Dear Hank & John - 363: What is Sadness, Even, To a Mouse?

Episode Date: March 6, 2023

Do mouse burp? Does skiing get better? Why does one movie feel longer than multiple TV episodes? Can I yo-yo while skydiving? What's the loudest a sound could be? What have we learned today? 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 Hank and John! Or is I prefer to think if it dear John and Hank, I can't believe that my audio didn't record for the last hour, so you didn't get any of the magic that we made. It's a podcast, but two brothers answer your questions, give you the immediately advice and bring you all the weeks news from both Mars and AMC Wimbledon again! Oh, you should have heard the first time it was so good. I bet it's gonna be even better. This is the difference between us. I'm like, we're gonna knock it out of the park now. We're all loose.

We're gonna find ways to make those jokes but faster and funnier. For example, John, did you know that the scarecrow from the Wizard of Oz, you haven't heard this one before, have you? I have it, no it was all new to me. It was the first non-human to ever win an Oscar Wizard of Oz. Yeah. You haven't heard this one before, have you? I haven't. No, it's all new to me. It was, was the first non-human to ever win an Oscar, because the Academy Awards are of course coming up, John.

Did you know that? I did not know that. Yeah, he was really outstanding in his field, but then not any app, then he decided to not be anymore and he got himself a brain and now he's got a podcast where he does true crime. He does true crime. He's like, it's all bird related.

Is obsession is with the crimes that birds commit against crops and scarecrows. Yeah. Yeah. What's it called? Maybe he's like, maybe he's like a bird conspiracy theorist. Maybe he's that guy who doesn't think birds exist. Birds aren't real on Instagram.

Trust me, I'm a scarecrow. The scarecrow from the Wizard of Oz. I've seen him up close. Yeah. I don't know what it would be like to be a bird. Anyway, let's just be a scarecrow. No one knows. John, no, first I have to ask you a question. Oh, sure.

Your project for awesome perks going. Oh, yeah. The project for awesome, just happened. We raised over $3 million for charity. Thank you to everybody who donated. We're so grateful. And it was such, it was just an amazing, amazing weekend. I am still tired. I have not fully recovered. I think Hank has fully recovered, but he is younger than I am. I was way, way more tired this year than it's definitely catching up to me. Like, it's not as easy as it used to be to to stay up real late. So I wouldn't have an episode last week. It's because we were sleeping the day that we normally record that. Yeah. It was the Monday after the pre-FRA. And I slept more than I have slept in years. It's up for like 11 hours straight. It was wild.

Wow. That probably would have done me well. I didn't sleep late. I got up and took Henry to school at 6.40 in the morning. Oh, yeah. And so maybe that's part of why I'm still tired. But my perks are going fine. They're going great.

I am making all of these pieces of pottery that people bought. And I've made about 20 of the 60 that I have to make, although some will no doubt blow up in the kiln when I fire them. And so I'll have to make more than 60. But yeah, it's going all right so far. How about you? It's good.

I made a huge miscalculation, but thankfully Catherine saved me. I thought I was It's good. I made a huge miscalculation, but thankfully, Catherine saved me. I thought I was gonna make 800 of these handker fish things on tiny canvases. Mm-hmm. And I probably could have pulled that off, but I did not realize that every single one

of the tiny canvases would be in order to protect the canvas individually shrink wrapped. Oh, no. So the process of, I mean, I have, I've started making the handker fish, but I have not unwrapped all of the canvases yet. Right, like that started making the hankler fish, but I have not unwrapped all of the canvases yet. So I'm...

So I'm... So I'm... So I'm... So I have to be careful. But I'm like trying to listen to a podcast or something, and my brain's just like flow state, but then disconnected, and I can't... Oh my God, it's draining.

But it is what it is doing the work. I'd rather be making the art, but instead I am unwrapping canvases. Which is part of making the art, right? Like normalize process as part of creation. Normalize process. This first question comes from Lily, who writes, Hi, hi, hi, hi, hi, hi, hi,

hi, hi. Do mouse burp? John, I'm glad that you asked this question a second time. I was the, that was the, I read the question word for word. That is what it's about. Do mouse burp. Do mouse burp. Well mouse burp. Do mouse burp. Do mouse burp? Well, there is a, so I looked this up and Debokie and I both went all over the internet trying to find out the answer to this question. There is misinformation about this, which is that if you feed mice like baking soda or just like Coca-Cola, that they will die because they can neither burp nor fart. So the gas just builds up inside of them.

