Dear Hank & John - 396: I’m About to Become an Expert

Episode Date: August 21, 2024

Why do many romance books release in paperback? Can giraffes swim? Can a mosquito get drunk from biting me?  How do I understand supreme court decisions?  Should I put ice cubes in my mug before or after pouring my coffee? 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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Hello and welcome to Dear Hank and John. Or as I prefer to think of it, Dear John and God, Hank is loud in my earphones. It's a podcast where two brothers answer your questions, give you dubious advice, and bring you all the week's news from both Mars and AFC Wimbledon. John, I saw an ad on TV. Weeks News from both Mars and AFC Wimbledon. John, you know, I saw an ad on TV. It said TV for sale. One dollar volume stuck on full. And I said, man, I can't turn that down. Thanks. I got it.

I just bought a TV. Did you? I haven't bought a TV in a long time. Me neither. I had like 15 years. Like the thing that contains my TV is, think built specifically for my TV, so I feel like I can't upgrade. We bought a little TV for the kitchen so that we can enjoy the Olympics, which are over as this is uploaded. Just to give you a glimpse into the actual machinations of podcasting. We have a little device in the kitchen that Google sent us, because once upon a time, Google thought we were important.

Yeah, Google used to think I was important as well. Yeah, and mostly it just shows pictures of Oren so that Catherine and I can point at it and go, oh, my god, he's so big now. But Oren has figured out how to use this thing as if it is a computer. And he's on there playing his favorite EDM songs from geometry dash. And one time I came downstairs.

He had gone downstairs early on Saturday morning and he he's not allowed on the weekends, he's not allowed to watch YouTube until afternoon. And he had figured out how to watch YouTube on this little thing. And he was watching his favorite YouTubers like quietly on a stool staring at the Google Home. I'm very proud of him. That's my nephew always finding ways to engage with the social internet even when he's not allowed to.

Hey, let's answer some questions from our listeners. Oh, wow. We're getting right into it. I thought maybe you'd have something to say about Tim Walz or I don't know what else is going on in the news. Yeah, let's get political. That's what's missing from this podcast. You know what people don't have enough of in their lives right now is access to news. That's a good point. I think that the barrier to news now, I'm just going to say it, it's

too low. I need more barriers to news. I need a little more to stand in the way of me and the news because right now it feels like a non-stop flood and also Hank, we record this like two weeks in advance, we have no idea what is happening two weeks from now and I don't even want to imagine it. Here's what I do know, there was a time for a long time

and this is still the case, when you went to Google, Google.com and it's just the search box. And they were very committed to that being the thing that they did because they didn't want you to get distracted on your way to the search box. Now selling that homepage space to an advertiser would be worth billions of dollars, but Google was like, we're not going to do that. But if you download the Google app, you get the little search box, but above the fold, there's a news story.

And if you scroll, there's more news stories and they're they are tailored to your specific interests. And if anybody knows what you're interested in, it's Google. And so you just get a bunch of stuff. And I'm like, I didn't come here for the news. No, I came to Google things. So you know what I do now, John? Can you believe this? The majority of the time I'm trying to search for something, I open the Wikipedia app. Oh, that's good. That's good. I thought you were going to say you use Bing.com, which is also a great search engine. Well, oftentimes I'm just hoping that Google will surface Wikipedia anyway.

Yeah, true enough. True enough. Instead of like a Reddit post from seven years ago, which tends to be what they surface these days. Is often fine as well. Old men complain about the internet. Oh, don't change things.

A hit podcast from the Green Brothers. This first question comes from Colleen who writes, Dear John and Hank, here's a question for the author one. We're both authors, Colleen. I think you mean the successful author one. What do you got, Colleen? I remember John mentioning in some past videos that authors make more off of hardcover books, which is one reason many books start with hardcover exclusive publishing before paperback's releases. I've recently gotten really into romance books and I went to the bookstore,

shout out the ripped BOTUS LA to pick up a new Release the other day, but it was paperback. Why do many romance books release in paperback? Why would they skip the more profitable hardcover stage interest? Also, what's your favorite romance fanfiction trope? I'm a fake dating girly myself pick up the phone. I'm Colleen ah Fun, that's pretty good. Pretty good. I have no idea. I assume that it's just a different kind of market. Well, okay. Is it a different kind of market or is publishing imposing its own weird ideas about genre and gender onto a market?

I mean, I feel like publishing would impose whatever would make the most money. Right. Historically, people were very price sensitive. So-called genre readers were very price sensitive. Yeah, because they read a lot. So many history books, many sci-fi books, they tend to read a lot. So many romance books would come out paperback first because people were so price sensitive that otherwise they would lose out on that sale potentially. That's the ostensible reason is that literary fiction or specialist non-fiction readers are less price sensitive, not least because they read fewer books per year. For this person who's very concerned about cost, it makes sense to publish paperback originals.

