Dear Hank & John - 382: Dental Spider-bots

Episode Date: February 7, 2024

Why don't batteries last very long? Does Spider-man have to brush his teeth? Can a goose do math? 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

Hello and welcome to Dear Hike a John. Yours I prefer to think of a Dear John in Hank. It's a podcast where two brothers answer your questions, give you to Bees and Fice, and wonder whether the butt crack exists. That was last week. And then they give you all the new weeks news from both Mars and AFC Wimbledon. John. Yeah.

John, I have a question. Did you know why when geese make V's in the sky, there's sometimes like one of the sides is longer than the other side? For aerodynamic reasons? No, it's because there's more geese on one side than the other side. Is this like absurdist humor or is this like waiting for Godot stuff?

Yeah, there's more geese on the other side. It's longer because there's more geese. Yeah, so that's just like a pure waiting for Godot joke where there's no punch line. It's because there's more geese. Is there something I'm not getting? There's no, no, there's not something you're, no, you've got it. You're all the way there. Okay, well, congratulations on reinventing the E&S GO play. It's fun.

I never really got that stuff in English class and I continue to not really get it now. Why is one of the sides of the V longer? Because there's more keys. Oh, John, do you want it? Why doesn't Godot ever show up? Well, because he's God. I mean, ish. First off, we don't have to get into a theological argument right at the top of the podcast.

G'do, I mean, I don't want to make too big of a thing about it. Yeah. G'do may not show up because G'do may not exist at all. Is it our biggest disagreement, the theistic stuff? Uh-huh. And by the way, I'm not totally sure we have a disagreement. I was just reading a great piece about an atheist chaplain, a humanist chaplain who served an atheist death row inmate.

And I was fascinated by it because at the end of it I was like, am I an atheist chaplain? But I do believe in God, however tentatively, and with a definition of God that doesn't totally line up with a lot of peoples. Do you think that's our biggest disagreement, or do we have a bigger disagreement, a more fundamental disagreement somewhere along the line? Because people ask us about this a lot, like, how come you guys don't fight or whatever? And yeah, I mean, we do fight, but never about anything important, really. Yeah, no, we fight about we fight about like the things that married couples

fight about, you know, right? It's like, like, like, are we going to put resources toward this or this? Like, what's more important? The dishes or the laundry? Yeah. And like, we fight, we have a lot of fights that are some version of who took out the trash or will you take out the trash? No, I took out the trash last time.

Yeah, why haven't you took out the trash? I took out the trash last time. Yeah, that's the main to John and Hank fights. Yeah. But like, yeah, I mean on philosophical stuff, I don't know, we're pretty in the similar place. And like, whether or not souls exist doesn't really come into it most of the time.

Doesn't, it's insane. It still seems really important to prevent people from suffering whether or not a piece of them is immortal. Oh, yeah, I mean, almost equally important regardless. Especially according to my faith tradition, which is pretty focused on what's happening here and not too focused on what's happening after.

I think after, you know, this is something I think about a lot. I always say to Hank, like, I don't want to do that because then I might go to hell and Hank's like, but hell doesn't exist. And I, like, I don't want to do that because then I might go to hell. And Hank's like, but hell doesn't exist. And I'm like, I know. That's not what I mean. I know.

I mean, like I would go to hell if hell existed and we're exactly like what I think it would be like. If, you know, like, yeah. And I don't think hell would be eternal flames either. I just think it would be sort of like, not to sound cheesy about it, but I think it would be like distance from the divine, you know, which is like kind of what you're creating yourself when you act in a way that's commensurate with what would send

you to hell. Interesting. Interesting. There's something there that does align with me, where there's like a sacred that is made up by me. And like the things that you get you closer to the sacred things are good things. And I can see things that are appealing that I like that can make further away from it. And like that's something to be aware of.

Yeah, in your case, it actually just has, it's just one thing, Twitter. No, it's more than Twitter. But Twitter and all the other things like Twitter have the same root. That's true. But you're not, you're- I want to be abused by strangers and also to abuse them. Yeah.

And- That's part of it. But you have another thing- And to get attention and to feel feelings. I want a lot of attention. I want a lot of attention. I want a lot of attention and really intense sensations, regardless of whether they're pleasurable or productive, I just want them, I want them now.

I had that earlier. I wanna just say that this is a thing that does not always happen to me, but it sometimes does. No, for me, it's mostly when I'm down, like I've been sick the last few days and I've spent almost the entire last two days in bed and just like sleeping all the time. And so then I'm already down

and then I searched my name on Tumblr. And why did I search my name? Oh, Tumblr, why did I? What caused me to do that, right? Like now I have made it clear before that I searched my tags. So like it's not total, but I, you know, like I don't have to. I didn't have to do that, right? Like, now, I have made it clear before that I search my tags, so like it's not total, but I, you know, like, I don't have to, I didn't have to do that. And then I did it. And then I liked some of what I learned and I didn't like other things that I learned, but I felt things. I felt, I had feelings.