You just fill them up. This is not true. That's not true. It doesn't make any sense that they wouldn't be able to fart if you can get... Who got it there? You can get air out of it. Sobbs out of your, yeah, exactly. Yeah.

But maybe, I couldn't quite get at the bottom of this. Maybe, like, Mice and Rats can't puke, which might also mean that they can't burp if that's like a similar brain thing or a similar physiological thing that like their mouth is a one way hole. But I couldn't, I don't know. You couldn't find evidence either.

It seems to be a thing that we literally do not know about the world. There's hand. Among the many things that we did not understand about, mice, one of them is, and how would you even measure it? How would you tell? Like maybe there's a really little problem. Like how would you know?

You'd have to ask. And this is part of the problem, right? Like, can't ask the hard thing. I mean, I'm more like a mouse hank than I am like almost any other creature on earth, right? Like over 90% of earth biomass is plant or bacteria. I'm not very much like a fern, I'm not very much like E. coli, no, you're much more like a mouse. Even after you get all that stuff, right? Like almost all the animals, almost all of life is not animals and then almost all the animals are insects.

You gotta go so far down the line to get to the differences between me and a mouse, even among living things. And you can't even tell if they burp. I have not only that, I don't have any idea what it's like to be a mouse. Is it pleasant? Is it desirable? Is it a... Like, sometimes I think, well, I bet my sort of live in a flow state, you know, where they're

just doing mouse stuff. Right. They're just thinking about food. They're thinking about their family. They want to be warm. They're in, you know, they're just about their family. They want to be warm. They're in, you know, they're just, you know, just being mouse, being mouse. They're playing, they're playing level seven Tetris, right?

Where like, you're good enough to not die for a really long time. And then you die. Right. Like. And, and that's, but it might not be like that. They might be scared not all the time. They might be constantly like like that. They might be scared all the time. They might be constantly, like they will be scared all the time. I think I would be scared all the time.

Yeah. If I was a mouse out in the world, Oh God. Surrounded by like foxes and raccoons and cold and yeah. Like what do I eat? I don't know what to eat. No, dude, I'm going to cause it right now and I'm still scanning my surroundings four

times a second for threats. You know what I mean? Yeah, you're not even a mouse. And I'm like looking for mice, right? I'm scared that there's going to be a mouse in the closet. And so if you, if you shrink, is it like that? Is it just like constant fear of other animals and trying to find food and feeling cold all the time and not enjoying the rain. Like, do they, are they bothered by the rain? Like when they're outside and it's raining, are they like, oh, God, I wish it would just stop raining or are they like, this is great.

I like this. This, this is life. This is what everything is a different thing. You never know what, what piece is going to be next on level seven Tetris, but there's going to be another piece. Yeah, I don't think they like the rain. I think there's sad little mice, but I don't know. But you don't know what is what is sadness even to a mouse. I think I think it's like, can't move. must imagine, just like we must imagine, the Cisophis is happy, we must imagine, myse is happy.

I guess I don't know that reference. This next question comes from Maggie who asks, dear Hank and John, I'm sure Camu says he should be happy. He seems definitely not happy. We, go get a hug. That seems like a big complicated philosophical thing. You should read the essay.

I'm not gonna be able to summarize. Exactly. I didn't think you'd be able to. This next question comes from Maggie who asks, dear Angon John, does skiing get better? Have you ever been skiing this weekend? I went for the first time with my boyfriend and some friends and I'm a little terrified of skiing.

Going up small hills, very hard part. Now, yeah, going up small hills is the hardest and the worst. Wait, you have to go up the hills? Are you talking about like a toe line where you have to hold onto the toe line because that is not good. I'm just asking, how are you talking about getting on the ski lift, which is also, I don't like the ski.

I don't know how you go up the hill. Do you get on the ski lift? I think the ski lift is scary. It might be the most terrifying part of skiing, and that's saying something because every part of the whole point is scary. I mean, you put me on skis, I am what Hank imagines a mouse to be.

