Dear Hank & John - 379: Rainbow Moon

Episode Date: December 20, 2023

Where is the bit line? Why are some jenga blocks harder to pull than others? Would the moon be the same brightness if it was a different color? Hank and John Green have answers! If you're in need of dubious advice, email us at [e-mail] us for monthly livestreams at patreon.com/dearhankandjohn.Follow us on Twitter! twitter.com/dearhankandjohn

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I don't know. I have one that over the years. I feel like you started out and they're confused. They're like, that's not usually how we talk about time. More than 365, that doesn't exist. All right. I don't know. I was really happy with it. But thanks for working it out with me, John. I appreciate it. I'm just trying to work it out. Hey, speaking of working things out,

you might remember in a recent episode of the podcast, like, I'm just trying to work it out. I'm just trying to work it out. Hey, speaking of working it out with me, John. I appreciate it. I'm just trying to work it out. Hey, speaking of working things out, you might remember in a recent episode of the podcast, like a post-cancer episode. You said- They're called.

I think it is sort of a before and after moment, Hank. Like I don't want to exaggerate it or anything, but you did get cancer. And anyway, we were musing on why Swiss cheese isn't kind of not a good deal because it's got all the holes in it. Yeah. And you're basically paying for air. You're paying for the holes.

All that air. Yes. Well, I don't think I mentioned this to you, but about 16,000 people wrote in. And do you know what they said? They figured it out. Jesus sold by weight. Jesus sold by weight.

I don't, I don't buy cheese by weight. I buy cheese by slice because I'm not by volume. You're like, hey, I want that eight inch by eight inch by eight inch cheese. How much is it? Well, I'll tell you one thing. I don't have to do weight.

I don't have to weigh it to tell you how much much it is because that's not how I sell it. I sell it by the leader. I buy cheese by the leader. It's weird, but I do it. But even if you bought my point is that even if you bought it by the leader, it would still be, I guess it would be liquefied Swiss cheese, but it would still be the same issue. It's only if you buy it by, by area. Yeah, that's what. A leader is area. Leader is a unit of volume. Thank you. It's okay if you don't

understand all the different units. Whoa, whoa, whoa. You're telling me that a leader is an amount of volume. Yeah, man. What else do you think it was? I thought it was a weight. You know, it? I thought it was a weight. You know, it is directly transferable to a weight as long as it's water. Because like 12 fluid ounces is a weight, right? 12 fluid ounces is a volume. What about 355 milliliters? How can 12 fluid ounces be a... No, because 16 fluid ounces is one fluid pound,

which is definitely a weight. An ounce is a weight. An ounce is a weight. But I think a fluid ounce is it? Because I think a fluid... Wait. I can't say. You're respectfully. You don't sound good. If you are right, it's shocking. It's shocking to me that a 12 fluid ounces would be an amount of space rather than a weight.

12 fluid ounces is an amount of space. I'm sorry, ounces? If you wanted ounces, you could just leave out the fluid. Fluid ounces is an amount of volume, and it is defined by ounces of water, specifically, which has the density of water. Let me ask you a very serious question. The diet, Dr. Pepper, that I am drinking right now, which, by the way, is great. I've noticed that with diet, Dr. Pepper, depending on like the air quality, heat, the moisture level and everything,

I taste one of the different 23 flavors, more profoundly with each Dr. Pepper. Okay. Getting a lot of plum on this one anyway. You know that that's why they put the bubbles in soda, is so that they don't have to put as much liquid in there. Well, boom, boom. That's not that's not true. Yeah, they put all the bubbles in there so that so that they don't have to sell you as much soda. You know, they put the scam like the chips and the bags with all the air and the chip bag.

I genuinely can't tell if this entire thing is a bit, or if you're telling me the truth. Do you know how they make Swiss cheese? Why the, why the Swiss cheese? Because it's made with whole milk. I know, okay. Hank, is 12 fluid ounces a weight? Or is it a volume? Because it just, just tell me the truth.

It's true. H-O-L-E, whole. I understand the joke. I am genuinely flammable. Twelve fluid ounces is a unit of volume. So I just need to know where the line is between the bit and not the bit. Okay. When you say 12 fluid ounces is an amount of volume, not a weight, is that a bit?

No. That's true fact. Fluid ounces are a unit of volume, not a weight. Is that a bit? No, that's true fact. Fluid ounces are a unit of volume. So you tell me, the one liter of water weighs exactly 1,000 grams or 1 kilogram. Right, but there's bubbles in here. So you're telling me that if I, I just want to confirm this. If I weighed a diet, Dr. Pepper.

Yes. It would weigh less than 12 ounces. No. No, because I'm the front door. Then it's a measure of weight. I'm sorry, but that's literally the definition of a measure of weight is that 12 ounces is 12 ounces. You're right. You're right. I think it would weigh more than 12 ounces because

high fructose corn syrup is heavier than water. And that, the bubbles are essential. The bubbles were a bit, the bubbles are not in, before you open the can, the bubbles aren't in there. There's no bubbles. The carbon dioxide dissolved in the water, like the sugar is dissolved in the water, and everything else is dissolved in the water. So the bubbles aren't there until you open it

and the bubbles come out. And as the bubble goes out, I've learned more about soda pop in the last three minutes than I did in my entire life. I'm like, what? Okay. All right. So first off, there's no bubble. There's no bubbles in the Dr. Pepper until I open it at which point they're magically bubbles because that's just how chemistry works. I can get behind that. Okay. But you're telling me that 12 fluid ounces of diet, Dr. Pepper,

weighs more than 12 ounces. That's a that's a stunner. That's a shock. That is. Yeah. And this is as somebody who's consumed quite a lot of diet, Dr. Pepper, that might be the biggest surprise since April when you called to tell me that you had cancer. Right. When I was coming back from Sierra Leone, I thought, exact, I knew exactly what I was going to do with my life. I was hyper focused on tuberculosis, except no, not really. I've got a new, I got a new job called CEO of Complexly. I looked it up, John. And 12 fluid ounces of soda was about 12.5 ounces, unless it's diet soda, in which case it weighs about 12 ounces.