You felt a bunch of things. I had big feelings and it kind of was replacing some kind of emptiness inside of me. So there's that part of it. There's that that I think separates me from the sacred and I think is the kind of thing I would do more of if I wanted to go to hell if hell existed. Then there's this thing that you don't really have, but I have big time, which is that I am seduced by the things of the world.

What does that mean? Like objects? Like fancy wine. Oh yeah, I'm seduced by things of the world. What does that mean? Like objects? Like fancy wine? Oh yeah, I'm seduced by things of the world. No, you're not. Just different ones than you. No, I can't name a single thing of the world you're seduced by. Every single time we go somewhere fancy, you're like, I don't know. I mean, I guess the bed's a little nicer, but it doesn't matter to me. I just put me in a Motel 6. It's all the same to old Hanky. That's not, no, I like it.

There are things I like. What do you like? I like, I like private workout classes. Oh, God. Where I have like one person and me and Catherine instead of like the thing. I know I said, as I was saying,

I was like, John's not gonna think this one counts. Oh my gosh. But I do. I think it's a luxury I was saying, I was like, John's not going to think this one counts. Oh my gosh. But he too. I think it's a luxury. Hey, hey, hold on Hank. I'm sorry, the devil is on the other line. Just got to answer it. Hey, hey bud.

I know you have tempted him with the private workout classes. Wow, what a Faustian bargain you've laid before his feet. I like a nice dinner. I like expensive food. It's prepared by experts. I like a fancy hotel. I do. I do. I mean, I've been to a lot of fancy hotels with you and you are not nearly as sick as I am in the fancy hotel business. I have an illness. No, yes. Well, here's the situation.

What I really like is to plan a dope trip for the fan. Like our trip to Jamaica or whatever? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that was great. I'm planning a trip to Denver and Colorado Springs right now. And I'm just like, it's gonna be so fun. And we're gonna do all this stuff.

And here all the places we're gonna go and all the things we're gonna do. But you're right, when I'm like, now I'm thinking about the things that we're gonna do and the places we're gonna go, it's like pretty normal stuff. But still. Yeah, that's my point.

But like, we're gonna stay in like nice hotels. Yeah, but you're not gonna get like a private tour of the Colorado Rockies baseball stadium. Can I? I mean, that's the kind of thing that Iies baseball stadium. Can I? I mean, that's the kind of thing that I would seek out because I'm a bad person. I'm deeply ad. I'm seduced by the things of the world in a big way.

You know what I did try to do? So maybe this counts is I tried to get a tour of the, I don't know what the organization that runs it, but it's a government lab that's the Icecore Lab. So it has all of the America's ice cores. And it's like negative 40 inside, and you have to wear a special code, and they do like very few tours, but I failed to get in, even with all of my credibility and sway. Well, that just goes to show you, Hank, that seeking the things of the world is always

trouble. It's like I was reminded of this when I stayed at the Plaza Hotel's Gatsby Suite, not to make it about me. But I stayed at the Plaza Hotel and I requested the Great Gatsby Suite, which is just like all these props from the movie, the Bazlerman movie, but it's like real overstuffed in there. It's not actually that big of a, I'm saying this, I hate myself. It's not actually that big of a room.

The Gatsby Suite at the Plaza Hotel in New York City. And the TV's a little far away from the bed for my tastes. I've got, anyway, that wasn't the issue. TV's a little far away from the bed for my tastes. I've got, anyway, that wasn't the issue. The issue was that I stayed at the fanciest hotel that I could imagine in the fanciest room that I could imagine. And there was this huge chandelier.

I've written about this before in the Anthropocene Review, but there was this huge chandelier. And because of the air conditioning, the air conditioning blew through the chandelier and so it tinkled all night? It was just like, tinkle, tinkle, tinkle, tinkle, tinkle, tinkle, tinkle, tinkle. And finally at like one o'clock in the morning I called down and I was like, guys, this is the worst. I'm so sorry. I can barely even imagine that these words are coming out of my mouth, but is there any way that I could be moved from the Gatsby suite to a regular room here at the Plaza?

And they accommodated my request, and no more tinkle-tinkle. Oh, man, I'd be up there with duct tape and cardboard trying to close up the vent somehow. That's how seduced I am by the things of the world. I'm so seduced by the things of the world that I get the things that are so fancy that they're unpleasant. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Sometimes things that are more expensive are worse.

Often. Yeah. Yeah. But sometimes they're not. Have you ever seen Kanye West's sink? It looks awful. It looks like a total, a total, total unpleasant like all the time. Just water everywhere.