There, it's funny because when I got on a ski lift, my only time I ever went skiing. I got on the ski lift, and I was like, this looks very scary, and everybody was like, this looks very scary and everybody was like, no, it's fine, you'll be fine, nobody ever gets hurt on the ski lift. Right. And now I know that was a lie.

People get hurt on the ski lift all the time. Oh yeah. Specifically getting on and off, the part that I was most scared about. So I was right, but they were also right to try and calm me down about it because it doesn't necessarily help to be super freaked out. Anyway.

I did a pretty intense hike recently, and we had to scramble up a rock face. That was quite steep. And as we were going up it, like I noticed that my friend Craig got pretty serious. He's generally a jovial outdoorsman, but he got quite focused. And he was like, you need to put your foot there. You need to put your foot here. And I was like, yeah, no, great. Thank you.

And then we'd like make it up to a little landing. And he'd be like, that was great. We're doing great. Don't look back. And I was like, all right, wait, is this, are we in a stressful situation? Are, am I in danger? Yeah. Like, I was good to. He said, don't look back.

Don't look back at what? Like, and then I, I did look back and I was like, oh, I could die out here. Yeah. This is like that place where that guy got his arm stuck in that thing. Is that where we are right now? I don't have the courage for that. We all know how my 127 hours ends. Anyway, back to skiing.

Maggie says that Maggie's partner loves to ski and Maggie wants to try it out. How do I get better at this terrible sport? Now Hinking are gonna have very different answers for this because, and we know this because we've done that before. I had heard about the rock climb now that was new. Yeah. No, I never know what something a little you know, no, it's fresh. It's going to emerge.

So I've only been skiing once. I've been cross country skiing a bunch of times, but I've only been downhill skiing once. And it was with my famous uncle Baxter, Sarah's uncle Baxter, I've only been skiing once. I've been cross-country skiing a bunch of times, but I've only been downhill skiing once. And it was with my famous Uncle Baxter, Sarah's Uncle Baxter, a classic, high-ball glasses, a classic character in the green cinematic universe. And Uncle Baxter's strategy for teaching somebody how to ski is to put skis on their feet and then send them down a hill and kind of as you go and struck you in the ways of making a pizza slice.

Yeah. And that worked. It worked okay for the first few minutes. But then I started to pick up speed and I was cooking. This is a very minor hill. This is like a bunny slope, but when you have no way to slow down, you will continue to accelerate. And that's what happened to me until I hit a tree

and the ski patrol had to come and they were like, how on earth did you manage to hit a tree on this hill that has a slope of less than one degree? You know, they were like, I don't know, I'm control. Was it a purpose? And I was like, no, look at me. Do I look like somebody who knows how to ski? Of course I don't.

Here's my strategy, Maggie. And Hank's gonna tell you all about how, you know, you gotta get up every time you fall down. Don't tell them what I'm gonna tell. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Do let me tell it. Here's my strategy. And this is my, I learned this from my friend Linda.

Her partner, Alex, loves to ski. And Linda's position is, I love that you love to ski. And I love being here at this ski lodge with you. And I will be here by the fire reading a book when you get back. Right. Which is fun. It's just a nice relaxing time on vacation, which is a dream, like to have a whole day to read a book, beautiful. Yeah, I think that that is lovely. Or I will also say that I am really grateful to former me for learning things and getting up when it was frustrating.

So the first day is obviously always gonna be the worst. And the trick is to find the point at which learning to ski becomes a little bit fun, because learning to ski is a very different thing from skiing. Learning a new scale is a very different thing from practicing that scale. Now you're always going to be getting better at skiing. There's no one who's sort of like, ah, I did it. I'm as good as I could possibly be even, you know, elite, slalom ski racers. I'm sure think about how they could do better. But I had this experience, this is weird, but I had this experience this morning. I was playing voice memos on my phone, like old voice memos, was like, what are all these? And one of them was Orin, because he said something cute, so I started recording him. And I said, so how many babies are there?

And he said, 20, I think there are 20 babies. And this was two years ago. And then I said, well, how many people do you think there are? Because there's more people than babies, but how many people are there? And he said, 15. And I was like, no, that's less than 20. So there's more than 20 babies.