Good God. So you get more soda if you get regular soda. Only by weight, not by volume. I'm so proud of that joke more, man. It's more stuff. Like it is literally more. That's like saying that like, it's just denser. It's just denser.

It's literally more stuff. It's the same amount of stuff, denser. It's just denser. It's literally okay. Okay, you do the same amount of stuff, denser. You deliver me a cube of air. That's less stuff than if you deliver me a cube of bricks. You agree? It's not less stuff, it's just less density. Hahaha. There's fewer molecules.

There's more molecules in a regular soda than a diet soda. Indeed. You have identified the nature of density or at least more more, not necessarily because there's a lot of proteins in the neutrons. That's actually what the mass is. So there are more protons and neutrons in a regular soda than a diet soda. Correct. This is a true, definitely true fact and is not a bit.

It sounds like a bit. It's also a bit, but it's true too. I genuinely y'all at home listening, I don't know if it's a bit. I'm gonna have to look it up later. Because Hank is using the same tone of voice when he's bidding and when he's not bidding. I know I am, it's the T, I had T.

But I think from now on, from now on, from now on. No, just English breakfast, from now on. Oh, it's the caffeine I did. I'm gonna get, I'm gonna start pricing things per molecule. Like I wanna go in or to per proton. I wanna go into the store and I instead of being like, this cost this much per ounce.

No, I want you to tell me how much it costs per atomic particle. Well, I certainly need that now that I know that half the stuff that I'm buying by weight, I'm not buying by weight, I'm buying by volume. Yeah. And I buy cheese per slice, people. So you're telling me that when I buy a gallon of ice cream, I'm not buying a weight of ice cream. And when you buy a gallon of ice cream, you are buying a volume of ice cream.

Galen is a volume. So I buy a gallon of ice cream and I might have, they might have put a bunch of air in there to make it a more aerated ice cream. Definitely a bunch of air and dip and dots. Well, like so between ice cream brands, there could be a different amount of ice cream for the same price and you have no way of knowing that because they're both one gallon. The only way you could know that is if there was what I think we should call proton price transparency. Proton price transparency. Ppt. Ppt. The future. We're going to have a grocery store.

The new GoodDust store grocery store available at your corner market. It has Ppt unlike every other store in America. It's very confusing and no one likes it. The great thing about Ppt is that everything seems so inexpensive, right? Like you get so many protons per penny. Like, like five times 10 to the negative 9 cents per proton. I was thinking it would be more like how many protons per dollar. So it would be like 10 to the 73rd protons per dollar.

Right. Then you'd look at another thing I was going to be like 10 to the 72 or 6 to the 72 protons. How much? And you'd be like, ah, God, I mean, that's a difference, but is it going to change my life? How much does a proton cost is an amazing title for a video? It is a good, I mean, that's the kind of video

that you'll still make, you know, but I'm over. I mean, I can absolutely make how much is a proton cost and like how much is a proton of gold cost? Very different from how much is a proton of air cost because thankfully, air continues to as far as I can tell, be mostly free. Yeah, mostly. Well, I mean, this has been an education

unlike any other. Today I learned so much about Diet Dr. Pepper, about ice cream, about protons, about their cost, about the lack of transparency in the volume business. Yeah. I'm so glad I asked you this thing about Swiss cheese, but I also want to ask you this question

for Kimberly, because it's a volume question. Yeah, dear John and Hank I like Jenga, you know that game Jenga where you pull out the little pieces of wood and eventually the tower falls over Of course I do. Well, I just figure some listeners at home might not, you know, so I wanted to Lay the land for them. Yeah, I appreciate that. It's a super simple game. There's not much to it, Kimberly reports. It's fun, but why are some blocks harder to pull than others? Like aren't they all the same size? Are they not?

What's the weight distribution there? Just how baffled by the gravity of the situation? Kimberly, Kimberly, I'm so glad you asked. It's actually not possible to produce two wooden blocks with the same number of protons. There has never been two-ging blocks possible to produce two wooden blocks with the same number of protons. There's never been. Never happened. Two jenga blocks with the same number of protons.

They're like snowflakes. It's, well, you know, it's possible. It's just extremely unlikely. Yeah, and the thing is, Jenga would have to put a lot, like billions of dollars of work into, into making, you know making nanometer specific cuts. Yeah. Or Michael, and they don't want that because they want it to be tricky.

So do you know the answer to this? You just told me the answer. The answer is that the jenga blocks are different sizes. That's true, but I also do think that it's partly about how you stack. I think the stack also is never quite perfect. I don't think that's it. Well I do. I think that if you had, well imagine, put it in your mind.

Build in your mind the imaginary. This will be fun for me. This will be fun for me metal blocks that are all exactly the same size and you put the cap close my eyes and I picture something. Do you know what I see? I'm sorry, I feel bad. I see nothing.

And so thank you for making a joke about this thing that I, is a talent I don't have. I was, I wasn't, I'm to close my eyes. There's nothing there. It's described to me what I'm supposed to be seeing and I can maybe make words for it. So they're perfectly cut silver metal jenga blocks. Yeah. I don't see them, but I know what you mean. And they can and they slide into each other so tightly that there's not going to seem like

you can't like you put the three together. You can't even tell there's three there. It looks as if there's just one block now that's a square. And then you lay it more down. They're just going to, like, you're going to take one of those out and that tower will remain exactly as solid as it has always been. In fact, now that I'm saying this, I want to build this Jenga set. And yes, but what I would say, well, first off, I think you're absolutely right, that

the main thing is that the blocks are different sizes, and we can get into that. But I would say that if you stack differently, like if you stack one so that they aren't perfectly aligned because you're a human being, not a robot. But what makes it not perfectly aligned? What do you mean? What makes it not perfectly aligned? When you're stacking three of these blocks on top of three of these blocks, on the thing we're putting it on. Yeah, yeah, but you're not going to align that these three perfectly next to those three.