I think that these days that no longer makes sense. I think a lot of people are really excited to read their favorite romance authors and will pay a little extra to get the book a little early and to get a fancier kind of nicer package of the book. Not everyone will. And this is why I have long advocated for simultaneous hardcover and paperback publishing so that regular people can make regular decisions

about what kind of book they want to read because we no longer live in a world where consumers have to be like, have their little hands held as they go to the bookstore to just... You know what kind of book you like, okay? you should be able to read whatever kind of book you like. They have to give up on some of the power that they have traditionally had, you know? Yeah. And like there's this relationship between the bookstores and the publishers and the authors and then like the consumer is like, I'm here too, but that's not the case anymore. Yeah, exactly. The consumer should have a lot more control and power than they currently do in publishing.

I think they do more and more. The thing about e-books is an e-book comes out on the same day as the hardcover, but it has no cover. Oftentimes, that can be very inexpensive. The audiobook also usually comes out the same day as the hardcover. And it's surreal to me that the paperback doesn't because we've decided that we're going to order around readers in terms of format. Right. And then you also can't get a hardcover after a while because the publishing company is like, well, nobody's going to buy the hardcover if the soft cover is now available. And I'm like, well, kind of you've just created a world where that's the case. That might not need to be the case. And in fact, many people frequently buy like special editions of books that have been

out for a long time that are like fancy and they pay 30 to 50 bucks for those. Yeah. Cause they're beautiful and you want to have them on the shelf and it's a book you love and you want to be able to hold onto it in a special way. Hank, you're preaching to the choir. I've been saying this for 15 years. It drives me absolutely up the wall that you can't have a paperback at the same time as a hardcover. I will say the hardcover for The Anthropocene Reviewed has stayed in print, which I'm very grateful for and continues to sell pretty well in the scheme of things. It actually outsells the paperback of some of my novels. Well, I don't know. Maybe what I'm saying is I don't want a hardcover. I want a special edition.

Yeah. I watch authors come out with special editions and that makes me feel like, oh, that must feel very cool. But I don't know. I'm my book wasn't that as previously discussed I buy books haven't weren't that popular. So maybe I'm not they were both very popular Yes, very popular as books go not as John Green books go You know what else isn't as popular as John Green books current John Green book Yeah, absolutely John Green's forthcoming book about tuberculosis is not as successful as John Green books. Yeah, as Cary Grant once said, everyone wants to be Cary Grant. Even I want to

be Cary Grant. And now no one knows who Cary Grant is, but I do. So I'm not saying this in a way that is trying to discredit my success, which I have plenty of. I'm saying it in a way that's like maybe there's not like a market for a special edition of my books, but I want to make a special edition. I want to see different covers of my book. Okay. That reminds me of the joke that Sarah always tells about me whenever I'm being a little bit entitled or snotty or whatever because you did just sound extremely entitled and

snotty. Oh yeah, no, I know. I did it on purpose. Just so you know. She says to me, I may have told you this before, but when they were... This is telling on myself so bad. I'm blushing like crazy. When Paper Towns was coming out, they did two covers of that book. They did a happy Margot and a sad Margot, two hardcover

editions, one blue, one yellow. The idea was this person contains multitudes, but she seems like she only is simple and straightforward. It was supposed to be sort of an anti-Mantic Pixie Dream Girl cover for an anti-Mantic Pixie Dream Girl novel that nonetheless many people have read as a Manic Pixie Dream Girl novel, but anyway. They showed me three models for the cover. Oh, it was like actual human beings? Yeah, actual human heads. I said to Sarah, Scott Westerfeld got to see eight models. Great. I I've had a lot of friends who got their book cover and then they really didn't like it and they got like a lot of different ones to choose from.

Yeah, I got my book cover and I was like, yeah, that seems great. And but now I'm like covers are great. I wish I had like gotten to see more. And I love it when like a foreign edition comes out with this A much different cover. Oh the current German edition looks so good and they renamed the book too They call it the April story and I'm like, yeah, maybe I should have just done that. That's good. I like the April story Yeah, I have had some bad book covers over the years not the ones that ended up in print I liked most of them. I wouldn't say I liked all of them

Yeah, but the ones that ended up like actually getting published I liked most of them. I wouldn't say I liked all of them. But the ones that ended up actually getting published, I liked most of. But boy, along the design process, I've had some moments where I was like, my feelings are hurt. Yeah. Because I thought I wrote a different book from the one that you're trying to make a cover for. But there's actually that tension.

