in the air. Oh my gosh, you guys are adorable. It's something that Timothy Shalamay said during a press interview. It's a Timothy Shalamay quote. John, this next question comes from Tyler who asks, Dear Hank and John, I was listening to your podcast and Hank said something truly terrible. And you moved right on like it was nothing. You said that the sun is incredibly loud.

We just can't hear it because sound doesn't travel through empty space. So is the sun just up there silently screaming for all eternity? Well, what, what have you added to my anxious mind? Screaming internally over the sun's silent screams, Tyler. That's beautiful. Great sign off. Yeah. Yeah, it's shot in at us. Yeah, apparently, if the solar system were full

of atmospheric pressure air, we could hear the sun from here, 93 million miles away or whatever. Wow, I mean, that's a big hypothetical. Right, it would immediately cause a huge problem and also probably a black hole. Yeah, there was. Yeah.

Like that's a huge amount of mass. It doesn't seem like airway is very much, but like a solar system full of it, you'd be adding a lot of mass to the sun. And the Earth would experience a great deal of friction as it moved through the, it's orbit, which would cause us to slow down and fall into the sun, which would be pretty much the end for everything except the atoms.

But the end would be very loud. Yeah, we so loud. About a hundred decibels, which, yeah, you know, it's terrible. Very loud, but not the worst thing that would be happening to me in that moment. You know, like I wouldn't be like, oh, God, the noise.

Ah. Ah. Yeah. I would be like, oh, God, the collapsing into the sun, the heat, I think would be a bigger problem. The vibes would be like, oh God, the collapsing into the sun, the heat. I think it would be a bigger problem. The vibes would be way off. And I think the sound would be an afterthought. I'm not actually sure if the sound would be in a,

in like a pitch we could hear, it might be like really low pitched, so you wouldn't be able to hear it. But I'm not sure. So it would just be sort of a faint rumble. Like, the other thing I like about this is on the other, like during the night time, it would be quiet. Oh, yeah.

Is that wild? Yeah, that is wild. That would be really weird, but I'm sure life could get used to it. If like during the day, all the time, it was just like, I just can't talk, it's too loud and too hot. Ah. during the day, all the time it was just like, I just can't talk, it's too loud and jokin'. Ah! Ah! Ah!

Ah! And then, yeah, and we would probably be nocturnal, you know? Yeah, to be like, sleep through the loud part. Yeah, yeah, and then, and then we were like, trying to get our kids to sleep before the sun came up, we would play them white noise machines that were like, Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! for the sun came up, we would play them white noise machines that were like, maaah. Ah.

Ah. Ah. Ah. Ah. I'm very fond of this idea. I want you to include it in a science fiction. It makes me really happy to think of like. But it wouldn't work.

You can't. I have to have a medium for it to travel through. I mean, basically that is it. That's what we experience now, except that we interpret it as light, as like we see it with our eyes rather than our ears. If the sun is constantly screaming at us now, just with photons. All right, that blew my mind a little bit.

So you're saying that the photons are not that different from sound waves because they can, they kind of function as waves. And so the sun is screaming it's light at us except when it's not. Yeah, the sun is screaming it's light at us all of the time. And then the earth spins around and it's dark and we can't we can't. It's a kind of silence, but it's it's it's eye silence. It's eye silence. And we can't sense it's just eye silence.

It's nice. It might be a little too cheesy. It might be a little too sense it. This is just eye silence. It's nice. It might be a little too cheesy. It might be a little too on the nose to use in a novel. Yeah, yeah. Eye silence as a phrase is a little bit of a... If you add a curse word in it, it would be great. Yes, that's all you need. That's all you need.

You often need to cut things with a GD. Yeah, yeah, yeah, totally. If you put a GD in there, it'd be something that a fun little character could say. Right. Probably not a human. You know, yeah, somebody's got a pretty different experience. They be like, oh, you talk about eye silence. Yeah, GD. We got that. Yeah, I know what that is All right, it's time for the all important news from Mars and aFC Wimbledon

I'll go first I'll tell you what from aFC Wimbledon's perspective when they found out that I wasn't gonna be tweeting at all anymore They were like holy crap, this is great news. I were like, oh, I'm so relieved. So AFC Wimbledon traveled to Swindon Town over the weekend. I used to play FIFA as the Swindon Town swedily pooper. So it was a little bit of the John Green plays FIFA Darby. And I'll tell you what, those 500 hearty Wimbledon fans

who traveled up to Swindon in a world of bad trains and frozen tundra were treated to an absolutely devastatingly boring Nill Nill draw. I mean, I love the Nail Nail Draw. Now according to the stats, AFC Wimbledon had six shots on target and Swindon Town had one. I didn't see any of those six shots on target. I guess I went to the bathroom during all of them. But yeah, we got it was boring. I don't know what else to say about it, but the ability to have a boring game, I think represents real progress. It's great. It's another one with no red X on it.

Exactly. So for much of the early part of the season, I felt like we couldn't get a boring game to save our lives. And now we're really getting some. And so it's only a point, but it's a point away from home. And now 21 games into the season, almost halfway through the season, AFC Wimbledon are up in 12th place. And there's kind of two ways of looking

at our season. One way of looking at our season is that we're actually only three points away from being in the playoffs. So now there's a lot of teams above us, but they're all very tightly packed between fourth place and twelfth place. There's actually only four points separating all eight of those teams. And so a lot could still happen if you look up the table.