You're always gonna be a little bit off because you're a person who's doing it with person fingers that are notorious for their lack of precision, right? And that's going to slightly redistribute their weight in such a way that one of the three is going to be easier to pull off than the others. However, it's just the size difference. And I think I'd like to make a perfect genga set that has no size difference and see what it's like

to play with. The problem is it's going be very expensive, and people love to steal board games because they are risk takers. I've never, in my life, had someone come over to my, I've had people steal lots of things from my house. I've never in my life had someone come over to my house and steal a freaking Jenga game, and nor have you. I want people to go on the Nerdfighteria subreddit and answer whether you got the risk taker joke

on the first time, subreddit and answer whether you got the risk taker joke on the first time which John clearly did. Oh, they are risk takers. No, it's not, I mean, I get it, but I don't want to indulge it. We're done, we're done, we did it. I got three in, we're done. Wikipedia reports the blocks have small random variations so as to create imperfections in the stacking

process to make the game more challenging. I actually think it makes the game less challenging. It's intentional. Yeah, yeah, yeah, because you just like some of them are just like, you're going to blow them out. Yeah. Well, so there you go. It's intentional, but I still think that how we stack matters.

I believe that we cannot remove the human element from Jenga and the stacking is where we should be. Should we try? The stacking is where inevitably we create our own imperfections. That's gonna be John's perspective on this. And I'm gonna let him have it. This next question comes from Sarah Ann Carter, who asked, dear Hank John,

if the rock of the moon was a different color, would it be as bright? Like, if the moon was black or pink, would the moonlight look different to us? Need to know various emojis, pumpkins and spice pink with, spice penguins, Sarah and Carter. Uh, the penguin spiced. Yeah. I don't know. Yeah, you should, you spiced the pumpkins, maybe not the penguins. I don't like penguin. I was like, oh, I was like, oh, I was like, oh, I was like, oh, I was like, oh, I was like, oh, I was like, oh, I was like, oh, I was like, oh, I was like, oh, I was like, oh, I was like, oh, I was like, oh, I was like, oh, I was like, oh, I was like, oh, I was like, oh, I was like, oh, I was like, oh, I was like, oh, I was like, oh, I was like, oh, I was like, oh, I was like, oh, I was like, oh, I was like, oh, I was like, oh, I was like, oh, I was like, oh, I was like, oh, I was like, oh, I was like, oh, I was like, oh, I was like, oh, I was like, oh, I was like, oh, I was like, oh, I was like, oh, I was like, oh, I was like, oh, I was like, oh, I was like, oh, I was like, oh, I was like, oh, I was like, oh, I was like, oh, I was like, oh, I was like, oh, I was like, oh, I was like, oh, I was like, oh, I was like, oh, I was like, oh, I was like, oh, I was like, oh, I was like, oh, I was like, oh, I was like, oh, I was like, oh, I was like, oh, I was like, oh, I was like, oh, I was like, oh, I was like, oh, I was like, oh, I was like, oh, I was like, oh, oh, I was like, oh, I was like, oh, I was like, oh, I was like, oh, I was like, oh, oh, I was like, yeah, right. It was a pelican. Did you have another bird abducting a baby dream? Yeah, and they were stuck underneath the ice together. And I had to beose. And the penguin. Oh, no. Yeah, but he kept it warm. And so everybody lived. Wow. It was intense. I don't know that I could have. I had, do you have a pullax?

It was one of those things where like I didn't have anything and then. I had, do you have a pull-ax? It was one of those things where like I didn't have anything and then suddenly I did, you know? Like I was like, whoo, thank God I got this gigantic axe. Yeah, that's nice that your subconscious delivered you like a way out of the anxiety, rather than just like ramping it up over and over again, which is sometimes what it seems to want to do.

It's like, oh yeah, I had a pull-axe, but now you don't. The pull-axe is made out of rubber. Ha-ha-ha. Is that what yours is doing at the moment? Not really, no, but it certainly hasn't the past. I feel that the pull-axe would be a good tool for getting a baby out of ice. I don't know what a pull-axe is exactly. I just had kind of a regular axe, but it was, is it called a mace, when on one side,

it's got that sort of hammer thing on the other side. It's an X because that's what this was. It was here on one side, X on the other. Just like a big heavy ball on one side. A pole X is like an ax on a pole. Well, I would never have guessed that. Next you'll tell me that 12 fluid ounces of Dr. Dr. Pepper just happened to weigh 12 ounces.

that 12 fluid ounces of diet, Dr. Pepper just happened to weigh 12 ounces. It's so weird. It is very weird. I mean, very strange that 12 fluid ounces of Dr. Pepper weighs 12.5 ounces. And that 12 fluid ounces of diet, Dr. Pepper weighs 12 ounces. Yeah. It's all very weird. full of ounces of diet, Dr. Pepper weighs 12 ounces. It's all very weird. Pro-tons.

Pro-tons. Pro-tons. Pro-tons. I'm making this podcast. I can't talk about yet. And in the podcast, I can't talk about yet. We talk about protons. And I'll tell you what, protons are an astonishment.

Yeah, right. Wait. Stop, Frote. Can you believe it? The more you zoom into the proton, the weirder it gets. Yeah, that's true. That's true. Okay, Hank. Yes, we didn't answer the question. What was the question?

What would the, what would the world be like if the moon was a different color? So the moon is, I think, a little bit. So if you had like white on one side and black on the other, like, whitest white, black is black, the color of the moon would be closer to black than white. So it looks very white to us when we look at it. It does. Because it's like on the background of like perfect blackness and also it's being hit by an awful lot of sunlight. So the stuff that's, the light that's being shine back at us makes it look like it's lighter than it is.