They did. They did send me a first cover that I said no to. And you know what the cover looked like? What? It looked like the Faldanar stars. Yeah. It was like it was like graphic with handwritten cursive. Right.

And I was like, oh, boy, I see what you're doing and I don't want you to do it. No, I feel like I got to transition away from that being John Green's brother thing just for this part of my job. This one's from Matty Sue, who asks, Dear Hank and John, has a giraffe ever had to go deep enough into water to swim? And could they do it? Please settle this. I think about it daily. Matty Sue, I feel like I haven't looked this up yet, John, but I feel like there's no

frickin' way a giraffe can swim. I want giraffes to be able to swim because I think it would be so funny. I think just like the image of the long neck sticking out of the water, like they're at no risk of drowning. Right. Because they've got like another five feet of clearance. There I think there would definitely be at risk of drowning if it was deep enough. So there's two questions here.

Can giraffes swim, but first can they float? Because like they're not gonna be good at swimming, but if a large- Why would they be good at swimming? Horses are good at swimming, I think. This is the thing, horses are good at swimming. So they have investigated this. And you know, if like a deep river is an impassable barrier to a giraffe that would be a big deal for giraffes

They would mean that they would not be able to interbreed very much and maybe they would speciate more But it turns out giraffes can if they need to They are not good at it, and they don't like it But if they need to, they can, they can swim. And the way that they swim is not how you might be imagining it with like their bodies way deep down under the water and their heads sort of sticking up on top, which I like that idea, but it's not like that.

It's like, it's like a horse where they're, their neck and back, all they try to keep all of that roughly at the level of the water. And so they just and then they just sort of like little ducks. Yeah. But their legs are so spindly that they are very inefficient swimmers. But it turns out that giraffes can swim. And it seems like they wouldn't be able to just because there's so much like dense muscle and bone in that thing with that big ass neck. But they can just stick that neck

out and try and keep it above the water and use it, their body, as a floaty area because it's got big lungs in it. It's not just similar to how I feel about swimming, to be honest with you. I don't feel like I'm particularly gifted at it, but if I come across an impassable river I can do it. Yeah. We don't see them doing this very much, as far as I can tell. And I think that the best information we have

is actually from computer models of giraffes swimming, rather than actually chucking them in the water. Well, that's good. I'm glad that we're not abusing giraffes in the name of trying to understand their swimming habits. Here's a question for you, Hank, from Molly, who writes, Dear Brothers Green, I'm at a barbecue where various alcohols are being consumed and we are also being assailed by mosquitoes and it got me wondering how drunk would I need to be for a

mosquito to die from alcohol poisoning if it bit me. Additionally, do mosquitoes get drunk? Sipping and being sipped, Molly. That's great. What a beautiful thing to both be sipping and being sipped. You're both taking and giving. Unfortunately, you're giving to the worst multicellular creature in the world. Yeah, it's pretty bad. This is a weird thing. So this is not related to the conversation, but I do want to bring it up because it's very cool. There's this – we like to know what kinds of animals are in areas. That's a thing that we like to know. So that we, so that we know if there's, there's an endangered species in this area, but

it's very hard, especially with like little like mice and voles and stuff to see them and to like capture them on trail cams or whatever. And so what we do, we might go and collect a bunch of mouse dung and do DNA tests to see if it is related to the mice that we're looking for. But what you might also do is just collect a bunch of mosquitoes from that area and blend them up and see if the DNA from that species of concern is in the mush of all the mosquitoes that you collected because they will contain the DNA of a bunch of different animals in that environment.

We also do this with leeches, which is wild because leeches are surprisingly non-specific. They eat blood from all kinds of animals, including birds and sometimes even bats, which you would think like how the heck did a leech get to a bat? But we will collect leeches from all around parks all over the world to see what kind of, and they don't tend to move that far. Like a leech doesn't tend to go a long way. So you have some idea if you find the DNA of an organism that it's near where that leech was collected. It's great to have a new worst thing that could ever happen to me because it used to be the worst thing that could ever happen to me was getting bit by a bat and getting some

like novel coronavirus from it and being patient zero of the next pandemic. But now the worst thing that can happen to me is being bit by a bat that's covered in leeches. One just jumps off and is like, you too. Oh, leeches are a bad vibe. I'm in a, well, I had leeches. I've had leeches, sure. I cleaned out my pond and there were, I got leeches. I got a number of leeches on my body and I could not, I couldn't. I could not.

I could not accept that reality. It's like when you get lice, I don't know if you've had the privilege yet of getting lice from one of your children who got lice from some other child, but when you get lice and then it's gone, you still believe that you have the lice. Sure. Yeah, yeah. The lice still feel alive on your scalp even long after they're gone.