I'm so, here's what I'll say. I know we should answer questions from our listeners, but on the topic of like over fancy sinks, I think this is such a rich discussion vein, because I used to have an over fancy, and my old house, I had an over fancy bathtub, you know? It was like too much. It was too much bathtub for me, for what I need in a bathtub, which is to recreate the experience of when I was 11 years old and we lived in Orlando, Florida, how that bathtub felt. So, I do need a bathtub that's bigger than that bathtub because I'm bigger than I was when I was 11. What I don't need is a bathtub that's a small swimming pool, right? Right. And so, when we were having this house redone, I was like, listen, I know exactly what I

want in terms of a bathtub. Like I can tell you the measurements because I've done the measurements of like my relationship between my 11-year-old self and that bathtub and my current self and the bathtub that I'm looking at. And yeah, you've done a lot of baths to do the experiments. So many. And they were like, that's too small of a bathtub. It won't even look right in the room.

And I was like, I'm not trying to make it look right in the room, I'm trying to be a little boy again. I just want to have a bath that feels the right size. And I do, I get to have that every day. And I'm so grateful that I do. So sometimes you're right, it's not about the fanciest thing, it's about the thing that makes you feel like you're 11 again Yeah, for sure me come to think of it is

Watching soccer and taking baths which are the two greatest joys of my life outside my family Okay, now that we've entirely alienated ourselves from everyone Oh, there's like six people who are listening who are like nodding along like, yeah, I get that. I get that. Sometimes you don't need it, the biggest possible bathtub. Yeah. Maybe Kanye is listening.

My bathtub. He's having a blinding light spiritual awakening, in which case Kanye. We got a lot of work to do. You've got some. You've got a ton of work to do, my friend. You've got some, both internal and external jobs ahead of you. And I wish you the best.

I think you need to do that work. My bathtub is too small. I will say that. It is way too small. I cannot get, I cannot, I can barely straighten my legs in it. And I don't mean like lying down, I mean sitting up. No, your bathtub is both not deep enough and too short. Yeah, no, it's sort of like a deepened shower.

It's, you know, it's for a child. It's so that the child can take baths and it does that job well. And I'm not really a bath guy anyway. So that's your job. You're the bath one. All right. This is one of our deepest disagreements, John. Come to think of it, we have settled on one because I think, I mean, I'll still take a shower.

I understand they get you cleaner, but in terms of relaxation and rejuvenation and feeling reborn into the world, bads, man. Bads literally recreate the experience of baptism. I mean, do you want to know what gets me rejuvenated and re-experiencing the world is like just being in the world. Oh, like going outside? Well, and we're just like working just talking to a person. Like being alone does not, and like silent does not do it for me. I need to be active. I need to be doing something.

That's our biggest disagreement. I don't mind being active, but I want to be alone. I need to be doing something. That's our biggest disagreement. I don't mind being active, but I want to be alone. Yeah, it doesn't matter if I'm alone or not. Mm, I love alone. Yeah. Like if I'm really tired, I cannot get less tired. I can sleep, that will do it, but I cannot get less tired by like quote unquote relaxing.

Mm, interesting. Well, that explains why you've been so relentless since we were born. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha as I'm trying to listen to one of your podcasts, but my headphones are almost out of battery. It feels like battery lives should be longer. Like if we could condense a terabyte of storage onto a chip, why can't we have phones with like a month long battery life insufficiently energized? Lucas, Lucas, I have terrible news for you.

Lucas, I think the main answer to your question is actually, I wanna throw it back at you. How incredible is it that we have batteries? Right, magic. Any battery. Like, you can take power with you? What? Yeah. And put it right in your ear and it'll stick there. You just carry power and you put it in your ears

and it's like, okay, I have enough power to play you, Dear Hank and John for 14 hours. And you're like, oh, I needed 16 actually. Mine do not last that long. But I don't know, I still use plug-in headphones. I'm scared of batteries, man. I don't understand that technology at all. I got super nice headphones that were sent to me

by Olivia Rodrigo. You know, Olivia Rodrigo sent us the nicest care package. It made Alice cry. It had sign sheet music. It had Olivia O's, her standard personal cereal. It had all kinds of vinyl, all kinds of sign stuff. It was so generous. Tote bags, it was so cool.

And I so deeply appreciated it. But what it didn't have were the fancy air pods that you got. They're really nice. I like them very much. I like that after comparing our seduction to the things of the world, we just compared our Olivia Rodrigo care packages. We are the worst. We are the worst.

This is it. We're ending our careers. I mean, look. I hate us. I don't want to miss this episode. Oh no. And I'm me. Look, I was very, like Olivia Rodrigo's care package

arrived at my home and I was like, what's happening? Did they get the spreadsheets mixed up at the care package factory? Like, maybe Oreos could send me something. Like send me like the the the Heinz beans people met him. You so absolutely hit me up with your care packages. I'm a forty three year old science guy. Why is it?