There's definitely more than 20 people. He said, no, 15 is bigger than 20. Yeah. And I was reminded of how much it doesn't know way. Yeah, it feels like a bigger word. Yeah, it's a lot more going on than 20. Yeah, 20. They should, that's how it should be done, Hank.

Just by the vibes. By vibe. Well, but like he's right, 15 is bigger than 20. And it should be, it should be that like when you get to a billion, it takes you a couple minutes to say it. And so we can't even talk about billionaires, right? Because we have to talk about, we have to talk about a word that's much longer

than billionaire, that's a little shameful, like a little embarrassing. Isn't it a little embarrassing how long it takes to say, to describe yourself? If you're able to represent your net worth? Yeah, like what do you do? Well, I'm a scubotally-dubotally, flippity, floppy, happy, hoppy, scoo-scoot.

I'm like, oh, right. One of those. So lame. Why don't you get some of your money away so you can just be a scubb of the dupity, hippity, hoppy. Me much easier. It was just remarkable too.

And I think that I think I'm going to play it for him tonight because he's been struggling with this very thing. We're like, as we all do where it's you know he's learning how to ice skate and there are days when he doesn't want to do it because he doesn't feel like he's getting better. He's way better now but he like can't feel that. So I don't tell this before. The important thing is feeling the progress and if you feel the progress it becomes much easier to continue to develop a skill. But also it's about what you want to do. And I hope that everybody is, it seems like everybody's like being well supported on the ski hill, but it's never

fun to be the person who's worst at the thing, you know. Just to get to Orin's point about the 15 or the 20, Hanks point is that when Orin was little, he thought that the biggest number in the world was 15 and now Orin can do all of the math. Yeah, he's now he can do a bunch of stuff and he's known so many things and it only took two years. He'd probably knows how many babies were born this year.

I wouldn't be at all surprised if he was like 21 million dad. He does occasionally know some weird thing that I'm like, how do you know that? He's like, oh YouTube video. Oh my god. Right. Yeah. It's cool. Yeah, Henry said to me recently, how long do you think you could live in a supermarket? You know, like in a zombie apocalypse situation eating only the food in the super fun. Interesting. That's a great question. And I bet there are some supermarkets in America that one person could live forever in, like their whole whole life.

Well, it turns out that there is a mat pat video on this very topic. And the conclusion is indeed, you're good. You can, you can make this work with a can probably do it with a little bit of composting. You'll be all right. Right, because you could, you could then grow some food. You're saying. Yeah, you would eventually, but you could like, you got to pop those corn kernels off and start to make some corn.

Put some of those potatoes, cut them up, make some seed potatoes and you'll probably be good. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because also like the canned food is good for a long time. Yeah, basically forever. But you would eventually start to have to make your own food. Interesting. Of course, there's a map that you about it.

Of course. And I don't get that one. John, let's do a fresh one. One that we didn't do the first time. This one's from Amanda, who asked dear Hank and John, why does it feel too late to start a movie, but not too late for me to binge an equivalent amount of TV, Amanda?

I will also add an equivalent amount of 15 second long videos. I will watch 15 second videos for two hours right after saying, no, I can't watch that thing. I very much want to watch because it's too long for a song. Mm-hmm. What is long? Oh yeah, no, the movie business has a big problem, right?

And it's us. And it's us, which is that movies seem a little bit like work in the way that books used to. Like, I loved reading books as a kid, but I also was conscious of the fact that they were a little bit of work, whereas watching a movie was a break from work. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Like watching a movie was pure entertainment,

and reading a book was like entertainment, but also with a slightly medicinal taste. Yeah, yeah. Which is still how I feel. Like, I'd rather my son be reading a graphic novel than watching a YouTube video. Yeah, yeah. Well, just still how I feel. I got to rather my son be reading a graphic novel than watching a YouTube video. Yeah, right. Yeah.