They might be there. And I like that with leeches. Yeah, cancer's the same way. I like that with leeches. Okay. But anyway, there is a popular science article and we have some quotes from some scientists. It says, bugs are no lightweights, often withstanding vapor concentrations of 60% alcohol, far more than what's in our blood after a couple of beers.

Someone who's had 10 drinks might have a blood alcohol content of 0.2%. So that's pretty, that's pretty, pretty high. Devastating amount of alcohol, not too far from having to go to the hospital. This is from Colby Shaw of North Carolina State University. To a mosquito, a blood meal that contains 0.2% alcohol is like drinking a beer that's been diluted 25 fold.

Oh, gross. So you're not gonna get a mosquito drunk. I mean, the thought of diluting beer 25 fold with water is honestly worse than being bitten by a bat covered in leeches. Yeah. Yeah. It's basically like if you like when you're washing out the beer after. When you're about to throw it into the recycling, just drink.

And then you just got to drink all that. Yeah. No, I think technically that's called Bushlight. Oh, don't, explosion noise. A little beer joke for you, Hank. A little beer joke for you. Well. But a bump. Wow, that's, wow, how very 1990s of you to make fun of Bushlight.

I know, I know. I was trying to think of the like worst, worst beer to make that joke about. And I think Bushlight, I think I nailed it with Bushlight. But one thing you should know, Hank, is that mosquitoes, at least according to my research onto this topic after I saw this question, mosquitoes can get drunk, it seems, based on the fact that we know fruit flies can get drunk. Yeah, mosquitoes can get drunk. We just have to give them a lot of alcohol. They just got to get real drunk in order to feel anything. Which is why they mostly do cocaine.

Now, tell me again how having 10 drinks is almost time for it to go to the hospital because I don't know if you've ever been to the Indy 500, but. I don't know. It depends on the drink. You know, uh, if you're drinking bush light, maybe, maybe that's okay. I did. I had this peculiar experience where I, in Montana, drink craft beers and often times they will have alcohol of six, eight, even 10%. And then I went home and I hung out with one of my friends

from high school and we were drinking just normal, off the shelf Bud Lights or whatever. And we drank a 12 pack among the two of us in like two hours. Wow. And I felt pretty good, Hank. Less drunk than if I have like three beers in Montana. But I think that's like accurate. Like that's actually the situation. Yeah. Listen, kids out there don't drink.

And I love the fact that Gen Z. Different drinks are different. And also, I can't drink anymore at all. Gen Z doesn't drink as much don't drink. And I love the fact that Gen Z. Different drinks are different. And also, I can't drink anymore at all. Gen Z doesn't drink as much as we drink. Yeah, I'm interested if this is gonna be a trend that continues where eventually we just stop drinking. I wouldn't be too shocked. But I don't think I'm gonna stop.

I have had to. Not completely. I should make a video about this. I know you have to. I feel so bad for you. Yeah, that's weird. Because you drink had to. I feel so bad for you. Yeah, that's weird. Because you drink very responsibly and- And I enjoy it.

You're like the definition of a moderate drinker who really enjoys the moderate drink. Yeah. And yet it's been stolen away from you by cancer, which is not funny or cool at all. It's not cool. Unlike your earlier joke about cancer, which was both funny and cool. No. cool at all, unlike your earlier joke about cancer, which was both funny and cool. No, I mean, the way that I have made it cool for me is I'm like, well, one of the sort of lifestyle factors we know for sure increases your risk of cancer

is drinking alcohol. And so in this one way, cancer treatment helped me to decrease my future risk of cancer in an unpleasant way, but also at the same time, increased my risk of cancer in an unpleasant way, but also at the same time increased my risk of cancer in a bunch of other more significant ways. Which were also unpleasant. All of it is unpleasant.

It's not like it was fun to get chemotherapy and have a higher risk of getting cancer in the future or fun to get radiation. No, actually this is weird though. So I had heard that, and my doctor is not a fan of this reality, but I had heard that sometimes when people get chemotherapy, they almost always go into remission with ulcerative colitis or Crohn's disease. But sometimes they stay in remission for long periods of time, so like over five years.

It's basically like, and I was like, oh, sometimes that happens. And so I was like, I guess I'll just see. For one reason is that like my doctor doesn't want me to take an immune suppressive drug if I don't have to because that might increase my risk of getting cancer and or relapsing. And so I just have not been on colitis medicine.

And so I decided after a year of this and having not had significant colitis symptoms during that time that I would look and see and also like I do blood tests to see how my like and also other tests that we won't get into to see how how my inflammation is going in my body and and stayed really low and so I I looked up the paper that studied this and it's like 90 percent of cases of people with ulcerative colitis remain in remission for more than five years after chemotherapy. Wow.