We'll be sending me a care package. I mean, maybe she knows that she writes bangers and bangers. No, I am like across all demographic boundaries. Absolutely. Absolutely. What is the science of Olivia Rodrigo unexplainable? I mean, yeah, it's the rare artist that Alice and I can listen to together without any difference in how enthusiastic we are. The other other of course, T-Swift. But outside of that, there's always gonna be a little bit, dad's more enthusiastic about this

than Alice, or Alice is more enthusiastic about this than dad. So John, do you know why you can't have a phone that has a month long battery life? I have no idea, none. So it's gonna sound like a conspiracy at first, but I'm gonna explain it. The reason is that they don't want you to have that.

But that's not just that they don't want you to have it, it's that they want to do certain things and having a month-long battery life isn't on the list, both because you don't want it, you really want 24 hours or a day long 18 hours of battery life. That's what you want. And so they'll give you more than that because or a day long, 18 hours of battery life. That's what you want. And so they'll give you more than that because if the battery dies,

it'll last longer than that. They also kind of don't want you to have that because eventually they want your battery to die so that you get a new phone. So if you have like a two-day long battery life, they're optimizing for something that you don't want to start with, but that will decrease the number of phones that you buy. But what they're doing is the batteries are getting better.

They're like, they're not getting better as fast as chips get better. Like chips can hold more stuff, like can double the amount of stuff that they do or can hold every like 18 months. Whereas the battery life of like a volume to amount of, you know, energy is like a four year cycle of doubling, which is still fast. But that means that you could have a phone that had at this point maybe eight days of battery life.

But in the meantime, we make the battery smaller so that the phone weighs less so that the phone is smaller. And then we pack in more stuff so the phone can do more things. We pack in more lenses, we pack in more abilities and chips and whatever else is inside of phones. So the battery takes up less space so that the phone can be smaller. And they are optimizing for a specific amount of battery life, not for the most battery life possible.

All right, but why can't they make headphones that have enough battery life to get you through a whole day of listening? Because it would be too big and bulky? Yeah, I mean, these wireless headphones weren't really possible 10 years ago, because the batteries weren't small enough. So the batteries have only recently gotten small enough. Okay. And then also, if you've had your headphones and have done like charge recharge cycles every day

for like a year or so, they're gonna have less life than they used to. I have my AirPods, I finally are at the point where they only have like two hours of battery life, which is I think one of the greatest achievements of my life that I used a pair of wireless headphones for long enough that I have to replace them because of battery, not because I lost them.

That is good. Like how did I, I will say I lost one of them, but. But the other one. Even, but the other one I still have. That's great. And it is, at this point I cannot use those ones. So thank you to Olivia Rodrigo for sending me these ones. Very nice.

Which I'm currently in there in my ear right now. And yeah, but like I think that they're getting better and they will continue to get better. But like we are, we only recently arrived in the world where these kinds of headphones were even possible. And now like they're possible for Jeep. It's amazing. Yeah, which reminds me actually that today's podcast

is brought to you by who's that air pod maker who advertises on all the YouTube channels? That one. Yeah. I don't know. That one company that advertises on all the YouTube channels with advertisement so effective that I can't remember their name. Is it like Boron, Blone, Frickin, Rayban, Rayban, Ray, Ray, Raycons, Raycons. Raycons. You did it. Wow. We got there. It's brought to you by Raycon, an actual brand that makes actual products that are inexpensive wireless headphones.

Should we do a wireless headphone subscription service, Hank? Is that crazy? That's crazy. Yeah. No, I definitely don't want to get in that business. I did have a business idea earlier today that I would love to share with you, John. Pitch it to me right now. This podcast is brought to you by my new business idea. If you go to a gallery in your town, the art will be too expensive, probably, because the business model of galleries

requires that they only have very expensive art. Yeah, they get 50% of the price of the painting usually. Yeah. And to pay their rent and the staff and such that they can't like be selling stuff for 200 bucks. That's right. And but there are lots of artists who make great art, but don't make the kind of art that you can sell for $2,000. Right. Because it might be very reproducible, for instance. Like one of my favorite groups of artists is the Guerrilla Girls.

And they don't usually make like artworks that cost $50,000. They're mostly a group of people who are critical of museum and gallery collections and the way that artists are compensated and the relationship between capitalism and the art world. And so most of their stuff is posters that are downloadable or printable or you can buy them for 50 bucks. Right. And I think that Etsy has abandoned this market to some extent. It has become an eBay of lots of drop shipped stuff from China or really easily customizable products that are not art, they're

products, which is fine. And so I think that there is a space for a gallery, internet thing that has things for sale from artists that are where you live. So you sort of launch it in localities and you get people to like list their stuff. And it's good art that you can have on your wall in that time when you're moving from your poster phase to your art phase, and you can have art that you can afford. And those artists who aren't, who are, there's lots of amazing artists who aren't in their like,

who just their business model doesn't fit the gallery business model. And so like most of those people sell by being in and among the art scene in their towns, but art scenes are only so big and a lot of people aren't aware of them. Like most of those people sell by being in and among the art scene in their towns, but art scenes are only so big and a lot of people aren't aware of them. So it's just a place where you can go and shop for cool art that is local to you and then you don't have to get it shipped necessarily.