So if it were white, the moon would be so bright, so bright. How bright, like sun bright? Be way brighter. Could we work at night? Would we have developed a completely different civilization? You know, that's a great question. And also not like not like at all unthinkable in terms of how moons can be like there are ice moons of other planets. So we could hereetically have an ice moon. And if we're bigger

and made of ice, we'll be very bright in the sky. And I could totally see the times when there is a full moon and the moon is out that it would be totally workable to be outside and doing stuff. Wow. That's cool. I'd never thought about that. I'd never thought about that. I'd never thought about that.

I'd never thought about that. I'd never thought about that. I'd never thought about that. I'd never thought about that. I'd never thought about that. I'd never thought about that. I'd never thought about that. I'd never thought about that.

I'd never thought about that. I'd never thought about that. I'd never thought about that. I'd never thought about that. I'd never thought about that. I'd never thought about that. I'd never thought about that. I'd never thought about that. I'd never thought about that. You know me. And that's all, and it would be, you know, if it were twice as big, that would probably not just be twice as much light. I would probably increase it as a square. So it would be eight times as bright. Wow.

So if it's eight times as bright, I mean, I'm not good at multiplying magnitudes of light just to stay the obvious. But I think if, certainly on a full moon, if it was even two or three times as bright, you could do most things. I mean, like, you can do a lot with just the full moon as is. Now you got to remember clouds. You got to remember clouds. You got to remember clouds. But the clouds would be brighter. Clouds would, yeah, no for sure. So you would look up and wouldn't see, and you know what else you wouldn't see as much of his stars. Certainly not on a moonlit night.

Yeah. And not on a cloudy night either, just to state the obvious. We're so good at podcasting. We're so good at podcasting. We're so good. I mean, Jesus Christ. How does this podcast fly under the radar? Heck, I don't understand.

It's like in 2007, when we would call each other, we had like 100 YouTube subscribers and we'd be like, this is good, right? Like, we're pretty good at this. I think we're good. But here's what I wanna know. Can could you spray paint the moon so that it's a bunch of different colors, I think we're good. But here's what I want to know. Can could you spray paint the moon so that it's a bunch of different colors, and they

show up at like different times? So like when it's a half moon, like the, like you, if I had the moon in there, like four quarters. Yes. You have like a blue quarter and you have a purple quarter and a green quarter and yellow quarter. And then when they're all lit up, then it's like, oh, that big beautiful colorful moon and all those colors get together. But like, as it goes through

the phases, you get different colors of moon. That'll piss off the homophobes. Rainbows. Rainbows. We'll show them. The moon has gone woke. No. But it's best if it just happens rather than... Yeah, exactly.

If it just happened one day if the moon actually did go woke and all the people were like, this is not what God intended, even though it doesn't appear that God did it. We don't know how old to could have gotten done, but we're pretty sure it was the elites of the universities Seems like something Seems like something to do professors would do Yeah, exactly like all the all the scholars of 18th century German literature got together and made the moon woke. I knew it was coming Mm-hmm. I love this Hank.

This is a great idea. This is the best idea you've ever had. I think that we should invest all of humanity's available resources in making a rainbow moon. Yeah, the blue moon is when it's like, once it comes out once, twice in one month. Yeah. And the woke moon is when it comes out at all.

I thought you said you were done with the puns. Okay. it all. I thought you said you were done with the puns. Oh, we've got a really important question from Dana who writes, dear John and Hank, I recall you discussing Hank's journey of meaning this time last year. Remember when you were on a journey of meaning? We didn't know. Yeah. Was it the cancer talking? Was the cancer on a journey of meaning? A journey of meaning to be discovered? And who knows? Given the everything, way to refer to it, Dana, everything is a good way to refer to it. I was wondering, how's that journey of meaning going? Dana! Dana! How is your journey of meaning going, Hank? I remember. So I was recently did the Nerdfighteria Census Analysis, which you can find out.

Yeah. Hank's channel. And I was reading through people's comments, and there were a lot of comments that were like, I'm worried about Hank's health. Oh, oh, like, and this was last year. This is before this is pre-cancer. Yeah, from like this is pre-cancer. It was pre-cancer. You were just giving off vibes. Really worried about it. Because you were working so hard. I was.

And now I am again. Like it's not as hard. No, and also not as stressful. Like the work that I've been doing lately has been mostly very fun. Yeah. And there are people who are doing a lot of stressful things on my behalf, which I appreciate. Yeah, the journey of meaning is weird and it's complicated a little bit by mortality,

but it's also something- I find it to be complicated quite a lot by mortality actually. Well, it's more complicated by mortality than it once was. Right. Is what I mean. Yeah.

And, but like I think that it's also just complicated by, by reality. I, I think it's very, it's very, it's, it continues to be very complicated to be a person. And much more so than I thought. Yeah. When I started. Yeah. So my journey of meaning, let me, let me put it to you this way. Have you entered a place of worship in the last year?

I think that every place can be a place of worship. John, great answer. Okay. I've entered nature. Oh, this is the kind of journey of meaning that you're on. You're on a journey of connection to nature, which by the way, I, I also am. of connection to nature, which by the way, I also am. That's like, I'm reading all the sacred nature literature now. I'm deep into it. That's good stuff. I'm deep into it. It's good stuff. Yeah, no, I mean, one of the things that,

so here's a thing about cancer is that it is you deciding to not be you anymore. And so the, like, cells start to, instead of, because all, like, this is the thing. You're like, I don't know, probably around 50 to 75 trillion cells, John. I don't know exactly how many protons you have, but you got a lot of cells. And they're all working together all of the time to do you, to be like B, U, and... Yeah.