I was like, oh, I thought it happened sometimes. They don't want people with ulcerative colitis beating down the door begging for chemotherapy. No, it's not worth it. It's not worth it. Yeah, the increased risk of secondary cancers. I can imagine having seen colitis up close and Crohn's disease up close, it can be a hugely debilitating life altering illness. And so I would imagine that any treatment would be considered in desperation.

Yeah. So I have been that, if that's the case for me, which it may not be, but if that ends up being the case for me, then I'm like, oh, that that actually is a good thing that came out of this, though not worth it in terms of the increase in risk of secondary cancers. We haven't talked enough about the good things that came out of your cancer. I think for me, the biggest good thing is that you're right where I am in terms of death anxiety. You know, that for me, I'd call it a negative. Oh, that's a negative for you.

Yeah. You see that as more of a downside. Not like, oh, I can finally relate more deeply with my brother, the most important person in my life other than my wife and kid. I like that. I just wouldn't take the trade because I also have to experience it, which I don't. Oh, yeah. First off, I was kidding, just to be clear. I don't see any upsides to you having had cancer. It was a huge bummer. It remains a source of significant anxiety for everyone including you.

I was kidding. The joke there was that the whole industry to bright side cancer sucks. Yeah. If you can find bright sides to whatever experience you're having, I'm all for it. I'm just saying personally, I'm not a brightsider. I just never have been. I'm not good at it. It's not my gift. Yeah. I don't see any real upsides, Hank. I feel like it's been a bummer. If there's an upside, it's that you're doing good. Yeah. No, I mean, I am in general, like, just go through my life trying to and also being fairly happy, but like, it was very bad.

And things are worse now for me and my body than they were before. So, cause my colitis was very well controlled. So that wasn't actually a huge problem for me. Right, right. So, but- I'm trying to think if anything in my life has gotten better as a result of my depression. And I think, which I'm recovering from right now, which I think,

no, not really. I finished my project for Awesome Perks because I had to do a bunch of pottery. So I guess I did that, but like, I did that. But like I could have done that. I could have done that without like weeping over the pottery wheel. Here's a question from Jasmine, John, that maybe we can turn our attention to. It says, Scotus and Chevron defense. I need to understand this without all the legalese. Please help. PNP Jasmine, not a princess.

Well, you came to the right place. The Chevron defense is, there's this gas station. Oh, thank God. Chevron. And- I thought you were going to try to explain a Supreme Court decision and I was going to have a panic attack. I have no idea. I do, but I'm not getting into it because-

Well, I've also listened to a lot of people who are like, who disagree about it and like what it means. And it's very. What I think is that you should listen to a news podcast, not this one, because this podcast is about whether you can get mosquitoes drunk off your own blood. What did we do? And I know that we did do this, but what did we do where we believed,

man, I should be the one who explains the Chevron defense. The problem is, Hank, we're really good at- I do this sometimes. We are genuinely good at explaining things, and people want us to explain things. When we make a video explaining things, it gets 10 times more views than a regular video. They do want that. The issue is that while we- And we are good at it.

And part of the reason we're good at it is because we're idiots and we're coming at it from the same perspective as you. Yes. But you can be good at something, as Kurt Vonnegut's sister beautifully said, just because you're good at something doesn't mean you have to do it. Oh, in my heart, twisting. I don't know that I believe you, Kurt Vonnegut's sister. I don't think you do believe that, but I believe it.

Not only that, one of the reasons we were relatively good at doing that is because we were willing to elide a ton of complexity. We were willing to radically oversimplify in ways that ultimately obfuscated the truth and that I'm not okay with. That's why we don't do it anymore. Yeah. The extent to which I was out there saying these things and choosing with my complete inexpert brain which things to tell you and which things to not tell you about Brazil or the political situation in Nepal. I remember I made a video about the Central African Republic while the New Yorker was visiting me. The New Yorker reporter was like, or the political situation in Nepal. I remember I made a video about the Central African Republic

while the New Yorker was visiting me. And the New Yorker reporter was like, how long have you been interested in the Central African Republic? And I was like, oh, you know, like I just knew about this. And so I've been researching it for a couple of weeks. I mean, a couple of weeks is generous. No, I did a couple of weeks worth of research on that.

Right, for you. But like, if I might make a video about like the Higgs boson and spend like 12 hours doing research on it. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I, but I would still know way more about the Higgs boson after watching your video than I would after watching most videos because you're really good at explaining things. And so that's the tension.