You can go pick it up from the artist or from a centralized location or something like that. And there are other like rays that this is solved, like coffee shops oftentimes have art for sale that is like not gallery cost. But I like this because I think that there's a lot of artists who need ways to sell their work and there are a lot of people who would buy less expensive art. Yes, I think there are a lot of people with bare walls right now whose lives would be enriched

by having art and who either don't know how to get that art or think that there is no art available for that $25 to $100 price range. And it's true that it's so, okay, I'm going to poke a couple holes in this business idea and then I'm going to pitch you an alternate business idea Okay, okay big hole that I'm gonna poke in this business idea one thing that is very expensive that it's hard to get around the expense of is framing for sure and so You're talking if you're talking about it. I actually have a solution for this problem, but go. If you're talking about, I mean, you can ask artists to create within- Yes, that's the solution.

Okay, yeah, you can, and that's something I've seen people do is to ask artists to create within the confines of existing frame sizes, right? So 18 by 24, whatever, whatever. Yeah. Okay, so that solves that problem. I'm gonna throw an idea back at you, Hank, because my big issue is that I think this takes a lot of hullabaloo to set up and I think is-

Yeah, that is the bigger problem. Technologically complicated, and I can see how it might be vulnerable to abuse and all other kinds of things. I'm gonna throw out- Yeah, you'd have to curate, you'd have to earn trust among artists, all kinds of tough stuff. And you may have to do some level of curation, which is hard and also just the tech of it

would be hard, I think. Yeah. Okay, what your idea, what I thought you were going to pitch And an idea that I find really interesting is an art of the month club where a curator is hired maybe for a one-year period to find 12 reproducible artworks, limited edition prints, that come to you framed and ready to go for say $175. Per month? No, for the year. You get 12 pieces of art for $175?

Yeah. I mean, that'd be great if you could hit that price point. But that may be very hard, especially for framed and shipped. Maybe my math's wrong. I don't think it's framed and shipped. I think it's not framed. But I think it's ready. In that case, you could hit that. Ready for framing.

And I think. And ready for an existing frame you can get at, Michaels. That's nice. Ready for an existing frame you can get at, Michael. So that it's, yeah's so that it fits. We say, look, these are the dimensions we're working with. Can you work with that if they say, no, we get it, right? Yeah. But I have an artwork. It's one of my favorite artworks.

It's by Robin O'Neill and it's a gravestone and it says, rest in peace, 2020. And then underneath that it says 2020 to 2020. And like, Cause you can't really say 2019 to 2021, can you? It's just 2020 to 2020. But what a year, you know, like 2020. Did not make it to 2021. But it did cram a lot into 2020. I mean, it really filled that year. And what I love about that is that like, it's a way to support

independent artists while also populating your walls, while also like, if you don't like the artwork one month, it's not a huge deal. You can sell it on eBay, you can just throw it in the trash. But I like the idea of it being limited edition, like a thousand members at any one time. Maybe it's a little more, maybe it's 25 bucks a month, so it starts to really make sense for the artist so the artist can make like $10,000 from doing this. For a lot of artists, a $ ten thousand dollar check is a huge check. Like most artists you know are not showing in galleries and selling their works for hundreds of thousands of dollars. So I just think it could be cool and interesting and you could have a big

backstory to it about the selection process and could just enrich your relationship with art as well by like helping you to understand what contemporary art practice might look like in different countries. I've never thought of that before, but I think that idea has potential. What do you think? I like that idea too. I think that that's a lot simpler. And I think that it has less potential for network effects, less potential for how like, you know, sort of once the, if you can get it to a big enough size, then it sort of takes care of itself and it becomes, you know, tech company-y in that way where you don't have to think about it very much and it can grow with little overhead. But that's far more of an achievable idea. Yeah. I think I like my idea because it's achievable

and also because as it happens, we have a business that already does this, but for coffee. Yeah, we definitely do. One of my favorite things about the Awesome Socks Club is that it is a surprise. Whereas none of our other things, like you don't wanna get surprised by soap, like you wanna know what your soap's gonna be like.

Yeah, you don't wanna get surprised by coffee. Right. Yeah, you don't wanna be, yeah. But this could be- I think that want to get surprised by soap. Like you want to know what your soap's gonna be like. Yeah, you don't want to get surprised by coffee. Right. Yeah, you don't want to be, yeah. But this could be. I think that you could be surprised by coffee. It's just like you have to be, some people want that coffee the month thing where they're trying out different things at the same time.