And that's like one of the greatest acts of cooperation of all time. Like you are a colony of cells. And for bacteria. I'm right back, they are also cells. And they are, they also communicate with you. I know.

And so like they are part of you. They're part of you. They are part of you. Not just in some ways. Like they are fundamentally inextricably part of me. Yeah. Well, I mean, the thing about yourselves is you can't extract some of them from you.

You could extract your microbiome and still be you, I think. You could extract your... Not for a very long. Well, it seems like you'd get a new one, you know? Yes. Unless the light lived in a sterile spot. You could lose a hand and you're still you. Like you can lose a big, lose a few blood cells. Yeah, yeah. You can lose a lot of hope. I just lost some snot this morning of your of yourself and still be

you. You're constantly consuming your own cells and swallowing them and digesting them, which is wild. And so the, so this, like, and for like half of the history of life on Earth, it was just single-celled organisms. Yeah. And then, they started... There was double operation within an organism, which means cells, because it was only one cell. Started to team up, and like two things with each other. And like the part where we are 8 billion colonies, each of like 50 to 100 trillion cells, right, each of those cells replicating billions of times.

Yeah. And it works at all. No, it's miraculous. What? Yeah. Like, like, what? But then, but then there's this small colony of cells in your lymph that's like, mm, I don't wanna be him anymore.

Yeah, well, they just start to evolve back in sort of a single-celled way, where they're like, I'd rather, you know, like, like if I could make more of me, there will be more of me. They're not making a decision, obviously, but like, there's, like any trait that allows them to make more of themselves

will be more present in the cellular population because they can make more of themselves. And then you end up with them evolving to sort of evade, all of the systems that are designed to not let them do that because of course, they just want to realize that would happen all the time and so they're just sort of doing what you would expect them to do, which is following the rules of natural selection, and which is just things that make more of themselves there are more of them.

And then like they just start evolving to figure out how to keep living, which includes evolving to evade treatment and to evade all of the systems your body has to control them. And it's like such a tricky little guy to fight. But the thing that makes me like, and you know, that seems like it, like, an inevitability, and it turns out that it is pretty much an inevitability of multi-cellular life. But the thing that makes me much more weird about the whole thing is that thinking about it that way, I don't know, of course consciousness, big question mark, nobody knows what it is, is it an illusion?

Am I conscious at all? Do I exist between, in the spaces between my thoughts and the examination of those thoughts? Like where am I in that chain? And like all of it actually, the reason it's here and like we get like different perspectives on this, but this is my perspective. The reason it's here is that it helps pass the traits on like I am imbued with once because once our a trait that increases the odds of a thing making more of itself and if it's able to make more of itself there will be more of it. That's what I am

but What that has added up to is a creature capable of like not just you know making hats and computers and stuff, but like society and love and music and all, and podcasts and stuff, like, and words, like all the beauty and the art. Yeah. Well, that, and the interconnection

between the individual cell colonies, like you're a big cell colony and I am and then there's like eight billion others. Yeah. And we all like do a whole earth together. Yeah. That stuff made love and love is very real and very powerful and very, very strange. It's so strange that we don't think about how strange it is. Because if we did, I think we would be like in a blind panic the whole time.

Well, I'll tell you what, understanding that cancer is basically the most natural thing in the world to have happened to a multicellular organism is a little bit blindingly panicking. But it's good that we have lots of systems to stop it. Yeah, some naturally selected for and some human built. And I think that's also something that I find really lovely about us is that we participate and are made out of biological systems, but we also create and participate in and reform and restructure all the time these human build systems.

Yeah. And so there are these problems that we don't know how to solve because they're not human built system problems. And we look at them and we're like, oh boy, we better put a lot of resources and try and solve those problems. And that's really important, right? Like that's why we have chemotherapy. But then there are also these human built system problems, which are the ones that I tend to be obsessed with for whatever reason. We're like, we know how to fix them. Getting chemotherapy to everyone is one example.

The difference between inventing chemotherapy and making chemotherapy available to some people, and then making chemotherapy available to all people, those are all huge leaps that require a kind of innovation. We put a lot of emphasis on the kind of innovation that leads to the discovery, but not that much emphasis on the innovation that leads to availability and access. And that's something I really, it's I find frustrating about us,

but it's also something I kind of love about us that like we can do that. We can do a bit better jobs of distributing what we've learned together. And when we do that, it's great. Like that's great. That's how we figured out, you know, what's keeping the stars apart, not just how to cure cancer.

It's how we figured out like, why my brain knows that it's going to make a fist before I make a fist. And how it can be wrong, like you can fool it, but yeah, it also like it has felt more to me like our inability to enact the world that is more just is a cellular problem. Oh, that's interesting. Like we are what we are.

And we are still trying to figure out how to be it. And it's so like it's so hard to fight it, like to fight against or to like to see progress all the time. We do. We do. We do. But like, and that's like, that's the wonderful thing. But like, you can't, it, you know, know, it's taken so long to get from the part where the, you know, the instinct and, you know, we're all like this. Like the first round of empathy is toward our families

and toward the people we have the closest relationships with. And like, to like, to like expanding that circle of empathy, it requires tools. It requires innovation. Like we have to create cultural innovation to be able to do that well. Yeah, I would almost say that it requires a journey of meaning. And we are all on one, even if we don't know.

That's right. That's what I've been trying to tell you for years is that you were always on a journey of meaning. You just kind of rejected the idea. Well, it's because you kept saying it like it was religious. John, I knew you were doing that. That was my mistake. It is religious, but that's that's neither here nor there. I still can't let that go, but like, you know, like I would argue that like nature, you know, nature religions are still religions, like religions aren't theistic,

or inherently supernatural, in my opinion. But I just think it was weird timing in that way, but it has both in the way you've responded to it as a sort of biomedical problem by using it as an opportunity to educate people, to talk to people, and that has the social effect of destigmatizing the experience. But also in the way that you've talked about the non-biomedical parts of it, the mental health parts, the psychosocial parts.