But Hank and I don't want to speak on top of experts and we don't want to speak in lieu of experts and that's kind of the decision that we've made, which is not an answer to your question except to say that I've listened to a couple podcasts about the Chevron case, but I don't feel like I'm an expert. By the way, I bet we're going to get a lot of emails from people who are experts and I'm intimidated already by your email. And I don't think it had anything to do with the gas station. I'm pretty sure.

No, I remember that gas station though. Is it gone now? I feel like I don't see Chevrons around much anymore. Hey. It's a great word. Hank, it reminds me though that this podcast is brought to you by Chevron. Chevron. Was it named after a Ron

or was it named after a Chevron? I think it's probably named after a Chevron. Oh, it's a French guy. It was, it was named after a man. Huh? Was it named after a man? Give me a second here. Give him a second.

I'm about to become an expert. Wow. This is unbelievably complicated. Like where the yeah, I mean, it's the word chevron, from what I can tell, exists because it looks like a goat's house, which is what the like the actual chevrons like. Do you know what chevrons are? No, they're they're like little. I don't know why, but they're like a bunch of carrots, not the fruit or vegetable, but the symbol carrot stacked on top of each other, like military ranked chevrons. Are you lying to me? No. And the reason they're called this

is from the word goat, because the way that they used to build goat houses was a bunch of like, lean, like wood leaning on each other. And it looked like a bunch of little arrows pointing upward. I don't know why we needed to have a word for that, but apparently we did. And so they named it after like Chevra, the goat cheese. I mean, I'll just tell you, Hank, it's this sounds made up and it sounds not particularly well made up. I agree with you. I agree that it's I also can't imagine why we needed to have a special word for

it. And I also like like does it mean what does it mean? Like why would you name a petroleum refining company after it? Was it named after a man? Well, here's the thing. There was this company called Standard Oil that the federal government broke up in the early 20th century because it was a monopoly. Yeah. And it was too powerful. And they broke it up with an antitrust act. And one of the seven sisters of Standard Oil became Chevron. It doesn't say why they named it Chevron though. Yeah. It's just an inverted V that they would use on, it was like a heraldic thing. It was like part of the people's coats of arms. All right. Well, today's podcast is brought

to you by the heraldic V. The heraldic V. It's named after goats. Yeah, I didn't make that up. I believe you. I reluctantly. This podcast is also brought to you by the special edition of your favorite romance novel. They should absolutely make that. Yes, totally make that gold foil inlay gilded pages, deckled edges, but probably not both of those at the same time.

Yeah. I don't love a deckled edge. No. It's one of the situations where sometimes things that are expensive are worse. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like Kanye West's SYNC.

I was more thinking about watches. You know how like the more expensive a watch gets, the less likely it is to tell you who just texted you? Yeah. Today's podcast is also brought to you by Drunk Mosquitoes. Drunk Mosquitoes, not on your blood, and lightweight. We also have a project for Awesome Message to read. It's from Devin in New York to Jordan. Jordan, I'm so glad I finally got you into Nerdfighteria so that

I could send you a message while also supporting P4A. As I write this, I'm watching you and our son play Minecraft. He's terrible at it and you are very frustrated by zombies and creepers. You are two ridiculous boys and I love you both with every beat of my heart. Thank you for being my family. That's so lovely. I love that line. I love you with every beat of my heart. That's just gorgeous. Thank you, Devin and Jordan as well. I hope your boy is doing well. All right, John, before we get to the all important news from Mars and AFZ Wilmington, this question is from Faith who asks, Dear Hank and John, I have a travel coffee mug that keeps things hot for hours.

It's great, except when I want to drink my hot coffee before lunchtime. I usually put two ice cubes in along with my hot freshly brewed coffee, which is from the awesome coffee club. Ah, hooray, because it is so good. It's so good. It is so good. It seems to me that the coffee reaches a drinkable temperature faster if I put the ice cubes in

after pouring all of my coffee instead of before pouring all of my coffee. Is this in my head or is there an explanation here? Gotta have faith. Now, before you answer this question with your science, Hank, let me just tell you, there's no way. The coffee is colder if you put the ice cubes in first and then pour the coffee on top of it,

right? It has to be because it has to be. It just has to be. What? I need some amount of logic here. Because more of the coffee is being exposed to the surface of the ice immediately, he said without any logic. also, Sargent's badge is named after goats. Yeah, I mean, one of the things about Sargent's badge is being named after goats is that that is a thing humans did and it's all going to be messy, but humans are like, there's an amount of heat inside of your insulated coffee cup. And it's going to be the same amount of heat whether you put the ice in before or after.