That's not what I want or what I want to do. Right. But this could be like have an element of delight and also have an element of the curation where you get the art and then you can read something about it to help understand the artist and what they're going for. And that's like, isn't that part of what's fun about having art on your wall anyway is being able to look at it and know that backstory or talk to people when they come over and

be like, oh, I'm a member of this print of the month club. These are the prints from the last 12 months and then as at the end of the year I actually like switch out my posters and put a new one. Whatever your way of doing it is and you can talk, I like this one because of this backstory and this artist is from Afghanistan and like this is how they made this, they made it one way or at a time, whatever the story is. And I just think that to me is really, I'm looking for ways to lower barriers to art entry in general. It's very frustrating to me to see Target succeed in the art market in a way that nobody

in the art market does just because they sell things at a reasonable price point. I don't know. I think that's a cool idea, and I like that it's a little less complicated even if it does less. Maybe it accomplishes less locally in the communities where it's working, but I think it could still be a big deal for the artists who are selected. For sure.

Yes. And, gratefully, we are not the people to choose the art, but there are lots of people out there who are good at that. Yeah, like I live with a person who would do that for our first year. Yeah. I like this idea a lot, and I wanna know if Nerdfighteria likes it.

If you're visiting this podcast, and you like this idea. You somehow and I want to know if Nerdfighteria likes it. If you're visiting this podcast and you like this idea- You somehow are still listening. Let us know on Twitter if we haven't completely put you off this episode. This next question, and possibly our last question. God, we've just crushed it today. It comes from Huxley, who writes, Dear John and Hank, I'm almost four. Does Spider-Man have to brush his teeth from Huxley? Who writes, dear John and Hank, I'm almost four.

Does Spider-Man have to brush his teeth from Huxley? Yeah. I don't think so. Of course he does. No, I don't. Huxley, don't let him lie to you. That's like, you know what, Huxley? Hank's saying that because he has a little kid like you who he's trying to scam into

brushing his teeth every day. No, why wouldn't Spider, maybe Wolverine wouldn't need to brush his teeth because he has like super healing. Does Spider-Man have super healing? Spider-Man doesn't have super healing, but I do think he has those like spider bots that'll get on his teeth and just clean out the black.

Little tiny. Apparently he does heal faster than normal when injured, but is not completely immune to viruses or the human ailments. If he's not immune to viruses, then he would still have an issue with plaque. You wouldn't want to brush your teeth. Yeah, well, that's bacteria, but still. Yeah. But I know, I just mean like if he can suffer from immune infections, which it seems like he can.

Yeah, if he could be ill. Then you should. He could get gingivitis. Yeah, yeah, he's had a spread. Like, and it's not just, like even if Wolverine's like, I can't get gingivitis, these bacteria can live and thrive in my mouth, but it will never actually hurt me. Yeah.

Like his girlfriend still cares, his family still cares. That's true. People around him are still bothered. Yeah, I mean, that's part of it, Huxley. But like, the biggest thing is that you yourself, even though you don't like brushing your teeth, and I get that man, like I totally understand, I also don't love brushing my teeth.

You're making a lot of assumptions about Huxley. Maybe you just curious about Spider-Man. No, no, no, I think I was able to drill down to Huxley's real concern. I think it lies deeper than Spider-Man. I might be wrong, Huxley, but I think that you might be asking about Spider-Man as a proxy for asking about yourself. And while I get it, what you'll come to understand in time, Huxley, is that if you just brush your teeth every day or even twice a day, what you'll notice over time is that you start

to like the feeling of having a really kind of clean mouth. So you'll get there, buddy. It's great. You'll get there. You just gotta keep it up. It's a bit of a thing to do, but there we are doing it. I do have to say that Venom, Spider-Man's enemy, definitely does not have to brush his teeth and probably doesn't even want to because he does want that smell to follow him around everywhere.

Right. But also is made of, I don't know, what is venom made of? Pharoah fluid? Chemicals? Like maybe not even chemicals. I think you may be made of some other kind of matter that doesn't exist in our universe.

That's a good point. That's a good point. So, unless you wanna be venom when you grow up, Huxley, go ahead and brush those teethers. That's right. John, can we ask this question about geese? Please. It's from Kaya who asks, Dear Angon John, a goose with a nest near my house recently laid a bunch of eggs and seven of them hatched seeing seven gozz, made me wonder if animals can count to keep track of their young.

Would they notice if one doesn't keep up with them? If so, does that mean that animals can do math? By a, it's Kaia. This is off topic, but do you think that Ryan Gosling got his surname because back in the day his people raised geese? You know, there's gotta be a reason. It's gotta be something to do with geese. I guess it could have something to do with lings.