Right. And I think if we interrogated that deeply, there would be some reasons for it and some just biases, right? Yeah, yeah. But now, when I sit down to watch a movie, it doesn't feel that, it feels a little bit like that. It feels like oh This is a big investment It's probably gonna take a few minutes to get going

There's probably gonna be some like backstory. I got to pay attention to that's gonna pay off later Check off's guns gonna show up in the first act just so that it can be shot in the third act. Like, there's going to be, I got to, I got to focus in or I can watch TikToks and they ask, like, I'll be in it. And it can last exactly how long I want it to last. Yeah. Well, it is always more than I think it will last much longer than I want it to last because I'm going to be so excited by it and so into it. And well, is it even that or is it the promise of the new thing that you're not even watching yet? That's what I think it is. Oh, you think it's about the next TikTok. There's a something to two TikToks down that is actually the TikTok I want to say. I mean, what a wild way to recreate the idea

of consuming video. Yep. And I like, I know that I'm in it, thick in it. I'm like, I'm a, I'm consumed TikToks. I watch TikToks, but I do not feel good about it. No. All the time. No. Like, there are days when I'm like,

this is so fun, but a lot of when I'm like, this is so fun. But a lot of time I'm like, this is not like we, we do not know the experiment we're doing on ourselves right now. There's so many experiments that are uncontrolled that we're doing on humanity right now, right? From chat GPT to self-driving cars to TikTok to Twitter, we are, we are in an era of corporations being freely able

to experiment upon us. But I think it's really interesting and kind of freaky that we've made this fairly sudden transition where like even my kids still love watching movies, but if you give them the choice between an hour or an indeterminate period of time watching YouTube shorts or an ind, or watching a movie, they're usually gonna watch YouTube shorts.

Yeah, oh yeah. And YouTube shorts are free. They don't cost $200 million to make. Yeah. And they basically make themselves. Right, they sort of make themselves and it's a little hard to make movies that way. You know, like, and so I don't know what to do about it.

Like, I'm suitably freaked out. And I think most of the technology, most of the media companies out there are suitably freaked out. Like, I think that they're genuinely thinking, well, how do we release a movie like turtles all the way down? And I don't know the answer to that. Like, I don't know. The movie's really, really good,

but like, how do you release it? I don't know. It's the same, I mean, yeah. So it has some of the same challenges that books had maybe 30, 40 years ago. And books figured it out. Books are still figuring it out, you know? Like the size of the publishing industry

hasn't really shrunk that much as a result of the tick-tockification of human attention. So there's some hope there, but man, it is a weird phenomenon. It's a weird moment to be in and to be a part of, I guess, as we all are. This next question comes from Colson who writes, dear John and Hank, I recently acquired a yo-yo and ever since then, a question has been on my mind. Could I yo-yo and ever since then, a question has been on my mind. Could I yo-yo? While skydiving?

I'm not planning on going skydiving anytime soon, but if I ever do, I feel like yo-yoing while plummeting toward the Earth would be really cool. Just an average yo, Colson. Hank, can you yo-yo while skydiving? I think you cannot yo-down when you are skydive yo-yo. Certainly not. Cause it's just gonna get blown back up to you faster than the string can pull it to you.

It's almost like the problem isn't that the, like you need the yo-yo to wind its way back up the string. And if it's being blown up at you, it won't wind. So it might be spinning, but it will be coming up faster. So it won't be able to rewind. That's not the only problem. You need to do. But yeah, I know it's one of the problems. But that means you definitely can't yo-down because it's going to get blown right after. Unless you're really fast, you have to turn yourself around away from your on your background. Well, you're not, you're not on anything. That's part of the problem.

It's so terrifying. You know what I mean? It's kind of like, and you're facing, and you're facing, you're facing away from the ground. You're looking up at that plane that you inexplicably just chose to leave. Yeah, and you are, then you yo-yo. And I agree with you 100% Hank that you in that situation, it should be possible for you

to yo. But you don't think you can yo. Can you yo-yo? Can you get? I don't know. That yo-yo. I know I can't. So obviously, like, what's good, there's some potential energy in the rotation of the

yo-yo that's going to pull itself back on the string against the force of the wind. Is that able to overcome the force of the wind? I don't like, I have no idea. There's definitely a situation in which the wind is strong enough that that is not the case. But have we reached it? There is only one way to find out. And right now, there is a person who is listening to this podcast. I'm not sure there is. I'm not sure there is. Good at yo-yo. I bet there's a lot of people who are good at yo-yo. I believe in that. Listenership. That part of the Venn diagram circle is quite large. And then there's a small or really good at yo-yo. That's, I see that Venn diagram. People who are really good at skydiving. and listen to this podcast and yo-yo.