So I cannot imagine that there is a reason why it would be different. So there's an amount of heat in the ice and there is an amount of heat in, it's going to not seem like that to you, it's going to seem like it's all cold, but in fact, ice is a lot warmer than absolute zero. So there's heat in there. Okay, all right, wait, wait, wait. What about how maybe it feels colder because the ice is at the top, which is the part that you're drinking from and it has it totally like the heat hasn't totally dissipated yet?

The ice would be at the top and then the top will be cool. Unless you shake it up, which you're not doing, I imagine. So the top would be colder and the bottom would be hotter. Whereas if you put the ice in first and you pour the coffee on it, it might melt the ice more quickly and then there would be more mixing of the sheets. You have less ice at the top after the coffee is full. Because more of it has melted. Yeah. I was wrong.

I was wrong. There is a reason why you feel like it's a little bit cooler. Yeah. And it's because the ice came in later. The coffee at the top. And it's not dissipating all the way down to the bottom of the coffee particularly efficiently. Yeah, but I mean, it probably like more dense, so colder liquid is going to be more dense, so like the hot coffee, it probably would just

mix itself. I would imagine it would mix itself because of convection. Yeah, it would mix itself, but not immediately. Not in nanoseconds. Yeah, I don't know how long that convection would take. I would think hours would be enough, but maybe. I'd be really, actually, I'd be curious for you to try it both ways and then just measure the, don't stick the thermometer all the way in. Stick the thermometer just at the top. And the thermometer is going to be like, you are very sick.

You need to go to the hospital. You don't seem good, man. It's like my Apple watch when I was on chemo. It kept being like beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep. And I'm like, no, no, no, I'm supposed to be sick. Why are you so sedentary? It seems like you're vomiting. Your heartbeat is weird.

That was not relaxing. I had to stop wearing my Apple watch. I can imagine. It would not be relaxing to be constantly told, hey, you're not doing so good. You're not doing great. And I'm like, I'm aware, my friend. Why haven't you stood up in the last hour? I don't know. I have a little bit of compassion for a cancer patient. You should sue Apple Watch for being inadequately sympathetic to cancer patients like Elon Musk is suing advertisers for being inadequately compassionate toward X. Well, Hank, now that we've gotten out our weekly Elon Musk reference, it's time for the news from Mars and AFC Wimbledon. Well, AFC Wimbledon's first game back in the League Two season is starting up soon.

Hank, we have a lot of the same players that we had previously, but I wouldn't say we have all of the same players we had previously. We've lost Jack Curry and lots of other folks, but we've lost our goalkeeper, Alex Bass. We've lost this. We've lost that. We're going to field 11 players next Saturday. That's for sure. I don't know if I know the names of all 11 of those players, but we are going to field

11 players. There's four people I want you to pay attention to though, going into the league to 2024, 2025 season. Those four people are our four players up top. Josh Kelly. Okay. Remember that name? In his second season. I got to say, not a very interesting name. Oftentimes, there's good interesting names. Josh Kelly, I'm going to forget that really fast. But Omar Boogal. Omar had a great season for us last year. He is a Lebanese international and we have great hope for him this season.

Then we've got Maddie Stevens, sort of the Josh Kelly of Maddie's. Another guy with two first names, two first names. We got that's true. We have two forwards with two first names. And finally, we've got Joe Feed the Pig Pigget. Mmm. Joe Pigget. He's been around for a long time. Well, he was around for a long time. Then he left, but now he's back. He's back. He's 32. We'll see. We'll see how he is. Who knows? Who knows if he's going to be good,

but I have a lot of hope. The other player I'm really excited about, a new player, is Miles Hippolyte, which is a good name. He represents Grenada at the international level. You know how I love a AFC Wimbledon player who represents a small Caribbean nation because that's who Lyle Taylor was. I'm hoping that Miles will become the new Lyle and that instead of having to yearn for Lyle Taylor was. I'm hoping that Miles will become the new Lyle and that instead of having to yearn for Lyle Taylor, I will be able to just luxuriate in Miles Hippolyte. Do you know what Hippolyte means? I don't.

Hippo is horse. We know this. Okay. Did you not know this? I didn't. Yeah, current, yes. And then light is to let loose. Oh, so he's a loose horse. No, he lets loose the horses.