It's not, it's just an English variant of Jocelyn. No, it's dubious. It's dubious. I feel the same way. All right, anyway, can animals do math? I mean, I know, yes, we're animals and we can do math, or at least the ones who aren't me can, but can other animals do math? Some animals can do math,

but depends on what you mean by math. There's definitely, animals can definitely do less and more. They know when there's more of something and less of something. Sure. Like insects can do that, which is wild. And sometimes scientists will say, that counts as math.

You can keep, you basically, you know something about quantities and that's a basic principle of mathematics. But do they, what does no mean? Does anyone know anything? Am I just a story that I tell to myself? Yeah, I can answer that one. Yeah, you're a bacterial colony

that's convinced itself it's an organism. It's incredible. It's just a bunch of cells that are working together for some reason. But like, we're not sure specifically about geese. And there's like a weirdness to to geese where they seem to like geese, you know, we can't really say, but they seem to mourn sometimes. They seem to be sad when like a partner goose dies. They seem to be sad sometimes when when when

eggs when like things go wrong with their eggs or with their babies, they seem to be sad. But also like, it's not entirely clear that they consider their children their own. Like there's kind of a crash behavior where sometimes you'll see like ducks with like 72 ducklings behind them. There's like a documented case of a duck with 72 ducklings. Obviously that's not all their ducklings. And so there's like, they all sort of work together and they take care of their kids together. And so like they're, and early on, like,

you got to know that, you know, a minority of those ducklings are gonna survive or gozlings are gonna survive. And so there's probably less weight. Now there's a lot, like they care, they definitely care, they're definitely trying. But my feeling would be that it's more likely that they've got like a vibe for that there is now less than there once was, or they can look and be like, that's the same amount rather than being like,

they definitely can't say that's seven gozlings. Right. And do you think they can look and be like, that's the same amount rather than being like, they definitely can't say that's seven Goslings. Right. And do you think they can say like, oh no, we lost little Peaty? You know, that's more interesting. That's also an interesting question. Like, what is the, like, is there an identity where it's like, instead of counting,

you just like, we've got, you know, we've got this. They're all here. Yeah. And I know they're all here here not cause I can count them, but because there's Pedi and there's Maya and there's Alfonso and yeah. Yeah, it's great work, John. I love that idea.

I love how much we don't know about animals. Ed Yong has a great book about this. And the fact that like we're sharing a planet with an astonishing amount of life. That experiences the world in such vast differently ways than us. Yeah, and that it's hard enough to try to get inside the head of another human.

Like imagine trying to get inside the head of a goose. Yeah. It's hard work. Yeah, I would love to know if geese get happy and sad, but I don't know how to tell, cause I can't ask them how they're feeling, and it'd be weird to put them in an FMRI machine and then show them pictures of happy and sad things,

cause I don't even know what would make a goose happy and sad. Yeah. Well, even that is not that reliable on its own. So it would be very hard to know about, it's hard to know about animal emotions. It's not impossible. We have some ways in, but it's hard to know. This Ed Young book is really good on that front. Y'all should read it. Oh, you know what else other book before we get to the news from Mars and AFC Wimbledon, for the seven people who are still listening. You know what book just came out that I love so much

is my friend Kava Akbar's book, Martyr. So good. It's his first novel. It's incredible. The last book I recommended to you was Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow. This book is just as good as Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow,

except instead of being about video games, it's about art and addiction and love and aging and mortality. It's so good. Oh my God. I'm excited. I have been having kind of a mis-streak on books. I just assume that it's mostly my brain

rather than the books, but I keep DNFing, which I don't like. Yeah. Yeah. My brain also hasn't been finishing books lately, although this book was not a problem to finish. It's very page-turning, while still being just gorgeously written.

Gorgeous. All right, Hank, it's time for the all-important news from Mars and AFC Wimbledon. There's a lot of news from AFC Wimbledon this week, so do you wanna go first? I mean, I can, I don't know if you know this, but the people listening do. Because when we recorded, it was like.

When we recorded that helicopter was when we recorded, it was like, oh, yay. When we recorded that helicopter was fine. Yeah, it was. And that three days later, the helicopter is dead forever. Yeah, I've recorded an update about the helicopter being dead forever. So I have already delivered the news

because I couldn't let that episode go out without. Ah, okay. With the incorrect news, but that's still the news. Yeah, and it seems like it got back on its feet, but it seems like it tipped and one of the rotors hit the ground and broke itself. Well, it is when we are sick and elderly that we are at our most vulnerable.

Yeah, our carbon fiber parts are not indestructible. No, you're telling me you should see the my L2 vertebra. I've gotten a lot of scans and one of one of the incidental findings is that I also have a couple of spots that may turn into trouble, but aren't yet. Yep, good. In your spinal column, you mean? Yeah, yeah. Great, great. I don't know which one.