So there's one of you out there. There's one. I'm not sure there is. Probably there's maybe like 0.75 of you, which means that there is a good chance that you exist. Here's the thing. And the next time you're skydiving, I need you to be good at skydiving and good at yo-yo and because nobody's gonna get hurt because of this. That's the thing. And the next time you're a skydiving, I mean, you need you to be good at skydiving and

good at yo-yo and because nobody's going to get hurt because of this. That's my concern. I actually am getting sweaty palms right now just thinking about people know what they're doing. The possibility. And if you were a person who knows, you got to be really good at skydiving because I will not be able to live with myself if you die trying to find out if you can, yo, yo, well, skydiving.

Here's what it, here's what's up. You're, so you are not, you are that person. If you are that person, you have queued up the podcast to this point of the podcast. And I'm gonna say, now is the time that you jump out of the plane. Go. He's out of the plane.

Oh God. Oh no, I'm very nervous for you. Am I adding to your anxiety? He's out of the plane. Oh God. Oh no. I'm very nervous for you. Am I adding to your anxiety? No, no, stop, stop, stop. Okay. Now you got it. Your yo-yo was already in your hand, right?

Now, yo, and see what happens. Now, do it on your back first and then do it on your front. See if you can do it frontways. Okay. Now, rewind the yo-yo because that didn't work. Now you're falling out of a plane, rewinding a yo-yo. This is terrible. Hopefully you got the new yo-yo because that didn't work. Now you're falling out of a plane, rewinding a yo-yo. This is terrible.

Hopefully you got the new yo-yo GoPro. That's got a camera inside the yo-yo. It's called the yo-pro. And then you do it. Try one more time and then try again. And now I'm gonna need you to pull your parachute because that seemed like a long enough time to me. Maybe it wasn't.

You know more than I do. Actually don't follow any of my instructions with regards to how to skydive. Exactly. Just the yo-yoing part. Now, you're gonna land sometime in the future and I'm gonna need you to ideally have had a GoPro strapped on your head during this

so that you can send us the footage of you yo-yoing and whether or not it works. But also, it's okay if you just wanna email us text-based and you don't wanna deal with the stress of the GoPro. Also, I feel like most skydivers have a GoPro. I'm so anxious right now. Just from you talking through that, I don't want to be held responsible

for anybody's skydiving, period, hard stop. It's like asking me to pack. I told you the second one was gonna be better, John, this is way better. This is way better than the first one. I'm not gonna pack the skydivers back pack and I'm not gonna tell them how to jump out of when to pull the string No, I don't even know how works. All right. That all reminds me though that this podcast is brought to you by

Hank's yo-yo skydiving instruction school. Hank's yo-yo skydiving instruction school. It's it's free And and it's it's that's because that's the value we provide. Exactly. You want to know why this podcast is free? Because it's not that good. This podcast is also brought to you by Uncle Baxter. Uncle Baxter, responsible for John's worst ski day and his best cups. And of course today's podcast is brought to you by that sweet flow that might hopefully get in

because it's either that or absolute terror all the time until their early death. And also this podcast is brought to you by the yo pro, yo yo go pro. It's not particularly useful, but felt like it felt like it needed to make it anyway. I feel like I'd get really nauseated watching the footage, watching the footage from a yo-yo GoPro. The theme's right.

Yeah. All right, Hank, I want to ask this question from Jason who writes to your channel, Hank, is there a limit on how loud a sound can be within our atmosphere? Could you ever say yes, this is the loudest a sound can be a nothing will ever be louder? Or is there just a limit on how loud we are able to perceive or measure noise? Dig the show pursuing that brain gold, Jason. So my initial thought was, it's energy and you can sort of like, you can put any amount of energy in and there will be more and there's always more energy you could put in. But this is not actually the case. In fact, there is a maximum sound of any medium, a maximum volume of any medium. Oh. Because at some point, the amount of energy being transferred because sound is a wave that passes through a medium

like air or water or whatever. Right. At some point, there is a maximum volume. And that happens when the energy of that wave destroys the medium. And so there is a maximum volume. It like destroys the atmosphere. Yeah, it rips the air apart. Oh, God.

And it becomes an explosion. Oh, God. Really? Yes. And in the air, in our atmosphere, it cannot get higher than 194 decibels. In water, it's 270 decibels because it holds itself together better, I guess.