Oh, he's a horse lucid. From a Greek god, Hippolyta. Okay. Yes. I don't know if I believe you, but it's nice. We're going to stick with it all season. It's like a goat house. I mean, I have no idea when you're telling the truth at this point, but the point is we're having a good time and Miles Hippolyte is going

to be a star for this season's AFC Wimbledon. One thing I love going into a new season is that everything is still possible, right? It's still possible that we're going to win the league. It's possible we're going to storm through League Two in an undefeated season and have more joy than we've had in the last 10 seasons combined. It's possible that we're going to storm through League Two in an undefeated season and have more joy than we've had in the last 10 seasons combined. It's possible that we're going to sneak into the playoffs. It's possible that we're going to finish 20th. It's possible that we'll get relegated out of the football league and have catastrophic consequences. Everything is possible. The fear, the joy, the hope, it's all there together. We contain multitudes in this moment. I love the moment

before the season starts, but it starts on Saturday and I can't wait to see how it goes. Well, in Mars news, I've been kind of trying, like putting off talking about this as more information has come in and it's just very, it's very exciting, but like I don't want to, I don't want to like oversell or undersell. I want to understand it. But it looks like perseverance has found a rock that is very weird and it's got a bunch of weird features inside of it that look like features that are created on earth by microbes. And it's kind of the closest we've gotten to something like, if we had it here, if we just could get this rock

home, we would be able to tell probably for sure. But it's like the sort of the right combination of minerals, the way that the, there's sort of these little spots inside of the rock that are ringed by, so it's like the spots are one set of chemicals and they're ringed by another set of chemicals. This is all something that looks like the kinds of things that might be made in sediment in a floodplain by microbes in a sort of pre-complicated life Earth, but you can't tell for sure. It's very frustrating to just have pictures and some samples and do some chemistry on it on the surface of Mars.

It's very exciting. Do we have any idea if these potential microbes appear to be enough like the microbes on Earth that we could imagine that they came from DNA or RNA? Or is it way too early? We cannot tell that. That's another thing that we would have to have much more sophisticated tools than you could fit on a rover, at least so far. I mean, they have this amazing tool that is actually,

to some extent, designed to look for things that they don't want to name any of this stuff. They don't want to say that it's there to look for life. But this the right of course tool is called scanning habitable environments with ramen and luminescence for organics and chemicals. That sounds like you're looking for life. I'm not an expert. If you add it up, that's Sherlock if you were paying attention.

Oh, clever. Yeah. Clever. And so that is that can see the minerals, but you obviously wouldn't. I mean, even if there was originally DNA or RNA there, that would, over the course of billions of years, have degraded to the point.

But you might be able to see stuff from just the proportions of different elements. But that would be a thing that we are not super close to being able to do. But if there is evidence of life on Mars, if we ever go there or bring samples back, we will, I think, be able to tell whether it is of the same lineage as Earth life.

And honestly, I kind of wouldn't be surprised either way. Like living things- I wouldn't be surprised either way because I mean, it seems like life can spread. Yeah. We're evidence of that. Life can evolve capabilities on Earth that allows it to live in outer space.

And there are ways that like stuff from Earth gets into outer space, meteorite impacts being a big one. And so it wouldn't be that weird because Mars and Earth aren't that far apart. But imagine that journey if you're a microbe, Hank. You think you're living a pretty good life on Earth. And then you get hauled off into the vacuum of space for a year and a half, two years, or hit another rock. A hundred or a thousand, yeah. Thousand. Then you've got a whole set of generations of people that have only known the vacuum of space and then you hit another rock and barely even still tell stories about

the previous rock. They wouldn't be breeding. They wouldn't be creating new generations. It would be the actual same organism. Even more stressful. You know, like you're 150 years old and you're like, man, I had a pretty good life on earth and now I have this. Oh, I went into dormancy and now I'm in a totally different place. And then you slam into another planet and you're like, oh, I'm home. Damn it.

No, I'm not. I'm not home. I'm on a different rock. I think that it would be a bigger deal if it's not related to Earth life. For sure. Because that would indicate that there's all kinds of ways that life can evolve, which would be so thrilling. And also that it opens up all kinds of possibilities. Yeah. Yeah. It would indicate like basically every solar system would have life if it happened twice in this one. Yeah.

Oh, man. Not actually, but like, but a lot when I say basically every I mean like a lot, you know, a lot a lot more than 0%. You know? Yeah. Yeah. Well, that would be thrilling, Hank. We're not there yet.

But it this pretty interesting stuff that we're seeing. It's interesting stuff we're seeing. There's a lot going on in that space. I feel like it, I don't know. It feels like more going on in that space than there was 10, 20 years ago. For sure. Yeah. For sure. Well, thank you for podding with me. Thanks to everybody for listening. hankandjohn at gmail.com is where you should send your questions. Please do that. That's how we have a podcast to do. This podcast was edited by Linus Obenhaus. It was mixed by Joseph Tunamanish.

Our communications coordinator is Brooke Shotwell. It's produced by Rosianne Hals, Rojas, and Hannah West. Our executive producer is Seth Radley. Our editorial assistant is Debuki Chakravarti. The music you're hearing now and at the beginning of the podcast is by The Great Gunnarolla. And as they say in our hometown, don't forget to be awesome.