We love an incidental finding. They used words like L2. Yeah. They used words like L2. It's probably the same one. We're gonna be little disc twinsies, but yeah, hold off as long as you can. It's not comfortable. Well, I'm sorry off as long as you can it's not comfortable Yeah, well, I'm sorry about the helicopter man. That's a real bummer. It did it did a great job

It it outlasted its mission, but nothing lasts forever and speaking of nothing lasting forever I know this news too our great Iraqi Striker Ali al-Hammadi, the light of many Wimbledon fans' life has left. He has left at the end of the January transfer window to join High Flying, Championship side, Ipswich Town, favorites to be back in the Premier League next year. Really good football club.

And it's a deal that obviously makes sense for him because not only is he gonna be playing in the second tier of English football because they're doing so well this year. If he plays well, they have a real chance, he has a real chance of being a Premier League footballer next year and he'll still only be 22 years old, which is pretty special obviously.

So it's the right club for him. And I guess the deal makes sense from AFC Wimbledon's perspective, because it is over a million dollars and has the chance, depending on the add-ons and how many appearances he makes and whatnot, to be the biggest deal in the history of League 2. So it's hard to complain about what is potentially... I mean, that makes the news even worse though, because it means that like he was so much of the reason that we've been good.

I know, I know. That's what the people with the money are saying. They're saying, look at what he did for this team that isn't very good. Right, exactly. So it's a real hard pill to swallow. But this is the reality that we're in as long as we're owned by our fans and we have this $10 million debt. So we have a $10 million debt that we basically owe mostly to ourselves, mostly to fans who put money into this bond, including me.

And we have to pay it back over the next 20 years, and a lot of it is due in the next five years. And so we've just got to figure out ways to generate enough money that we have enough profit that we can pay down this debt. And obviously selling players is the best easiest way to do that. It's unbelievable that Ali Al Hamadi

was only a Wimbledon player for 12 months because he just left a huge imprint on this club and we will miss him so so much. So that's been a tough pill to swallow in in better news we played Mansfield town which is third in the table right now and we're off on the back of two losses and they got an early red card they're definitely out played us that whole game. And they got an early red card. They're definitely outplayed us that whole game. We got a good goal from Omar Bougal, our Lebanese striker. It's a really good goal, really happy with it. But then we gave up a stupid goal, poorly defended. We're not working with our best defense right now.

Joe Lewis seems a little injured, short shorts. He's a little bit injured. Ryan Johnson has a long term injury. It's just kind of a mess in the back. And you could tell that on this goal that we gave up. And then it looked like we were actually going to give up a penalty in the last minute of the game and potentially lose.

I was really frustrated, but the referee didn't call the penalty, which great call. And then almost immediately we went down the field and scored a goal in the last minute of the game with our brand new striker Ronan Curtis from Ireland. And I was like, oh my God, are we going to be okay after all? Is everything going to be fine? Is Ronan Curtis just going to be the new Ali Alhamadi?

Probably not, but maybe because we won that game. And like winning that game, that's a game that we 100% would have lost last season. And winning it this season, I was like, oh my gosh, like this team, we're still good. Now we have a lot of injuries, a lot more injuries than we had in December. I have a lot less confidence that we're going to make it to the playoffs. But I'll say this Hank, we are only nine points, three wins from our last 20 games away from making sure that we are not relegated. And that is awesome. So I try to take the positive.

We're still playing well. We've still got a good team. Let's see if we can build on this and get somewhere by the end of the season. All right. Well, I'm so glad to hear that there's also good news because... The all-ahong-a-news is brutal. I mean, it's just... Oh, I love them so much. But like, you know, inevitable.

Inevitable. Inevitable at our level. And until we get to a place where we don't have to sell players to make up this debt, it's just the way that it is. We're in a position where we need novelist supporters to kick in a little bit of money here and there to keep other players. Ain't nobody in AFC Wimbledon's Rolodex who's like, oh yeah, I'll pay a million and a half dollar sure to keep Ali Alhamadi at AFC Wimbledon's Rolodex. He's like, oh, yeah, I'll pay a million and a half dollars sure to keep Ali Alhamadi at AFC Wimbledon So yeah ways to go. Yeah. Well Hank, thank you for potting with me. Thanks to everybody for your questions

We didn't answer. We'll try to do better next week. We're at Hank and John at gmail.com Yes, and if you like any of our ideas, let us know what you think about our ideas Also, because we don't have enough of those. Let us know if you hate them. That's important information as well. Definitely. Please poke holes. This podcast is edited by Joseph Tuna-Medich. It's produced by Rosyana Halsrohas. Our communications coordinator is Brooke Shotwell. Our editorial assistant is Debuki Chakravarti.

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