I just think it's been really helpful for a lot of people, and you've taken who you are and what you do in your natural curiosity and just applied it to this horrific thing, and I don't think I would have done that. I think I would have gotten off the internet. So it's just something I really admire about you. I did the only thing I know how to do.

That's what people kept being like, this is your doing this a very interesting way. And I'm like, I don't know what else to do. It's all I know how to do. Yeah, it's to make this. Well, this reminds me, the Space Podcast actually brought to you by Hank's Journey of Meaning.

Hank's Journey of Meaning, available now at Good.store. The podcast is also brought to you by Hank's journey of meaning, Hank's journey of meaning, available now at Good.store. This podcast is also brought to you by proton price transparency. Know what you're paying for. What not? And what you're paying for is protons. Today's podcast is also brought to you by Hank's billion dollar jenga set. It's perfect. It's perfect. It's so cool. I want I really do want it.

That's a great idea. It's a great idea. Sounds very expensive. We'd have to make them small. And also the podcast is brought to you by the woke moon. Keep coming out. It comes out every month. I just, hey, I'm fine with you being woke, Moon, okay? But stop bringing it up. Yeah, you don't have to bring it up all the time. Jesus. Keep coming out. Feels like every 28 days, it's like, here I am.

It's like you have some kind of cycle. We've also got a project for us a message from Charlotte to Madeline. Dear Madeline, remember Pug? Out of context, quotes aside, I'm so proud that you're my sister. You lead by example carrying deeply adding humor to the mundane and not take a BS from anyone. As said in Summer Wars, among the plethora of painful things in this world hunger and loneliness must surely be two of the worst. But thanks to you, I haven't known either. I love you dearly, Charlotte.

Wow, that was lovely. It was. That was great. Charlotte, you're a good writer. Madeline, you're a good sister. I got to get to this question before we get to the news from Mars and AFC Wimbleden Hank. Okay. It's important. It's from Julia. She writes, I promise you, this was in the question list. I see. She writes, Hello, why do people use ways as much as insert number of elephants to describe how heavy something is?

I don't know how heavy an elephant is. I've never touched one in my life. Thank you, Julia. Well, Julia, what have I told you that how heavy an elephant is actually has nothing to do with how much space an elephant takes up, which makes it even harder to understand because what they really mean is the size of 16 elephants, right? Not the weight of 16 elephants. No, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait,

wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait I've never like bench pressed one. What they're thinking about is the size and space that an elephant takes up when I look at one or when I look at a picture of one,

which it turns out Julia has nothing to do with the weight of the elephant. I think, all right, new idea. We sell everything by elephants. And cheese, and it's just like volume or weight. Volume or weight. Volume or weight. 32 thousands of an elephant. Volume or weight. Volume or weight. 32 thousands of an elephant.

Volume or weight. Volume or weight. No. A mountain. I only accept volume because I don't know how much an elephant weighs. No, it has to be weight because that's the protons. It's directly transferable.

The problem is, and this I do not like about weighing things in elephants, is that there are some elephants that are full grown and weigh 6,000 pounds and some that are full grown and weigh 12,000 pounds. There's lots of different kinds of elephants. There's not. There's like two main different kinds of elephants. But there's lots of different ages and weights of elephants. And for that matter, while we're on the topic, volumes, how do you account for the tusk? How much does a tusk weigh? I don't know because I've never held one. How much does like the nose thing weigh? What's the trunk weigh?

I don't know. I've never held one. I know how much space it takes up because I can look at it and see how much space it takes up. But I don't know how much it weighs. And this is a fundamental issue. It turns out Julia, because knowing how big something is does not tell you how much stuff, how many protons are in it. Yeah. And I learned that today, Julia, so I'm a little obsessed with it. You look at elephant, and you're like, that seems awful big, you know. It's moving real slow because of how heavy it is.

If it probably, if it stood on your fridge, your fridge would break. I don't think it would. If it probably, if it stood on your fridge, your fridge would break. And I don't think it would. You don't think it, no. I think my fridge would break if a full grown African bull elephant stepped on it. Well, first off, you're saying like, I think my fridge might break if the world's

largest elephant stood on it, which is not the average elephant. Secondly, I still don't think it would. I think your fridge would hold up just fine. In fact, I need to test this immediately. All right. Where is the nearest elephant? It's at the Indianapolis Zoo. It has to be. And so the challenge actually isn't getting an elephant. The challenge is getting a refrigerator into the elephant enclosure, which I suspect will make me the enemy of certain zookeepers. Yeah, you're like, look, I'm John Greed.

You know who I am. I have a hit podcast. I have a podcast and we need to know. We need to know. And also, we're going to I used to have you have followers on a website called Twitter. Could you remember Twitter? I was on it and I was big. No, I would say, have you heard of Apple podcasts?

The app. Have you ever been on their top charts? Have you ever gone to the Society and Culture section? Have you ever scroll down to number 173? That's me. That's me, that's who I am. Some day I'm going to die in this elephant. And they're going to bury me on top of the guy who's on top of the hill.

That's who I am. And I'm going to be buried inside of that elephant. I don't know how we're going to make it happen. But it might be today. Because I'm here to make mistakes. Did I tell you that I made that joke to somebody who worked at Crown Hill and it bombed? Oh no. Everything jokes are context dependent. And I was like, yeah, I've always just wanted to be buried right on top of James Wickham

Riley here at the very top of Crown Hill just so that I could be the writer on top of all the other writers in Indianapolis. And they were like, no, that's just, that's not going to happen. Okay. James Whitcommeriely is here at the top of Crown Hill. He wrote Little Orphan Annie. Yeah. They're used to fielding weird requests from rich guys.