And how loud? That is 194 decibels? That would hurt my year, I bet. Yeah, I think that that's enough that it would be a big problem. Okay. So the loudest sound in history was the crack a toa eruption. Yeah. And so it was a loudest sound ever experienced by human ears. It flattened approximately 80,000 trees and shattered windows that were dozens of miles away. That sounds like a bad party. Right.

And I think that like, at the point of the creation of the sound, that wouldn't have been a sound. And so like, there was a front at which the energy became a sound because it was no longer destroying the medium it was passing through. Yikes. So like there's just like what we're dealing with now is not like the like there's not a maximum amount of energy, but there's a definition of what a sound is. It's a wave being passed through a medium. And so so you it's, you know, it's semantic, but so that, so in a weird way, that wasn't the loudest sound because there have been other sounds that were the exact same volume. But it was the loudest sound in that, like, it could be heard from farther away because the

point at which it turned into a sound was farther from the point of the eruption of the volcano would be my guess. Mm. Sort of how I'm understanding it. All right. Well, I hope I never hear the loudest sound in the world. No, I think your brain would appreciate, I think that your ears would also appreciate that.

Yeah. Geez. All right, we got another question from Jamie Hankey writes dear John and Hank. What if we learn today Fumpkins and thank-wins Jamie What it well we learned that whatever John was doing the first time you recorded the podcast You shouldn't do it that way in the future. You got a you got to do you have the waveform in front of you? Like are you looking at it as we record? Yeah, not usually, though, I'm usually looking at the document.

But now I'm looking at the waveform. Do you only have one monitor? Yeah, I only have one monitor. I only have one computer. How many computers do you have? You're just on a laptop? Yeah. With a laptop on your lap right now?

I don't have a desktop computer because it's 2023. Oh, man, I need all the monitors, do you? I don't like being surrounded by monitors. You recorded all, you did the whole project for awesome on a laptop? Yeah, that's why my video stream was such high quality. All right.

Maybe that's why I do it. I watched the waveform the whole time because I've panicked that I'm gonna lose it. Well, now I probably will be too. Maybe I need to get like 16 monitors in this little closet, but that feels like it could be very proud of to have the document on one side and that waveform on the other. I don't understand you that, man.

I'm a full screen guy. I'm looking at one thing or I'm looking at another thing. I don't want to be looking at two things. I think you could figure out how to have a little bit of your monitor taken up by the numbers on GarageBand going up. Hank, there's just a fundamental difference between us. And like I am very sorry that I failed to record the entire podcast, but you got to understand

there's a fundamental difference between us, which is that you have a genuine deep desire in your heart to optimize to make things better, to a stronger workflow to do the work that results in faster work. And I have a strong desire to do things exactly the same way that I have always done them. that I have always done them. I started making YouTube videos in 2007. In 2023, I still have all the hotkeys mapped to what they were in 2007. I have every time I get a Dobie premiere. I have to tell a Dobie premiere, listen.

I know you have all these ideas, but I need you to go back to 2006 iMovie HD. So yeah, it's just different. We're just different people. And I don't, I, I go back and forth because sometimes I think, oh, I should optimize. And then other times I think like, well, but the way I do it is pretty good, except for this particular week. This wasn't great, but it's still pretty good. I will say, if you'd lost all of the footage after we recorded an entire podcast, I would have been very mad at you.

And your response was to say, oh, that's great, we'll be much better at this time. So. Try, try to look on the bread. You're just, you, that's great. We'll be much better at this time. So try, try and look on the bread. You're just, you're a great person. I got it. I got to tell you the news from AFC Wimbledon because it's pretty thinking exciting. Oh, good.