And then if you look down the table, which of course is what I do, because I'm a nervous little nelly, we are 16 points above relegation. And when I went to the AFC Wimbledon game against Sutton United, I think we were only three points above relegation. So it's a pretty dramatic turnaround. I'm not going to say that we're anywhere close to safe because we're not. There's a long way to go in the season, but I will say both Colchester and Gillingham or Gillingham nobody knows how to pronounce it. Look horrible. Like real real bad. So we

only have to be better than those two teams to avoid relegation. That appears at least at this point to me to be likely. And up in 12th place, not that far off, the kind of top, top half of the table. Pretty, I'm feeling pretty good. Yeah, I mean, that's great. If you start doing well, maybe you could convince me to invest. I'll bear that in mind. I went to a hockey game. Whoa, whoa, whoa. Can I quickly get a commitment from you? No, definitely not.

I went to a hockey game this weekend, which was very fun. The college and my town, the university and my town now has a hockey team, so we went to the game. And I had just a fantastic time, but I did forget that it was a university event. And thus the moment I walked in, I was there's Hank Green. There's a lot of people who watch my TikToks and who are not sure if I am me or you. Well, there are so many people in Indy Dapwa who think that I'm you. It's incredible. I have to say, and I don't even know how to handle it at this point because more than half

the time I get recognized, somebody says, are you Hank Green? And I just, I don't even know how to handle it at this point because more than half the time I get recognized, somebody says, are you Hank Green? And I just, I'm like, maybe this is news to me because it's the exact opposite for me. I hear them walk by and I'll be like, that was John Green, someone will say. Yeah, I don't know how to get the word out. Now, with Nerdfighteria, with Dear Hank and John listeners,

this is not an issue. But with the like broader like TikTok YouTube shorts viewing audience, it is a real issue. I don't know what's that, it's very confusing. But I did eventually find my seat and it was great and I enjoyed the hockey game very much and it made me feel like, ah, yes, sports is fun. But I did find myself saying a lot of the time

as people behind me were like, yeah, get up. I was like, all right, everybody settle down out there. Ha ha ha ha. Let's be good to each other. We don't want penalties, those are bad. None of these people are bad. Everybody has good intentions. Yeah, y'all are into the exact same stuff.

Like, you had very similar upbringings as my guests, considering that you all play hockey very well. Exactly. You probably played for some of the youth teams. You know these people. You know these boys. This week in Mars News, though, Perseverance has collected its first samples of Martian Regolith, which is like the loose,

it's like the dirt, it's like the loose rock and dust that's all over the place. It's been collecting a lot of samples from rocks, so just drilling rock cores to like look into the rocks, but these two samples were collected by the rover. They come from a pile of sand and dust using a little drill bit shaped like a spike with a small holes in one end so it can gather all that loose material. It's amazing. It's been on the planet for, I think it just gets wedged in there.

It gets wedged in there when they shove it in. It's been on the planet for two years. It hadn't collected any dirt yet. They're like, we can do that at any point. We just want to make sure. I think that now they're like at the real mouth of the Delta. It's a good place to collect that. They're going to help scientists learn, the Delta, it's a good place to collect that drink. They're gonna help scientists learn,

the samples are gonna help scientists learn more about the environment of Mars. They may help scientists understand some of the challenges future astronauts might have to contend with because the reguleth can cause damage to solar panels and spacesuits might also contain some nasty stuff that could get in your lungs. But it could also help to shield future astronauts

from radiation. So it'll just require us to know more about. But it's very important to get an idea of what this stuff is made out of. Because if you can't breathe it without being in a lot of trouble, it's gonna be really hard to go to Mars. So samples are gonna help scientists understand

more about all those potential, potential, potential issues. Like if the dust was sort of as best to see or something, that could be a big problem. Yeah, and the perchlorates, which is the real reason why it's sort of iffy to drink the water, right. Could be bad at high concentrations to breathe into your lungs. It's an alien planet.

It is an alien planet, It is an alien planet. And that's why we got to be so glad. I'm also entering 2023 in a sense of collaboration and whatever that other thing was, integration with the earth and with the year. It's this time. It's just like we have time. We exist in time. It would be very boring without time.

So let's all, let's be in, let's be in, let's work together. We're made out of earth, not a fight. We're made out of time. We're made out of time. We are not separate from time or earth. We are participants in it. We are collaborators. All of us together, figuring out how to do stuff together. And I'm a little worried how to do stuff together. And I'm a little worried about the next year, but I also feel like if all of us decide to collaborate and listen empathetically to each other and acknowledge the humanity of one another,

then we can, I was gonna say be okay, but that might be too ambitious. We can continue to be in time and on earth. Get to hear us talk about what made us pleased in the last week in our lives. This podcast is edited by Joseph Tune a Meticch. It's produced by Rosie on a Halsey Roll Haas. Our communications coordinator is Brooke Shotwell. Our editorial assistant is Deboki Trock-Ravardi. The music you're hearing now and at the beginning of the podcast is by the great Gunnarola. And as they say in our hometown, don't forget to be awesome.

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