That's what that tells me. That's true. They're like, we would make that work if we could. Right. Yeah. It's not really has to be buried just below, but you can have a mausoleum with a weird leprechaun stained glass window in the back. It's true, but I'll tell you what I have abs. If I, if I'm not getting buried above James Wickham Riley, I have no interest being on that hill.

I've got no interest being like 30 feet below James Wickham Riley. No, put me with the people. Give me the cheetah valley. Oh, man. I didn't think what question he asked at the beginning of of log brothers. I thought I definitely wanted to be turned into ashes and sprinkled into a river, but recently I did, I have reason to write down what I wanted things, what wanted to be done with my dead body,

and I was like, I want a headstone. Yeah, well that's, for first off, that is also exactly what I say. I say I don't really care. I do want a headstone though, because I found it very helpful to be able to visit like my relatives headstones. Like it's something that I just like doing, and I don't know, I like cleaning them up and everything.

But I did think like when you got diagnosed with cancer, I did think like, well, I mean, I put all that work into getting them to sign a will, and now I bet he's like super motivated to make sure it's all buttoned up. Yeah, wills all set, John. I bet. I bet I'm glad. Sorry about the circumstances.

I'm all good. I don't, like, if you don't, I don't think I've said it on vlog, but there's in like, look, I don't know what you guys listen to, but I just had my, my follow up pet scan. I remain cancer free. I've got about two years of mild risk of relapse followed by three years of very low risk of relapse followed by ideally several more decades of basically zero risk of relapse. Right. Right. So this was a very good scan. This was as good as a scan as you could possibly have.

Yeah. It's complete remission and now it's a confirmation of that complete remission. And. And my doctor as I was leaving, he patting me on the back and he said, congrats on being done. So that's like, I feel like what you need to know. My doctor said I was done. Yeah.

Yeah. And so that's part of the reason we're able to make these jokes. Yeah. I mean, actually, to be fair, we would make them anyway, but we would make them in private. We were definitely making some jokes in private this summer. But those were private jokes. Yeah, God.

Oh, I never want to have a year like this again, and I'm sure you don't either. I keep saying to Sarah, like, this was the worst year of my life, and I didn't even have cancer. Yeah. I think you would have handled it. Okay. Yeah, no, I'm just saying that, like the of the brotherly experiences, of the two experiences, one unexpectedly becoming the CEO of a, the size media company and the other unexpectedly getting cancer, like there is a preferable option.

Yeah. That's all I'm saying. I'm not trying to, listen, I'm not trying to minimize my suffering, Hank, one thing about me is I never do. And thank you for doing that. Well, thank you for doing all of the therapy and treatment and everything else. Listen, listen, listen. Yeah.

There is one shining bright light to this year, this difficult year, this year of troubles and hardship and loss and fear, and that bright shining light is named Ali Alhamadi. Oh my god. My god. My god, I love watching that man play football and I just hope I get to do it for the rest of this season. We got a note Hank from a couple of listeners to dear Hank and John who said, as American nerdfighters traveling to England, my husband and I of course had to attend the AFC Wimbledon

Game last Saturday against Nott's County. It was excellent. The beginning was terrifying, of course, because Wimbledon got ahead and we all know how that ends. But by the end of the game, with those lovely penalty kick goals, one goal that confused everyone, and a breakaway that toppled all of our breakaway dreams, we have some thoughts to share. The main thoughts are that Wimbledon 142 and about this new defender whose thighs make us all question our own eyesight.

He seems nervous to make a mistake in his new job because every time he gets the ball, he clears it with an impressive header or kick. But without any thought, yeah, no, welcome to league two. Bethy and Burley, that's just, that's, that's fourth tier football. If you're a defender and the ball comes to you, you need to get that ball to somewhere else very far away, the furthest away that you can get it. And that's what Joe Lewis is great at. And that's part of why I love him so much. So listen, Hank, we're good. We're good. Wimbledon, Wimbledon are good. I don't know how good we are yet. And I don't know if we'll hold on to our two best players, Jack Curry and Oli Alhamadi over the January transfer window. That's about to begin. But right now we are good. We just beat Swindon Town for NIL.

We beat Jillingham 1-0. We beat Nots County 1 of the best teams in League 2-4-2. I forgot that we actually lost to Jillingham or Gillingham, but it doesn't matter. That's Gillingham or Jillingham, it doesn't count. But we beat Nots County 1 of the best teams in the league. We beat Swindon Town 1 of the best teams in the league. And we're beating these teams handily.

We are in seventh place, which is a playoff position. Not only are we in seventh place, more importantly, from my perspective, we're 16 points clear of the relegation zone after just 20 games. This is incredible what's happening right now. Something, even though we have the 16th or 17th largest playing budget in leagueig2 somehow, we are

up with the big boys. We're up there in the heady heights of Rexham and Nott's County and Mansfield town and Stockport. It's very exciting. We're six places above the franchise currently applying its trade in Milton Keynes. All thrilling stuff. That's very exciting, John. I got so caught up in it, I didn't even open up my Mars news.

I'll go on while you look for the Mars news. Alley Al-Hamedi, I think he scored and assisted more goals in league two than any other player. He's 21 years old. I know it's almost impossible that we're going to hold on to him in January. I know that the big clubs are going to come calling impossible that we're going to hold on to him in January. I know that the big clubs are going to come calling that they're going to have a million pounds to spend. And I know that we've got a lot of debt to pay off on our stadium.

And I know that it's a complicated situation, but I just hope we can hold on to him. Well, correct me if I'm wrong, John, because I, I very well might be, but it seems like we spend a lot of time talking about those boys who score goals, but that's not the only people who are Important on the team. You got to have some good defenders, right? You got to have a goal Sure, sure, sure, sure, sure remember remember last season when we lost our best player in January and then and then we lost the guy who scored goals and then we didn't score any goals It turns out that you don't win a lot of football games

We don't score any goals scoring goals as hard you do everybody, and we've got an amazing midfield right now. In fact, our money little one of our midfielders scored like a premier league quality goal from like 30 yards out against Swinton. So I don't know. It's a special team right now. Our captain, Jake Reeves, is he's got great energy.