And it has nothing to do with the winning and losing because none of that's particularly good news. Rosiana, my long time producing partner, Ros on a House of Rohast and I have become sponsors, Hank of AFC Wimbledons, first team, women's team, who also play in the fourth tier of English soccer and are very close to the top of the table. In fact, they just beat four nil, the only team above them in the table, hashtag United, handing that team their first loss of the season, and reigniting, I think it's safe to say, a nascent title race with 10 or 11 games left in the season. race with 10 or 11 games left in the season. ASE women's women's team has historically been really good, but also it's hard to it's like women's football is just really, really hard. And so

Rosiana and I have decided to sponsor the team where on the back of the shorts for the remainder of this season, but next season we'll be on the back of the shirts. And we are choosing not to have like our names as the sponsor, but instead to have the AFC Wimbledon Women's Team sponsored by Partners in Health. It's the second team that Partners in health is on the shirt of. They're also on the shirt of one of the best soccer teams in Peru that play in Lima. And this is really exciting. So I'm really excited to be sponsoring the women's team as well as the men's team. And to have Rosiana participating in that with me, We've really enjoyed getting to know some of the team behind the scenes that are making it work

and really appreciate Wimbledon's long-standing support of the women's game and want to see it grow and grow. So yeah, pretty exciting. That's awesome. Congratulations. Thanks. We've got a real chance at promotion this year. So we could be a third tier.

That's exciting. Uh, women soccer team starting next season. Yes. As for the men's team, very unlikely, uh, that we will be a third tier English soccer team next year. There was some kind of vague hope for the playoffs. But then we went and lost to Gillingham, or possibly Gillingham, very frustrating result. We were one nil up. And of course, there is nothing in this world more dangerous than a Wimbledon lead. We were also two nil up against Hartlepool last week. And we ended up tying that game. And then we ended up losing to Gillingham or possibly Gillingham. So now comfortably

in 14th, the main thing that about Wimbled's season at this point is not getting relegated. That's priority number one. We got to win three of our last 13 games to not get relegated. So let's just try to do that. That seems doable. Just some of those have to be against pretty bad teams, right? Yeah. I mean, Jill and Hammer possibly, Gilling Hammer pretty bad, but yes, yes. There's actually, there's two teams this year that look really, really bad.

And they may be the two that get relegated, but we've just ignited a new rivalry, a surprise rivalry with Hartlepool, because after they came from behind to score two goals, they were very, their official Twitter was very rude to us about the franchise currently playing its trade in Milton Keynes. Oh, no! There has, since then, been a significant uptick in Hartlepool hate, especially on my Twitter, my sports Twitter, where essentially every time Hartle pool anything bad happens to them, I just

remind them that they were going to be fine until they had to bring that up. Well, this week in Mars news, we have bad news. So you might remember that there's your wrong rover. Yep. China's Mars rover has been on Mars for about a year and that from what we can tell, it hasn't been doing anything, being talked to for a while. Well, the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter released some images that showed the rover has been not moving between September 7th and February 8th.

So it looks like after it entered hibernation for the the Martian winter, it did not wake back up. Which happens for a lot of different reasons you got like solar panel problems, you got software problems. We haven't heard any updates from the China National Space Administration, but it was going to be originally a three month long mission. That was sort of the inside of the goal for the mission and it did last a year. So that's a good accomplishment for it, but it looks like it is done. Yeah, I mean, that's disappointing. And it speaks to how hard it is, it's hard to create a rover that can wake up

after going into hibernation during the Martian winter, right? Like, it's just a reminder of every time that we succeed, how improbable it is to be able to learn about the surface of a distant planet. It's hard work. I really admire the people who do it, and I'm sure it's just absolute heartbreak when that's the outcome.

They got there. They did some other thing. Yeah, but still. I'm sure that's also what they're telling themselves. It's a mix of like, well, we accomplished a lot and I wish we'd accomplished more, which is the feeling that most of us have most of the time. I guess this novel is good, but I wish it was better. That's my main feeling. Yeah, can't we just be satisfied? No, that's not it. That's not on the table, I guess. John, thank you for making a podcast with me. Oh, even basically two of them. Yeah. If you'd like to send your questions to us, we are at hankanjohnatgemail.com. We can't make a podcast with that question, and we love them very much. So many cool and good things coming to bed in the box.

We're about to go record our Patreon-only podcast. This week in stuff where we talk about things that we liked this week, and you can get that at patreon.com slash dear Hank and John. This podcast is edited by Joseph Tune of Medicines. It's produced by Rosie on a Huls Roll Haas. Our communications coordinator is Brooke Chottwell.

Our editorial assistant is Deboki Chokravarti. The music you're hearing now, and at the beginning of the podcast, it's by the great Gunnarola. And as they say in our hometown, don't forget to be awesome.