We've got some great songs. I feel like the quality of songs among the fans has never been better. When I went to the away, I probably shouldn't say this, but I thought it was pretty funny. When I went to the away game in Mansfield, at the end of the game, the Wimbledon fans saying, we get to go home, we get to go home. You have to live here, we get to go home. Oh, no. Oh, boy. Oh, boy.

No, please don't cause riots. Please football fans. No, I think Mansfield knows what's going on in Mars. On Mars, can you get from me how long you think that Perseverance Rover has been on the surface of Mars? Oh, a long time. Like since way before you had cancer, which was the main demarcation point in the last couple decades. There was, there was, when I got dumped,

my senior year of college, and then there was when you got cancer, and not that much happened other than that. Gosh, has it been three, three, it was, it was around the time of the pandemic, right? Because I remember saying like perseverance. Yeah. Three years? It's been a thousand days, which is about thousand days. A thousand days. Oh, no, it's been a thousand Martian days.

I read now that I am paying attention, which is very slightly longer than a thousand. Right. Earth days. It's like the 12 ounces as compared to the 12.5 ounces. Yeah, Martian Day is like one day and 45 minutes. It's very weird that we have very similar days of his strange. But it landed in February of 2021.

So that's 2020. 2021. No way. Yeah. That's not. That's not. It was into the was into the pandemic. And that whole thousand days, it's been busy. It's called the 23 samples. It's studied those samples using its onboard instruments. It's got all kinds of different weird ways to shine different lights and wavelengths and particles that it and do some onboard chemistry.

I imagine it like sniffing, you know, and being like, basically tossing sniffing. Yeah. Yeah. Sending word back like us, melt metallic. And they're using the samples to piece together the history of Jezeiro Crater, very cool, very weird, what it was like back when it was an ancient lake bed. I guess it wasn't ancient back then. And it's going to continue exploring that

crater, doing more insights and seeing what the area once looked like, including searching for possible signs of ancient microbes that might have once lived there. It's so wonder, like back in my day, when I was a kid, they put these rovers on Mars and they'd be like,'s kind of it's probably gonna last for a week It's gonna be out there for a whole week Yeah, no, and that was that was a big win. Yeah, and now curious like it is just like I'm up I'm up. I'm up. What's up? What's going on? Give me a coffee. I can I can do this. I can do I can I can make it another day boss I can do it. Yeah, boss. I can do it.

Yeah, but perseverance is just like a mini van rolling around, just on the surface, just doing stuff. It's so beautiful. And the fact that it's been a thousand days just reminds me that like there will be another thousand days and a thousand days from now. We will be in a different world. It will be worse in some ways.

It'll be better in some ways. It's utterly unknowable to us, but I hope we're here to see it. John, how long do you think curiosity's been on Mars? And it's still operating. It is still doing its mission. How long has it been on Mars? Gosh, not as many years. I was going to say it's almost as old as this podcast. Eleven years. Well, is it older than the podcast?

It might. Yeah, yeah it older than the podcast? It might. Yeah, yeah, I think so. Yeah. Wow. That's incredible. 11 years and it's still like, by the way, I don't know that I don't know that there's a robot on earth that lasted a weapon.

I bet general motors have some that are just like, yeah, whatever man. It's like union now. It's totally, they can't retire. It's got tenure. Yeah. It's got a pension. It's actually just cheaper to keep it working. Yeah, I guess there are some 11 year old machines now that I think about the fact that I

myself own an 11 year old machine called a car. But, but I'll tell you, it's, I'll tell you what, it's needed some earth-based maintenance over that a weapon years. Yeah, you think so? In order to be a going concern. Man, John, it's about to be an amazing time to buy a new or a used electric car. There's like all these different things that are making electric cars super cheap. And in that, in January, there's going to be a rebate for used electric cars and not just new ones, which

is very exciting. Are you going to get one like on January 3rd? I might get one before then, honestly. I think that first off, I think you should get the rebate because I make too much money. I don't. Mr. Bragg's a lot. I don't think you should. I have strong feelings about this as you know. I think that you should get, like I just, I'm just gonna tell you, the Hyundai Ionic 5 is so much better.

Like I also own the Chevrolet Volt. So I know and I loved my Volt and it's great. It's a great car. The Hyundai Ionic 5 is so much better and it doesn't look like a fancy car because it's not a fancy car. It's a Hyundai. Yeah They're telling you luxury cars, but they're saying cars. They're fine Yeah, I mostly just don't like I don't need that much range and I feel like weird having that much battery if I don't need that much range Okay, I get it I don't need that much range. And I feel like we're having that much battery if I don't need that much range. Okay. I get it.

But maybe I will need that much range. I don't know. There's no order. It's very hard to go anywhere from this town. Like there's not a lot of chargers around. Well, no, no. It's just like there's not a lot of anything around. Like if you want to.

There's not a lot of civilization. Where are you gonna go? Like if you're gonna go 300 miles, it's about the same stuff as you'd find a hundred miles away. You know? Yeah. I don't know. Our buddy has a cool comedy club in Helena or Billings

or something. It's a ghost man, I believe. And I would like to go. I should go and do a night. You should go there. That's what you should do with your fancy electric car with all of its range. Hmm, I'd be fun.

Well Hank, thank you for potting with me. Thanks to everybody for listening. You can email us your questions at Hank and John at gmail.com You can do that. This podcast is edited by Joseph Tuneum. It is produced by Rosie on a halls row house. Our communication coordinator is Brooke Shotwell. Our editorial assistant is Debukentra Krovardi. The music you're hearing now and beginning of the podcast is by the great-grande Rola. And as they say it, our home down, don't forget to be awesome. [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